Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q1Q2)

Bob Benkosky · February 20th, 2005, 02:44 AM

So you take all of your footage that you shot and without any editing what-so-ever, not even trimming it all up at all, you convert it all to 24p?

What do you do after that? I don't see how that would be better than just having everything at least edited together, without any effects or anything. So if you have a 10 minute movie......edit it together, then produce the 24p from 60i, how would that be much different?

Although the only problem I see is with the audio. Say you want to mix into 5.1. If you don't no biggie, but if you do, then you are forced into having the sound be on 1 track of audio unless you copy a bunch of dupes onto other tracks to set the pans and effects and such.

I sometimes use Cubase to handle ALL the audio since it's about 10x easier to mix with than Vegas as far as using effects and writing automation. It does require an extra step, but it certainly doesn't degrade any audio.....if not make it better.

All in all, why is rendering before editing better? Would using Adobe's Magic Bullet 1.5 better than Vegas's 24p? I have that.

This would require some fancy managing of files, that's for sure.

Rob Lohman · February 20th, 2005, 04:39 AM

Thanks Glenn!

Rob Lohman · February 20th, 2005, 05:32 AM

Anyone want to fly me up? <g> Seriously, have a great time guys!

Rob Lohman · February 20th, 2005, 05:34 AM

The quality is NOT the same if you have done any effects or other
changes to the frames except a straight cut. Frame serving is done
in an uncompressed manner. DV is a 5:1 lossy compression that
tosses away information, so if it needs to re-encode (which it
needs to do for everything except straight cuts) you will loose
information.

Whether it is visible in the end result is a different matter,
personally I would just use the frameserver to get the best
quality I can. No need (for me) to cut corners there.

Edward Troxel · February 20th, 2005, 06:34 AM

Well... that wasn't exactly the question I asked. I wanted a comparison between frameserving to Procoder 2-pass vs rendering straight from the timeline with the MainConcept 2-pass. Then what was the speed difference/quality difference between the two MPEG2 files?

Charley Gallagher · February 20th, 2005, 10:34 AM

I know this is something that I am doing but I can't seem to find "Media Pool". It does not come up in a window at the bottom of the screen where it usually is positioned.

I can open and close all the other windows but when I click to view "Media Pool" I see no changes on screen. However music from the timeline starts to play.

Has anyone had this happen to them? The worst thing is that I can open any of my projects and they seem to keep the format that I last used when editing. This means as I try various ways to bring back media pool each time I open a different project media pool remains missing.

Very frustrating.

Gary Kleiner · February 20th, 2005, 12:29 PM

You've just docked it somewhere and just needn to shuffle a few windows until you uncover it.

Also try Alt/5.

Gary

Charley Gallagher · February 20th, 2005, 01:06 PM

Thanks, Gary, but I suspect it is a bit more than that.

For one thing I went to View and unchecked every item. I would suspect that then when I clicked alt-5 Media Pool should appear it doesnt. However, music starts to play the way it does if you select an item in media pool. If hit enter it adds the sound clip.

Toggling with alt-5 shows no difference on the screen.

Patrick King · February 20th, 2005, 01:13 PM

I had this happen once when I undocked a window and parked it in the lower right corner of the screen and then subsequently change my screen resolution to work with another program. Next time I launched Vegas I couldn't find my window (audio meter if I recall). Have you changed screen resolution lately?

Charley Gallagher · February 20th, 2005, 01:32 PM

Patrick,

I haven't made any changes but I went to the highest resolution to see if that was the problem. I am running two monitors and I have put media pool on one monitor just by iteslf in the past but not lately. I thought perhaps it was lost on another window.

In Premiere you can save you desktop setting. I think you can on here but I have not utilized that unless I did it when using Vegas Training Tapes. If there is a default setting somewhere it would work for me.

Derek Serra · February 20th, 2005, 01:33 PM

You need the Cineform plug-in, which also exports M2V files back to your camera/deck.

