ProType Titler - a new record?

[Ian Stark]

Full of hope for a rosy new future, I installed the 8.0a update, inserted an instance of ProType Titler and it crashed Vegas within five seconds - do I win a prize?!

Back into mothballs goes ProType Titler until 8.0b.

Hey ho . . .

[Ian Stark]

Just to add an observation about the crashes other people have been experiencing (in the Vegas 8 issues thread) - this is the ONLY thing that is causing me grief in Vegas. Other than the Titler, it seems solid.

I am still SD though, and it does look like the problems are being enjoyed by HD users in the main.

[Jonathan Gentry]

I can't get Pro Titler to crash no matter what I do...

[Paul Fierlinger]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Gentry

I can't get Pro Titler to crash no matter what I do...

I tried hard as well but no crashes...

[Ian Stark]

I reinstalled 8.0a, to check that box (re-installation often seems to be the suggested cure for Vegas ailments).

To my delight, ProType Titler worked fine and I did all sorts of horrible things to it, TRYING to make it break. It didn't - for a good fifteen minutes of playing around.

So, I fired up a browser, came to DVi to report the good news, needed to check the name of the curve that I had applied so went back into Vegas, clicked on Curves - and it fell over. Rebooted, fired up Vegas again, new project, new video track, new PTT instance, inserted some text, applied a gradient, went to change the tracking - bang. Broken again.

Again, I'd like to stress that so far this is the only thing in Vegas that is unstable on my system and I have never had any (repeated) crashes in any previous version of Vegas

I wonder if it is anything to do with my combination of kit: Quadcore QX6700, 2Gb RAM, Raptor 150Gb system drive, 2 x 500Gb Samsung data drives, XP Pro SP2, Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX (latest drivers).

Although it's somewhat annoying not to have a 100% stable experience, I'm not overly concerned because for me the (laughingly named) ProType Titler is poor in comparison to the rest of Vegas. It even has a different appearance - what's that all about? And that regular flashing? Not for me. I am quite content to remain in After Effects for serious animated titling, and will continue to use the old text generator for simple stuff like static lower third text. Actually, I may even use PTT for simple stuff - but nothing that moves!

Am I the only person 'enjoying' these problems? I don't want to start a whining thread but if it's only me then there's something I need to look at in my own shop before complaining. If, on the other hand, there are many other people experiencing the same kind of problem in PTT then it should be called out, wouldn't you say?

[Ian Stark]

Just seen this discussed in another current thread http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=105907

I agree with Jonathan and Paul's suggestions - machine specific?

Of course 'machine specific' doesn't automatically imply a problem on the machine itself - it could be that the Vegas developers just haven't thought of every combination of hardware/software that could conflict with Vegas. Wouldn't be the first time, I'm sure.

That's why spending ages on diagnostics would not be my first choice in trying to resolve the problem. After all, I do this for a living! I would like to know (and I'm sure Sony would too) whether this is a widespread issue, whether it's down to a few unusual system specs or whether it's the end user's machines at fault.

Is there a facility to post polls in DVi? Might it be useful to see what %age of visitors to DVi are experiencing crashing within PTT?

[Paul Fierlinger]

If, on the other hand, there are many other people experiencing the same kind of problem in PTT then it should be called out, wouldn't you say?

I wonder how many of us seriously or extensively use ProType. For instance I never have any need for animated, flying titles, so when I say I get no crashes this means that I try this and that and a few other things with flying letters, but it's obviously not the same thing as what you are doing. Maybe more time will be a better indicator.

I agree with those who say that this gadget is in its infancy and I'm giving it the benefit of some doubt until it grows up a bit. I'm mostly waiting for its complete ability to do basic justifying of static titles (paragraphs, mostly) along the lines of Word.

A titler that can't do that doesn't deserve to call itself "Pro" yet.

[Ian Stark]

Originally Posted by Paul Fierlinger

I wonder how many of us seriously or extensively use ProType. For instance I never have any need for animated, flying titles

Quite agree with you Paul.

Personally, I cannot stand titles that come sailing in from all over the place, bouncing around, wobbling, exploding etc. But that's for my serious work, for which I am paid. I don't think my clients would want such tackiness either! It has its place - just not in my projects!

And I also agree with your comment about it being in it's infancy. There are some nice ideas in PTT that hopefully will mature and grow over time. Maybe it should be called EnthusiasticType Titler which is perhaps a little more positive than CloseButNoCigarType Titler.

