Vegas movie studio 10 platinum problem
 

Can anyone tell in plain English a step by step method of putting several short videos onto the time line of VMS 10. All the videos have been edited in HDV format and are projects. As only one project can be placed on the time line to burn to Blu-ray or DVD, there must be some way of making a compilation disc of more than one video, but I can't find a way of doing. With adobe Premiere it was simple, you just exported as a movie, which was avi and that could be imported onto the time line with others. It would seem that the more I use Vegas, the more I discover things that I can't do, I might go back to what I did before, Edit on Adobe premiere Pro 2 and then transfer to Vegas for burning a disc. Any help will be greatly appreciated but Stick to plain English, I'm old and can't understand jargon. Thanks.

Go to the Explorer window, Select the desired clips, and drag them to the timeline. That's it.

as post
 

Sorry Edward, it doesn't work for me, I can't find the clips I want using this method.

Hi Roy, Does the "Show me How - Add material to the timeline" tutorial in the Help menu help? If you don't want to use the Explorer panel you can just drag clips from anywhere onto the timeline. Are we missing something?

Edit update: I think I just figured it out: You are trying to put projects onto the timeline, not rendered videos? Projects don't show up in the Explorer panel, but you can just drag a saved project onto the timeline from Windows. With Vegas Pro you can drag several projects (nested) onto the timeline, with VMSP only one. I suspect its just a crippled feature designed to encourage you to buy the pro version (OT - with Magix Movie Edit Pro, which is cheaper and has basically the same interface as Vegas, you can). With VMSP You'll need to render videos from your projects first, which I guess you used to do with PP2.

As Post
 

Hi Rainer. You are right I was trying to put more than one Project movie onto the timeline. I realise now that I need rendered clips. Trouble is I can never remember where they are on the hard drive. You mention Magix, I have that programme, the 15 version but I and about 2000 other movie makers couldn't get on with it, It is in fact a brilliant conception but the manual is useless to the non technical man and the DVD supplied only tells you what it can do and not how to do it. The help lines are hopeless, it took three days to get any answer, and then they couldn't solve a problem, all in all for us a complete disaster and hastily ditched. I find personally that all these editing programme designers think that all consumers know what the designers know. Wishful thinking, that's why the forums are full of people requiring help. Take Sony Vegas for instance They have changed the jargon somewhat so at first I didn't know what they mean. For example they call a movie clip an Event, they call a hard drive a volume, and what their envelopes mean I have no idea. They and all other editing programmes must know the bother they cause because they all have to put a glossary of terms at the back of their manuals which translate the jargon to English. Sorry I've gone on a bit, but thanks for the info you have given me and that will go into my own manual of essential information. Regards Roy

In Vegas Pro you CAN add projects to the timeline - it's called "Nested VEG files" So you could edit each section in a different project and then simply drag those projects onto the timeline of a new project. Or you can render each of the individual projects and drag those renders to a new project since you're using the Movie Studio version. However, even if you have separate renders, you can give DVD Architect each of the separate renders and still create a DVD with all the pieces. There's lots of ways to do this.

I think they had to do this, as much as I'd love to have it in VMS. But it does effective render the max video track limit worthless, as you can always just embed a new project with 4 (or now 10) new video tracks... =)

VMS is such an amazing deal for what you get, that's one feature I'm OK on not having till I upgrade.

as post
 

Hi Craig. You've told us what it can do, but I want to know how to do it?

Roy, with all due respect, you need to learn proper folder management.
I try to teach this to my students with varying degrees of success.
Anytime I start a new project, I create a new folder for it as well as several subfolders inside of it (music, graphics, captured video, rendered video, etc.).
This way I know exactly where everything is at all times.
It also makes backups much easier.

Can anyone tell in plain English a step by step method of putting several short videos onto the time line of VMS 10.

Follow the master folder step I just outlined.
Load up project #1 and render it out as an AVI to the rendered folder.
Repeat with all remaining projects.
Start a new project, import all the rendered avi files and render out as required for your DVD.

As Post
 

Mike. Thanks for you interest. My problem is not making folders etc. I've been doing that for years. It's when I open the folders the rendered videos are not there, so obvious my mistake was in the rendering. I have now cured that and have successfully made the final video in the manner I want it.
Thanks to everone who have contributed their advice, it has been much appreciated.

Roy, I'm glad that you didn't take it personally.
It's very difficult to judge how much computer knowledge a person has on a forum such as this.
It's also good to hear that you got things sorted out.
Hopefully you'll soon be fully converted over to Vegas and see just what a great NLE it is :-)

No, sorry. I was saying it can't be done in VMS, and providing a reason why; it would negate the 10 track limit.

Vegas Pro is the only version that supports it.