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Jim,
Kevin described the situation of "quiet" times in between dialogue and such causing the AGC to increase the audio level in the camera, which brings along with it all sorts of potentially unwanted and distracting "noise".
Yes, it's possible to try to bring that level back down in post but you cant always do that precisely and cleanly so that background ambience "matches". It's much better to be able to manually set your audio level in the cam where you want it.
I'm going to be looking long and hard at the Panasonic GH1 and the one shortcoming I think I see is lack of manual audio level control in the camera. It does have stereo mic input for external mics and mixer input.
Philip Bloom's test videos with it are absolutely stunning.
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Hi Biff,
Is your Q6600 with the 8800GT giving you that much trouble that you have to upgrade already? The Q6600 and the Q9300 have similar performance, but you are using a better video card (I have a 9500 GT).
Part of my problem is I haven't switched completely over to PD7. I've used Pinnacle Studio from the version before 7 (StudioDV) and when they implemented AVCHD their software flat required a 2.66GHz speed in a quad core to edit the 1920x1080 17Mbps. The Q6600 clocks at 2.4GHz and my situation is what happens.
My style of editing has me using an overlay track for cutaway views. In Studio 12 the editing process goes kind of smooth but slow as long as everthing falls on the main video track. But slows down even more when I have to use a 17Mbps clip on the second or overlay track, and if I apply a processing heavy effect like time expansion (had to slow down a circling hawk in one case) background rendering shudders to a stop. I had to back off on the amount of time stretch I really wanted in order for that effect to process at all.
So why not use PD7 for that? It is significantly less demanding of computer resources but when I used a PiP track for overlaying a video scene, expanded it so it filled the frame, it went "soft" on me. In HD the degree of softness was not that noticeable, but if rendered to a standard DVD in SD it was so noticeable I felt I couldn't use it. And a lot of what I do is distributed on standard def DVD so that really matters a lot to me.
A few others were finding and mildly complaining about the same thing and my way of handling something like this is to simply be patient...Someday they will fix it. They may have. I downloaded the latest patch (still had 2429a on my system) and ran it (2724 I believe), then ran some tests with the same AVCHD clips that had the overlay on the PiP track going soft and it looks a whole lot better.
But just knowing my best computer is still marginal pushed me into ordering the new system. The current Q6600 machine can still be used and may become mainly a PD7 system while the new machine will use Studio 12. And from time to time I have had to use both on one project. Each has things the other won't do or won't do as easily.
Dang! Life just ain't simple...
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Cranston, the old saying is to spend as much as you can afford since it will give you the longest life. Swapping video cards down the road is very easy as Bif suggested, but be aware that you may void the warranty by opening the case if you get a Dell or HP.
My current Dell XPS 420 is in a case that opens by pulling on one latch. No bolts, screws, tools needed or anthing like that. The whole right side lifts off and gives access to everything inside. The manuals show how to change out cards, install drives, etc.
My 5 year old HP dual core had optical drive problem. HP sent me a replacement drive and detailed instructions on how to get into the case. They wanted me to do it.
Bif (watching out for sneezing pigs in Texas)
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I went $200 over the base price between memory upgrade to 6GB, the 512MB upgrade on graphics, and the 19 in 1 media reader.
I resisted the urge for more, and more, and more, and more.
Swapping the ATI card out for the Nvidia was really simple. No tools, no modifications (a shoehorn maybe), and just running the driver disk and that was it.
It was really quite easy. sometimes these sales reps get overbearing on these issues.
If you don't go the i7 processor be sure whatever quad core you get (and quad core it must be) doesn't clock any slower than 2.66Ghz.
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There might be some hardware issues at work here. If you can see the files in the media library but on the "timeline" (?workspace?) all you see is black, and in the edit preview window all you see is black, this may mean not enough graphics memory.
That was the culprit when I had that problem. But I didn't experience any crashes, I just couldn't do anything.
It would help if you would list your editing computer specifications, processor type and speed, memory, graphics adapter or card specs, etc.
