Subject:Very slow 'completion activity'

Posted by: Sargan

Date:2/7/2014 9:30:34 AM

Soundforge Studio 10
Movie Studio Platinum Suite 12

Could I check on my workflow ...
I open a new Movie Studio project, drop in media, edit as necessary.
Once complete I then select audio track right click and 'open in Audio editor'
It opens in SoundForge ... I edit, usually normalise and maybe some restore processing.
When finished I click to close window (or save) and then 2 things ... I get message saying I can't save Metadata, do I want to proceed (yes)
Then I have to wait quite some time while bottom progress bar creeps along ... can be 12 - 15 mins for a 1Hr track.
Once completed - when I go back to movie studio I have to wait again while it's progress bar runs its course ... and during this time on time line the message is building peaks (on Audio track) and medi offline (on video track) .. this can take 5 - 10 mins.


I have a fast PC and good graphics card ..... PC never goes much above 25% processor utilization .... is there anything else I can do to speed this up ?

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: rraud

Date:2/7/2014 10:49:54 AM

What format are the audio files? Some formats do not support saving or automatic transfer of metadata.
FWIW, It's safer (non-destructive) to "Open copy in audio editor". But that wouldn't save the metadata either.

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: Sargan

Date:2/8/2014 5:43:41 AM

The audio is embedded as files are Type 2 DV (conversion from VHS tapes)
1536Kb PCM 48KHz 16bit 2 Chn stereo

The concern really is incredibly long time
# process fore example a normalise ... can take 10 mins or more
# the time to put the audio back into timeline often even longer
# time to 'build peaks'

loads of processor time available, does not seem to use it.

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:2/8/2014 7:54:05 AM

Part of that is because it is embedded audio. Sound Forge may only process the audio portion of the file, but it still has to read through all the video data blocks to get to the audio. Since a DV file is typically about 25MB/sec while a WAV file is about 0.18MB/sec, it takes Sound Forge about 136 times as long to process the audio in the DV file.

Using "open copy" would cut this time down dramatically.

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: Sargan

Date:2/9/2014 2:05:35 PM

OK ... I'll do that in future - when I save it if I use a ".wav" format is that as close as I can get to original ? ...
Ultimately is will be AC3 on the DVD, but as Soundforge does not offer AC3 .... should I stick to ".wav"

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:2/9/2014 6:25:08 PM

WAV will be the same format that the sound was in inside the DV file. That's not important though. What is important is that WAV is uncompressed and therefore doesn't lose any quality.

For the same reason, encoding to AC3 should be avoided until the last step, so that you're not re-editing a compressed, lossy format.

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: Sargan

Date:2/10/2014 10:49:36 AM

Just to get steps right ..

Open copy in SF
Edit as necessary
Save as ".wav"
Then back in Movie Studio ungroup audio from video, delete it and then import media - new ".wav' file and drop on timeline & line up.

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: musicvid10

Date:2/10/2014 12:13:41 PM

Just make sure to select and open the audio track only in Sound Forge. Not the video . . .

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: rraud

Date:2/10/2014 12:56:04 PM

"delete it and then import media - new ".wav' file and drop on timeline & line up"
> When using the 'Open copy in audio editor, you should not have to do anything in Vegas, a new file is automatically added to the timeline as a 'take', over the top of the original. The 'takes' can be toggled (back/forth) with the <T> keyboard shortcut... (assuming Vegas MS is similar to Vegas Pro)

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: Sargan

Date:2/11/2014 7:36:37 AM

OK ... just tried that .. it works, didn't know you could do that :-)

However still part issue ... I do a 'open copy' edit and then 'save' ... return to Movie Studio.
A sound file appears as you correctly advise ... take 2

When I go back to Movie Studio I still have to wait several minutes ... as timeline shows 'Media Offline' have to wait until that returns. Any way to speed that up ... loads of processor mips available.

Also now easy to tell if this new Take is active .. It could be original audio or Take 2 ... there is no 'label' to say what track is on the timeline ?
I thought there was a way to show media file names on associated tracks on timeline but can't find such an option.

If I go to timeline and do a right click > take I can see takes & original, is there a way to get those names on timeline or on track identifier.

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: rraud

Date:2/11/2014 10:14:54 AM

"'Media Offline' have to wait until that returns. Any way to speed that up ... loads of processor mips available"
Do you have "Save temporary files" enabled, this saves the waveform builds in a small <.skf> file and speeds things up significantly when re-opening a project.
However, I do not recall at this moment how to set this parameter and currently don't have Vegas or SF available.

"is there a way to get those names on timeline or on track identifier"
Yes, in Vegas.. the file name can be shown on the event, you can change it as well w/o renaming the file...
but as before, I do not recall how and currently don't have Vegas available.

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: Chienworks

Date:2/11/2014 3:35:07 PM

View / Show active take information.

This also shows the source clip names even in events that aren't multiple takes.

Subject:RE: Very slow 'completion activity'

Reply by: Sargan

Date:2/12/2014 7:52:01 AM

That worked - thanks