On Wed, 29 Nov 2000 00:18:10 +0800, "David Winter" wrote:

A few comments (sorry if these are already
obvious to you...):

>I'm doing the first session (full length just under 3 hrs, cut back to 1hr
>52min) of a six session seminar, with 3 cameras plus S-VHS deck as audio
>master (but problems with extreme line noise in 1st session) with the vision
>mix from 2 cameras (composite-BNC) used for a relay feed to a projector in
>an overflow room, and also the audio cassette recorded at the PA desk.
>Trouble is that the 120min S-VHS tape wasn't long enough so I lost
>continuity, and teh PA desk missed a tape change out so there's a continuity
>gap there - leaving me camera sound (yuk!).

I've saved many a live shoot with Cool Edit's
noise-reduction module (www.syntrillium.com).
Mixing noise-reduced track (EQ'd) with some of
the original (or other) track has given me
natural-sounding, but more understandable,
speech tracks (I have the "ultimate-horror"
story for this one...! ;-).

>All this is being edited on a Premiere/DVRaptor system which is groaning. My
>80G RAID0 array is so full (only a few hundred MB spare) that I can't
>effectively defrag. The 27G drive has so much data on it that I can't make
>movie. And there's so many video and audio tracks that even at 600MHz/133FSB
>and 256M PC133, the PC can't playback from the timeline.

Can you manage small segments of timeline
playback? If so, you can send these to tape,
and when you have the whole collection,
reimport them and reassemble them on the
cleaned-off computer (or another computer).
Alternately, you can dump maybe 1/3rd of
the files associated with the tail end of
the project to free up resources, finish
the first 2/3rds, put it out to tape, then
dump the beginning, reimport the needed
material to finish the end, and assemble
the parts on another timeline for export.
(I used to work on 2-hour Mini-DV projects
using only one 8-gig "C" drive and two 9-gig
video drives... [it CAN be done! ;-])

>I'll need to make movie, but as I have the system set up under Win98 (gold)
>right now, FAT32/VfW limits me to 2G file on Make Movie - so I have to build
>it up 9 mins at a time. I am going to try building a .wav file for all the
>audios and see if that can run with a smooth playback on print to video.

Actually, once you have rendered a stretch
of video, you have already produced WAV files
of the sound track, stored in your preview-files
folder. I suspect the problem may be that you
have too-filled the program drive for the computer
to work efficiently...(?)

>The method of setting out the material is to lay down all four video tracks,
>synching on visual cues and audio. Once aligned (and effectively because of
>tape changes on every camera, it is built up as you go), one works through
>cutting out the top track where the image is no good, and then disactivating
>the upper tracks progressively until you have a shot you want, then use the
>scissors or inpoint wiper to remove the overlay tracks not required. You
>basically do this all the way through. One tip - cut on action. With these
>seminars, basically I tend to cut just before the speaker starts his next
>phrase, and try to ensure cuts are between 4.5 and 20 seconds in duration to
>maintain interest, but some cutaways are deliberately shorter (to show a
>specific reaction to a comment - or a show of hands, etc).

You can use the left-side switches to turn-on/off
tracks to see all the tracks easily without having
to cut and pull-back the video tracks...

>As I've said, even with a Raptor, this is straining the system. My strategy
>is to clean up the audio into a .wav file, and sub that for the six audio
>tracks. If I can get smooth playback from that, I can master to tape.

I think this may not help, but.....

>For the next session, I'll rebuild as Win2K dual-boot and swap another 20G
>drive in from another PC, then I can Make Movie if necessary.

Why do you need to do this? You cannot do a direct
playback to tape from the timeline, using the tape
as master?

>The reason I went to NLE was that my linear rig lacked an A-B roll
>controller and it was cheaper to go to PC than to uprate to a viable A-B
>roll linear rig.