Edward Troxel · February 20th, 2005, 01:49 PM

Charley, I would try two things:

First, Press ALT-D, release, and then press 1. This will hopefully bring everything back to normal. If it does not, exit Vegas, hold down CTRL-SHIFT, and start Vegas. This will reset EVERYTHING back to default (including any settings you have changed in Options - Preferences).

Charley Gallagher · February 20th, 2005, 01:56 PM

Now there are a couple commands I hope I never need again!

Thanks so much, Ed. the Alt-D,1 think did the trick. I will print out your reply in case it happens again in the future. I managed to miss a lot of editing today trying to chase down that problem.

Emre Safak · February 20th, 2005, 02:31 PM

I encoded an 8 second clip using various settings, and found at that the quality was more or less the same at the high bit rates I was interested in (around 6 Mbps.) The encoding times are:

Saving to the same hard disk:
Mainconcept
Good: 67s
Best: 68s
Procoder
High Speed: 28s
High Quality: 29s
Highest Quality: 42s
Mastering Quality: 42s

Saving to another hard disk:
Mainconcept
Good: 68s
Best: 69s
Procoder
High Speed: 28s
High Quality: 29s
Highest Quality: 35s

Using a one-pass VBR setting with an average bit rate of 6 Mbps I ended up with Mainconcept encodes of about 6.6 MB (~6.4 Mbps) and Procoder encodes of 5.2 MB (~5 Mbps).

Conclusion: MainConcept better approached the target bit rate, but took much longer.

Emre Safak · February 20th, 2005, 03:37 PM

I just frameserved the whole video to Procoder, which encoded it to another hard disk at High Quality in 52 minutes (vs. ~85 for the DV route.)

February 20th, 2005, 02:44 AM	#646
Bob Benkosky Major Player Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Lake Park, Florida Posts: 202	So you take all of your footage that you shot and without any editing what-so-ever, not even trimming it all up at all, you convert it all to 24p? What do you do after that? I don't see how that would be better than just having everything at least edited together, without any effects or anything. So if you have a 10 minute movie......edit it together, then produce the 24p from 60i, how would that be much different? Although the only problem I see is with the audio. Say you want to mix into 5.1. If you don't no biggie, but if you do, then you are forced into having the sound be on 1 track of audio unless you copy a bunch of dupes onto other tracks to set the pans and effects and such. I sometimes use Cubase to handle ALL the audio since it's about 10x easier to mix with than Vegas as far as using effects and writing automation. It does require an extra step, but it certainly doesn't degrade any audio.....if not make it better. All in all, why is rendering before editing better? Would using Adobe's Magic Bullet 1.5 better than Vegas's 24p? I have that. This would require some fancy managing of files, that's for sure. __________________ http://www.veoh.com/channels/filmmaker My clips and films.

February 20th, 2005, 04:39 AM	#647
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Thanks Glenn! __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

February 20th, 2005, 05:32 AM	#648
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	Anyone want to fly me up? <g> Seriously, have a great time guys! __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

February 20th, 2005, 05:34 AM	#649
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	The quality is NOT the same if you have done any effects or other changes to the frames except a straight cut. Frame serving is done in an uncompressed manner. DV is a 5:1 lossy compression that tosses away information, so if it needs to re-encode (which it needs to do for everything except straight cuts) you will loose information. Whether it is visible in the end result is a different matter, personally I would just use the frameserver to get the best quality I can. No need (for me) to cut corners there. __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

February 20th, 2005, 06:34 AM	#650
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	Well... that wasn't exactly the question I asked. I wanted a comparison between frameserving to Procoder 2-pass vs rendering straight from the timeline with the MainConcept 2-pass. Then what was the speed difference/quality difference between the two MPEG2 files? __________________ Edward Troxel [SCVU] JETDV Scripts/Scripting Tutorials/Excalibur/Montage Magic/Newsletters

February 20th, 2005, 10:34 AM	#651
Charley Gallagher Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Collingswood, NJ Posts: 99	Media Pool is missing?? I know this is something that I am doing but I can't seem to find "Media Pool". It does not come up in a window at the bottom of the screen where it usually is positioned. I can open and close all the other windows but when I click to view "Media Pool" I see no changes on screen. However music from the timeline starts to play. Has anyone had this happen to them? The worst thing is that I can open any of my projects and they seem to keep the format that I last used when editing. This means as I try various ways to bring back media pool each time I open a different project media pool remains missing. Very frustrating.

