Vegas Video discussions from 2003

[Randy Stewart]

Mike,
I work with Vegas quite a bit. You can render with lower bit rates by selecting Windows Media Video V9 in the Save as file type box of the render as menu, and then select a different template just underneath (I use 256K for streaming). Then go to the custom button and make sure Best quality is selected under the video rendering option. Quality won't be as good as you rendered with your show but quite acceptable and your file size will be much smaller. There are several other templates 512KB, 1Mps, 3 Mps, etc. to chose from but file sizes increase with each level. Hope this helps. Sorry if you already know this. Vegas is very powerful and easy to use. I learn something new every day.
Aloha,
Randy

[Rob Lohman]

Keep in mind that the Vegas capture tool can automatically
devide up your movie when it detects time/data (NOT timecode!)
breaks.

For my Lady X episode I captured the full hour and got around
120 files from it. One pass over the tape!

[Glen Elliott]

I'd have to assume he specifically chose a lower compression to show of the sheer detail in his HD cam, as these are some of the most clear, sharp images I've ever seen in a WMV. However I can understand how, at this compression...or lack there-of, would make it impossible to view for our 56k'ers.

[Glen Elliott]

I'm assuming your referring to ClassOnDemand.net's Vegas 4 DVD training series with Douglas Spotted Eagle. Yes I purchased them when I first started out with Vegas. I love books but find training visually is more efficient. DSE is very a very good teacher and takes time to describe every step of the editing workflow. I highly recommend the DVDs especially if you new to Vegas. I was having difficulty comming from a Premeire background- I had to unlearn my old workflow to adapt to Vegas's. The DVDs most definitly aided in my transition to Vegas- cutting the time it would have taken me to get up and running in half (at least).

To answer your direct question- yes they do both. The format they used is they have DSE talk to the camera describing each section of training in detail. Then they go to the screen view as if your TV (or whatever your watching it on) were the screen. In other words all you see is the Vegas app., and you can see him move around and navigate the program wich is a big help for beginners and visual learners like myself. It's one thing to be told where to go and another to *see* it. They even use tighter shots where one section of the screen is zoomed in to see the text in the various dialog boxes making it easier to view.


Beings I'm done watching them (probably 5 or more times over) and am on to DSE's book now I'll sell them to you if your interested. They retail for $129.99 and will part with them for $90 shipping included. If your interested let me know.

*I'd have to assume that it's only a matter of time before one of the Steves moves this post to the appropriate (Vegas) forum*

[Randall Campbell]

Rob,

I have used scene detection in capture, but I find it ends up being more work to open all of the capture files to then cut out what I want to keep.

I have a script written that does what I set out to do, but writes the original timecode info into the Comments field of the summary info since there is no way to preserve the original timecode from a script. This works in that I maintain a refererence to the original location on tape, but is not as elegant as what I was looking for originally.

I will be posting the script for others to use once I do a bit more clean up on it.

[Mike Eby]

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : I'd have to assume he specifically chose a lower compression to show of the sheer detail in his HD cam, as these are some of the most clear, sharp images I've ever seen in a WMV. However I can understand how, at this compression...or lack there-of, would make it impossible to view for our 56k'ers. -->>>

Exactly right. I used Variable Bit Rate encoding (VBR) with a quality level set at 86 on the first clip and 83 on the second. The native mpeg ts file is about 120Mb and the WMP9 file is down to 41Mb. That about 3/1 ratio with very little quality loss.

Mike

[Edward Troxel]

You can read my review of the 4 DVD set here: http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/post/troxel1.php

There is a 2 DVD set available at http://www.vegastrainingandtools.com and you can read my review of that set at: http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/post/troxel2.php

They are both very good and complement each other very well.

[Rob Lohman]

All footage is 30 frames (or 25 if you are in PAL land) per second
for an editor. Any. However, they can INTERPRET the footage
as being 60i, 50i, 30p or 25p (or 24p if you have such a camera).

