Sharing XP-RC2 experience

[hapz]

wally, what do you call the events between starting and stopping the camcorder?

If you have several of these start-stop events covering the same aspects but with different settings, how do you distinguish?

[wkulecz]

Doc was talking about DV "event marks" in the time code when the recording is started and stopped. These don't usually define a scene for me.

Consider an event video -- I may stop the camcorder while moving to a better position and then restart the recording assuming (hoping) one of the other camcorders is recording something to fill in the gap. Unless the event is organized around making a video of it, its very easy to get trapped in useless camera location, three or four of these movements in ten minutes wouldn't be too unusual. I could run the tape while I move and cut it out latter so my "scene detection" software would work, but running out of tape at an in appropiate moment is another big problem with event videos. Or I could deal with a bunch of smaller files, again this wouldn't be a real problem but its just not what I usually want. YMMV.

Change of lighting doesn't define a scene for me either -- consider a dance floor with typical "disco" or "techno" lighting effects.

As I said, basically I try to work one scene per tape when possible. Automatically having a file for everytime the camcorder started and stopped on a tape wouldn't be a bad thing, but its not something that would be worth my time and money to upgrade for, because I like a 1:1 correspondance between raw footage files and physical tapes of the event. YMMV

I don't buy tools I don't expect to use. If one comes along "for free" with something I need, I generally set it aside with the hope it comes in useful someday.

I'm hoping I can find time to give XP MovieMaker's scene detections a test this weekend, who knows, maybe I'll discover its somehting great I didn't know I was missing and now can't live without, or pehaps I'll hit the lotto :-)


In the situation of multiple takes on a single tape, I definitely don't what these as seperate files precisely because I'd get confused as to which is which, I distinguish by looking at them in the editing and using the best sections from each take to make the final.

Again, I want tools that help me work the way that seems most "natural" to me for the task at hand, not something that's trying to tell me I should "do it this way".

--wally.

[hapz]

Thanks Wally for your detailed explanation

[Dr Mordrid]

Wally,

The DV timecode markers work fine for me as I usually work in scripted scenes, except during unscripted events like weddings or ba* mitzvahs.

Under unscripted conditions I agree that the handy cutting of a large single capture is beneficial. This is where the "Cut by Cue" (in the Source window) and "Split by Scene" (timeline) Video Editor commands come into play.

Dr. Mordrid

[Cpt_KiRK]

Sorry, but what have this discussion to do with the topic: Sharing XP-RC2 experience? Perhaps start an new tread or continue some old one?

/Cpt_KiRK

[Dr Mordrid]

It has to do with answering something mentioned earlier in the thread.

Yes, it's a bit OT, but thats NORMAL for this forum....conversations do tend to wander sometimes. Don't fret it.

Dr. Mordrid

[beppi]

NTFS for all (Hi)

Ok guys I have some real XP questions and like to know how many of you have the same problems. I wrote to Tech-support last week with my 2gig file-limit problem. My answer to them this morning is below and I post this now here too as a question to find out about if I am the only (idiot) who has this problem. Very few topics about that is to be found on the rest of Internet but then at the same time everybody who has that problem seems to be not to concerned about it. Yet think about that, go and remote-install XP on a few 100 machines with NTFS from win2K and you will be screwed (or not?) and why not?

MS decided to change NTFS and when I installed XP the first time it actually killed my other W2K unusable. I did not paid to much attention to that at the time since I have back-up anyway. Then it happened again on a drive that actually was just holding data. Checking into it I found out about that change. NTFS Win2K is not the same as NTFS XP. I don't understand that not more people have a problem with it but whenever the time comes I can hear a big cry from the businessworld as soon as there harddrives are unusable. Hi. Ghost recognizes that the drive is NTFS but will not be able to make a ghost of it anymore, comes back with a error.
PQMagic same not capable of changing your harddrives on the DOSLevel anymore, comes back with to many errors and stops all operations. This affects harddrives only that are formatted to NTFS. As long as your harddrives are fat32 or fat (almost) no problem. (Mine) Except for the first time. It seems it screws even something up in Fat32 and imposes this 2gig limit.
I formated a new harddrive to fat32 from XP and now I can drag, drop, edit without a problem and without the 2gig file-limit. I converted the Drive with XP to NTFS(XP) and also now no problem, no file-limit. Ripped a DVD (7.5gig) to the harddrive.
Then I switched to Win2K and in this cofiguration I have a problem again, but switching back to XP the problem is gone again.
I am a bit at a loss why not more people have or had or will have the same problem but time will tell.
beppi

