My "video out" from my Canopus Card no longer seems to work for Adobe products like AE. Don't make me choose between AE and Edius! What is going on here?
We are not sure the reason why, but when you go to install Version 4, Edius asks you to Uninstall everything on your computer that has anything to do with Canopus or Edius. At least, by default about 8 items are checked, depending on what all the computer search has found. One of those boxes refers to Adobe. The first time that I installed version 4 on a system that has a Storm card in it, I just went ahead and accepted all of the default checks. Presumably Version 4 would install everything back with new drivers and hooks, right? Well, apparently the Adobe hooks don't get installed back in. AE is so important to me that I ended up bailing out of version 4 and reinstalled the Storm card and Version 3.6. This gave me the original Adobe video out tool back. Then I reinstalled E4 again and this time left the Adobe unchecked. I now have my AE video out working fine again. Disclaimer: While I have been running the two together with no problems, I cannot say what potential problems this may cause. I hope that in the next patch, Grass Valley will include the new Video Out plug in that works with, not only the new cards, but the older Canopus cards as well.
On a recent project I tried out the new multiple sequences option. Then when I went to consolidate the project for archiving, the consolidate tool seem to save a lot more then it needed to. What happened?
The consolidate tool has not kept up with the recent changes of the program. If your project has sequences, the consolidate tool does not trim the unused section of any video found in the second sequence. In other words, if you had a three second clip in your second sequence that came from a clip that was five minutes long, the consolidate tool will copy the whole five minutes. I hope that Grass Valley will catch this and fix it soon. This may be conjecture on my part, but I believe that there are not a whole lot of Edius users that actually use the consolidate tool. WHenever I complain about the weak consolidate tool on the US Edius user group forum, I am met with silence, like no one really cares. Event producers with a five camera shoot of a wedding are not likely to consolidate. Broadcasters who do down and dirty edits for the news each day probably don't consolidate. Documentary producers like me, who highly value a good consolidate tool, seem to be few and far between here in Edius land. That could be why, in the rush to get version 4.0 out the door, the consolidate tool was not updated. Hopefully, it will get some attention on the next patch!
Closing the program
You are probably going to do this a couple of times before you catch on. I have been working with the program for over a year and I still do this! The
X in the far right hand top corner of the bin window, which is usually placed in the upper right hand corner of your layout, closes the bin window
only, not the program. To close the program use the X in the top right hand
corner of the "preview window", or timeline window.
The Mystery of the Disappearing Windows
The
confusing thing to new users is that, by default, Edius remembers the layout of your palette at
the time of closure and presents that to you the next time you start, even
if it is a new project. The next time you stat up, your bin window may not be where it is supposed to be. Go
to View//Layout and select "Normal". Or, if you are an Icon person, there is a handy, "show bin" icon on the timeline icon menu strip. Look for this icon.
Some users complain that even this does not solve the problem,
that some windows are still not restored even after normal layout, or "show bin" is chosen.
What may be going on in this case is that the missing windows are being drawn
outside the current resolution setting of your monitor(s). Change the setting
of your monitors to the highest resolution to see if you can find the missing
windows and bring them back into your current palette. If that doesn't work,
try setting your graphics card to display only one monitor, start a new project
and then try setting a "normal layout". You should get the default
layout for Edius for one monitor.
The Mystery of the Disappearing Clips
Most new users to Edius will experience the phenomenon of going back to rework
a section of their timeline to discover that a whole section of the timeline
has mysteriously disappeared! ------------ Gotcha! : )
What has happened is that at some point you inadvertently set an in and an
out point in your time line and then without realizing it, hit the Edius default
keyboard shortcut for, "delete all clips from your in point to your out point" - the " D" key.
Whoever programmed the default keyboard shortcut like this must have a sadistic sense of humor!
What is even more amazing to me is that this evil setting is still alive and well in version 4! Incredible!
To avoid this from happening to you I recommend going to the keyboard settings
and turn this key off or set it to something that is a lot harder to hit by accident. Go to Settings/Application Settings and expand the left hand drop down menu to reveal Customize/keyboard shortcuts. Sort on
"Operation", look for "delete In/Out" and change that from the default setting
of "D" to something hard to hit, or just give it "no
assignment" at all. Some people don't like to mess with the keyboard shortcuts, so that they will always be conformed to a "standard". I say, "this one is too costly to leave "as is". That is, unless you LIKE redoing whole sections of your project!
The Mystery of the Disappearing Project
New users sometimes complain that they started a new project and put a
couple of hours of work in to it only to loose everything after a crash
or power loss. When they started Edius again the project was no where to be
found, not even from the auto save function of the program. What has happened
here is that the program was never saved manually. For some reason Edius likes
the user to save once manually with the name you have chosen for the project.
Just make it a part of your workflow when starting a new project to always
save manually right away and then the auto save kicks in.
Unlinking Audio from Video
Often times you may want to "unlink" the audio track from the video
track so that you can move the audio independent of the video. Edius does
have an "unlink" function, but the catch is that it is only functional
when working with the VA tracks (AB style of editing). While Edius has provided a way for editors coming from other software to feel at home by giving them the option of setting up the timeline to emulate other software, they apparently missed a couple of details along the way. For some reason, Edius assumes that if you are using separate audio and video tracks that you want to really separate your audio from your video and actually "unlinks" the video from the audio automatically with out the courtesy of asking. Amazing but true! Try dragging one of your clips from the timeline into the bin and you will see two separate files represented for one clip, the audio portion and the video portion. Right click on a clip and you will notice that the link and unlink options are grayed out -that's not even an option!
However, as you play around with the clip on the timeline, you will notice that the clip still has the look and feel as though it is "linked". Grab a clip by the video portion and move it down the timeline and the audio portion moves along with it. Trim the audio and the video trims along with it. What has happened here is that Edius, while automatically "unlinking" your video from your audio, has then turned around and "grouped" your audio and video back together so that it has, for the most part, the very same functionality on the timeline as a "linked" clip. If you need to move or trim your audio separately from your video, right click on the clip and use "Remove Group" and they will become, "unlinked" - or should we say "separated, one from another"
Changing Your Scratch Disks
You are half way through your project, you've got a lot more clips to
digitize and you're starting to run out of disk space on the hard drive you
started with. You want to tell Edius to switch to another hard drive that
has more space. You've looked under every rock, behind every icon, consulted
reference manuals and help files, and you can't find the secret menu or icon that
allows you to change your "scratch disks". Well, look no further. It does not
exist!
The only work around that I have been able to come up with is to do a project
"save as" to the hard drive you want to start working with. Now
the hard drive that holds your project file becomes the drive that clips are
digitized to.
The Crash
On a compatible system that meets the specs of Canopus, Edius is quite
stable. If you find yourself crashing a lot, try and determine if there is
any consistency to the crashes. What were you doing just before you "poofed"
back to the desktop? One thing that Edius does not like is audio that is something
other then 48000Hz. So, while Edius can work with mp3 music files for example,
if they have been sampled at 44000Hz, they will often cause Edius to crash.
If you happen to have any of these offending files on your time line and you
scrub past one of them, chances are you will find your self staring blankly
at your desktop!
