Scenalizer Live Update Report

wcoxe1 wrote on 10/6/2002, 11:47 AM
Information updated on Scenalizer Live beta as of 27 Sept 2002 version: You can contact the writer and get information at www.scenalizer.com

The following were comments (requests) seen on this forum and the writer's responses.

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As I mentioned, the biggest advantage of ScenalyzerLive, in my opinion, is its ability to name scene-captured video by the shooting date and time. This not only provides a unique ID for each clip, but it also means the clips can be sorted in chronological order.

Sclive also sets the modified-date of the .avi files to the shooting date,
to allow sorting in explorer, too.

But ScenalyzerLive is a little rough around the edges in other ways:

(1) If you point it to a folder containin avi files, it lists the contents
with picons, fine. But the sort order is often fouled up. When you right-click and tell the program to re-sort on, say, timecode, half the time it will foul it up. Do it a couple of times and it will eventually get it right.

-ANS: Sclive can't sort correctly until it has completely scanned the files in the folder.

(2) It would be nice to point to a listed clip and play it. You have to
right-click and select "play" to make it play. This is a hassle. Also, it would be nice to be able to point to any part of that clips timeline and have it play from that point.

-ANS: Click the clip with the Middle Mouse button (the mousewheel) and it will play it immediately from that position.

(3) The "Tape Index" feature is potentially very nice, since you can check
out the entire contents of a tape in about 5 minutes. But I would like the
ability to actually "play" the captured contents, fractured though they may be.

-ANS: The middle mousebutton also works there.

(4) Also, the clip length data under each clip is garbage data,
representing how long it took to capture the clip while in fast-forward mode. I couldn't care less how long it took to capture; what I care about is how long the clip itself is, and Scenalyzer could compute that answer based on clip start and end timecodes.

-ANS: This is corrected in the next beta/release.

Still, I like the program for the unique timestamps. If I use it for
nothing else, it is nonetheless a useful utility.

-=---------------------->

Any more comments, requests, pleas?

Comments

Control_Z wrote on 10/6/2002, 1:20 PM
I already knew about the middle mouse button trick, and I never use tape logging, so most of this went right past me.

Actually, when I need to play a clip I'll often just open it in an NLE since it's hard to narrow in on a long clip in sclive's short strip.
riredale wrote on 10/6/2002, 4:36 PM
wcox1:

Thanks for the feedback. I tried out some of your responses.

(1) You are right about the sorting function not working until the program has had time to go through the entire folder. In my case, I capture an entire 90-minute miniDV tape to one folder, and I can tell from my System Monitor graph that the CPU is working hard on checking out the contents of a folder for perhaps 30 seconds before the sorting function will work properly. It would perhaps be suggested that the sorting function should be "locked out" during that time, or perhaps a different pointer icon should be used to indicate that SCLive is not quite ready.

(2) Still a problem regarding sort order--if I go into a folder, do a sort, close SCLive, come back later and re-open SCLive and look at that folder again, the sort is screwed up and I have to do another sort to put the files in proper order.

(3) I have a mouse with a scroll wheel, but when I click on it I get the special scroll function (mouse pointer displacement determines the rate of scroll in vertical direction), so this feature does not work for me. Perhaps this "play" function should be re-mapped to a different method? Maybe a double-click would play from the point clicked on, while a single click would select the entire file.

(4) In my opinion, what would be REALLY cool would be for a program to capture initially at reduced resolution (and greatly-reduced disk storage capacity). Editing would take place normally on those files, and only at the end would the program then go back out to the original tape and re-capture the video at full resolution. This is what Pinnacle Studio does, and it is a wonderful way of keeping an entire video project immediately accessible. The counterpoint is that with large hard drives this is much less of an issue than it was a few years ago. Perhaps so, but it's still a pain pushing around folders holding 50GB.

I don't know if SCLive could deal with video in this fashion. Perhaps this kind of file housekeeping would be something woven into the NLE itself.
wcoxe1 wrote on 10/8/2002, 7:47 PM
> Thanks for the feedback. I tried out some of your responses.
>
> (1) You are right about the sorting function not working until the program
has had time to go through the entire folder. In my case, I capture an
entire 90-minute Mini-DV tape to one folder, and I can tell from my System
Monitor graph that the CPU is working hard on checking out the contents of a
folder for perhaps 30 seconds before the sorting function will work
properly. It would perhaps be suggested that the sorting function should be
"locked out" during that time, or perhaps a different pointer icon should be
used to indicate that SCLive is not quite ready.

ANS: Added a progress-dialog for that which pops up if you try to sort.

>
> (2) Still a problem regarding sort order--if I go into a folder, do a
sort, close SCLive, come back later and re-open SCLive and look at that
folder again, the sort is screwed up and I have to do another sort to put
the files in proper order.

ANS: Author considering saving the sort-order.

>
> (3) I have a mouse with a scroll wheel, but when I click on it I get the
special scroll function (mouse pointer displacement determines the rate of
scroll in vertical direction), so this feature does not work for me. Perhaps
this "play" function should be re-mapped to a different method? Maybe a
double-click would play from the point clicked on, while a single click
would select the entire file.

ANS: The enter-key will work for that.

> (4) In my opinion, what would be REALLY cool would be for a program to
have an option to capture initially at reduced resolution (and
greatly-reduced disk storage capacity). Editing would take place normally on
those files, and only at the end would the program then go back out to the
original tape and re-capture the video at full resolution. This is what
Pinnacle Studio does, and it is a wonderful way of keeping an entire video
project immediately accessible. The counterpoint is that with large hard
drives this is much less of an issue than it was a few years ago. Perhaps
so, but it's still a pain pushing around folders holding 50GB.

ANS: Author could capture at reduced resoltion, but can't take the output of an editing program to recapture the same clips.

>
> I don't know if SCLive could deal with video in this fashion. Perhaps this
kind of file housekeeping would be something woven into Vegas Video itself.



OK, friends. Any more requests? Problems? Comments?
Control_Z wrote on 10/8/2002, 8:53 PM
>OK, friends. Any more requests? Problems?


Now that SCLive captures all 4 channels of 32khz DV audio at once I'm happy as can be.

Or I would be if Sofo would fix the nasty bug that misinterprets some of these clips as progressive scan and renders them spastically. Just now finished a 1 hour render and forgot to check - turns out VV3 had set 2 out of 3 cameras to progressive (only one correctly to lower field first).
wcoxe1 wrote on 10/9/2002, 3:02 PM
A problem which was reported with Scenalizer Live pertaining DIRECTLY to Vegas Video has been fixed for the upcoming version:

FIXED: A problem with NTSC video in Vegas Video: SCLive now writes NTSC files at a framerate of 30000/1001 fps instead of the 29970/1000 fps used previously.

How is that for addressing OUR needs?

Any more problems, needs, requests?
Control_Z wrote on 10/9/2002, 7:04 PM
Huh? Could that be why VV3 screws up the field order?
Please keep me advised and let me know when the beta is ready (he sits on those sclive betas forever). I'm currently running the 9/27/02 beta build.
wcoxe1 wrote on 10/10/2002, 8:57 AM
If you agree to send the writer beta reports, you can have the latest beta of Scenalizer Live by dropping a note stating so and requesting it to:

1phoenix@cox.net
Shredder wrote on 10/16/2002, 12:12 PM
You can thank me for that one - I'm the one who brought it to his attention an worked on him with it. Actually I think I'm the one who got wcoxe1 turned on to SCLive in the first place.

- Jon
wcoxe1 wrote on 10/16/2002, 2:43 PM
I believe you are right, Jon, and I thank you and all the other very helpful and instructive people on this forum for ever so many things.