Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q3Q4)

Kevin Shaw · December 16th, 2005, 10:56 AM

Sean: for maximum quality it's better not to downsample to SD resolution until you're done editing, so you should plan to use either Cineform or Gearshift for the editing phase and then output to widescreen SD MPEG2 for your DVDs.

I personally prefer solutions like Cineform which allow you to directly edit full-resolution files, but the Cineform codec expands HDV file sizes and hence requires more hard drive space. With a 300 GB hard drive you should be able to handle a few hours of Cineform footage before the drive fills up, but you'll probably quickly find you want a second hard drive so you can keep multiple projects online.

Chris Barcellos · December 16th, 2005, 10:57 AM

I have just acquired FX1 and still have VX2K. I expected to use FX1 as a second camera in budding media business-- still using DV. Of course you can't help but play with HDV-- in the two weeks I have had camera, I probably sidetracked myself from my main goal because of the excitement about the HDV aspect.

Now, questions arise about editors in HDV- I have PP 1.51, Vegas 6 Plat, and I am even messing with Pinnacle 10 plus. I understand Pinnacle Studio 10 plus is based on Liquid editor now. In the past I have found PInnacle Studio programs easy to use in simple edits.

Ultimately, I assume there are different codecs used in rendering process. I had problems getting Pinnacle going, but finally appear to get a pretty good render out of it. What make the output of a Vegas or PP 1.51 superior to a Pinnacle product, if it does.

Sean Gallagher · December 16th, 2005, 11:35 AM

Thanks for your responses everyone, appreciated. I can't wait for my HDR-FX1 to arrive so that I can start experimenting. I've got to film a 3 day corporate event in February - I did this in January this year (single handed using a Canon XM2), edited the footage with Vegas and the end result even impressed me!! So to have the ability to further improve the picture quality will be a huge bonus.

Thanks again for the feedback.

Zack Schindler · December 16th, 2005, 01:11 PM

On the Amazing Race (and many other shows) an effect is used in which a scene starts at normal speed and then the motion speeds up and then suddenly resumes normal speed. Is it possible to do this in VMS Platinum?

Thanks
Zack S

Phil Hamilton · December 16th, 2005, 02:51 PM

And, if you go ahead and capture the M2T files you then have an option in your VEG file to output back to tape in HDV or output to mpg for DVD. This is how I am doing it in order to provide more final output options IMHO. phil

Edward Troxel · December 16th, 2005, 03:37 PM

The standard way to do this is in Vegas is using the Velocity Envelope. However, it don't believe the Velocity Envelope is in VMS (standard or platinum).

If you don't mind jumps in speeds, you could try splitting and using the CTRL-Resize method.

David Newman · December 16th, 2005, 05:54 PM

Connect HD 2.1 is now available. See www.cineform.com for details.

Troy Haines · December 16th, 2005, 10:58 PM

Hi All,

I'm happily editing away and Vegas 6c. I'd like now to add voice over wavs into the mix. could anyone recommend a setup hardware and software wise to record the voice?? I'd like to be able to plug a relevant microphone into the pc and use the recommended software to record to wav.

Cheers

Douglas Spotted Eagle · December 17th, 2005, 02:05 AM

I fyou have Vegas, you already have a great software to record with, now you just need a microphone. More information about budget and type of sound you want are fairly applicable. For instance, you could get a high end USB mic, or get a similar mic with better sound card...it's all about balancing budget and needs.

Sean McHenry · December 17th, 2005, 06:37 PM

I found the audio card on my main editing computer to be sadly, very very noisy. To get around this issue, I bought a decent condenser mic, boom type mic stand and a "pop-stopper" from Shure. I run the mic into an M-Audio Mobile-pre. It has phantom power for the mic, xlr and 1/4" ins with direct headphone monitoring and comes out as USB into the PC. I think it works pretty well but I am no expert on audio.

Just a suggestion. Douglas knows his stuff. I was fresh into all this again when I bought my setup to use portable as well as in the home VO studio. I hope I did the right hting and so far, It's worked for me for a few quickie VOs for some minor commercial and industrial pieces.

