Trimming the fat

[Ron Anderson]

I have a project that will have several several small clips of large AVI files. Each one is between 30 to 60 min long. I only need to use small portions of the video, so how do I go about getting rid of the huge files in the project after I select the section of the video I need. Vegas is really slowing down the more I add. Also, I have 232 images in the project scanned to 1440 X 960 @ 200 dpi.

Ron

[Stuart Campbell]

Ron,

if you are worried about the amount of unwanted footage on your system I'd recommend only capturing the bits you need, rather than capturing the lot.

Once you've finished with this project I'd look into expanding your storage array. Hard Disk drive storage is so cheap it's almost rude not to. The easiest option would be to pick up a 1TB external HDD and dump all the unwanted video onto that. It's slow to move stuff onto these disks but it can be done over night.

Stuart

[Ron Anderson]

I guess what I am getting at is that even thought I only may use 1 min of a video on a time line... until I render, Vegas still references the original 30 min file, right? I am trying not to bog down Vegas while I am creating the project.

I have plenty of storage space. I don't want to keep a large video file in my project bin if I am only need 1 min of it.

I don't know if I am explaining myself correctly, but thanks for the reply.

Ron

[Jeff Harper]

I don't know the name of the program, but there is something available out there that allows you to edit/trim avi files....you could then edit the original, save the new smaller file, and bring that into vegas.

Or you might try editing each .avi file individually in Vegas and re-render, using the new shorter clip. that's what I would try first.

here's a link to freeware avi editor, but be forewarned it is something I found in a search, I know nothing about this software. For all I know it could be bad, or good.

http://www.bobyte.com/AviTricks/index.asp

[Edward Troxel]

Here's something you could try: Create a new folder, do a File - Save As and make sure you check the box to "Copy media". Then you can also specify a head/tail length and it will only copy over the segments that are actually used (unless it's media it can't smart copy).

[Ron Anderson]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will try them both and see what works best for me.

Ron

[Ali Jafri]

Ron, apart from the video you mentioned that you have hundreds of still pictures scanned at 300dpi, i'm guessing its these pictures that could be slowing everything down as well, you shouldn't need anything above 72dpi for video use, even if you're doing zooms and pans.

[Richard Jones]

Jeff suggested editing each file individually and re-rendering so that you only save the essential parts of the original video to your hard disc with these then being imported into your main project for whatever further work that might then be necessary as you edit that project. Is there a danger of some loss of quality if you follow this route (because you have imported twice and rendered twice)?

Richard

[Jeff Harper]

Richard, Vegas 8 supports no-re-compress rendering. If you import an .avi file to Vegas and re-render it as .avi there is no further compression, so essentially it comes out the same quality as it was originally. In fact when you re-render it it will say "no re-compression required in the preview window" during the rendering process.

If any thing has been done to it, ANY changes whatsover, it will re-compress.

In fact, due to the no-recompress feature of Vegas, it hit me just now that it wouldn't make sense to use any other program to edit down .avi, since Vegas does it perfectly.

I just rendered an .avi file yesterday as a matter of fact, and there were sections with color correction and some without. The sections without showed the "no-re-compression necessary" message in the preview window, and the sections with CC were re-compressed and previewed normally.

[Richard Jones]

Many thanks Jeff. This could be a life saver for a project I'm about to start when I shall need to bring in files (events) from several DVD sources to go with my main tape capture for editing together into a more comprehensive result.

Best Wishes,

Richard