Making vids results in creation of several very large files

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:23 pm

Hi,

This is my first post. Many thanks in advance for any help.

I've been using the trial version for 2 weeks, and I'm very impressed with it. I'm still trying to get my head round some aspects of it, though.

I'm using .avis (approx 350MB in size) to make fanvids (backing track, clips from episodes etc). I've made 2 so far. One lasted about 90 seconds, and the other just under a minute. I'm now working on a third, which will be about 3 minutes long.

I had about 20GB of free space on my C: when I first started, but I had a message the other day that the C: was almost out of space. I've found 9 files each of over 1GB in the folder assigned to preview files. They're .avis, but when I clicked on one (to see what it was) Media Player didn't show me any video (or sound), although it did appear to be playing (the scroll bar along the bottom was moving).

I'm not sure:

1. what these are, or
2. how they can be so big, when the episode file that the fanvid is based upon is only 350MB.

Also, I'm not sure whether I should use the same folder for both (i) preview files, and (ii) working directory. Any guidance would be very welcome.

Finally, I have my internal drive partitioned. Would it be best to have the working folder and/or folder for preview files on a different partition from the programme itself?

Many thanks again for any help you can give

daniel · Post by **daniel** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:42 pm

the preview files are the result of your editing, when you work in High Quality Playback mode.
You can suppress them by using instant playback instead.
Anyway they are there to show you the end result when you play the project and VS also hopes to concatenate them when you do your rendering if you checked Use Smart Rendering.

Your space problem may be due to VS exceeding its reserve space for these and other files. Check Preferences/Preview if the Limit Hard Disk To is not checked...

You can also delete the preview files via Tools/Preview Files Manager

About partitioning, my advice, but I'm not qualified, is to keep VS and all the rest in another partition than the Windows swap file.
I want to add that this question is less and less relevant as the years go by and the speed of disks and their cache size increase.

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:51 pm

Hi Housepiglet

And welcome to the forum

The preview files are usually created by VS when you have selected to use the High Quality Playback option

File¡VPreferences-Preview Tab

There is a Preview Manager that will allow you to easily delete these files.
Tools-Preview Files Manager

20 Gb is not enough to space to be editing video, especially if you are using Avi. (think 200 instead)
These files are very large. DV-Avi being 13 Gb per hour.

The preview Files Folder and Working Folder are usually separate.
I create a new folder on a different drive.

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:53 pm

Hi Daniel - thanks for helping.

I've just looked in Tools/Preview Files and I don't think those can be the very large files I've found. Only 4 were listed, and none of them was more than 12MB in size. The ones I've found on my HD are over 1GB each.

I've checked Tools/Preferences/Limit Hard Disc - thanks for the tip - but the box wasn't checked.

*still stumped*

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:02 pm

Hi Trevor - many thanks for your help, and the welcome.

200GB? Good grief! My whole internal HD is only 120

Perhaps I should get a new one just for vidding.

I think the .avis I'm using must be compressed, because a 40 minute episode is only 350MB.

Many thanks for your help re: the file locations. I'll go and sort that out now.

Do you happen to know whether there are any tutorials available on the web? I'm wondering whether perhaps I'm not doing things right. I've read through the Help .pdf, but I'm still not entirely clear about the best way of editing clips. For instance, I'm not sure whether I should go to File/Insert Media File to Library for each new clip I want to insert, or whether I should just insert the file once and then use the little scissors afterwards. When I use the latter method, though, I seem to end up with two thumbnails for each clip: one has the short part I've cut out, and the other has the rest of the episode.

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:13 pm

Hi

If the 1 Gb files have been created by Video Studio then a Thumbnail will have been placed in the library. Worth a look.

Other than that, what is the exact name and extension of the files.
If created by VS they most likely have a ¡¥date order¡¦ name similar to :-
uvs061206-003.AVI

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:29 pm

Hi Trevor,

It's clearly something to do with using High Quality Playback. I've just done a couple of tests and found that if I use Instant Playback no such file is created. However, I've just used HQP and now there's a new one called ~hr0066000E.avi. It's 982,745KB in size.

