Rereading what you originally said it seems at least part of your "disapointment" as opposed to complaining if you prefer that terminology is your hardware. A P3 with dual 440 CPU's isn't going to match a single P4 or AMD XP running at 1500 or 1600+ Mhz in my opinion.

If you do video editing for a living... perhaps you need to invest in faster hardware and/or software or maybe have more boxes. Heck, I'm just a hobbist and I got 3 PC's active and a few more dormant ones. I set aside the fastest just for video editing. LOL!

Yeah I've got a P4 1.8 w/512 RDRAM on the way.

Uhem, no one is complaining, but Control_Z is threatening a class action suit. Give me a break, plllease!!

If VV30 took twice the time it currently does to render, there would be no justification for a class action suit and no reason to "complain."

No one here is alone in wishing for faster rendering, faster everything. None of that speed will come from some weed that accidentally escapes nature's selective process and replicates without control. It will come from some company with a vested interest in developing/marketing software that can accomplish the task.

SF, with their recent introduction of VV30 has positioned itself firmly on the leading edge of those companies who provide reasonably priced video editing packages. Why threaten them with a class action suit? In exactly what ways have they misrepresented their product?

Wish all you want, opine to your hearts desire about faster rendering times, but, please, spare us the legal threats . . . then, no one will accuse anyone of complaining . . . it's that simple.

Caruso

*I* never threatened a lawsuit! That's your own bad misreading of a post. Either learn to read or get out of the kitchen.

The worst I said *I* might do is *return* the software if they can't fix some of the obvious bugs.

I wonder if a few of the cheerleaders here weren't betatesters for this thing? Didn't it occur to you that in order to sell to pros at $600 (the cost of a real time board) the rendering would have to be *fast*? Or at least comparable to other software products?

A few other misreaders pointed out render times for normal video, but nobody's complained about that either (should be about 0 though), and me forcing the use of the MSDV codec, which I only did to test the awful rendering time using a color correction filter.

Stop all the arguing already. Do some tests yourselves comparing the software as fairly as you can with other contemorary products on the same system and if you don't see glaring inconsistencies then please let us know.

There's only only poster going by control_z and that one said: " We need some very quick clarification on this from SF or we're talking an awful lot of returns (or a class action lawsuit)."

Sounds a little threatening to me. And I detest anyone that tries to speak for anyone but himself. :-)

To begin with you know nothing about the grounds for filling a class action lawsuit, so please stop playing attorney. :-)

Further, I've seen no representation from Sonic Foundy or even third parties claiming Vegas Video or any Sonic Foundy product renders or performs any task at a given speed. Would be foolish if they made such a claim with so many variables in the mix.

And before you jump to the conclusion I'm just waving the Sonic Foundy flag, check out my critical comments about in my view I see as their flawed registration scheme I've posted in the Video Factory forum.

In all fairness users and critics alike rate Vegas Video and also Viedo Factory highly... and with good reason. While some products may render faster, you should judge an application by how well it does all tasks. As I've said earlier, to me rendering times are secondary. I'm already done with my project and moved on to something else. So sure, I'd like faster rendering, but I wouldn't buy a video editor simply because it renders faster. I buy based on how well it does EDITING, after that that's what a video editor's main purpose in life is. Duh!

WVG:
'nough said, and, well said, if I may say so, myself.

Caruso

Quit using VV already, don't like it don't use it. Users know its good and bad points and work with the software "geeks"to tweak and improve.
See ya!

I just finished transfering 2 1/2 hours of old 8mm family films to minidv. It took me days to load over 50 Super 8mm films and record them to avoid any strobing or film jumps. I had to record them in reverse at a faster speed for a smooth quality transfer. That was the hard part!

Now the easy part! Vegas recorded all 2 1/2 hours from my Canon GL1 with me only having to switch tapes. I cut out all of the garbage, reversed the speed of everything and slowed it down to the actual speed. I did color correction, adjusted the contrast and brightness, etc across the entire 2 1/2 hours. This took me a few hours because I basically had to go through the entire project in real time to notice where to make the cuts & changes. I stopped & started and reviewed my work in real time. I sampled different output qualities and adjustments and came up with the best looking settings I could find.

When I went to record everything to tape, Vegas said it would take over 20 hours to render! I cringed at this NOT because I was upset it would take so long, but because I didn't think a video editing program would run stable for that long. I was wrong. I had pre-Christmas activities to attend and wasn't around throughout the day to bother checking up on the process. When I finally came back to the computer EVERYTHING was done and all I had to do is put in a couple minidv's in my camera to record the final to tape. I transfered everything to SVHS at the same time and will make a MPG2 file before I clean the harddrive.

