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Although not about the original topic (which I'm not going to mention) I felt it important to make the following points.
Further to my comments on SmartSound as I'd never used it in PD:
I've just checked it out in PD14 and I find that only 'Single Layer' tracks can be imported. For example "Inspiring Beauty" doesn't import into PD because it's multi-layer. So if you buy an album - only for use in PD - when there's a sale on, only select the 'Single Layer' category. It's very easy to add the tracks from the album to PD. Buying this way in much much more affordable than through PD. Once you buy from them you get an email when the the next sale is on.
Also, be aware that although an album has a given number of tracks, each track has a number of Variations. So in PD, the tracks are listed by song title on the left and the variations by icon on the right. So depending on the album you could for example get 10 tracks/songs with say 5 variations each (they do vary in number) - thus 50 pieces of music.
Please note I have no connection with SmartSound or CL. I'm just an ordinary punter.
A Request: Would someone with only the tracks/songs supplied with PD14 please PM me with the default list of the songs. My list includes songs I added checking out how it all works in PD. Thanks.
TonyL
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SmartSound has sales. I've purchased three of their albums for about US$30 each. The last one I bought, "Inspiring Beauty", was US$29 (GB£18/) and has 10 tracks. The current album price is US$99.95 or US$59.95 per track. So you can see the sale price is very good.
If you download the SonicFire Pro Trial you get 5 free tracks that can be used beyond the 21 day trial. As well as the tracks you can still use the free (though limited) version of SonicFire after the trial. http://www.smartsound.com/sonicfire/downloads/
TonyL
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A slight correction if I may, Carl. It takes a good musician to play and create a good Midi.
And without the same sound source the music will not sound anything like the original. With the same sound source it's as if the player is playing it live as it is a digital copy of a performance but as a set of digital instructions, not a waveform.
Midi files have great uses. Most musicians use them as backing to their playing.
Don't waste your time with them for video music tracks.
TonyL
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A Midi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) file is a set of instructions that can be interpreted by your sound card or ideally by a musical instrument with a midi interface.
At the simplest level each instruction tells the sound source what note to play and for how long. But they can contain other instructions, e.g, how hard to strike the note.
How a midi file sounds when played with Windows Media Player depends on (1) the quality of your PCs sound card and (2) the quality of the midi file.
If it's a known piece of music it is still copyright protected because someone composed it and published it. Anyone can create midi files. I would suggest you don't spend any time with them for video creation.
I have a Yamaha Tyros keyboard and make use of them on that.
TonyL
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Having watched the video of "How Content ID Works" (via the link that Carl kindly posted), it kind of begs the question, "How does that database work with SS tracks?". The tracks either can't have been sent to YT for registration or were sent and reqd. to be flagged as copyrighted if found. Whilst some SS tracks do sound very similar to recognized music, most do not.
Neil, you might have a problem with your planned video. If the station uses it it may leave it open to a copyright infringement claim because of the scanned images. Using other peoples' images is the same as music - you are infringing copyright unless you can show you have the copyright owner's permission to use it. Images scanned from a book, are no different to music from a CD in this respect.
TonyL
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A Happy New Year to you and everyone else, PepsiMan.
SoNic67 aka Grumpy, I tend to agree with your comment. It seemed like a good idea at the time but now I'm not sure what value there is in it. There are so many other variables/components that play a part in performance.
Tony
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Here's the thread for the last time this question arose.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/45824.page#237068
TonyL
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The higher the bitrate the better the video quality and bigger the file. So 5 is the best and only you can say if 4 is acceptable to you.
If all you want to do with your captures is convert to MP4 and MPEG2, be aware that once you convert to MP4 you will need to convert to MPEG2 if you later use the MP4 to make a DVD. You can burn the MP4 on a Data DVD to play the file on your PC but not in a DVD player.
To burn a DVD to play on a DVD player, an MPEG2 codec must be used. Even if your video uses another codec, such as H.264\MP4, whichever authoring program you use it will re-encode your footage to MPEG2 because that is the only codec that DVD players recognize.