Weirdly (well, weirdly to someone like me who only u/stands bits and pieces), the 9 larger ones I saw this morning have gone. Phew! Perhaps they disappeared when I closed the programme this morning. I'll just try that... Yes: I've closed it, and the new file has gone.

You mentioned thumbnails in the library. I have lots of those: one for each clip I've created, and 2 for each of the clips I made by using the scissors.

Thanks for helping me think it through. I confess that I'm still a little confused, though, because I had thought that I didn't have the prog' open when checking the C: this morning. I'm not sure, though, and the test just now suggests that perhaps I was mistaken.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:29 pm

Do you happen to know whether there are any tutorials available on the web?

Suggested Workflow
From Camcorder to DVD

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:30 pm

Many thanks for the tutorial, Jeff. I'll go and take a look at that

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:46 pm

Hi Housepiglet

When you said 20 Gb I thought that was the total.

When working with one hour of avi you have 13 Gb to start with.
Additional rendering and duplicating files, temp or otherwise may need a further 13 Gb. Now your into 26, and that¡¦s your first video.

Video editing is very greedy, you soon become aware of good house keeping.

Create a separate working folder for each project.

Inserting Clips:-
When you insert a video file to the library or timeline you are creating a virtual clip.
Its just a copy of the file on the hard drive.
Whether you insert to the library or timeline first makes no difference.
You edit in the timeline.
Editing a clip/ thumbnail does not change the file on the hard drive.

Cutting clips:-
When you cut a clip once, you have two clips, now delete one.
You now have a clip representing half the original.
By dragging the yellow trim bars to the max, you will have the full original clip.
Its not magic, there just virtual clips.

You use the scissors to cut the bad frames, then delete them.

The final edited timeline/project is rendered to a new video file.
The original video file is intact/unchanged.

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 6:23 pm

Hi Trevor,

That's a big relief on the HD space front!

Thanks for the space help. I've got more than that on a couple of partitions. Perhaps I'll combine them, or shift some space from one onto the other.

I think it'll take me a while to get my head round the virtual clip concept. When I right-clicked them, every single one showed the size of the original episode, so I was concerned that I'd somehow spawned 30 copies of the original episode. It sounds from what you say as though I haven't.

Many thanks again to all of you - that was very helpful

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 10:02 pm

I also suspect that, given the stated size of the AVI files, that they are in fact mpeg-4 files of one flavour or another, using '.avi' as the wrapper format. If you right click on one of them within VS, copy the Properties to this forum, please.

I suspect they are in fact likely to be either DivX or XVid files. These are extremely highly compressed, but usually good quality, videos. However, they are meant to be viewed rather than editing. Some editing is of course possible, but can lead to problems.

And if you are converting them to burn to a DVD, then you will be losing some quality in this conversion.

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 10:58 pm

Hi Ken,

I right-clicked and saw the following info:

File Format: Windows Media Video
Data rate: 693 kbps
Video: Windows Media Video V8
24 bits, 352 x 288, 30.000 frames/sec
Audio: Widows Media Audio 9.2
44.100 KHz, 16 bits, Stereo
Aspect ratio: 1.22: 1.00
Is editable: Yes

I'm just using them to make fanvids for a television programme I watch. They're for posting on the internet: just for fun.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Fri Apr 13, 2007 11:01 pm

Ok. WMV is another heavily compressed format, which also causes problems when converting. But since you are using them for reposting on the web, they sound find...

Housepiglet · Post by **Housepiglet** » Sat Apr 14, 2007 12:33 am

Doh... I clicked on the wrong file. Sorry. That's one I made. This is the correct info.

Microsoft AVI Files - Open DML
358,052KB
23.976 frames per/sec
Data rate: 136.87 kbps

Video
Compression: XviD MPEG-4 Codec
Attributes: 24 bits, 624 x 352
Total frames: 62,015