Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q3Q4)
 

vv3 split screen help

I have followed sonic foundry's knowledge base for splitting the screen, create 3 tracks, upper is solid color media generator bottom 2 are video one parent one child, my problem is that I can't quite seem to get the hang of controling the pan crop effect, control of the pan crop field is difficult, any suggestions? ( I have come to the conclusion the 300 page manual is going to be worth the 35 bucks).

Maybe you could explain a little better what you are trying to accomplish. First, I would try this (if all you want is video 1 on the left and video 2 on the right).

1) Have TWO tracks with Video 1 on track 1 and Video 2 on track 2 and DO NOT use the Parent/Child control.

2) Use Track Motion on each track to resize and position the tracks as desired (i.e. for track 1 to be on the left half, change the center to X=0 and for track 2 to be in the right half, change the center to X=720) Note that you will ONLY see the right half of Video 1 and the left half of Video 2 at this point.

If this is not what you are wanting to accomplish, please try explaining again. Using both Event Pan/Crop and Track Motion together can give you a LOT of effects.

I am creating a demo tape, One effect I want to show in the demo is the ability to split the screen, example, person on the left performing a task, text on right listing steps to take. Basically split screen with two tracks running simultaneously. I believe that I have discovered something during my search. You either have to distort the fields, or only display half of each track, that is not to bad since the video can be re-shot easily. but that is what I want, to show the ability to create advanced video effects. (even though that may be a simple one).

I would definitely reshoot and position the person on either the right or left side and only use that half of the display OR use Track Motion to move the person over to the side and the cover up the overflow into the other side by either using Pan/Crop to eliminate the extra or covering it with a solid "background" color.

The text is EASY to move. First of all, you have to type short lines anyway (they won't auto-wrap). So, make sure you enter lines that are less than 1/2 the total width of the screen. The second tab on the text editing box is Position - use this tab to move the text over to the right with NO TRACK MOTION NECESSARY. Also, remember the TV safe area. If you are viewing the preview window (as opposed to external), turn on the TV safe area display and stay inside the inner line. The Position tab on the editing box also shows the TV safe area. (the button looks like two dashed squares (one inside the other) above the preview window.

Blured light effect
 

Hi all,

Im fresh from the VASST Vegas seminar in Melbourne and have to say that it was awesome!!! Douglas Spotted Eagle done a great job.

There is one question that I forgot to ask and here it is. I hope you can shed some light:

I have captured footage of local traffic at night and have speed it up to be very rapid. What I need is an effect that will blur the headlights from the passing cars as to give an effect that a slow shutter would usually do. Unfortunately my camera does not support different shutter speeds, so an alternative editing solution is my only option. Can anyone help me???

One thing you could try would be to put multiple copies of the clip on top of itself offset slightly. Chang the opacity of the top one to fairly low, the next one a little higher, the next one a little higher, and the bottom one at the full level. Then the lights would really be in 4 places at the same time leaving a trail.

This process is built-into the "Ssstttutering Video" tool in Tsunami. There is also a "Time Delay" tool of some sort in the Pixelan tools.

Pixelan have a plugin called Step Motion, which allows u to alocate certain gammas to be affects by the "stream" bit like setting a tracer on highs (whites) or lows (blacks)
best way to use this though is on multiple tracks (2 tracks) with the second track running 80% opacity with this effect, while the lower track is runnin normal..

i use thiw withthe DVX time lapse features to create a smoother blend

Thanks for your help guys. Ill give the offset on the timeline a shot and if it doesnt work then I'll have to invest in the Pixelan Plugins. Thanks again!

Vegas 5 on a Win 2003 server?
 

Hi Folk,

Anyone tried Vegas 5 on a Win 2003 server machine? I'm soon going to get a new server and I would like to run Vegas/Netrender on that machine ( I'd prefer to have a full Vegas copy on that machine as well, so I could work on any of the machines ). Main goal should be to use my current machine as editor and the new server for net-renders and format transformation using Procoder(if it runs under Win 2003 server... it's dongled so maybe not... )

// Lazze \\

With the most current version of Vegas 5 (5.0b) you DO install the full product on all machines for network rendering. Just remember you cannot legally have the full product open on both machines.

Morning(at least here in sweden :-) Ed,

Luckily I have 2 licenses - more or less. One personal, and one license to the company where I'm employed ( we use Vegas to produce small commercial films for web-sites. ).

But back to my original question, can I run Vegas 5.0B on a Win 2003 server? I run it just fine on Win XP Pro SP2 both with DEP enabled and disabled. Sonys website & manual says Windows 2000 and XP as platform....

Best regards,

Lazze Z

I don't 100% have that answer but I *think* it is YES. Give it a try and let US know!

I'll have the new machine within 3 weeks or so - will keep you posted with my results!

// Lazze

Vegas 4 capture won't work. Help please, I'm pulling my hair of
 

I'm using Vegas 4, and when trying to capture video from mu dv camera, all looks fine, counters running etc, but when I hit stop, new window popup "Capture complete" but it says "no video was captured".
What am I doing wrong ?
I recently instaled and registered Vegas 4.
Could it be because my HD is slow ?
Please help !

