http://www.sharbor.com/build-yours/vegas/

Cool. Maybe they should include a copy of Tsunami with each one! I also find it interesting the Vegas is listed under "Video Editing Card"

Edward! You didn't tell me you were into PC building - as well?!?! - "With every copy of our new Editing tool for Vegas you get a Free PC!" Edward, don't know HOW you do it - honest?!?!

Grazie

I can't seem to customize the dern prices... I keep getting 0.00. Does this mean I get one for free?

But, Grazie, then I'd have to charge over $3000 for Tsunami instead of $30 :-)

Imran, maybe you should call and ask them if they're free? After all, that's what the website said! :-)

(ps. if they are, I'll take one!)

Couple things... I'm doing something screwy here, and can't figure out what.

a) On an over exposed shot, when I adjust to make everything look richer, the dress on one young woman changes shades and becomes too blue. I dropped on the secondary color correct to isolate her dress, and couldn't get the "show Mask" to do anything/show up so I could extend the range to get the parts in both the shade and the sun. I've used "show mask" successfully before but can't figure out what I toggled on/off this particular time around. I removed the effect, tried again. Nothing. I checked the preview FX window, but that wasn't it. Restarted Vegas and "show mask" worked fine. What do I look for that I might be doing wrong or have accidentally hit/turned on when that happens?

b) When applying effects that are meant to last for the duration of the event, as opposed to the frame I'm parked on (which I'm using to spot for the changes I'm making) if I set an in/out point shouldn't it "take" for that whole section? Not sure why I'm seeing changes in the numbers over time as the clip plays. (sigh)

Not sure about your first problem. You may want to try soloing that track. Or maybe check the split screen options?

For the second one, you have to set the proper keyframes. Apparently you have two keyframes on the keyframe timeline. What you are seeing is it changing gradually from the values in the first keyframe to the values in the second keyframe. If you don't want the values to change, make sure both keyframes are the same (copy the first one and paste it on the second one, for example).

Yeah someone should put ALL the options on and go ahead and order it. Make printouts and copies for your records and when they try and bill your credit card $6,000 contest that the website stated it was $0.

Seriously though they are probably ashamed to post their prices- they are sky high. I can build the same thing for literally half the price. That's some major overhead!

It doesn't look like the card would automatically be charged anything but the $20 shipping. But that is sad. I built a system much better than those, a month and a half ago, for less than half of what they are charging.

I am wondering does Vegas support GL2's frame movie mode footage? I've heard they support 24P, but dunno about the frame movie mode....

Another question is that I notice in Vegas, you open new footage that is 24P or regular NTSC which is the 29.97fps... What happens if you DO use frame movie mode on the GL2 or other camcorder, then try to save/open as 29.97fps or 24fps? This might be one of those FAQs....

Just treat it normally. Capture normally, edit normally, and print normally.

This is the most successfull set of preferences I've used for exporting to quicktime. Please share yours.

http://www.instantclassic.org/ftp/weeklydv-settings-main.gif
http://www.instantclassic.org/ftp/weeklydv-settings-video.gif
http://www.instantclassic.org/ftp/weeklydv-settings-audio.gif
http://www.instantclassic.org/ftp/weeklydv-settings-streaming.gif

-- Andre

Vegas usually knows the clip is frame mode. it plays it back same as any 29.97 clip ( interlace). from vegas explorer you can highlight a clip and vegas will give you the clips specs below IE:720x480x24, 29.97fps then it will say either interlace or progressive ( frame mode).

you can set up your project properties as 24fps .. then vegas will delete frames/fields during play back so it equals 24fps. frame mode usually comes out quite "jerkey" played back as 24fps.

Bump

Has anyone else used this book? I'm thinking of ordering it from Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1578202191/qid=1077246940/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-0703569-1419869 ) but I'm not sure if I should. Is it very helpful for someone totally new to Vegas and somewhat new to working with video?

Yes, it is a good book. So are all of the other resources mentioned in this thread.

I can definitely recommend the book and DVDs by Douglas Spotted Eagle as well as the DVDs by Gary Kleiner. Also look at my newsletters mentioned above.

Thanks for the info Edward! Nice tips!

I would set the project to 30p (or 24p if you want) and not at
interlaced.

It would be nice if you included how large a movie would get for
a specific number of minutes/seconds. On our Lady X project
we use the Sorenson codec with IMU 4:1 audio @ 22 khz. Our
video is 320x180 (widescreen). We get 7 minutes in 35 MB or
something.

I'm always wondering why everyone is choosing good on their
render settings and not best...

Qdesign for audio sounds crappy unless you get the pro codec. MPEG4 audio is good, but needs QT6 to play back.

sorenson3 is the best video codec I believe, definitely better than MPEG4 video at low bitrates. The pro version of the sorenson3 codec will give you better quality.

So, does anyone here use any major (or minor) 3-D applications in conjunction with Vegas?

I have been experimenting with Bryce 5 animating some moving text against a green background and have found that Vegas does a great job at chroma keying out the green. I am getting some transparency on the text's surface (reflections on the texture in Bryce I am assuming), but I'm sure this is correctable.

I am suprised how easily V4 & Bryce play together (though I shouldn't be).

Also, has anyone happened upon the cool "Monty-Python" animation tecnique that is SO simple to do in Vegas with alpha channels?
Vegas keyframing rules!

Shane

As others have stated- treat it normally, after all it IS. It's still 29.97fps interlaced. The fields are doubled giving it a film'ic "look", however in reality it's no different than any other 29.97 interlaced footage in regards to working with it in an NLE's timeline.