And also the video file type and format you are trying to edit. MiniDV, HDV, AVCHD etc.
All this info may give a clue as to what the problem area might be.
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Cranston,
Do not settle for the integrated graphics on the motherboard. While it may be kind of OK for tape based HDV folks with Pinnacle Studio were finding a separate graphics card was working MUCH smoother for them and those that did work well had a minimum of 256MB on board.
I may be a bit late jumping in here, but my Radeon ATI HD 2600 XT 256MB is sitting on the floor in the box an Nvidia 8800GT 512MB card came in. The Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB was the graphics card that wouldn't show 1920x1080 video in the editing preview window nor thumbnails on the timeline. The Nvidia 8800GT solved that and a couple of other problems in my relatively new (at the time) Dell quad core.
As others have suggested to you, I would go with the Intel Core i7. With hyperthreading, this processor essentially works as an 8 core processor capable of handling 8 threads at once, and as I understand it PD7 is one of the NLE's optimized to take advantages of this
I just ordered a Dell XPS Studio with Core i7 920 this morning and from Dell it offered nothing but ATI card choices so I picked one with 512MB and I think that may be the key to working with today's HD video. I notice that HP's Core i7 based computer offerings start with 512MB on the graphics card and options go up to 1GB.
With most new development activity rapidly going tapeless favoring flash media some of the complex hard drive systems no longer are as critical in need as they were.
With flash media and AVCHD or H264 the main advantage of a RAID setup seems to be to rapidly mirror redundant storage instead of doing the way I do (copying files to 2 different drives manually). The speed once needed to reduce dropped frames when capturing from tape is no longer needed when one is simply copying files from the camera media to the drive in or attached to the computer.
Those are my thoughts on all this. But I think you are headed in the right direction.
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At least I got the first six letters of the name right...
(hanging head in shame)
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Disk menus in PD7 give me more "fits" than anything else about the way this package works. But someone, I think it was RoberJOz wrote a bunch of tips or an article on menu creation that did more to help me get through creating a menu or two.
Try doing a search for "menus" or "disk menus" ("disc menus") and see what you can find. I know that helped me a lot.
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This is a guess...
The way motion menus work (from other NLE's I've used) is that after the "menu duration" they "reset" and start over, so both when it starts and starts over the arrow is at the first menu item.
Try setting the menu duration for 30 seconds and see if that allows 30 seconds before the arrow returns to the "start" position.
The menu timeout when checked simply autostarts the video itself after the menu duration time.
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Scope:
By "VDO" I assume you mean video clip(s), right?
Here's a "trick" I picked up when I first started video editing years back.
A short "lead in" or leader can be a good idea and I use a 3 - 8 second or so segment of black. One editor makes you create a blank full screen title but Power Director gives us convenient "color boards". I "grab" black and on the timeline drag the end until I have desired length.
Then, if I have an intro screen I want to use I put that on the timeline after the "leader". This can be a graphic you've done in Photoshop with logo and such, or a still photo with your intro done as a title on the title track below, or a motion video clip (I have a motion background graphic of rotating film reel on the left and motion picture film sliding from the rear to the front of the frame) that you can then put a title over in the same manner.
But that short "leader" at the beginning can sure get things started off right.
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well my videos are all 1280x 720 I will d/l the registry cleaner you mentioned.
Still having freezing issues with my files that end in .mt2s
I have the deluxe version not the ultra.
And I believe there is your main problem. On the Cyberlink website where they describe the Power Director versions the Ultra version is required to edit AVCHD. Here is the statement:
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NOTE: Output to Blu-ray Disc and support for AVCHD and other high-definition formats is available in the PowerDirector 7 Ultra version. Please check the version comparison for a complete outline of the features available.
====================
Both MTS and mt2s are AVCHD
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Also when I import those files with .mt2s it tells me that my settings are different than the video I'm importing and to check my pal/natsc(?) or whatever it is. I've checked it and my files are natsc(?) and not pal... so Idk, this is all terribly confusing and irritating.