Sean McHenry

Colin McAuliffe · December 17th, 2005, 08:41 PM

Hey all,

Just shot an indian music video and I'm running into a major problem in post. My audio from the video is out of sync with the Wav file the client gave me! It seems like the audio from the video is about half a second longer than the wav.

Anyway, I shot in 24p (not 24pa) and I'm editing with vegas 5 on a 24p timeline. The client says the wav file he gave me is the exact one he used to make the CD we used for playback on the video and I know I've dealt with this problem before and I can't remember how I fixed it as its been a long time since I cut anything.

I'm thinking that there is either a setting that I need to change in vegas, or that the client needs to re-render the wav file in a different format (we've already tried WMA and AVI) He's using soundforge 5 and there is no 24p option as far as rendering is concerned, only 24 frames for film. would that help?

I guess I should add that it's not just lagging through firewire, I can see it lagging on the waveform. It starts out in sync and then gradually goes out of sync!

Arggh. help a brother out and I'lll give you credit as post-coordinator or something.

colinmcauliffe@yahoo.com

Ron Evans · December 17th, 2005, 09:29 PM

IS the sample rate the same? CD audio is 44.1k your video is probably 48k. Check the wave file properties and if it is 44.1 just resample in Sound Forge to a 48k file. There is about an 8% error if the sampling is incorrect or over 4 mins an hour!!!

Ron Evans

Josef Heks · December 18th, 2005, 03:17 AM

Sorry about the bad thread title, but i didt know how to summarise my problem in a few words ;)

Ive captured widescreen (not procinema) gs400 footage with Vegas 4. When captured and previewed in the timeline, the footage all looks pretty normal. However, if I go and render it as an avi, or mpeg and view it in any program (i've been using VLC and WMP in particular), the footage is much more saturated, and darker (different gamma?!).

If I put the rendered file back into Vegas, it appears normal again in the preview window. Vegas dispalys the colours as no longer so saturated and it is not so dark.

I used VLC to take a snapshot and I printscreened the Vegas preview window and then compared them. A slight difference is noticable, but for some reason the VLC snapshot is not displaying a proper representation of what I am seeing - when I play back the rendered video in VLC it is MUCH more saturated and darker than what the snapshot appears.

Im SOO confused! Has anyone got any ideas?

Thanks very much

Glenn Chan · December 18th, 2005, 09:56 AM

Vegas puts proper digital black level at 16 (RGB) instead of 0. It puts proper digital while level at 235 (RGB) instead of 255.

So yes, those other programs make the video more saturated.

What Vegas is doing is nice because you have a bigger color space to play with and you lose less information on the high end. You gain about 0.3 stops from the superwhites (values above digital white level) and you don't get color saturation errors/clipping from the really bright values.

The other programs are better for presentation.

Don Donatello · December 18th, 2005, 11:05 AM

if video is shorter then make the audio shorter - hold down ctrl key while dragging the end of audio clip shorter to match length of picture .. or make the video longer -just drag clip longer while holding ctrl

you shot at 29.97 ( 24 plus pull down) .. while the CD playback i believe is based on AC 60cyles per second ( these days it could be some other figure but it is not based on video speed) ... for CD to match the video it would need to play back based on 59.94? not sure of exact fraction but 60cycles is not going to match 29.97 ..

December 16th, 2005, 10:57 AM	#1442
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	Editors- Codec and quality I have just acquired FX1 and still have VX2K. I expected to use FX1 as a second camera in budding media business-- still using DV. Of course you can't help but play with HDV-- in the two weeks I have had camera, I probably sidetracked myself from my main goal because of the excitement about the HDV aspect. Now, questions arise about editors in HDV- I have PP 1.51, Vegas 6 Plat, and I am even messing with Pinnacle 10 plus. I understand Pinnacle Studio 10 plus is based on Liquid editor now. In the past I have found PInnacle Studio programs easy to use in simple edits. Ultimately, I assume there are different codecs used in rendering process. I had problems getting Pinnacle going, but finally appear to get a pretty good render out of it. What make the output of a Vegas or PP 1.51 superior to a Pinnacle product, if it does.