February 20th, 2005, 12:29 PM	#652
Gary Kleiner Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Fort Collins, Colorado Posts: 166	You've just docked it somewhere and just needn to shuffle a few windows until you uncover it. Also try Alt/5. Gary

February 20th, 2005, 01:06 PM	#653
Charley Gallagher Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Collingswood, NJ Posts: 99	Thanks, Gary, but I suspect it is a bit more than that. For one thing I went to View and unchecked every item. I would suspect that then when I clicked alt-5 Media Pool should appear it doesnt. However, music starts to play the way it does if you select an item in media pool. If hit enter it adds the sound clip. Toggling with alt-5 shows no difference on the screen.

February 20th, 2005, 01:13 PM	#654
Patrick King Major Player Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Enterprise, AL Posts: 857	I had this happen once when I undocked a window and parked it in the lower right corner of the screen and then subsequently change my screen resolution to work with another program. Next time I launched Vegas I couldn't find my window (audio meter if I recall). Have you changed screen resolution lately? __________________ Fear No Weevil!

February 20th, 2005, 01:32 PM	#655
Charley Gallagher Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Collingswood, NJ Posts: 99	Patrick, I haven't made any changes but I went to the highest resolution to see if that was the problem. I am running two monitors and I have put media pool on one monitor just by iteslf in the past but not lately. I thought perhaps it was lost on another window. In Premiere you can save you desktop setting. I think you can on here but I have not utilized that unless I did it when using Vegas Training Tapes. If there is a default setting somewhere it would work for me.

February 20th, 2005, 01:33 PM	#656
Derek Serra Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Cape Town, South Africa Posts: 76	You need the Cineform plug-in, which also exports M2V files back to your camera/deck. __________________ Derek Antonio Serra Indie Filmmaker www.indv.co.za

February 20th, 2005, 01:49 PM	#657
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	Charley, I would try two things: First, Press ALT-D, release, and then press 1. This will hopefully bring everything back to normal. If it does not, exit Vegas, hold down CTRL-SHIFT, and start Vegas. This will reset EVERYTHING back to default (including any settings you have changed in Options - Preferences). __________________ Edward Troxel [SCVU] JETDV Scripts/Scripting Tutorials/Excalibur/Montage Magic/Newsletters

February 20th, 2005, 01:56 PM	#658
Charley Gallagher Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Collingswood, NJ Posts: 99	Now there are a couple commands I hope I never need again! Thanks so much, Ed. the Alt-D,1 think did the trick. I will print out your reply in case it happens again in the future. I managed to miss a lot of editing today trying to chase down that problem.

February 20th, 2005, 02:31 PM	#659
Emre Safak Trustee Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brookline, MA Posts: 1,447	I encoded an 8 second clip using various settings, and found at that the quality was more or less the same at the high bit rates I was interested in (around 6 Mbps.) The encoding times are: Saving to the same hard disk: Mainconcept Good: 67s Best: 68s Procoder High Speed: 28s High Quality: 29s Highest Quality: 42s Mastering Quality: 42s Saving to another hard disk: Mainconcept Good: 68s Best: 69s Procoder High Speed: 28s High Quality: 29s Highest Quality: 35s Using a one-pass VBR setting with an average bit rate of 6 Mbps I ended up with Mainconcept encodes of about 6.6 MB (~6.4 Mbps) and Procoder encodes of 5.2 MB (~5 Mbps). Conclusion: MainConcept better approached the target bit rate, but took much longer.

February 20th, 2005, 03:37 PM	#660
Emre Safak Trustee Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Brookline, MA Posts: 1,447	I just frameserved the whole video to Procoder, which encoded it to another hard disk at High Quality in 52 minutes (vs. ~85 for the DV route.)