[wkulecz]

Are you saying MS changed something in XP that breaks 3rd party disk utilities? If so its SOP, for MS.

I upgraded XP to an existing W2K NTFS partition no problem.
I did a fresh install to an empty partition on a W2k, Linux dual boot machine making it a triple boot machine with no problems.

I don't like XP and will skip it for the reasons I've already mentioned, but the installer is one of the main real improvements I see. If you can live with WPA and want to upgrade instead of re-install you might be happy with XP.

OTOH, I've upgraded several systems from Win98se to Windows 2000 without problems but this is generally not recommended.

My test installs are not to partitions big enough for 7.5 GB drag and drops, but I will double check the fresh install's ability to read the pre-existing win2000 partition and vice versa, I don't think its something I've tried so far.

--wally.

[wkulecz]

I stand by my assertion that MovieMaker is pretty worthless and certainly not worth upgrading to XP for.

It seems to only have a cross-fade transition, no timeline scrub, and apparently no way to export DV back to the camcorder!!! Definitely a computer perspective as "capture" is under a "record"button, instead of the more editing oriented "capture" top level label.

I missed the clip splitting thing the first time, but its obvious once I was looking for it: "Create Clips" checkbox. IMHO pretty useless, I am testing a "refurb" Canon ZR10 I picked up at Fry's for $400. Simply recorded a 1min clip and captured. Broke it up into three clips a ~1 sec for no apparent reason, the bulk of the clip and a ~4 dark field when the clip ended. I started the recorder and stopped only once so there should be no DV "markers" beyond one start and one stop. Took a bit longer than the capture duration (500 MHz P-III) to decide there was three clips. I find this worse than useless, YMMV.

The worst of the bundled software with any 1394 card I've ever seen is much better than MovieMaker.

Curiously it picked up a "Matrox WDM Capture" option in the recording dialog from my G200 Marvel. Too bad it didn't work :-(

I had no problems accessing my Linux SAMBA file server from XP nor did I have any trouble with the "dual boot" W2K NTFS partition. Booting into W2K I had no trouble reading the DV clip I captured in MovieMaker from the XP NTFS partition. So beppi, what exactly is your problem and what can I try to do in an attempt to see it?

I noticed MovieMaker "scene splitter" didn't create three files, so whatever it does, it won't be very useful outside of MovieMaker.

I'm out of time to waste on XP for today.

--wally.

[hapz]

beppi,

XP uses a newer version of NTFS and, unfortunately, converts all NTFS partitions it finds on a PC to the newer version. The only impact this seems to have: it screws up some of the utility programs that don't know how to handle the newer version of NTFS. PartitionMagic and Norton's Speed Disk are among them.

This newer NTFS version did not have any negative effect on my data files. E.g., my video files that I created under win2k and stored on an NTFS Raid0 partition still play just fine under Win2k. However, PM can no longer "handle" this partition. I.e. it does not recognize that this is a new NTFS format and thus reports errors. Any resizing or other partition manipulations will have to wait until after the final XP has been released.