Marko

As a test, try this:

Go to Options - Preferences and turn OFF the "minimum clip length" option.

No, that didn't helped, same thing happens again.

Are you running the latest version of Vegas 4? You can get
updates at http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com

What camera are you capturing from? Are you sure you turned
Edward's suggestion off under the capture tab in that dialog?
Your description is exactly the same as the problem with that
option. Just make sure it is off (checkbox not checked).

Otherwise you may try disabling "Enable DV Scene Detection"
under that same tab. If everything failes you may want to try
out a demo of www.scenalyzer.com. See if that works.

What Operating System are you running?

I did it ! Thanks to your help. I think both setting you mentioned had to be aplied, as I can remember, in the first time, unchecking "minimum clip length" option only, didn't helped. Or is it my XP, giving me troble past few days, I don't know. Anyway, problem solved !

By the way, I'm using mvx10i (optura 300) I just bought, and I can say I'm very happy with it. Great cam ! Thanks again for help !

Marko

Edge Detection Plug-in
 

Hi Everyone,

I wrote an edge-detection plug-in for Vegas a while back, and I just discovered dvinfo.net so I thought I'd share the plug-in with you. It uses a rather rudimentary edge-detection algorithm, so it's quite slow, but it makes an interesting effect. You will have to fiddle with the sliders some to figure out how to use it with different video clips. Footage with high contrasting areas work better.

If anyone has pointers to an edge-detection algorithm that uses wavelets or fast Fourier transforms, let me know!

You can find the plug-in at:

http://www.mirkwood.com/vegas/

I've tested it with Vegas 4 and 5. Sorry that the installation instructions aren't a little smoother.

If you use it or like it, I'd be glad to hear from you!

Also, if any other edge-detection plugins already exist for Vegas, let me know! I haven't seen any so far.

Thanks,
Adam

Welcome, Adam, and thanks for your efforts. I modified your link to make it clickable.

Invisible Keyframes with Event FX?
 

One aspect of my project is driving me crazy. I use Video Event FX to set brightness and the levels ramp up or down as I move away from that point. I set other points and sometimes it's stable between those points, sometimes not, mainly because I can't see what's been set where. What is this behavior..envelopes, keyframes, or what? I can't find what I need in the Help file.


EDIT...Ah, I see in Spot's book that the Event FX dialog box should have a keyframe section. It's not showing in mine. I need to find where to turn it on.

If you can't see the FX timeline, move the mouse slowly toward the bottom of that dialog. As soon as it turn into an up/down arrow, click and drag upwards. Since the items in the boxes can be resized, it sounds like you have managed to resize yours to be hidden.

Bless you, Ed!

mpg files have no audio with Vegas 6.0
 

Hello everyone. I recently purchased Vegas 6.0 and am trying to open some mpg movies with Vegas 6.0. I get the video track with no problem, but there is no audio track. I know there's audio in the file because I can play it with PowerDVD. If anyone can help me get the sound working I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

Sounds like it probably contains AC3 audio. Vegas doesn't read AC3 audio. You'll need to use some other program to convert it to a format Vegas can read.

As already has written Edward - Vegas does not work with AC3 audio, there are some ways it(him) to deceive -
1. If a sound Stereo or Surround (2.1) - Install AC3 ACM Decompressor - after that Vegas will work with these files
2. If a sound 5.1:
a) If you want to leave it 5.1 - use, for example, BeSweet or Sonic Foundry Soft Encode, and decode audio to 6 independent mono channels, and after this spread out them on 6 independent channels. In Vegas creat project with 5.1 audio, and arrange 6 mono waves strictly on their channels on a timeline
b) If you d't need 5.1 - use HeadAC3he 0.23a to convert DD 5.1 to WAV


PS Sorry for my English

I appreciate the information from both of you and will consider what each of you have suggested. If anyone else has any other ideas I would still be interesting in hearing them as well. Thank you.

cool photo effect
 

I was watching the Science of Lance Armstrong on Discovery last night and they kept doing these really cool effects with still images. I think I've read it (and even seen it) on this board somewhere before, but it didn't look quite as cool as what I saw last night.

Anyways, I guess there's a technique to key out the subject of a photo and have it move independently from the background. It gives the photo a cool 3d effect. I've seen this done on a few users' sites and it looks pretty good. Is this done straight from the timeline, or do you need to open Photoshop up first and have two versions of the same photo, or what exactly?

It could be a similar technique, but Discovery's effect was really far out. It looked like there were several planes on one photo that were moving independently from each other. Has anyone seen it? Am I rehashing an old technique?

That's called the "Kids in the picture" effect. I've written an article for the next newsletter on how this can be achieved. The newsletter isn't quite finished yet, though.

To find out more information on this, take a look here:
http://www.pixelpops.com/videoproduction/battle.shtml

You need to look at the 2004 video too.

Full HDV 24p in vegas 5? or 6?
 