December 16th, 2005, 01:11 PM	#1444
Zack Schindler Tourist Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 1	Can I do this effect in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum? On the Amazing Race (and many other shows) an effect is used in which a scene starts at normal speed and then the motion speeds up and then suddenly resumes normal speed. Is it possible to do this in VMS Platinum? Thanks Zack S

December 16th, 2005, 02:51 PM	#1445
Phil Hamilton Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Dallas, Texas Posts: 150	And, if you go ahead and capture the M2T files you then have an option in your VEG file to output back to tape in HDV or output to mpg for DVD. This is how I am doing it in order to provide more final output options IMHO. phil __________________ Phil Hamilton hamiltonp@sbcglobal.net Dallas, Texas " I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! ..."

December 16th, 2005, 03:37 PM	#1446
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	The standard way to do this is in Vegas is using the Velocity Envelope. However, it don't believe the Velocity Envelope is in VMS (standard or platinum). If you don't mind jumps in speeds, you could try splitting and using the CTRL-Resize method. __________________ Edward Troxel [SCVU] JETDV Scripts/Scripting Tutorials/Excalibur/Montage Magic/Newsletters

December 16th, 2005, 05:54 PM	#1447
David Newman CTO, CineForm Inc. Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California Posts: 8,095	Connect HD 2.1 is now available. See www.cineform.com for details. __________________ David Newman -- web: www.gopro.com blog: cineform.blogspot.com -- twitter: twitter.com/David_Newman

December 16th, 2005, 10:56 AM	#1441
Kevin Shaw Inner Circle Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Sacramento, CA Posts: 2,488	Sean: for maximum quality it's better not to downsample to SD resolution until you're done editing, so you should plan to use either Cineform or Gearshift for the editing phase and then output to widescreen SD MPEG2 for your DVDs. I personally prefer solutions like Cineform which allow you to directly edit full-resolution files, but the Cineform codec expands HDV file sizes and hence requires more hard drive space. With a 300 GB hard drive you should be able to handle a few hours of Cineform footage before the drive fills up, but you'll probably quickly find you want a second hard drive so you can keep multiple projects online.

December 16th, 2005, 11:35 AM	#1443
Sean Gallagher New Boot Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 9	Thanks for your responses everyone, appreciated. I can't wait for my HDR-FX1 to arrive so that I can start experimenting. I've got to film a 3 day corporate event in February - I did this in January this year (single handed using a Canon XM2), edited the footage with Vegas and the end result even impressed me!! So to have the ability to further improve the picture quality will be a huge bonus. Thanks again for the feedback.

December 16th, 2005, 10:58 PM	#1448
Troy Haines New Boot Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Australia Posts: 14	Voice over recommendation Hi All, I'm happily editing away and Vegas 6c. I'd like now to add voice over wavs into the mix. could anyone recommend a setup hardware and software wise to record the voice?? I'd like to be able to plug a relevant microphone into the pc and use the recommended software to record to wav. Cheers

December 17th, 2005, 02:05 AM	#1449
Douglas Spotted Eagle VASST Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Stockton, UT Posts: 5,648	I fyou have Vegas, you already have a great software to record with, now you just need a microphone. More information about budget and type of sound you want are fairly applicable. For instance, you could get a high end USB mic, or get a similar mic with better sound card...it's all about balancing budget and needs. __________________ Douglas Spotted Eagle/Spot Author, producer, composer Certified Sony Vegas Trainer http://www.vasst.com