It is ALL about INTERPRETING the footage. All CURRENT streams
are ALWAYS saved as 30 or 25 FRAMES a second in a DV stream
(even for 24p footage).

That being said, you must tell the application what to do with
your footage. Some people already gave some excellent advice
when you want to convert your footage from interlaced to
progressive.

MAKE SURE that all your settings are CORRECT and the SAME.
This means: the project settings, the footage settings AND
the OUTPUT settings!! (which a lot of people seem to forget
about).

I always shoot in frame mode and thus have the Vegas project
set to 25p (I'm in PAL land). My clips are automatically imported
as 25p so I don't need to change anything here. HOWEVER,
my export defaults to 50i which I need to change to 25p.

If you want to edit interlaced make sure everything is set
to 60i or 50i (PAL).

I hope this explained it a bit more.

[Rob Lohman]

Federico is correct. Here is the table:

VCD: NTSC=320x240, PAL=352x288 (MPEG1)
SVCD: NTSC=480x480, PAL=480x576 (MPEG2)
DVD: NTSC=720x480, PAL=720x576 (MPEG2)

All NTSC stuff is running at 30p/60i and PAL at 25p/50i.

If you want a higher resolution go with SVCD (most DVD
players can play that now-a-days and it still is a normal CD)
or DVD.

VCD is just that low a resolution, nothing you can do about that.

[Rob Lohman]

What do you mean with "no overlay" or "overlay preview".
Overlay is generally used when describing that the video card
takes care of getting the pixels into the video buffer instead
of your program.

Remember that you can undock Vegas' preview window and
make it fullscreen on another monitor (or TV) if Windows sees
it as a multiple screen configuration.

As others have said, I'd trust my firewire output any day over
a video cards conversion from a PC resolution with a non-
interlaced signal to a TV resolution with interlaced signal.

[Rob Lohman]

Also make sure you are using the latest version of Vegas (4.0d).

[Glen Elliott]

I just made an MPG from a sequence in a project I'm working on in Vegas. I noticed that in WMP the footage was actually displaying the correct aspect ratio which is odd. Technically it should be displayed slightly fat due to the rectangular to square pixel conversion.
Now that leads me on to my concern. With this project (wedding) I'm using the workflow of doing the project in sections and rendering them out as separate AVI's, then when finished assembling them in order on the timeline to be rendered out to MP2. When I finish one of these sections I chose File>Render As> Video For Windows (AVI). The only setting I change is quality which I change to "best". Now is there anything I need to change by way of pixel aspect ratio so that it turns out correctly on the TV....or is that set by default already. I'm just worried because this is the first big project I did in Vegas and have yet to output to see the results as I'm not finished with it yet.

[Rob Lohman]

If you didn't import weird footage and you set the correct
pixel aspect in the MPEG encoder then all should be well. My
experience is to NOT trust WMP with regards to pixel aspects,
especially with mpeg files!!

I view my mpeg2 files ONLY with a software DVD player like
WinDVD or PowerDVD to make sure it gets displayed OK.

When mpeg encoding you can set the pixel aspect as well
which must be 4:3 for normal footage or 16:9 for 16:9 footage.

Everything else should be taken care off!

[Glen Elliott]

Rob, I'm using the results I got from using Premiere/Procoder combo. Those MPG1 files looked slightly fat- which is completly normal due to the pixel conversion. However when I encoded an AVI I output from Vegas in Procoder it displays correctly for once. It's the fact the the aspect look correct which, ironicly enough, threw me off.
If my final output looks odd when I play the DVD on the TV you guys will be the first to hear about it. I just like to know what's happening at all stages of my workflow- I don't like *not* knowing why something is happening.

[Rob Lohman]

Why aren't you keeping it all in Vegas? I've had no problems
with this approach going from my XL1s through editing and
then down to SVCD (also MPEG2).