CompuServe Thread

#PAR/RAZOR question

9 messages in this thread
#165999From: Peter KratschApr 21, 1995 7:26 AM
Dave, I have a PAR and Razor Pro. With razor you can edit/join (and add transitions) your .ani files from the PAR regardless of the order in which they were rendered. Razor also supports the addition of wave files to your completed ani. Here's how it works. Razor Pro ver. 1.0d comes with an MCI windows driver for the PAR. After you've put all the ani's and wave file/s into the composition window of Razor, Razor then re-writes the ani's back to the PAR drive. It then creates a .prj (project file with the same file name as the .ani) on your hard drive. Razor also creates a .wav file (also of the same name) on your hard drive. All you have to do is play the .prj file with media player and the mci driver plays the .ani on the PAR and the .wav file on the hard drive at the same time. Just hit the record button on your VTR and "presto" audio and video are dumped to tape at the same time. Hope this helps. Pete
#166091From: Robert C. RitgerApr 21, 1995 4:16 PM
Peter: PMJI, I appreciated your succinct description of using Razor Pro with the PAR. I am poised to make an RP purchase quite soon. I have a question for you about a method of operation. Let's say that there is little room left on your PAR hard drive and one wanted to apply transitions and effects to the clips stored on the PAR drive. Would it be possible to apply the transitions to .ani files but have individual .tga files rendered out to a non-PAR hard drive? If so, would there be a degradation in image quality if these re-rendered tga files were then sent back to the PAR (after clearing off some room on the PAR drive)? Thanks for any insights. Bob
#166190From: david W. mennenohApr 22, 1995 11:57 AM
Robert, PMJI, but I have had to render .ani's out to .tga's and then copy them back to the Par a few times. Personall, I didn't notice and more artifacting, but supposedly it does happen. It works for me though. DM
#166304From: Robert C. RitgerApr 23, 1995 12:26 PM
Dave: Jump in any time! I'm trying to get a feel for how best to use Razor Pro for adding transitions to animations which I have already stored on my PAR drive. What would be the ideal scenario: 1. Render to .tga format, add transitions in Razor Pro, save files in tga format and then dump the finished product to the PAR drive. 2. Render to the PAR drive without saving any original .tga's, add transitions with RP working with the .ani files, save finished product on the PAR. 3. Render to the PAR, add transitions with RP to the .ani files, save results as individual .tga's on a DOS drive and then copy them to the PAR. You see I didn't buy much storage for my PAR drive (1GB only) and I'll want to create a finished sequence which will require virtually all of this space. I will not be able to store both the untransitioned sequences and the finished transitioned piece on the drive at the same time. I'm basically hoping I wouldn't need to do this. Can you help me understand what I will require? If I could swing a new hard drive I would but it looks doubtful for awhile. Thanks for your comments.
#166521From: david W. mennenohApr 24, 1995 8:15 PM
Of course the easiest way is to render to the PAR first and then use RP to edit the .ani's. But if your finished .ani will nearly fill the drive you'll have to use another method. This all depends on your particular system. I try not to save .tga's if I don't have to, they just consume space. If you back up your ani's there's no reason to keep the .tga's around. Of course this is a matter of preference. But, what I've done is, in RP, render selected pieces of your total sequence, and then delete the original .ani files and then do an optimize. If you do this right the final join (DOS sw) will have contiguous files and not create another ani. Also, one thing to keep in mind. RP freaks out if you try to open a project that contains files that have been deleted. All of the transitions get unlinked for some weird reason. So, if you do this just select _any_ .ani file from the PAR when RP says it can't locate a file. The only thing then is that your sequence will look weird as all of your clip sizes will change but the transitions stay in their original spots. Knowing this, it's easiest to have the PAR DOS software open in the background and Alt-tab to it so you can delete files and such without ever leaving Razor. It's a weird problem. Hopefully it'll get fixed. I I actually wasted about 6 hours of rendering because RP unlinked my transitions when it couldn't find the deleted files. A support person at In:Sync told me to just supply any file and the transitions would remain linked. It works, but it's still not perfect. He also mentioned this would only work if you hadn't saved your project file in the unlinked state. Luckily I hadn't. I did have to re-render though. 🙁 I hope you get it to work. <g> DM
#166557From: Robert C. RitgerApr 24, 1995 10:58 PM
Dave: Hmmm, I think you are slowly convincing me that an additional hard drive would eliminate some future headaches. I'll keep your suggestions in mind when I finally get RP. Thanks. Bob
#166708From: david W. mennenohApr 25, 1995 7:11 PM
-additional HD. Boy, I know. I could really use one myself. I think I'm going to wait and try to get a PVR though. How come I always feel like the middle-man with money? DM
#166326From: Jamie CarrApr 23, 1995 3:20 PM
Peter, Thanks for answering the question ! Jamie Carr in:sync
#166327From: Jamie CarrApr 23, 1995 3:20 PM
Peter, Thanks for answering the question ! Jamie Carr in:sync