Crashed 6 times and other observations

[edmellnik]

Well, I know I installed on a whimpy machine....
But come on.

XP sp2 2ghz P4 machine.Supermicro board.

It just froze up when moving mpg files to the time line.
THen I enabled AC3 decode in preferances I tried to drag an ac3 file to the time line. Crash. Froze.


SPecifications say I need a machine capable of SSE? What is SSE and how do I find out if I am capable of it?

Hope there is a way to save my desktop. WOuld hate to have to reset where I like my timeline etc everytime I open.
Have not found the character Generator yet.

Its the video toaster editor without the board... and HDV capable. I would have thought the wait this long they were adding HDCAM, or DVCPRO to it at least.
So why cant it at least be as stable as VT4? I guess thats a loaded question since my windows 2000 P4 machine freezes also occasionnally.
I dont mind that it is the same interface. Thats great.....but
For as long as we have waited ...I dont see what all the excitment is about.
WHy is the CPU showing 30% use when speededit is doing nothing?

YOu should not be able to drag non audio video files to the time line and it should not freeze up when you try. Even on a whimp machine.

Have not tried HDV or DV yet. Capture interface looks lackluster.

[cholo]

Maybe your machine is not up to spec? I haven't had any lock ups with mpeg files (HDV, mpeg1 and mpeg2). As for the extra features, the color correction alone blows my mind. If you really want to squeeze the best out of the color correction tools, do not use the three wheel interface, except maybe to set the thresholds between luma ranges, but instead open up the control tree. It just blows my mind all the parameters that can be set for each luma range and secondary corrector... brightness, gamma, contrast, saturation, hue, gain and bias for RGB and YUV... Is there anything you can't do with this toolset? I have fiddled around and managed to replicate just about any look I can think of and salvage some of the worst footage I've thrown at it. To me, that alone is worth the admission.

[kleima]

How much system RAM, and how much graphics memory on your machine, Ed?

[billmi]

since my windows 2000 P4 machine freezes also occasionnally.

Are you trying to run Speed Edit on Windows 2000, or are you referring to a different machine there?

I was just working with MPEG source files a moment ago - no crashes, no problems dragging them to the timeline.

[ScorpioProd]

Well, I know I installed on a whimpy machine....
But come on.

XP sp2 2ghz P4 machine.Supermicro board.

It just froze up when moving mpg files to the time line.
THen I enabled AC3 decode in preferances I tried to drag an ac3 file to the time line. Crash. Froze.


Don't know, working fine here in a dual-Xeon 2.8GHz system.


SPecifications say I need a machine capable of SSE? What is SSE and how do I find out if I am capable of it?

Hope there is a way to save my desktop. WOuld hate to have to reset where I like my timeline etc everytime I open.
Have not found the character Generator yet.


Actually, it needs SSE2. Any P4 has that. If your system supports a VT[4] properly, it will support SpeedEDIT for DV use properly.

There isn't a way to save the desktop, but it will remember it next time you launch SpeedEDIT.

There isn't a separate CG. There are the CG POST style CG effects. Your tab for titles has three effects: still page, scroll and crawl. Pick the one you want and put it where you want it on the timeline and stretch it to the length you want. Then open the control panel with it selected and you will find tabs for creating your CG.


Its the video toaster editor without the board... and HDV capable. I would have thought the wait this long they were adding HDCAM, or DVCPRO to it at least.
So why cant it at least be as stable as VT4? I guess thats a loaded question since my windows 2000 P4 machine freezes also occasionnally.
I dont mind that it is the same interface. Thats great.....but
For as long as we have waited ...I dont see what all the excitment is about.
WHy is the CPU showing 30% use when speededit is doing nothing?

YOu should not be able to drag non audio video files to the time line and it should not freeze up when you try. Even on a whimp machine.

Have not tried HDV or DV yet. Capture interface looks lackluster.

Well, it is a 1.0 product. It has plenty of future potential.

It is stable here.

The excitement is for people that wanted an unbunbled VT-EDIT with HDV support, which is what people wanted in the Spring poll.

If you are used to VT-EDIT already, SpeedEDIT is an evolution, so it's not gonna be as exciting as to a new user that isn't used to the power of VT-EDIT.

Remember, part of your CPU load is going to be winrtme.exe running, if you installed SpeedEDIT on your VT system.

The capture interface is simple, but that's honestly all it needs to be for DV/HDV capture with timestamp scene detection.

What is your system RAM and graphics card and graphics card memory situation?

[John Perkins]

I suspect that enabling the AC3/AAC Directshow Support isn't helping.

The reason that we default to off is that many of the AC3 and AAC codecs you can install don't properly support seeking and tend to lock up or crash.

The high CPU usage sounds like some file has already locked up while trying to produce an icon. Normally it should only be a few percent, definitely not 30%. If you look at the task manager, I suspect that one CPU is showing 100% usage.

I suggest that everyone starts with some nice normal DV to make sure that the system is working well, then try mpeg. There are 1001 variants of mpeg video and audio which can make problems harder to pin down.

If you are having stability problems on an otherwise stable VT4 system, try going to preferences and lowering the Output Window quality. Medium or Low may be needed for your hardware.

We are now using video card features that VT never touched so you may be either exposing driver problems or features that are not fully supported by your card.

As Eugene said, once you have exited cleanly, the desktop will remember the layout correctly.

I hope this helps narrow it down,

[edmellnik]

No My VT machine is a different machine on WIndows 2000.
I put SPeedEdit on the only XP machine we have right now. A single P4, 2ghz.
Nividia 5100 video card, I think. Probably not a great card.
This machine also has Vegas on it. The ac3 files I tried were made in Vegas.
I only have 512 Ram so that is also a weakness.
The only reason I tried MPeg first was that was the only thing on that computer.