In my opinion, I would have never trusted this project in Premiere. Something would have gone wrong. I would have spent hours actually sitting at the computer figuring out WHAT went wrong and fixing it.

Vegas may not be the most speedy setup for final rendering, but it has been rock solid for me. It saves me time when I am sitting at the computer working and that's what counts. How long it takes when my computer is "unmanned" isn't as big of deal.

This is exciting. When I upgrade from my 1000mhz Althon, final rendering will only be faster. Sure I would like to render the whole thing in real time, but for $200 I am not complaining.

I also have a computer at the office and have used Vegas on it. If I need to, I can remove my "D" drive on both computers and swap projects. This could work for someone who has 2-3 computers at a video editing station. Just swap drives to another system to do the final rendering and start a new project on the master editing system. You can build a pretty speedy system for the price of a STORM card! Also, you have a built in backup if one of the systems crashes!

Just my experiences & opinion1

Great story! I have had many similar successes with long renders. Quick question - how did you "transfer" 8mm film to your GL1? You mentioned reversed at high speed but did you simply record the projection screen? I have never done this but a friend recently asked me if I could do for him exactly what you just completed. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Rhino:
My experience with VV30 mirrors yours with respect to stability and predictability. I just finished editing a 2-hour, three camera shoot. My editing plan was based upon assumptions of what VV30 should be able to do . . . I believe my plan was rock solid, the only variable being whether VV30 could perform as specified/advertised.

VV30 performed exactly as I had expected, and, thus, the project moved in an orderly fashion from beginning to end as planned, no re-do's, no lost work, no crashes, and rendering output which is reliably smooth and glitch free.

Thanks SF.

Caruso

How I transfered 8mm film [I found everything I needed to know from reading posts on Google. There's a great post by Martin W. Baumgarten at "alt.movies.cinematography.super8" that goes into more detail. Hope this helps.]

I bought a GAF 3000S super 8mm sound projector off of ebay which is perfect for transferring flicker free video because you can adjust the film speed with a little control knob. You can also further adjust 4 internal pots that set the top and low speed range for the knob in 18fps and 24fps.

I then projected the image onto high quality paper on the wall and adjusted the room light to maintain a bright image. The image was approximately 6" wide. I marked the edges of the frame in case I bumped the projector.

I then set my GL1 further back from the projector on a tripod and zoomed in until the projected frame filled the camera frame. I manually set all of the controls on the GL1 to 60fps and adjusted the f-stop according to the scene brightness on the projected image. I also manually set the white balance on the camera but found that the interior/exterior auto white balance worked better for some scenes.

I hooked an external video monitor to the GL1 that I knew had an accurate color balance & sharp picture- this is important - I wanted to be able to see the grain off the film so that I knew I had focused both the 8mm projector AND the GL1. Once the focus is set - switch camera to manual focus to lock the setting.

On the video monitor I adjusted the projector film speed until I had a flicker-free image.
The hardest thing was that once in a while the projector would make the film jump. All of the films are warped coming off the original reel - they are 25+ years old. To correct this, I found that I could watch the film in forward motion, make all of my adjustments, stop the projector at the end and record the film in reverse. Using Vegas Video, I adjusted the speed to [ -75%] and everything looked good.

The rendering part that took the most time was color correction and contrast/brightness changes in Vegas. Some of the ORIGINAL film had poor color and poor over/under exposure. I tried to fix these in Vegas because these are family films and I wanted them to look their best. The GAF is a good projector because it has a metal spring drive belt. It is built rock solid and easy to adjust. The only problem was the film jumping in forward and it only happened on really warped films.

After making all of my corrections, the final render took over 20 hours, but I didn't care, my work was done. I then transferred everything to 8 VCRs hooked through 2 distribution boxes I bought at Radio Shack. I gave the videos away for Christmas and it was a big hit. We all watched the video together & laughed & cried together for 2 hours. I was pressed for time and actually did the final transfer to video on Christmas Eve. If Vegas had failed me, I would not have had time to redo my work. Vegas came through and added another great family memory at Christmastime.

The whole rendering issue is confusing to me. VV3 has a new SF DV codec that is supposed to be superior to the Microsoft codec. How do know which codec I am using?

Could someone give me the exact, step by step instructions for locating the menu items to access these options:

"ignore third party DV codecs" checked and use microsoft DV codec UNCHECKED ALSO"

Thanks
HIB