Vegas Video discussions from 2004 (Q3Q4)

[Marcia Janine Galles]

Hi all. Just dragged in from seven weeks of production in the woods late last night, and before I get down to it I need to know one very crucial Vegas thing.

When Vegas aborts capture owing to dropped frames (I've set my preferences to do that), is the footage that was captured prior to the abort ok? How much is recorded that is "bad"? Does it record a second or two, a frame or two, of "bad" footage before it aborts? Or does it abort at that very frame? I'm hoping there is a safe way of "knowing" so I can use the rest. Thing is, it was all shot 24p, and there is a possibility of a film transfer, so I need to be very sure I have clean footage to work with. If there is any question in the slightest that I have footage where I can't tell if a frame is missing or not, I'd rather play it safe and blow out what I've already brought in while I was having a dropped frame problem with my system (which still is an issue... have to track down what's causing it or do a clean hard drive re-install so I can get cranking). OTOH, with over 90 hours of video, I want to keep what has already been captured if at all possible. That's a lot of "real time" to crank through in the days ahead.

Thanks in advance,
Marcia

[Edward Troxel]

I believe it will be fine up to the point where it stopped. When set to stop on dropped frames, everything should be fine up to the point where it stopped - i.e. the dropped frame.

[Marcia Janine Galles]

Thanks Edward. A genuine relief.

[Rob Lohman]

Marcia, are you going to capture the tapes in one long file or have
it split them up into individual scenes? I do the latter and in the
case of dropped frames always recapture from that particular
scene. Ofcourse this is near impossible to do if you want a video
file that is 1 hour long.

[Stewart McDonald]

Hello,
Just for a test I have used keyframes to send a sound round my 5.1 speakers starting from left rear round the front to right rear using 5 keyframes. It almost works, but when the sound gets to about front right, it starts appearing again in the rear left speaker, where it started. I don't know where I'm going wrong. The surround panner animates where the sound is positioned perfectly, so I don't see how the sound can end in the rear left and right speakers, when it should just be right. Any ideas? I'm using Vegas 5.0 by the way.

Thanks
Stewart

[Marcia Janine Galles]

Rob, to save time I was going to bring in entire tapes then subclip from there. Logging first, then capturing the clips, is certainly the best way to go (like I did in my old Avid days) and would allow for easier recapturing as you say, if something goes awry. But that basically doubles the required real time hours (viewing, then capturing), and I desperately need to get into editing asap. And with 90 hours, that's a lot of time needed already. Thing is, I have someone at a studio, waiting, wanting to show my rough cut around to a some power players (a dad with a son impacted with this disease who understandably would like to help me get this story out there). Am hoping to have it pounded together by mid October, set to a score, etc. for the onset of the festival season as well.

So in your opinion, what I have that's intact from before I got the dropped frame message and Vegas aborted should be fine as Edward says? When I was home for a couple days mid-production I'd brought in around 10 hours of footage to check some things, and was having a maddening time with dropped frames. Something going on with my system, obviously. Still unresolved, but will track down what's going on in the next few days (more interviews today and tomorrow). But what I'd done at that time when Vegas aborted a section was back it up to the last place the speaker had begun a new thought, and restarted the capture from that point on, rather than deleting the entire capture.

I just wanted to verifiy that I wasn't courting trouble to keep that footage.
Marcia

[Andre Andreev]

Capturing:
- capture the whole tape and let vegas decide on the scenes.

Editing
- I view the captured material in the trimmer and add markers
- at the same time I move the fragments I believe I'll need onto the timeline and put them next to each other without being too anal about precision in the cuts
- I add photos / titles in the same rough, unfinished manner to mark their places
- I view the resulting first very rough cut and start adjusting the cuts for rhytm, logic, aesthetics doing my best to finalize them, including the transitions (dissolves or whatever I'm using). At this stage I view each cut a few times and also fix the additional graphic elements - titles, images etc.
- at the time of the second view i also pay attention to the sound and may add markers in problematic areas.

- If I am happy with the cut I go on to fix the sound which may involve many things - from using volume envelopes
to opening it in audio software and applying compression, using one channel to create simulated stereo etc.)

- Create DVD using DVD Architect

- If it's an important project I show it to people (wife, friends, neighbor - whoever I can bribe with beer and crackers) and ask them what they thing (and also watch them while they are watching - when are they bored and when are they interested?).

- Maybe make adjustments and create a final dvd.

- It's a wrap.

A few notes:
- When editing I sometimes don't use the trimmer but put the whole file on the timeline, watch it, and slice (S) around the parts I want to remove.
- When working with footage from 2 cameras, I sync the tracks (using a noticeable sound event), put them above each other and use the Exclamation mark button to turn the bottom on and off and see which view I want. Then move the footage I want to a third timeline.

What I would like to hear from others:
- approach to editing footage from multiple cameras.
- approach to editing music video type stuff - (many cuts, sync to beat)

Regards,
-- Andre

[Edward Troxel]

Capturing:
- capture the whole tape and let vegas decide on the scenes.

