@browj2

Hi John

. . . . There is tutorial on the German forum showing how to fix the missing Movie Template problem if anyone wants to tackle it. . . . .

The tutorial is for missing Background videos and does not appear to be for the movie templates.

John EB

@johnebaker

Thanks John. My translator misinterpreted, have to blame something.

John CB

Well, here we go with another issue introduced by VPX12!

I do quite a lot of transfer from analogue video, typically VHS, via a Canopus ACEDVio internal PCI card, to computer for any "editing" and eventual burning to DVD. Using the "DV Recording" screen I can view the incoming video and hear the audio as it is transcribed and digitised on the computer. Or, at least I used to be able to do this. Despite ALL the settings being exactly as in VPX11, starting playback of the video, the audio is heard but no video is displayed. I suppose it is possible that it is merely the video display in the DV Recording screen that is not working, but at this moment I really don't have the time to find out!

Just to confirm, this is NOT a problem with my interface, I have opened MEP Premium (latest version) and am now carrying out the actual transfer, complete with video display on its DV Recording screen and the audio being audible! Clearly, once the transfer is completed, I can then move the project to VPX12 but I would far rather carry out ALL the work in one app!!

😡😡😡

I wonder whether any other user can confirm whether the DVD Recording screen is "working properly" in VPX12?

Jeff

Following up my post immediately above this:

I raised the problem of the non-functioning of DV Recording as a bug and have received a reply from Support that this may indeed be a bug but, since the feature is "outdated" (the actual word used) it may not be fixed.

I have expressed my concern by email reply to Support!!!

I would be pleased to know whether/how many other users use this "feature" on anything like a fairly regular basis.

Jeff

@emmrecs

That's interesting Jeff but possibly also true.

I can't remember the last time I used a DVD to record to and only play back Blu-ray pre recorded discs. Do new laptops even have DVD players? You can get external drives still for now. I may buy a couple now while they still exist. I don't mean end of line bought for new, but current, new production models. People send me USB sticks and I in turn send them to others. I can send out higher quality files that can be played back on most TV sets. Now I can send files via Firefox up to 2.5GB for free and encrypted end to end.

Where are all the big electronics names now producing them? I can only find Hitachi and LG drives. All others are brands I don't recognize. Even Blu-ray recorders for PC are getting thin on the ground.

Ray.

@emmrecs

Never had need for DV recording since 2006, before then used them regularly - I am a little surprised they are still working - the FireWire connection was very fickle and prone to failure on some popular brands.

@CubeAce

. . . . I can only find Hitachi and LG drives . . . .

Many 'manufacturers' are rebranded drives - Hitachi and LG are AFAIK the only 2 makers now

John EB

@emmrecs

Sorry, Jeff. I misread your post.

Tape is degenerating at such a rate now with oxide flaking off of the tape due to the binder failing I expect they feel most of what needed copying is now done. With my audio recordings on metal spools I can 'bake' the reels to rebind the oxides for a couple of last passes but I doubt it's something that can be safely done with a video cassette tape where the tape is much thinner and plastic parts of the cartridge may suffer. Even my 'Pro' audio tapes from the 70s only had a storage lifespan of 50 years and they were expensive and didn't have to cope with the same frequency ranges.

[Edit] Print through is another problem that can't be undone over time. Where the magnetic field of the tape saturates through to the next layer. Not having to transfer video I've no idea how bad the ghosting gets but on audio it's a problem.

Ray.

@johnebaker @emmrecs

Other than the missing Movie Templates, did today's patch fix anything else? Could one of you post the patch detals?

Thanks,

John CB

@johnebaker

Hi John.

I don't actually use Firewire for the most common scenario for me, specifically VHS player via Scart (no S-Video available) to Canopus card. Actually works pretty flawlessly, usually.

I do use a Firewire connection when transferring footage from either my wife's rather old Canon Mini DV camera, or when clients send me various different types of tapes, e.g. Hi8. To date, this has also worked well (cables are permanently plugged into the computer to help to avoid problems of "loose connections") although some years ago I had to force the install of the "Legacy" driver for IEEE 1394. More recently, the "default" Windows driver (non-legacy) also works well!

Jeff

@browj2

I honestly don't know what else, if anything was "fixed". I don't even remember seeing any on-screen note stating what was different! I knew that a patch to fix the missing Templates had been promised by Support so I checked only whether this did, in fact, correct that error.

Jeff

@browj2

Hi John

Patch 18.0.1.80

• Fix: on some systems additional effects did not work
• Fix: wrong preview images for video scenes in storyboard mode or in the scene overview
• Fix: Display error in arranger
• Fix: malfunction when using rotation and resizing in the tracker at the same time
• Improved program stability Improved: Video monitor handles now bigger and sharper
• Improved: Windows 7 compatibility
• Improved: caching for images

John EB

@browj2 @johnebaker @CubeAce

I have received a reply from Support saying that the "dropping" of DV Recording was not intentional, is apparently quite easy to fix and so should be included in the next patch. (Here's hoping!)

