Buckle up

Before I pop the cap off this sumvabitch and let 'er flow, I have one special announcement:

Anna: I'm really sorry I haven't gotten you those pictures yet. It sounds like a hot idea and I want to facilitate it as best I can, but I guess I just don't have the "camera hookup" like I thought I might. I'm finally getting a friend to bring a camera over for me to borrow tonight, so I'll have the pics to you in a couple hours.

Moving along. What will follow is a very detailed description of the spot I'm in right now. If you don't find yourself wandering what I'm up to or why things are taking longer than expected, by all means stop now. It is my impression that people are wondering to some extent or other, so I'm gonna lay it down.

Part I. The Problems

The program I'm using to cut on, Pinnacle Liquid Edition 6, has been doing everything I want it to, I've gotten the hang of it, everything is great. Except exporting to file/burning to dvd/etc. I can make bad ass shit but I can't make it exist anywhere except on my computer, in Liquid Edition. The frustration up until now has been that I have to lower quality a lot of times or else the final product will be choppy or glitched in some way. I've gotten better at dealing with that. It's hardly perfect, but I can usually try a variety of things until something works. Again, I wish I could just hit the "Highest Quality Video, Go!" button, but at least I can get things done (it was a hard fight for the competency I have with exporting right now, this was the hold up on the trailer as well). The Anne Grady video presents some new problems. First of all, when I go under my handy-dandy export menu and choose Quicktime Video (hereafter, ".mov") the program immediately crashes and let's me hang out with my desktop background for as long as I'd like, so that's nice. I don't know how to approach making that work. I'd play with some options, except that would involve selecting that very first one of printing to .mov, which promptly ends that journey. I considered exporting to .avi and converting to .mov using some other software, but then we hit hurdle 2. Another problem with Anne Grady is its size in that it is significantly longer than the trailer (I know you immediately want to ask, "Then aren't we screwed when it comes to the movie which is way way longer?" but hold on, I'm getting there). Because the video is longer, it is more prone to f-ing up when I make even an .avi out of it, something that worked for the trailer. In fact, this becomes quite reminiscent of the initial problems I had and have now solved, but the longer the video, the harder to solve the problems. Often times I'll have to compress the video and use some codec to avoid glitchiness. So, I have eventually gotten this to work with the Anne Grady, but there has been a noticeable loss of quality, so I'm trying other things. This is a peek at the problems I'm dealing with.

Part II. Tech Support

Rather than try to solve all of this on my own, I consulted tech support to see if this might be common problems. Pinnacle apparently does not like answering the phone as evidenced by a handful of facts. First, they have a wide array of online help that you are encouraged to consult before calling. Second, it took me half an hour to actually get a phone number rather than a "did you try this first?" Third, you have to pay tech support $50 per question. Rather convenient when a lot of answers probably sound something like "get a faster processor." So scratch phone support. With the online support I did a number of things. I e-mailed a couple of question directly to the same tech support douche bags, so we'll see if they get back to those knowing that it is the venue they don't get paid for. They also have an epic forum that is posted on by both consumers and moderators (basically the same tech support people) where questions could be answered. I made a couple of posts there as well, and as far as I can see it, I kind of have to play the waiting game right now. In the meantime, I spent a couple hours reading through all of the forums to see if anyone else have ever had any of these problems or, as long as I was just waiting anyway, I was reading up as much as I could to improve my overall proficiency. I also spent a lot of time talking to Derek who had a number of interesting ideas that I also tried. They weren't useless, but none of them was "the solution" either. So, I wait. For either an e-mail response or a worthwhile post.

Part III. Anticipation

The best editing programs on the PC have long been Pinnacle Liquid and Avid. Get this... the newest program is Avid Liquid 7. That's right, the first indisposable editing software on the PC. So maybe I'll get that. After proving ownership of Liquid 6, it's only $200 to upgrade. The problem is of course that, the program is no doubt better, but not knowing the answer to my problems, it could be a better program plagued by the same issues, thus a waste of money. So I'm going to wait until I get some feedback before I make that move. Of course, if it looks like upgrading won't help that much and there aren't any good solutions to the problems, we're boned. Anne Grady will become very difficult to present at the quality I want it at, the movie will be impossible. That is why I also have to wait to see what kind of feedback I get, because if this problem can't be fixed, I have to buy a Mac and Final Cut. Kinda really sucks, but the next couple days will determine whether it is necessary.

Part IV. Conclusion

I'm stuck waiting what may be a day or two for the answers I need, and that sucks. In the meantime, at the end of this period of time, the answer will be clear, and there will be no more waiting. So the end of this waiting will reveal what is going to work (and notice I don't say the more common "which way is best" because best isn't the question, it has to be perfect quality, the only question is the price).

I think that about somes it up. Sorry it was so long, but now there shouldn't be many questions as to "where I'm at" with this stuff.

Word.