I capture "segments" of tapes but do so via Batch Capture. I do NOT let vegas break on scenes, I do so later.


Editing
- I view the captured material in the trimmer and add markers
- at the same time I move the fragments I believe I'll need onto the timeline and put them next to each other without being too anal about precision in the cuts

I place the segments directly on the timeline skipping the trimmer. Depending on the project, I then use Tsunami to extract the good segments.


- When working with footage from 2 cameras, I sync the tracks (using a noticeable sound event), put them above each other and use the Exclamation mark button to turn the bottom on and off and see which view I want. Then move the footage I want to a third timeline.

I usually create a PIP view so I can see all of the cameras at once. I then simply place markers where I want to switch cameras named to indicate the proper camera. Excalibur makes this process a breeze. After all markers are in place, Excalibur creates the "third timeline" or Master Track for me.


What I would like to hear from others:
- approach to editing footage from multiple cameras.

Click on the link below my name, go to the Newsletters, and read Vol #1, Issue #9 for 4 different methods of Multi-Cam editing including Excalibur.


- approach to editing music video type stuff - (many cuts, sync to beat)

[Glen Elliott]

1) Capture- allowing vegas to break the sceens up (ie sceen detection enabled)

I used to capture entire tapes, or large sections at a time w/o sceen detection but I found it makes fragmentation even worse as it's hard to place a huge file on a populated hardrive without fragmenting it. Besides I figure if I need the whole tape on the timeline I hold down shift to select all the clips from a particular tape then drag them to the timeline in one fell swoop.

2) Weed out the clips I'm using.

Usually I'll create an empty track above my footage and shuttle through my footage using the new drag the cursor ability in Vegas 5. When I see a clip or segment I'm going to use I usually extract it by making a selection and hitting S.......or simply by finding the start and end and hitting S at each point. After the clip is split I'll move it to the track above which is usually muted so it won't interfere with the viewing of the raw footage.

3) Go back with all the little slivers and segments and condense them so they are butt up against each other only leaving small gaps between shots from different sceens. It's at this step I'll actually start to pull the clips and assemble them over a bed of music....that is if the type of video your doing needs to be timed and edited to music.

4) Render.

I'll render whole sections at a time. For example while doing a wedding video I'll render the ceremony as one long AVI clip. Once I have all the clips...(bridal prep, ceremony, recessional, various reception segments, and highlight vignette) I'll assemble all the DV AVIs on a separate timeline add my markers for chapter points then encode an MPG2 using the DVDA template making sure I keep save chapter markers in media checked. That way all my chapterpoints are already made BEFORE I go into DVDA.

[Glen Elliott]

What I would like to hear from others:
- approach to editing footage from multiple cameras.
- approach to editing music video type stuff - (many cuts, sync to beat)

Regards,
-- Andre


Editing to Music: A lifesaver for this style of editing is to listen to the music peice your using several times. Get the feel of it's range and beat. Then go back while listening and keep your finger on the "M" key. Tap the M key to the beat, and or transitions in the song. Areas where you feel would be condusive to cuts and dissolves. I sometimes even close my eyes not to be distracted by the screen and just listen. Once your done you might have some minor tweaking to make sure your markers are cleanly on beats. I use this as my foundation for laying down clips.

An example of a clip that required lots of timing:
http://home.comcast.net/~g.elliott3/..._VIGNETTE1.wmv



Multi-Cam Editing: One word- EXCALIBUR
I'm spoiled- I can't imagine going back after doing multi-cam editing with Excalibur. It's arguably the most usefull script in that plug-in...I love it!

[Gustavo Nardelli]

Thank you Edward, Andre and Glen. I'm sorry for the lack of contact, but during the last few days I went down on a fast-track at work, could barely speak.

Will use your 'inputs' as a general guideline for me. I'm kinda lost, if you know what I mean.

Kindest Regards,
Gustavo

[Glen Elliott]

From the current wedding project I'm neck deep in....

http://home.comcast.net/~g.elliott3/...Prep_Intro.mpg

[Lars Siden]

Hello Glen,

Great work!

I really love the end scene with the bell and the overcast sky ( did you film like 2 minutes and then sped it up ? )

The in-zoomed-eye to white flash -> forrest is also very nice!

One thing that I noticed:

First scene when you super impose the brick wall on the church - I think it is a bit "quick" I'd like the bricks to come in a bit smoother.

Best regards,

Lars Siden

[Rob Lohman]

I honoustly don't know if the very last piece of the captured file
will contain the drops or not. I just don't know since I've always
deleted the complete file and started over again. Ofcourse the
earlier parts of the file MUST be okay, so having an overlap
sounds wise to me to make sure all is well.

If capturing is such a precious thing timewise perhaps it would
be good to look at direct to disk options? Anyway, good luck
hunting your problem!

[Allan Phan]

Good morning:

Now that WinXP Service Pack2 is available but I'm still not confident enough to install it. I'm afraid that it will screw up my Vegas 5 or something else. Has any try it yet?


Thanks
AP