December 17th, 2005, 06:37 PM	#1450
Sean McHenry Trustee Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Hilliard, Ohio Posts: 1,193	I found the audio card on my main editing computer to be sadly, very very noisy. To get around this issue, I bought a decent condenser mic, boom type mic stand and a "pop-stopper" from Shure. I run the mic into an M-Audio Mobile-pre. It has phantom power for the mic, xlr and 1/4" ins with direct headphone monitoring and comes out as USB into the PC. I think it works pretty well but I am no expert on audio. Just a suggestion. Douglas knows his stuff. I was fresh into all this again when I bought my setup to use portable as well as in the home VO studio. I hope I did the right hting and so far, It's worked for me for a few quickie VOs for some minor commercial and industrial pieces. Sean McHenry __________________ ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m shooting on D.V.’ - my hero - David Lynch http://www.DeepBlueEdit.com

December 17th, 2005, 08:41 PM	#1451
Colin McAuliffe Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: San Francisco, CA Posts: 71	Vegas audio sync Emergency! Help please! Hey all, Just shot an indian music video and I'm running into a major problem in post. My audio from the video is out of sync with the Wav file the client gave me! It seems like the audio from the video is about half a second longer than the wav. Anyway, I shot in 24p (not 24pa) and I'm editing with vegas 5 on a 24p timeline. The client says the wav file he gave me is the exact one he used to make the CD we used for playback on the video and I know I've dealt with this problem before and I can't remember how I fixed it as its been a long time since I cut anything. I'm thinking that there is either a setting that I need to change in vegas, or that the client needs to re-render the wav file in a different format (we've already tried WMA and AVI) He's using soundforge 5 and there is no 24p option as far as rendering is concerned, only 24 frames for film. would that help? I guess I should add that it's not just lagging through firewire, I can see it lagging on the waveform. It starts out in sync and then gradually goes out of sync! Arggh. help a brother out and I'lll give you credit as post-coordinator or something. colinmcauliffe@yahoo.com

December 17th, 2005, 09:29 PM	#1452
Ron Evans Inner Circle Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Posts: 4,220	IS the sample rate the same? CD audio is 44.1k your video is probably 48k. Check the wave file properties and if it is 44.1 just resample in Sound Forge to a 48k file. There is about an 8% error if the sampling is incorrect or over 4 mins an hour!!! Ron Evans

December 18th, 2005, 03:17 AM	#1453
Josef Heks Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 74	Vegas colour differences? Sorry about the bad thread title, but i didt know how to summarise my problem in a few words ;) Ive captured widescreen (not procinema) gs400 footage with Vegas 4. When captured and previewed in the timeline, the footage all looks pretty normal. However, if I go and render it as an avi, or mpeg and view it in any program (i've been using VLC and WMP in particular), the footage is much more saturated, and darker (different gamma?!). If I put the rendered file back into Vegas, it appears normal again in the preview window. Vegas dispalys the colours as no longer so saturated and it is not so dark. I used VLC to take a snapshot and I printscreened the Vegas preview window and then compared them. A slight difference is noticable, but for some reason the VLC snapshot is not displaying a proper representation of what I am seeing - when I play back the rendered video in VLC it is MUCH more saturated and darker than what the snapshot appears. Im SOO confused! Has anyone got any ideas? Thanks very much

December 18th, 2005, 09:56 AM	#1454
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Vegas puts proper digital black level at 16 (RGB) instead of 0. It puts proper digital while level at 235 (RGB) instead of 255. So yes, those other programs make the video more saturated. What Vegas is doing is nice because you have a bigger color space to play with and you lose less information on the high end. You gain about 0.3 stops from the superwhites (values above digital white level) and you don't get color saturation errors/clipping from the really bright values. The other programs are better for presentation.

December 18th, 2005, 11:05 AM	#1455
Don Donatello Hawaiian Shirt Mogul Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: northern cailfornia Posts: 1,261	if video is shorter then make the audio shorter - hold down ctrl key while dragging the end of audio clip shorter to match length of picture .. or make the video longer -just drag clip longer while holding ctrl you shot at 29.97 ( 24 plus pull down) .. while the CD playback i believe is based on AC 60cyles per second ( these days it could be some other figure but it is not based on video speed) ... for CD to match the video it would need to play back based on 59.94? not sure of exact fraction but 60cycles is not going to match 29.97 ..