[Jonathan Gentry]

As a side note/question, if I wanted to develop colored bars with words on them like they do in sports broadcasts and on the news (like news7 at 6 etc.) what would I use in Vegas? A plugin? It would be helpful if the Pro Titler would develop color blocks with borders etc to go behind the text I want to put on the screen. I guess what I'm asking for is video graphics to go along with the text.

[Ian Stark]

I guess you're talking about lower thirds. Easiest thing in the world to create from scratch and it's quite straightforward to get a very pleasing result.

There are plenty of threads/tutorials here and elsewhere that will take you through the process but essentially, this is how I would create a very simple, static lower third in Vegas (actually I do this kind of thing in After Effects but this is one way of doing it in Vegas):

1. Create a new video track. Insert a solid colour generated media clip. Choose an appropriate colour that will complement your footage, your chosen text colour etc and that will enable the text to stand out.

2. Using track motion, lower the generated media tracks frame position so that the colour occupies the lower third (geddit?!) of the screen, or whatever portion you want it to appear in. A useful tip is to turn on the title safe guides in your preview window. I also tend to enlarge the frame slightly so it doesn't leave gaps.

3. Add your text to a new video layer and position it accordingly.

There you have a simple lower third.

If you want to jazz things up you might want to consider some of the following:

- fade the lower third in and out, slightly out of sync with the appearance of the text

- use a vertical gradient instead of a solid colour

- reduce the opacity (composite level) of the solid colour so the background shows through

- create an interesting clip, say clouds, water, whatever floats your boat, treat it using various effects (gaussian blur is nice) and use that as a semi transparent, animated lower third

- create a graphic in Photoshop or whatever you use, and use that.
- animate the lower third so it comes in from the side as it fades up

- create a mask on the lower third track in pan/crop and feather the edges to taste.

Loads of creative opportunities. A number of the video editing magazines give away some nice lower thirds on the cover disks. Or you can buy them. VASST has lower third packs I believe. Personally, I have more fun creating them myself and when I have a bored moment (rarely these days, I confess) I occasionally make up a few more for future projects.

Hope this is of help.

Cheers,

Ian . . .

[Edward Troxel]

Vol 2 #10 of my newsletters has an article on creating lower thirds.

[Hugh Mobley]

I was hoping for some sort of fix on the Titler, After updating to 8a its worse, slow, non resonsive, special effects don't work at all, flashes constantly, extremely annoying, was this actually ready for download or does some of V8 still need serious code reworking

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by Hugh Mobley

I was hoping for some sort of fix on the Titler, After updating to 8a its worse, slow, non resonsive, special effects don't work at all, flashes constantly, extremely annoying, was this actually ready for download or does some of V8 still need serious code reworking

Vegas 8 has behave very well for me. In fact, I played with the titler all afternoon - very responsive the entire time, no "flashes", and nary a crash. There HAS to be some other factors coming into play with some of these issues.

[Ian Stark]

I agree, Edward.

How can we establish commonalities between 'sufferers'?

I find it hard to accept that there is a fault on my system as it is ONLY Vegas 8 (and only the Titler aspect) that ever caused me to have crashes. Vegas 7 was - and still is - solid as a rock, as is the case with all my other graphics/video-heavy apps.

I suspect a conflict between something in my set up and Vegas 8. The fact that you (Edward) report no flashing does make me suspect a graphics card issue. Looking at other application forums, this seems to be a common problematic area, particularly with video-intensive apps.

If everyone who has suffered a crash in Titler could provide details of graphics card make and model, configuration, driver version, DirectX version, other graphics heavy apps in use and anything else that might be relevant then we may be able to identify common attributes.

Shall we therefore start with graphics cards and related items?

To get the ball rolling:

I have a Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX with 768Mb RAM with Dualview configured to display at 1680 x 1050 on both screens. I do not overclock the GPU. I run Vegas previews in a window (ie not as a full screen secondary monitor) and I have f/w out to a DAC-200 which drives a JVC production monitor.

The driver vesion is reported as v 163.71 (6.14.11.6371) which appears to be the latest available.

I am running DirectX 9.0c and all DXDiag tests complete correctly.

Other graphics intensive apps I use include After Effects CS3, DV-Rack, Ultra 2, Particle Illusion, Photoshop CS3, Poser and Cinema4D v8. No recurring problems with any of them and, to my knowledge no system crashes for a considerable while (the occasional freeze, perhaps, but that's also rare).

Anyone else prepared to chip in with their details?

Cheers,

Ian . . .

[Jonathan Gentry]

Thanks alot for the info on the lower thirds Ian. Big help...