Well... It Was Fun, But...

Fuzzy John wrote on 11/7/2003, 5:57 AM

A few days ago I came here as a newcomer to Vegas 4 and I was greeted by several nice people. Reading thru previous posts I couldn't help but notice how you people help each other when problems come up. So I was looking up to having a lot of fun using my newly ordered Vegas+DVD package. However things do not seem to go that way.

I evaluated Vegas+DVD against Ulead's MediaStudio Pro 7 and even though the Vegas+DVD Demo had the MPEG plugin disabled, Vegas won hands down. So I bought the retail package (the most expensive software I ever bought).

After installation and activation I loaded a selection of my MPEG clips downloaded from my Sony DCR-DVD300 camcorder using the bundled Pixela ImageMixer software. Upon playing back the timeline I was greeted by silence. The camera records on the Mini-DVDs video in MPEG2 format and audio in AC-3 format. I placed a post in the Vegas Audio forum about this. After that I put up with the slowness of the site and did an extensive search on the subject.

Now my understanding is that even though the specs for Vegas say that it supports AC-3 audio for import, it really doesn't. This really sucks. I spent good money for this software which claims to import AC-3 files. I was not able to test the feature in the demo version because it was locked out. And Sony's return policy does not accept returns of opened software. Nor does the vendor that I bought it from. I saw workarounds to this problem which involve running a converter to separate the audio. But I have hundreds of clips now. Everytime I press the record button on the camera I get a clip. It is unrealistic to use such a converter for hundreds of clips now and in the future.

So I suppose that I will have to convice Sony to break their policy and accept my return. And then I'll go back to Ulead MediaStudio Pro 7 which does not have a problem importing video and audio from those very same clips.

John

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farss wrote on 11/15/2003, 3:08 PM

Our local Sony dealer has let us use one of the cameras to record some material. I should get my hands on the DVDs in the next few days to see what solution we can come up with.
I think he will be as interested as everyone here to see how it goes. This is the PAL version of the beast, seems even he wasn't aware that he was going to be getting stock of a PAL version until they arrived and he saw the 'E' on the end of the model number.

We're going to try to find a way to edit video off this thing, based on what I've read here I'm not holding out too much hope but maybe we can find a viable workaround, maybe even Sony have made some changes on the PAL version. I'll keep you all posted.

musicvid10 wrote on 11/15/2003, 10:06 PM

Well, this should be an interesting test case for Sony customer support. Anyone who's been around SF for a year or two knows what they would have done.

Fuzzy John wrote on 11/16/2003, 12:07 PM

musicvid,

Since I am new to SF and Sony, what is that. Just curious as to what I can expect.

Paul_Holmes wrote on 11/16/2003, 1:24 PM

They would have fixed it very quickly!

musicvid10 wrote on 11/16/2003, 2:04 PM

"They would have fixed it very quickly!"

Paul, you beat me to it.
This thread wouldn't be anywhere near 53 posts in length . . .

Fuzzy John wrote on 11/24/2003, 6:59 AM

Twenty days later... I think I got bit by the "Vegas Bug". Based on Sony's offer I decided to stay. Sony modified the Vegas+DVD specifications web page to make it clear that the import of AC-3 sound applies to DVD Architect only and is not a general spec for the package. Also it appears to me that the Demo version that is now posted does not lock out the use of the MPEG plugin in Vegas. At least it is not specified as such:

The demo version of Vegas
- does not allow saving of projects, CD extraction, CD burning, or screen capture
- watermarks both the video and audio of all rendered files
- has a two minute maximum for play/record
- does not allow batch capturing

The demo version of DVD Architect
- does not allow MP3, MPEG, or AC-3 files to be imported
- does not allow file preparing
- does not allow burning of externally prepared demo projects larger that 500Mb

I do like Vegas more and more every time I use it and I hope that the import of AC-3 sound will see the light of day in version 5 and that Vegas will be able to handle the MPEG-2 clips in a useful fashion.

