Vegas Video discussions from 2006 (Q1Q2)

[Edward Troxel]

No matter which tool you use, the tracks have to be named some way for the script to tell them apart. There are three good offerings available: Excalibur, Ultimate S, and Infiniti-cam and all require the tracks to be named. If you already have Excalibur it will do the job and do it well. In fact, Excalibur 5 will build the project for you and name all tracks as needed - just point it to the clips and it will add the clips to the timeline and name each track appropriately.

As far as the loading speed - the first time is slowest (but still under 20 seconds on my laptop - plus this includes the time loading .Net). For me, subsequent loads are very fast (under 2 seconds) and the camera switches are way under 1/2 second in Excalibur 5.

[Edward Troxel]

There ARE keys that will constrain the movement. Try CTRL or ALT while moving the envelope points.

[Yegor Sak]

I recorded a shot, and I need to speed it up 50x-100x times, but I cant get it to go over 4x. Is there a way to make it faster?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

to speed it that many times, you either need Time Bandit from PeachRock software, or you need to render it more than once. 12X is the fastest you can do on a single clip at a time. Velocity envelope plus right click/properties/playback rate

[Yegor Sak]

Are there any free tools I can use? I dont feel like spending money on something Im only going to use once.

[Jim Hawley]

Yes, Ctrl and Alt do constrain X and Y. I could have sworn I had already tried that.

Thanks for that.

[John Rofrano]

Both Ultimate S and infinitiCAM will allow you to name the tracks anything you like for up to 9 cameras. So you can use your existing track names with these tools. If you don't like having to name your tracks something different than what you want, I recommend you try infinitiCAM. Just point it to your existing tracks and you're all set. For over 9 cameras, infinitiCAM uses the 1,2,3 method just like Excalibur (it’s about the only strategy that makes sense once you have that many tracks). InfinitiCAM will also build the project for you and insert and name the tracks automatically if you want.

~jr

[John Rofrano]

Originally Posted by Yegor Sak

Are there any free tools I can use? I dont feel like spending money on something Im only going to use once.

Yup. You could use the built-in script called Render Image Sequence. Since you are speeding your footage up 100x you only really need one frame out of every 100. Just have it render every 100th frame and then import those back into Vegas as an image sequence. If that doesn’t have enough motion blur, render every 50th frame and speed it up by 2x in Vegas.

~jr

[Gian Pablo Villamil]

You can use a combination of:

1) Avisynth (http://www.avisynth.org) a scripting language for video
2) The DGDecode plugin for Avisynth (http://neuron2.net/dgmpgdec/dgmpgdec.html)
3) VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org)

All are free. There is also a version of VirtualDub that reads MPEG2 natively.

You will need AviSynth + DGDecode to import MPEG2 TS (.M2T) into VirtualDub and decimate by whatever rate you want.

Actually, you can probably do the entire decimation in AviSynth, then use VirtualDub to encode to a format that you can edit in Vegas.

I use a combination of these methods to make timelapse sequences. It takes a bit of time to figure out AviSynth, but then it is almost completely automatic.

[DJ Kinney]

Just multiply it 12x, like DSE said, render it out uncompressed (if you're even worried about that) and do it again. Do it until it's fast as hell.

And if you aren't worried about DV recompression, I suggest getting a little lossy. Some of that natural furry blur helps high speed stuff sometimes.

Also, add a motion blur envelope to blur over any jumpyness from the extraction of frames.

Just by 2 cents.

DJ

[Derek Grimes]

Maybe tempermental was the wrong word. My issue is more once excalibur has made the cuts into a new track. In my thinking, it should be just that little splice of whatever camera you have picked. But, instead, there is a track under it. So, editing after you have run the script (taking out fades, changing which shot you want, etc) seems to be a challenge for me. So the real issue may be the fact that I am not doing something right. Regardless, I have used the program many, many times and it has saved me countless hours of editing. Hope this clears up my comments earlier

[Peter Jefferson]

doubletake is the free 2 cam script from vasst.. brilliant tool and non destructive if ever u need to go back and redo the cam switch.

[Edward Troxel]

Derek, have you tried the new version 5.0?

The new version is much faster and does not touch the original tracks. If you don't like modifying the Master track via the standard Vegas methods and/or using the Takes options, you can easily move the markers around and run it again.

[Phil Hamilton]

I have a 16:9 veggie that is fine but I want to create a 4:3 version. I need to change the video in the veg file using pan/crop to the 4:3 aspect. I am having to do this all invidual clips. I want to make one change and then affect the entire video track with all events.

How can this be done easily rather and painstakingly selecting each video event and modifying? tks

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

If you're using Vegas 6, just drop that veggie in as a nested track, and do that, or, you can select all media and use one of half a dozen free scripts to crop the widescreen you've got to 4:3.