TonyL
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Whilst BluRay has higher res and disks' greater capacity it's main drawback for me is that none of my family and friends have BluRay players. So it doesn't matter how sharper the picture might be, they can't see it. Hence I stick to old fashioned DVDs.
I've just completed a DVD for a invalid friend and his wife (they aren't www connected and don't have a computer). It contains a menu with two YT videos. The videos were .mp4 so I first converted them to DVD Video (MPEG-PS) using the free version of AVC (Any Video Converter) - that roughly doubled their file size.
I then, for the first time, tried to create a menu and an ISO file in PD14 but after many attempts unfortunately gave up. PD's Menu Designer looks good but isn't friendly in real use and PD showed a huge DVD file size (presumably it needed to convert the MPEG-PS). So using the MPEG-PS files I authored my DVD with Sony DVD Architect and burned it using ImgBurn to a DL disk (another first).
Yes the resolution on TV isn't high def but it's still a very good upscaled picture.
The understandable reluctance of consumers to buy into BluRay means that people that want to share their videos with others must stay with DVD. It remains the most widely usable and available portable format.
TonyL
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Carmen
I don't know of a prog that will auto sync images to the beat but for slideshows I always use Photodex Proshow. I have the Producer version.
Take a look at this and you will see what Proshow can do to help http://www.proshowblog.com/?s=sync+to+beat
It isn't auto but it's the best available method/tool that I know of for images. You can 'Try it for free' at http://www.photodex.com/proshow
Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas may do it but they are video editors (like PD14) not dedicated slideshow progs like Proshow.
TonyL
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tomasc,
Since I first built this PC six years ago with the i7-920 I've had the occasional BSOD. I've run Memtest a number of times in the past and it never found a problem - yet the BSODs still cropped up when running rendering progs. Changing to the Xeon CPU has put greater stress on the RAM when rendering.
I'd forgotten about Prime95 - thanks for reminding me. I used it when I built my i7 and not since. So downloaded the current version, ran the Blend config (with RealTemp on display) and within a minute got a BSOD with a memory error.
Keeping my fingers crossed that the new memory will fix the problem.
Al,
Thanks for the link but I really don't need another machine. I already have a Sony i7-720QM 17" laptop, plus a smaller laptop, a netbook, 2 Android tablets, an iPad Air, etc., etc. Laptops get too hot when they are put to real work, and I much prefer working on a larger screen with full size keyboard.
TonyL
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I started so I may as well continue.
Now having swapped my OS HDD drive for a new SSD, then carrying out a clean install of Win7, followed by an upgrade to Win10, followed by a clean install of Windows 10, I'm now in the process of reinstalling everything and tweaking. So I thought I see what new performance figures these changes produced.
I've added another column of figures and three more rows (OS, Drive and RAM) to the datasheet. Click here for Datasheet.
Other than reduced RAM figures I'm not impressed by what the OS and SSD changes have produced with respect to PD14 rendering. I'm hoping for much better performance improvements with my other software.
I'm now awaiting arrival of 24GB of new RAM. Nothing to do with PD but very much to do with my most used and favoured slideshow software, Proshow Producer (only 32-bit available unfortunately). Since the change of CPU I'm unable to fully render a project I'm working on using it. I get a BSOD every time but at different points and all refer to memory errors. So I thought I'd get some new memory and get more of it so I can run multiple apps concurrently. Computers! Don't you just luv 'em.
TonyL
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Eugene,
I didn't carry out my own benchmark tests but have you seen the PassMark site High-end CPU Benchmarks
No I haven't tried this on my Mac - been too busy. The video editing packages I have on it are iMovie (included with the OS and is a cut down version of FCPX) and Final Cut Pro X (FCPX) (currently GBP230).
My SSD is also 250GB but it will not be partioned as it will only have the OS and applications on it. Partitioning is used on a HDD to (a) save the drive time physically locating stuff on the disk, and (b) separating stuff. As (a) doesn't arise on SSD in that respect it's unnecessary, but (b) does in your case because have personal data on it. My SSD will replace a 500GB HDD that has 160GB taken up. We all have our own way of working and configuring our PCs. We both have our OS and apps (only some in your case) on the 'C' drive so can easily restore an earlier image of it (without risk to our personal data) if something goes amiss. So I fully agree with your comment that it, "Makes life so much easier".