Unfortunately sometimes the error message a software package gives us is not the true error condition. I think what is happening here is that you are giving the Deluxe version a task it cannot handle and it is really confused, so the error condition is gives you is something that will drive you crazy trying to run down.
My suggestion: Get with customer support and see if they will terminate the license for the deluxe version and let you have the Ultra version. Tell them you need to work with AVCHD and did not understand it took the Ultra to do it.
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If you had PD6 installed did you do an uninstall before installing PD7?
If you did the uninstall of PD6, did you run a registry cleaner prior to installing PD7?
Anything left over in the registry (even after an uninstall) from a previous version or previous attempt to use current version can lead to problems.
So one remedial action would be to uninstall, run something like Wise Registry Cleaner (a free but very effective and fast operating utility), and then install version 7.
One more question. Did you recieve PD7 Ultra? The Ultra version is required to edit AVCHD.
And it pretty much requires a quad core processor to edit 1920x1080 AVCHD. I can attempt to edit 1440x1080 AVCHD on a dual core laptop but it really struggles hard with it.
Hope you find this info useful
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RobertJ is handing you some of the most accurate info you will find. I think we are assuming all you will be trying to edit is HDV (1440x1080) and the very fastest dual core processor you can make yourself afford will be necessary.
The laptop is not a very good idea for this as very few come with a decent graphics card. Had you decided to step into the HD world a year or year and a half ago, you could have reasonably expected to kind of get by with a laptop, but recent developments pointing the way things will go in the future would make me doubt the wisdom of that approach.
HDV (tape based format) may or may not persist in popularity on the market for a few to 5 or 7 more years, or it may begin a serious decline in 1-3 years. The successor, high definition recorded to flash memory (look at the Panasononic HMC-150 for prosumer and the Canon HF series for consumer grade to show where things are going) requires for most of us a quad core processor running at 2.66Ghz bare minimum (I'm editing AVCHD on a quad core at 2.4Ghz right now and it's moaning and wheezing). I don't see this capability coupled with decent graphics cards in laptops.
Right now the folks with quad core 2.8 or 3Ghz processors, 4GB RAM, and graphics cards with 512MB to 1GB on board are in fairly good shape to edit AVCHD.
If you are going to stick with HDV editing and insist on laptop form factor, I would advise the fastest Intel Core2 dual core you can find. My son works for Dell and for awhile they quit using AMD processors because they felt those were not living up to what it took. I had an HP with AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core 5000+ processor that turned out to be a real "dog". I blamed it on Vista but Vista on my Dell quad core is doing OK.
So in my opinion, editing HD on even the fastest laptops does not represent a long term solution.
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Barry is right on.
Most of the "producing titles" time is likely in rendering to the computer's work file that will be used to burn the disk. If you need multiple copies, once you have a good copy that does what you want, you can use whatever CD/DVD burning program that came with your computer to make additional copies.
On my 2 latest that is Roxio Creator 9, on my older machine it was Sonic's Record Now. Both of those allow me to copy any non copy protected disk I have.
But the better DVD burning programs will do what Barry mentioned, burn from a folder created by something else (like Power Director) and literally fly through it.
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Recommended procedure is to uninstall the trial.
After uninstalling the trial do a disk cleanup and a registry cleanup (latter is necessary to remove ALL remaining references to the trial version, otherwise you will have problems with the purchased version).
Easy disk clean and registry clean: Google for Wise Registry Cleaner and download both their free disk cleaner and registry cleaner. These both run fast and do a good job. Also a good idea to defrag at this point.
Now install the purchased version which should be the latest full tested version released. The patch to 2521 (if your purchased version is earlier) should be released within a few days once the "guinea pig" early recievers report it runs with no real issues. And the patch is usually a much shorter download than the 617MB "monster" you mention.
But the trial must be uninstalled first, and the registry MUST be cleaned (sorry 'bout that, but others before us have learned that the HARD way).
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Dianne,
I may not understand what you are trying to do. On what piece of equipment are you engaging a "record" switch or function after "capture"?