I have been noodling with Vegas 5 and it's 24p converter. It seems that you can only do a good down-rezzed DV version of HDV footage. Does Vegas 6 have the capabilities to output full HDV in 24p?

Yeah, that's it. Cool video you have there. Can't wait to read your article so I can begin to mess around with that effect. Looks like it could be a lot of work!

That's not my video - just a company that did a great job applying that effect and took the time to give some explanations on how they did it. It IS very time consuming to do.

Oh, right, just realized that. They did a killer job. When do you think your latest newsletter will be finished?

Hopefully soon but it's tough to put free stuff in front of paying stuff. :-(
It's really close to done, though.

new to Sony Vegas 6+ dvd architect
 

I have purchased sony v 6 + dvd architect + acid music studio. I am completely new to video and audio editing. I would very much appreciate any overview of the easiest way to use this system. I can't figure out the difference between architect and vegas. There are so many similarities, I don't know why I need both. How is it easiest to navigate? What work do I need arch for and what do I need vegas for and do I combine parts and pieces afterward from each or do I choose to do projects in just one or the other and why? Thanks for any input! Lisa

Short answer: Vegas edits video. DVD Architect allows you to create DVDs from the videos edited in Vegas. Acid lets you create music to be used in your videos made in Vegas.

Take a look at my newsletters - especially the "Beginner's Corner" articles beginning in the 4th issue. The link is below my name.

Hi Lisa,

Welcome to Vegas!

In addition to Edwards excellent newsletters there is also a selection of Vegas books you might want to work through, including entry level. My personal favourite is Vegas 5 Editing Workshop by Douglas Spotted Eagle, published by CMP Books. There are plenty of comments about it on this forum. It covers DVD Architect as well. Note this is for Vegas 5 - I'm sure someone (like the authors) will want to give us a clue as to when any V6 books will be available!

Just like Harlow, I played around for a while, having only done the tutorial in the user guide. It really is an easy application to use, once the basic concepts are understood (the tutorial will do this), and the depth of the software is such that you'll find new stuff each time you use it. I took a look at Premier and while I'm sure it's a great app, I just couldn't get into it as easily as I did with Vegas.

I lived and worked in Columbus, OH for a few years on and off (every other week - now that's a commute - I live in the UK). Lots of great people there. I'd love to say I have happy memories but the people were so friendly and so generous with the booze that I have very few memories left at all.


Good luck with Vegas.

Ian . . .

New Tips, Tricks, and Scripts newsletter released
 

The June 2005 - vol 3 #3 has been released. This issue contains the following articles:

“Kids in the Picture” Effect
Beginner’s Corner - Bezier Masks
Scripting - Replacing the “S” key

Also, look for a July 4th special from Videoguys. The special ends after July 4th so be sure and check it out quickly.

http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/vie...hp?p=2118#2118

Lisa - DSE's book that Ian mentioned is good. I also recommend "Naked Vegas 5" for a beginner. I hesitate to say it, but IMO, it's even better than DSE's book for the beginner. Each chapter presents a new set of tools, then some "real world" problems for you to solve with those tools (with explanations of how you should have thought through the problem). It's a terrific resource for getting up and running with Vegas.

Australia SMPTE Exhibition :)
 

I'll be there in the NewMagic booth with the fellas, showing off Vegas 6 and DVD Architect 3

http://www.smpte.com.au/conference.php

this is going to be huge.. not only are we showing off V6 in al its HDV glory, but JVC are also planning the release of the HD100, which will hopefully be ready by then, since it was bumped.

Heres the Blurb----------
New Magic Australia represent Sony Media Software, NewTek and Convergent Design.See live presentations of LightWave 3D and Sony Vegas ® 6, carried out by Australia’s best LightWave 3D artists and Vegas Video editors at their Stand C47.See the new Sony Media Software Vegas ® 6, the only software of its kind that combines real-time SD,DV,and HDV video editing with unrivalled audio tools. It provides the ultimate all-in-one environment for creative professionals –high-definition and high-fidelity. Key features include HDV support, unlimited tracks for audio and video, real-time play back and editing,and over 190 video effects and 175 2D and 3D transitions. New Magic will also feature Sony ACID and Sound Forge software, and NewTek ’s VT [4 ] broadcast live switching product, the world ’s fastest and most versatile editor for production,post –production, and graphics:live switching, real- time keying, titling, compositing, 2D video painting, 3D modelling and animation.
----------------------

Hopefully, i'll get a chance to play with the shows demo unit and make sure soundforge and acid pro 5 are running on it and be able to demonstrate how multiple apps can all run off it without a problem..

Ideally, i want to show how V6 can be integrated into a Studio and have 3 guys cutting scenes, one guy doing audio in acid and one guy piecing it all together... all feeding off the same media drives and networked like the Borg collective.. but that aint gonan happen.. lol
I dont think i'll get a chance to go that far or even assimilate non believers, but im sure i'l be able to raise afew eyebrows ;)


So come on down and say hi!!!!!!!