TonyL
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I hope you don't mind, Julien, but I moved your last data and placed it next to your previous. It's not a problem to move back if you prefer.
Yes I'm only too aware that I could have cloned my drive but it's been in use for six years (the longest I've ever used the same PC) now so it's well time it was started afresh. A PC collects an awful lot of rubbish in that time no matter how good you are at housekeeping. I particularly want a nice clean start for Win10. I now also need to sort a problem - I did a test render today using my new CPU and one of my video progs and it has failed every time. It BSODs with different problems. A fresh build will either help me isolate the problem or it will go away.
TonyL
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Although only a few bothered, for those and anyone else that have an interest I've added another set of performance readings at the following link.
Click here to see data.
The new readings result from a cpu change from i7-920 to Xeon W3690.
This was the second of three component changes to my desktop. The final component change will be from HDD to SSD. Readings to follow in due course. I'm not looking forward to moving to SSD because of the amopunt of work entailed in reinstalling all my software and settings. Where I am currently on Win7 HE 64-bit I will install same on the SSD then do the free upgrade to Win10 (already done same on other machines), then do a clean install of Win10.
TonyL
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I would use Audacity. See this page http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-audacity-tips-enhance-recorded-interview/
It would mean either exporting the audio from PD, then processing it in Audacity OR just open the video clip in Audacity (it accepts a number of formats) and process the audio, then bring the new audio back into PD to replace existing. But it's not easy or perfect. You need to be wise before doing something like your original recording. That's why film & TV crews have a sound person with eqpt. separate from the camera.
The risk you run is having the audio get out of sync.
TonyL
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I'm not trying to open up another discussion here but I can't let Neil's last post pass without saying something.
Surely it's not disallowed to mention other products on this forum. I can't believe that. I can understand having a difference of opinion about a product but to be 'chipped' for mentioning, no, it's not on. That behaviour should be banned.
Surely everyone here has sufficient confidence in CL products not to 'chip' at people for mentioning non-CL? And even if they don't have, what's happened to free speech/expression/knowledge sharing.
I use a number of competing products, one in particular far surpasses PD14 in the creation of slideshows - Photodex Proshow, of which I have Producer. It didn't cause me not to purchase PD14 and that's because all software has strengths & weaknesses. I use the affordable software best suited to the task at hand. PD14 betters Proshow in editing video clips for example. Members of Proshow Enthusiasts forum are quite relaxed about mentioning competing products. Other forums I use are likewise.
Neil, I trust it was a misunderstanding, much the same as you not noticing CL in the link.
TonyL
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I was trying to help, not cause a fall out. I created the datasheet and this thread to (a) move the discussion about, in particular Eugene's GTX960 vs other 960s, out of a discussion about the merits of desktop vs laptop. And (b) to help gather the data in an easily readable format.
When I created the datasheet it occured to me that those with other builds might wish to include their data as a further comparator. Hence I named the worksheet 'PC Performance Stats', i.e., open to any build. This hopefully would engage more people and thus get more input.
It soon transpired that this resulted in a misunderstanding about the validity/usefulness of the tests being applied, so I changed 'PC' to 'GTX960' in the thread header. This has lead to someone feeling excluded. I'm beginning to wish I'd left it the way it was. I can change it back (the datasheet is still as originally named) if you'd prefer. Or perhaps another datasheet and thread should be created with its own set of tests.
I've added another field to the datasheet for CPU Clock.
Eugene,
I've input your driver & CPU clock. Not sure why you put it in your post and not in the datasheet.
TonyL
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I've input my readings to the data sheet and made a slight change to the topic header to hopefully avoid further misunderstanding.
I will carry out further tests and input the readings after I've changed my CPU and then after a change to SSD. These will be to show the effect on the 960 of making those hardware changes.
TonyL
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Eugene,
Try clicking the link that says Click here to access the data sheet.
By the way, I don't have a GTX960 in my machine yet. It only arrived yesterday afternoon. I've got the data for my current card and will get it for the GTX after I've installed it, hopefully today.
TonyL
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