SOFTWARE HINTS AND TIPS This page is to post any hints and tips you may have for any software used in the film production process. General computing tips: - List your programs and plug ins on paper. This way WHEN your hard drive goes down you have a list of everyting you have. - Never defrag your video drives during a project. - Never upgrade software or drivers mid project. It might cause problems. - Don't upgrade software unless you really have to. What is so special about that new version of After Effects or Premiere? If you do, check the forums for other user feedback. When After Effects 6.5 update first came out called 6.5.1 people started reporting whole project files completely missing from their drives. - Following from above, if your system is working fine as it is, leave it that way. - Adding the latest, drivers, quicktime version, and updates can throw everything out of order. That driver update, now doesn't like your last Premiere update or plug in and things start to crash without you knowing why... - If you are editing a long large project, save the file to a cd or floppy and do a play out to dvd or tape every so often. Computers don't need a reason to suddenly decide not to load files or work... ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS Rendering errors: If the render engine is crashing, try this. Go to EDIT>PREFERENCES and hold down shift while clicking GENERAL. In GENERAL, select "PREVIOUS" to open a secret window. Set to purge your RAM every 30 frames. This way your render won't try over your memory. AVID XPRESS PRO Rendering effects: AVID has trouble rendering big chunks. If you have a video layer with effects on it, trying splitting the layer into little sections using ADD EDIT and render each one. Yes you will have to baby sit the system for a long time but it allows the effects to render. Black Filler: Create a Black filler JPEG in Photoshop and import that into your bin. Use this instead of the "Add Filler" command. This way all of your timeline has a picture on it with no gaps and will not cause you problems when exporting or doing a video mixdown. ADOBE PREMIERE Exporting for MPEG: If your are having trouble exporting for MPEG from the timeline, try exporting as an AVI and opening a new project, importing your new AVI and then exporting to an MPEG. Sometimes the edits can trip up the encoding. Working from a complete file makes this less likely.