Are you attempting to somehow "pass through" your captured signal to a DVD recorder? If so, you might be better off connecting your VHS source directly to the DVD recorder and hitting play on the VHS and record on the DVD recorder.
Does PD6 burn to DVD? And does your laptop have a DVD burner?
If it does, once you have your VHS material captured you should simply be able to edit and then go to Create Disk and burn your DVD. That should then play on any set top DVD player.
I've been told by several techs that 1GB of RAM is just enough to run Windows Vista on and leaves not hardly anything left over to properly run applications. Some editing packages state 2GB RAM is minimum to run both Vista and their application.
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I don't recall getting that message, but you can rest assured that piece of equipment's battery power gets shared with NOTHING !
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I would start with Auto Menu Timeout checked, and put a value (between 15 and 99) in the box. See how that goes.
Everytime I have checked Auto Menu Timeout it will play through the menu ONE TIME and then go direct to the program/movie.
If this is the behaviour wanted, fine. My preference is to leave this unchecked then after playing through the menu once, it starts back at the beginning of the menu and plays the menu over and over until proper input is given.
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Hi Susan,
We're going to need more information here so the folks on this forum have a better feel for what's happening to you.
First your quad core machine should be more than capable of editing for you, but go ahead and list the specs. For instance mine is a Dell with Intel Core 2 quad Q6600 running at 2.4Ghz. 4 GB RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 8800GT grapics card with 512MB.
OK...Locking tracks. There's a possibility you may somehow have inadvertantly locked one or more tracks, on the left edge of the timeline each track has an icon and to the left of that is a "padlock" symbol. Normally all of those should show the hasp open or "unlocked". Click on that padlock icon to change it.
Next we need to know what kind of media clips you are trying to import and edit, such as AVI, MP4, or one of the various "flavors" of HDV, or AVCHD files.
When the audio goes out of synch is it all of a sudden, wham, in one jump? Or does it "drift" and is the drift slow or quite rapid? Does the change in synch occur after use of a specific effect or transition?
Maybe the answers to these questions will give someone here some idea of what may be done for you.
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Tom,
I had to have someone point it out to me too, I was used to having access to a separate fade out/in transition and a separate dissolve from one scene to another.
If you haven't already, find the transition in the transition "room" labelled simply "fade" and drop it between 2 video clips. Play back both clips insuring you have the "movie" button under the preview window highlighted.
Notice how one video clip dissolves into the next.
Now go to the media room and select "color boards", drag the black one down to the timeline between the same 2 video clips. When you play this the first scene plays, cuts directly to solid black then cuts directly to the second scene.
Now stretch the black color board out a bit or change the duration until you have 5 or 6 seconds worth and drop that same fade in at it's start and at it's end. Play this and what you should see is the first scene fades out to total black. Total black plays a few seconds and then the second scene fades in from black.
A fade to black can have an air of "finality" about it depending on content of the sequence before it. Or it can merely indicate the end of a "chapter like" part of a story. Fade to black often suggests a passage of time.
Now do the same thing with a white color board and notice the different feel to it. I've seen it used in films where it suggested a transition to "Heaven".
Try it with a red color board and imagine a transition in a horror story.
The fade used as a dissolve between clips from different locations can suggest a change of location.
The two transition effects I use the most (almost exclusively) in my work are the fade to black and the cross dissolve, and in PD7 these are both accomplished with the fade.
Hope I've helped you some here.
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Or run Wise Registry Cleaner after uninstalling PD.
www.wisecleaner.com/
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Also a note on hardware.
I had to change out video cards to get away from the preview window going black and nothing playing but audio.
Changing from a card with 256MB memory on it to an Nvidia GeForce 8800GT with 512MB helped a lot.
I could not edit the full qual my cam would do in another package, and although PD7 would try it wouldn't display video from the timeline.
The graphics card change solved both problems.
Sounds like with your P4 you may still be editing in SD. It may just barely handle HDV but most likely you'll need to move up to a dual core processor based machine. If you are even entertaining thoughts of moving to "tapeless" HD you'll likey need to bypass the dual core and go right to FAST quad core.
Facts of life.
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