So... 54 posts later, it is time to put this topic to rest.

John

rich_aa wrote on 6/2/2004, 12:27 PM

Well I certainly empathize with Fuzzy John -- I got the DVD200 which is the same but with smaller viewfinder.
WIth all due respect to those who are knocking this new Sony format, for us unwashed masses of consumer hobbysts, the miniDVD camcorders are a fabulous concept. We don't have time to Capture tape to our PCs -- with a miniDVD, we take out the disc, whip it into our PCs and there's the scenes ready to grab. FOr those of us who occasionally put some home movies together, we can use a simple storyboard or an easy to learn higher end app like VV to do some editing of the clips and viola, a quick movie! It is the equivalent of flash memory chips for still cams. In fact, the Sony DVD200/300's take 2mp stills too. Yeah, so mpeg-2 isn't the best for editing and it's not good to compress ac-3 -- well for the convenience tradeoff, I am willing to take a bit of quality dropoff. Let's face it, tape is yesterday -- we need new formats for graphic storage -- it may not be DVDs, but it might...

BUT, this ac-3 output of Sony's is so far spoiling all the fun alright. I have been going through all the possibles out there with no success so far. And I am not going to accept a multi step demux-remux -- dont have time. I need an NLE or DVD editing program which will just let me put in the files straight from the disc. Someone said DVD Architect will take ac-3 files -- will it take vob files which have the ac-3 audios?

Interestingly, these Sony's give you 2 recording mode alternatives -- Video which produces .vob files and VR which puts .vro files in DV_RTAV folders -- I think these are like DV RAM files but not quite... Anyway, so far I am not aware of anyone who has been able to make these editable. The Pixela software people were totally jumped by Sony's move to bundle Image Mixer with the camcorders and they freely admit it won't work as advertised.
My take is that Sony has a great product and there will be solutions -- Pixela, for example, has their people coming in from Japan this week to breif them. And, check me if I'm wrong here, but Sony owns VV now, yeah? There probably hasn't been alot of product coordination as yet, but won't it come?

thanks for all the posts -- will aprreciate any tips re the ac-3/vob issue.
Rich

Jsnkc wrote on 6/2/2004, 1:13 PM

There are ways to extract the audio from a VOB and then convert it into a .wav file if you really need to, but I agree that Sony should allow the Import of AC3 audio.

SonyEPM wrote on 6/2/2004, 1:19 PM

I realize you want to work with the DVD files natively and we don't currently support vobs as edit sources, but that said, you could at least consider doing what everybody with every other type of video camera has always done- capture the footage.

The Canopus ADVC series converters would be a good choice for this.

farss wrote on 6/2/2004, 3:47 PM

Even apps that do edit this kind of video get fooled by that camera. The ac3 files contain dud data blocks which cause apps like MSP7 to drop the audio a few seconds into the clips.
We have had success by running the extracted ac3 file through ac3fix first. Didn't go back to MSP7 to try as 30 trial had expired however we were then able to run ac3 file through BeSweet to convert to wav and work with that in Vegas. We also converted the mpeg-2 stream to avi for use in Vegas.
Results from editing in Vegas 5 and encoding back to DVD look good, no noticable image qulaity loss and the audio held up OK. Bear in mind that the camera doesn't shine on the audio side to start with, wind noise is a BIG problem with the mics on the thing.
There does seem to be a field cadence issue in the result though, need to go back and spend some more time on this issue. Maybe not as simple as just reveresed field order becuase mostly it looks 100% correct but at times we do hit a wierd motion blur issue.

If all of this could be made to work OK I or someone else could probably write a simple shell around the various apps to simply process the .VOBs into an AVI and a WAV file to feed into Vegas.

In the end though I think Sony are right, just capturing via an analogue output might be the easiest. We've found one of the Panasonic STB DVD recoders will lets us capture from the DVD via firewire.