Replace main media - how? (and should?)

fausseplanete wrote on 12/5/2009, 3:43 AM
Working on a DVDA project with one main clip (disregarding menu background media). The menu has two buttons (one for the whole clip, one for Scene Selection)

I want to replace the clip (with a newer version of it). How is that done? Do I have to re-create from scratch or can the media simply be replaced (like in vegas editing). The newer version differs from the existing version only as regards the soundtrack and some corrected text in the credits.

I can imagine one potential issue - in principle when replacing media (in general), the chapter markers (drawn from Vegas timeline markers) could be different (amount, locations, names). However in my case I know they are the same, so I wouldn't want them updated, just the media.

Is there a way to only update the media?

Comments

Former user wrote on 12/5/2009, 6:00 AM
doubleclick on the media in the left window pane so the timeline is visible. On the right side of the screen is a pane of MEDIA PROPERTIES. The heading TRACK MEDIA allows you to substitute audio or video on the timeline with another file.

Dave T2
fausseplanete wrote on 12/5/2009, 6:55 AM
Hey wow! Game (back) on (again)!

Thank you enormously for that one Dave.

Also I notice the Chapters are, as I had hoped, retained at their existing positions.

The only issues now are:

a) The buttons ought now to be each re-pointed at the same media (othewise disk space wasted or else risk of accudentally purging the old but still needed version).

b) The Chapter markers now all have yellow blobs, presumably because I-Frames are no longer in the same places (maybe there is a random element to where the encoder places them, even though it is the same basic footage).

Regarding the marker-repositioning chore:

Is it a case of manually fiddling all these markers or is there any automatic method etc.? Like "shunt all markers to their nearest previous I-Frame". Round-down in other words. I have 36 Chapters in this current project but in the past I have sometimes had many more than that (and manually re-created the whole project each time...).

Regarding the button media repointing chore:

I guess one could avoid re-pointing all the buttons by replacing the old media file with an imposter which was really a copy of the new file. In that case there'd be no need to use the Replace option, but of course I'd lose the "self documentation" of which real version of the media file it was using.

Or maybe I could retain a much lower resolution version of the original media file used to make the buttons, just leave it in place. I see they are (in my case 93.5x81.8 (pixels) so I guess, allowing a little margin, 128x128 should do it. I wonder if that's a good strategy.
fausseplanete wrote on 12/5/2009, 7:41 AM
Quickest way I (just) found to re-point buttons to new media:

You can do it one-page-at-a-time.

For each page of scene selections, can select all buttons, then
(In Media Properties > Media), left-click the Thumbnail Media value
(to get a dropdown menu) and Replace.

It updates all the selected buttons at once.

I don't know of any way to conveniently select all buttons on all pages.
cbrillow wrote on 12/5/2009, 8:02 AM
Does your new media have a different filename than the previous? I believe that DVD-A, like Vegas, will automatically update changed media when the program has lost focus or when the project is reopened with a new version of the media with the same filename. If you have to specify a replacement file, this would not happen, but it should, if you gave the new version the same name as the old one. (rename the older version first...)

One other thing to watch out for when replacing track media: DVD-A retains the end point of the replaced media. If your new media is longer, you'll have to drag the end point to the end of the new file on the timeline.