Versions supporting the new NTFS will be released as soon as the official XP is released. I guess this is the price one has to pay when playing with beta software. Happens with new software releases all the time. Some companies change their file formats almost every year ;(

[beppi]

NTSC

Hi hapz,
Thanks for info, so far I knew that part with the new NTFS about PM because they run into this problem supposedly allready with people that installed service pack2 into Win2K.
My drives where still usuable just to play movies or seeing all other files and progams but it impacted the editing programs and limited them to 2gig filesize movies just because they where there while upgrading. In my case I installed another harddrive, formatted it new from XP and dragged everything (data not OS) over from 1 harddrive to the other one and then formatted the old drive new from XP and I am all set. Yet I still don't get it that there is not more info out there about the whole thing. My own computer is not a big problem with the 80gig harddrives. I am glad that business is usually a couple years behind until then something bether came along to fix the problem. hihi, it just amazed me since I feel this is a big impact if NTFS is screwed-up. Then of course I don't know how many people are keeping there system in fat32 and never realized yet what changed. hi
Thanks hapz

[beppi]

Hi wkulecz,
sorry I did not want to ignore you, my browser jumped right passed you to the bottom.
I actually can do all that too, like switching in dualboot, accessing files etc........, I usually install OS by itself and use the rest of the drive to install programs and storage and additional harddrives just for movies. I don't drag movies usually around I like to rip em to the hardrive and make mpeg4 out of it. . Yet usually they start out as 5~8gig VOB and in the process usually it takes more of the same size untill they are in mpeg4 down to 1 or 2 CD-R's. Sometimes I take them into the timeline and edit them (slow sections out) and that was the time I had the problem with it. Or I record from TV and cut out Commercials which are going to my wife (she likes them) and I keep the movie. My suprise was that one day I realized that I could only edit movies under 2gig because I did not rip a big one for a while and also I recorded in smaller segments. Then I had a great movie from VCR and macrovision screwed me over. I had to stop twice because macro kicked in. I ended up with 3 pieces and was trying to join them again and that was the day I realized I had a real problem. Hi. However, it is resolved for me for the time beiing, until MS has something new up there sleeves.
Have a great day beppi

[KRSESQ]

Hullo all:

It occurred to me while reading these posts that whether or not a few hardcores like us migrate to XP doesn't really matter to Microshaft.

They will make the bulk of their profit with the new OS by licensing it out to computer manufacturers. Eventually everyone from Dell on down will be shipping with XP installed. Older OS's will be phased out and support eventually dropped.

Chipheads like us are seen as enemies by Gates and Co. Why else would they make hardware upgrades and OS re-installs such a POTA in XP?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if Steve Jobs was half as smart as everyone thinks he is, he'd have ported the Mac OS to the IBM PC platform long ago (although the "Darwin" kernel for OSX is open source and such porting is on the agenda... )

Love them 'puters!

Kevin

[Dr Mordrid]

It is a RPIA (royal PIA) isn't it?

Actually I think Microsoft is smoking wacky tabaccy if they think 85% of EXISTING systems with XP capability are going to update to it. This is what M$ stated in their last conference call.

Most all of those with Win2K are in the hands of at least semi-power users or enterprises. IMHO many, if not most, of their owners or sysadmins will see posts about these kinds of problems and run as fast as they can from XP.

Dr. Mordrid

[smanzo]

Originally posted by wkulecz
Windows Product Activation is a feature that will make me ignore XP and stick with W2K.
<chop-chop>
I was hot for "Remote Desktop" (an X windows like remote program execution feature). Unfortunately perfomance sucks and the free VNC package (vncserver & vncviewer pair) performs much better on RC1 & RC2 that the built in Remote Desktop!
<chop some more>

Two Thumbs down to XP!

--wally.

I have to respond to the Remote Desktop thing...

I've used Timbuktu Pro 2000, VNC, Win2K Terminals Services and WinXP RC2 Remote Desktop. Of the four, Remote Desktop has given me the best performance, followed by Terminal Services, VNC, and Timbuktu Pro. So long as you configure the connection properly on the connecting end (not the target machine), you should be good to go. My poor little dial-up at 45.2 gives me better control over the RC2 machine at 1280x1024x256 colors, with only Bitmap compression enabled, than VNC at 800x600x256 colors. Add in that, should I not be at one of my personal machines, I can connect via IIS and TSWEB to EITHER the RC2 machine or my 2000 Servers with only the need to install the TS ActiveX client, and I'm one happy camper.