I will put more ram in, better Video card and see what happens.

As far as color correction controls.... except for the color wheels, we have had those for years in VT. Or is there more there now?

I would think most people hoping to put this on their laptop are going to need a pretty powerful laptop.

[ScorpioProd]

As far as color correction controls.... except for the color wheels, we have had those for years in VT. Or is there more there now?

I would think most people hoping to put this on their laptop are going to need a pretty powerful laptop.

Quite true on the laptop, really I would think anyone planning to do that should get a Core 2 Duo.

As for the color correction, well, the color wheels giving you separate shadow, mid and highlight correction is a HUGE improvement over the old system of one correction for everything. Not to mention auto white balance ability. There is a lot of cool stuff in the new color correction.

Another important thing to note, though other NLEs can do this kind of correction, they typically take a big performance hit when you add this correction, versus what you'll see when you add it in SpeedEDIT. :thumbsup:

I also still highly recommend Bob's 3Wheeler, since that adds masking controls, which I also consider pretty important.

[Mediaworx]

Quite true on the laptop, really I would think anyone planning to do that should get a Core 2 Duo.

I'm running it on a lowly 1.8G laptop with 512 ram and it's doing fine. I mixed AVI's with MPegs, all with sound and haven't had a problem. Had 3 streams going simultaneously with no issues.

[wvp]

John,
While I haven't installed SE yet I've heard you mention certain memory specs and now AC3 codec "issues".
I'm wondering if you could make available (on the spec page, or in a post) more detailed info on what works best / what will work ok.
Recommendations on AC3 codecs that work would be very helpful.
Thank you.

[SBowie]

Just to mention it, I've found SE amazingly stable, and I've been running it on a piece of junk. So I suspect there will turn out to be some 'fixable' cause for your instability, Ed. If not something to do with conforming audio, then perhaps graphics card related - in fact, that would be my first guess.

[edmellnik]

My Graphics card is a nividea FX5200 with 128mb.

I cant get DV or HDV to run without choking.
I looked it the processes running and I notice there
are about 6 or 8 svchost.exe running. On my windows 2000 machine only one is running. Could someone look in there manager and tell me if it is normal for Xp to have
many svchost.exe running?
Thanks

ed

[cholo]

As far as color correction controls.... except for the color wheels, we have had those for years in VT. Or is there more there now?
Well, yes and no. The parameters were available in VT, but now you can correct those parameters for lows, mids, highs, selective color and luminance. You can crush the blacks for example, push the mids and compress the highlights, all without losing any highlight/shadow detail, compensate for shadow blue shifts, desaturate a certain color, saturate another, etc... It's like bob's three wheler on steroids. And EVERYTHING is keyframeable. I haven't seen color correction this good in any other NLE except for the very top of the high end.

[ScorpioProd]

But note there are significant things that Bob's 3Wheeler can do that SpeedEDIT's can't.

Maskable color correction and color replacement, for instance.

They are both good, but each has some features the other doesn't.

[Seattle-HotShot]

Is there a good resource for learning the secrets of color correction? I've done it badly for a few years, and think it might be time to learn how to do it better :)

I did see the auto white balance, which is a nice touch. And I tweaked the white balance on a couple of clips, using the adjustments. At first I was going backwards on them, took a while to get my head around that.

Guess time to go do some web searching.

Darn, I take a few days off from this forum, and I must be about 1700 posts behind!

[Jim_C]

http://www.amazon.com/Color-Correction-Digital-Video-Desktop/dp/1578202019

I just bought that recently, and although I have just cracked it open, I have already learned $35 bucks worth.

[radams]

My Graphics card is a nividea FX5200 with 128mb.

I cant get DV or HDV to run without choking.
I looked it the processes running and I notice there
are about 6 or 8 svchost.exe running. On my windows 2000 machine only one is running. Could someone look in there manager and tell me if it is normal for Xp to have
many svchost.exe running?
Thanks

ed

Hi Ed,

First,
I'm assuming you are using an AGP based graphic sub system... What is the speed of your slot ?

Second are you trying to playback FULL screen on the video window? what is the resolution of your monitor ?

SE really should be used on a PCI Express based system...it will work with AGP based systems but NOT at full resolution and definitly not at full screen.

If you make the output window smaller you will get better playback.

Also you should have at least a gig of memory...and a drive system with proper read & write times to allow proper playback.

SE is a transitioning product moving us into the next gen of computer gear...yet still giving us some functionality with most of our old gear...

Cheers,

[ScorpioProd]

SE really should be used on a PCI Express based system...it will work with AGP based systems but NOT at full resolution and definitly not at full screen.

Agree for HDV, but for DV, 4X AGP is fine.

SE is a transitioning product moving us into the next gen of computer gear...yet still giving us some functionality with most of our old gear...


I don't know about that... I don't believe in a "transitioning" product. I believe in the need for products to get the job done NOW... Suggesting it's a transitioning product suggests we should settle for current limitations and just wait for the future... It's more of a way to let companies off the hook... That's not the way to get work done for editors now with all the heavy competition for our editing dollars.

[radams]

I don't believe in a "transitioning" product. I believe in the need for products to get the job done NOW...

Hi Eugene,

I think you miss read my original post... or I didn't make myself clear...

When I said "transitioning" I meant with the technology changes around us...thus 32 to 64 bit....AGP -PCI Express...single CPUs to Multi core...etc....

SE helps us to use today but scales with us today and tomorrow....

Thus helping us thru this Transition ;)

The next generation computer systems are starting to hit the market places...and SE can already be used with them as well as our older systems....just understand that with the older systems "may" come some limitations...

Cheers,

[ScorpioProd]

Oh, OK, yeah, I agree on that. :)