Jeff

Hi

I have recently installed the latest version and patch and have to say I am very impressed so far. The install went smoothly with everything I had in VPX11 and earlier programs still available including Prodad, New Blue, and Hitfilm plugins.

The most noticeable improvement is the Infusion Engine 2 which is utilising the NVDEC hardware decoder on my Nvidia GTX1060 card during playback, for a huge boost in rendering speed of the timeline frames in my 960x540 sized preview window. Buttery smooth with H.264 4K 25p and all the plugins I have installed, without the blue flash symbol activated. I believe the boost is partly due to the rendering been done by keeping the frames within the graphics processor and video memory without the need to pass them back and forward to the CPU and main memory. This really comes into it's own where there are multiple tracks playing as in a 4K video collage or PinP where there is a lot of decoding to be done on 5 or 6 tracks simultaneously.

@emmrecs

Happy to report that Mercalli V4 still works and does not watermark.

No export problems with H.264 and either encoder Intel or MC, but MC does not encode HEVC and the export window that pops up is in fact a default to the Intel encoder.

Exports still significantly faster with the discreet (Nvidia) GPU selected instead of Intel HD530 GPU in the Program settings> Display tab. One reason may be that when the integrated Intel is selected, during export there is no decode happening on the discreet GPU.

@johnebaker

Program still will not start if Windows Graphics Settings set to Hi Performance and I am still on Win10 1909 with earlier graphics drivers than you.

Exports very slightly faster or same with most formats and codecs. Program loads a little faster or the the same as before. New User interface nicer / cleaner although icons quite small - not sure how small they would be on 4K monitor? I notice they have made the Key Frame nodes in the timeline a little larger and lime green filled to make them a bit better to handle. Bottom slider for timeline navigation has been modified to make it a easier to zoom and scroll with.

@browj2

As per another discussion we had in which I mentioned that it seemed that over the years, as Magix announced that the program was faster, it seemed slower.

Relax.....it is faster but as John EB mentioned earlier, Magix have not claimed it exports faster or at anytime in the last few years.

Can someone check right-click on the audio part of a non-proxy video clip and check if the "Edit wave externally" command shows up?

I know we have discussed this previously but it seems to me (not knowing much about that function) logical that this maybe would not work if the video clip was recorded as a compressed AAC or AC3 file and not a .wav / PCM file.

There was a bug mentioned in another thread recently that you said had been around for a long time. I should have noted it right away but didn't. Do you recall what it was?

Maybe that was the playback jumping back to the beginning of the timeline when playback was started and from the middle of the project?

One thing that appears to be still missing after the patch is the thumbnails for the Test images folder ie SMPTE colour bars.

All in all - very impressed in VPX12 - for the functions that I use at least.

Peter

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter

Happy to report that Mercalli V4 still works and does not watermark

Not for me! So, what is different between our two systems, I wonder? (I've just attempted to activate again, using the code Magix supplied when I bought a VPX upgrade in April 2016, still reported as "Invalid".)

Can you remember approximately when you first installed Mercalli V4? Was it later than April 2016? Have you ever needed to re-enter your activation code since that original install?

Jeff

@emmrecs

Hi Jeff

I do not think it is my system but I did discover that I attempted to install it with VPX7 in March 2016 and it rejected the serial number which was a different one than supplied for V4 in MEP2016 which worked in MEP. Support thought it was a typo in the serial and supplied another one for VPX7 and that worked. Interesting that VPX did not pick up the MEP v4 installation though.

I have not needed to enter any activation codes for either program new versions since.

Also does this post jog any memories : www.magix.info/us/forum/mercalli-stabilizer-changes-in-vpx9--1190579/#ca1328022 ?

Peter

Can someone check right-click on the audio part of a non-proxy video clip and check if the "Edit wave externally" command shows up?

I know we have discussed this previously but it seems to me (not knowing much about that function) logical that this maybe would not work if the video clip was recorded as a compressed AAC or AC3 file and not a .wav / PCM file.

There was a bug mentioned in another thread recently that you said had been around for a long time. I should have noted it right away but didn't. Do you recall what it was?

Maybe that was the playback jumping back to the beginning of the timeline when playback was started and from the middle of the project?

One thing that appears to be still missing after the patch is the thumbnails for the Test images folder ie SMPTE colour bars.

