Official "This part of the guide SUCKS!" thread, 2

Orwell · Post by **Orwell** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 5:37 pm

The navigation in the guide itself isn't too bad, but I was refering to navigation to at least the how-to page on the site, or back to the homepage. If you wanted to browse through the guide then go onto the site, there's no simple way to do it.

I think some of it has to do with just how its structured, such as when looking for information on pre-processing, there's a page that mentions it, but then moves on to the next topic, without a link to that page. The page for cleaning up the footage is for post production, but, is there anything separate about pre-production? It seems like it should be moved out of something that should be done after the video is made. Unless production is simply refering to obtaining and having your footage ready for editing.

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Mon Mar 20, 2006 5:53 pm

OK, got it.

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Fri Mar 24, 2006 9:18 pm

Phew, I've completed updating the guide up to the part of editing your video. I guess thats about halfway through...
I think I've managed to make it quite a bit easier to follow.

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 5:22 am

Zarxrax wrote:Phew, I've completed updating the guide up to the part of editing your video.

Yay!

Zarxrax wrote:I guess thats about halfway through...
I think I've managed to make it quite a bit easier to follow.

We shall be the judge of that!

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Sun Mar 26, 2006 2:32 pm

It looks unlikely that I will include a guide to setting up projects in Magix. The way to set up projects seems to vary a lot between versions, it doesn't support 23.976fps, and a number of other problems. There is some generic info on setting up a project in any editor, so that should be sufficient.

Willen · Post by **Willen** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 7:17 am

Zarxrax wrote:It looks unlikely that I will include a guide to setting up projects in Magix. The way to set up projects seems to vary a lot between versions, it doesn't support 23.976fps, and a number of other problems. There is some generic info on setting up a project in any editor, so that should be sufficient.

Yeah, I was afraid of that. I'm working on a new project that is 23.976 fps and I just recently realized that Magix MEP10 doesn't fully support that framerate, just 23.98. I suppose this means I'll have to use the Premiere method of editing with 24 fps and adjusting my imports and exports accordingly.

I've also encounterd a bug with MMEP10 when I export at 29.97 fps, especially if it has to create avi files larger than 2GB in size. Since the programmers left in Win98/Me compatibility, they also decided to just have the program assume that you might be using FAT16 and it's 2GB file size limit and break up your video into smaller segments on export regardless of what file system you are actually using. This is not the problem, although it is related.

The issue is that even though MMEP10 has settings for 29.97 fps export, the first time I exported my project it came out in two segments, both at 29.96 fps. I didn't notice this until I tried to append bumpers to the video in VirtualDubMod and got error messages about framerates being different. So I tried to re-export the video. The second time, the first segment came out at 29.97 fps but the second segment came out at 29.96 fps again. Finally, I exported the project in two halves individually. By doing it manually, both segments came out at 29.97 fps and I joined them together with VirtualDubMod. Looking back, I did notice that the first exported file's run time of 4:28 was a tiny bit longer than the original music source's time of 4:27 (and change), but it didn't raise any alarms at the time.

I don't know if this is my bad luck, or a machine-related issue. I'm using an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ on an ASUS nForce4 Ultra MB. On the Magix user forums, I've only seen one other user with this issue, although with a different, but related Magix program.

imuneekru · Post by **imuneekru** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:53 pm

This could/should/oughta be added to Kirin's Guide to AMVs with iMovie.

Clip Creator update.

Clip Creator 2 offers several alternatives to automatically batching clips in 5-minute segments. The way Kirin suggests - i.e., to splice up your humongous episodes and then import them all into iMovie and do the finer editing in there, is a sure way to max out both RAM and hard-drive space. iMovie may crash or refuse to render transitions if you import your entire collage into the clips pane. Also, with iMovie 5 and beyond, it copies every ounce of video into the project file, eating up even more HD space. Kirin suggests using Movie Montage to view your clips, but apparently that application is unstable and costs money. There is an easier way to capture just what you need without killing your Mac. And it uses the free Clip Creator!

First, open your source in Clip Creator. You will see in the source controls a pair of buttons called Mark In and Mark Out. These are your two best friends. Their shortcuts are Command+. and Command+/ respectively. Mark-in to signal the start point of that ten-second clip you really want. Mark out to finish it, and hit "Make Clip". The clip will then appear on your right, and you can save it under whatever name you choose.

If you want a large number of clips from one episode, then instead of Make Clip, hit "Add to Batch". You can batch a list of the clips you want and save it by hitting "Export". This does not save new movie files, just a list of the in and out points. You can then choose to run the batch and save them as single clips, or just keep the list for later.

Coming back to a saved batch, you then just double-click on the clip you want, and it'll pop back up in your source window. Hit "Make Clip" and save to your hard drive.

As an added note, it's a good idea to save your batch ("export") often, as Clip Creator 2 has a tendency to crash randomly. It also hangs up sometimes when you try to rewind. I hope the developer has plans to fix this bug someday. The old version 1.6 was much more stable, but doesn't have all the cool features of version 2.1.2.

Keeper of Hellfire · Post by **Keeper of Hellfire** » Thu Apr 13, 2006 2:13 am

The section about compressing with XviD is kept in, right? It deals with the best balance between filesize and visual quality for distribution. In MEP's often is allowed/requested XviD with quantizer 1. So I think it would be a good idea to add a section that deals with that, something like "How to get best quality encode with XviD".

loganwolvy · Post by **loganwolvy** » Tue Apr 18, 2006 11:52 pm

...any chances of making the guides more printer friendly? I guess I kind of prefer a hard copy over having to load up the website everytime I want to do some research.

~Q

CHAMELEON_D_H · Post by **CHAMELEON_D_H** » Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:31 am

loganwolvy wrote:...any chances of making the guides more printer friendly? I guess I kind of prefer a hard copy over having to load up the website everytime I want to do some research.

~Q

I was working an a single word documents, so I could print it to a booklet. It's not finnished cause it was the most boring job ever, but I might consider continueing if there is some request, as I have half the job done.