Peter

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter,

If you watch my bug video for the Edit Wave Externally, you'll see that on the same file (and I almost always test with the same files), I changed the external audio editor to various programs, including ME3, ACL, Sound Forge ACL, Samplitude Pro X3, SoundForge, and SoundForge AS. The only one that shows Edit Wave Externally with a right-click is Audio & Music Lab Premium. It should not matter what the format of the audio part of a video clip is, Edit Wave Externally should show up. In all cases, except for WAV files, of course, applying Edit Wave Externally does a mixdown of the audio part, replacing it with a WAV file and then it opens the WAV in the external editor.

You can test this with whichever editor you have that does not show up, by Soloing the track, putting a range on the clip, and doing a Shift+D, mixdown. Then right click and the command will be available. This is exactly what Edit Wave Externally is supposed to do and does for me, but only with AML - mixdown, create wave file, open it in the editor.

I don't think that the other problem that I am trying to find is the one that you mentioned. However, that one is still a problem.

I ran into a worse problem the other day on my Surface Pro. The image in the preview window suddenly looked liked a zoomed out version of the timeline, full-screen. I moved the project to my desktop and got it to work -copy/paste to new movie - but that did not work on my Surface Pro. Then, I could no longer start VPX on the Surface Pro. I renamed the ini file and was back in business. Strange one.

@johnebaker

Hi John EB,

Could you or someone please test out the Xara interface to see if the problem of the disappearing contents of the XAR object is still a problem? You should put at least two XAR's on the timeline, just simple things, like creating a rectangle in one and a circle in another, save, close, restart, check if the contents show up, if so, close, reboot, restart VPX, check again. It does not always remove the contents of two or more XAR objects; sometimes it keeps one and removes the other until the next time the project is open.

I don't know why people have not adopted this tool. It is the only one that allows one to draw on the screen, use smart shapes, do animations, create moving masks that change shape, etc. Drawing in Xara is probably the simplest there can be.

Thanks,

John CB

@browj2

Hi John

. . . . check right-click on the audio part of a non-proxy video clip and check if the "Edit wave externally" command shows up? . . .

It does not appear.

There is a condition where it does work, which IIRC, also ties in with the audio mix down - video clip has Surround sound and Extract channels is applied - creates and converts them to wav saved in AudioTemp folder.

Comment removed.

Will get back to you on the Xara issue.

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John,

Thanks for checking these out.

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter,

To make it easier to see without looking at my video:

Below shows ME3 as the audio editor:

Below shows right click on the audio part of the AV clip - no Edit Wave Externally

Below shows Audio & Music Lab Premium as the audio editor:

Below shows right click on the audio part of the AV clip - Edit Wave Externally shows up:

I have exactly the same result on both computers.

John CB

@browj2

Hi John

. . . . Xara interface to see if the problem of the disappearing contents of the XAR object is still a problem . . . .

I cannot replicate the issue so for me it is 'solved', however time may tell as I use Xara P&GD more for some experimenting.

Just for 'the hell of it' I also opened the saved projects in MEP - again no issue.

John EB

@johnebaker

Hi John,

Thanks for checking. Please check again after the next reboot. This problem also happened in MEP2019, so it may have been resolved in 2020.

John CB

@browj2

Hi John

Thanks for the explanation.

The only one that shows Edit Wave Externally with a right-click is Audio & Music Lab Premium. It should not matter what the format of the audio part of a video clip is, Edit Wave Externally should show up. In all cases, except for WAV files, of course, applying Edit Wave Externally does a mixdown of the audio part, replacing it with a WAV file and then it opens the WAV in the external editor.

I should have tried it.....and of course it doesn't show up but I was assuming it would with the MP4 files from my Sony camera which media info describes as containing PCM audio which are presumably .WAV format. That got me wondering what the audio file on the timeline actually was and of course it is a Magix created .HDP file, so no wonder it is not recognised as a .WAV file until you perform a mixdown.

So what is a .HDP file and it appears to be a mysterious as a .MXV. FileInfo.com describes it as:-

Audio clip created by MAGIX audio and video editing software, such as Movie Edit Pro (MEP) and Samplitude Music Studio; describes a sound object that has been imported or captured directly in the software; allows destructive edits to the audio data without affecting the original audio; generated automatically when dragging an audio file onto the movie timeline, or when importing a video file that includes audio data.

Hmm.......of course I understand your concern that regardless of all this it is very odd that the command only shows up with one particular external editor.

Peter

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter,

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, the bloody thing actually worked. I have raised tickets about this over the years. It has been on-again, off-again, and quite frustrating.

HDP - this does not explain why it works with AML. All it has to do is what we can do manually - a mixdown. If AML works, they should all work.

I tried with AV on one track. Edit Wave Externally shows up with AML but not with ME3.

I had squirreled away but lost images of it showing up in past versions of MEP and or VPX.

EDIT: Here is a link to an old thread from 2017. See point 4 and my other reply, second down from the linked reply.

John CB