There was a discussion about this on the Vegas Forums on DMN that might be of interest:
http://dmnforums.com/cgi-bin/displaywwugpost.cgi?forum=sonic-foundry_vegas&post=040113185041.htm

I don't happen to use one but am not surprised that Vegas works well with them.

When I bring my frame mode clips into Vegas, I set the project properties to progressive. Is there some reason not to do that? It sure does render a lot faster that way.

Hey all, just wondering if anyone has the defualt track motion frames, as for some reason, mine have all vanished, and i can only view frames which i have cretead and saved.

basically, ive lost all my Widescreen, NTSC and PAL default configs..

I dont particularly want to reinstall vegas, but if anyone knwos where i can find the config files which i can just throw into my vegas install directory, that would be great.

thanks in advance
Pete

You may try a repair install instead of a full uninstall/reinstall. However, you *may* have to resort to the full uninstall/reinstall to get them back. The default presets are not something that's easily copied between machines.

Edward,

I can now produce MPEG2 files using the default settings in Vegas and have MyDVD burn the DVD. It works the first time I try the burn. If I make changes to the project in Vegas, re-render as an MPEG2 file and use MyDVD to burn another updated version, MyDVD balks at writing the file and issues an 'invalid mpeg2 file' error.

I noticed that MyDVD creates a sub-folder during the first burn attempt. It uses the MPEG2 filename and a suffix of '_ses'. As long as that sub-folder exists, I can't get a successful repeat burn.
If I delete that folder, then the very same MPEG2 file burns fine.

I don't understand why, but if I want to reuse a filename for an updated version, I must delete that filename_ses folder and then MyDVD is happy to burn the disk.

This explains why I could get a draft version to burn okay and then MyDVD wouldn't burn the finished project under the same name.

What made me suspicious of the filename_ses folder is the way MyDVD handles the saving of the DVD project. It prompts for a project name and then creates a sub-folder with that name under the MYDVD's folder. At the prompt, if you duplicate an existing name, it doesn't ask if you want to replace the existing file, if refuses to let you continue until you give it a different name. I'm in the habit of deleting this pesky DVD project folder before attempting a new burn.

Have you ever seen this problem?

Joseph


Joseph

Hi all,
I've been trying to track down something, and while I now know what's going on, I can't figure out how to correct it.

There's a blue flare on the side of the grooms face, at the jaw line, which didn't show up on my TV's at home (saw it on the father of the bride's huge new set) until I cranked up the color past where I normally have it on my own sets. I then managed to zoom in, in Vegas (after figuring out where to look), and spotted, albiet faintly, what shows blue on his. Thing is, the wedding was outside, in the shade of a beautiful arbor, but over the groom's shoulder the sun blasts away on the guests. And it's that light that's causing the blue. I've tried the Broadcast filter, and even pulled it down further than the most extreme setting, but that only trashes the whole shot. The blue remained. I tried several layers of the secondary color correct, with each layer carefully nabbing a little more which I shifted toward flesh tone, then lowered the saturation way down. At present it looks passable, but I'm concerned that blown up on his mondo TV the tweaks are going to look stupider than even the blue did (though it was pretty bad). So my question is two-fold:

1) is there a spot filter color correction plug-in I can try?
2) is there a better way to handle this with what I've already got?

<<<-- Originally posted by Marcia Janine Galles : 1) is there a spot filter color correction plug-in I can try? -->>>

You can effect a small spot by using the video on multiple tracks, applying the cookie cutter to just cut out that one small area, and the modify the lower track to eliminate the blue.

The Video_TS and Audio_TS folders for the DVD have to be created during the encode process for burning to the DVD. Sounds like MyDVD has problems overwriting the folder it creates those in. At least you've found that manually deleting it allows MyDVD to work correctly. It's safe to delete it since it will be re-created in the next DVD creation process.

Hey folks,
I want to put a clip in slow motion, and retain the audio, but have that also be the rate at which I sample the video... This is not possible with the video envelopes event velocity. Any suggestions?

Michael Estepp

As long as you only need a SINGLE speed (i.e. not a variable speed), hold down the CTRL key and resize the clip. This will "stretch" or "shrink" the clip and the audio will be adjusted as well.

Thats a cool tip, thanks... is there any other way to do it? This method actually stutters the audio and doesn't slow the speed, is there anything else you can suggest?

Michael Estepp

Hi,

I can't make up my mind about this question - is it silly or not ?

What got me thinking was that when I run my computer with the case open I could feel my gfx card get alot hotter while rendering in Vegas... so a thought was born...maybe Vegas uses directX filters/functions to speed up things...and then just maybe those instructions are being executed on the GPU?

Or maybe everything just head up cause the CPU was working 100%...

Please don't laught yourself silly about this :-)

// Lazze \\

i've been using ATI's MMC 8.9 to capture old VHS i have. i have a tape that is 5 hrs 30 min. i already captured @MPEG2, 1Megabit @low res. after finnishing the capture i have a 3GB file. that should fit a 4.7GB DVD-R media easily. how come DVD Arch has to recompress and says that my file is too large (23GB?) and still needs to recompress? i don't get it.

yeah i thought as much...

thanx Edward

direct x is a series of drivers which run computer based (ie number crunching) commands...

most of vegas plugins are DirectX, reliant, expecially the audio plugins.

Direct X wont have any adverse effect on your graphics card due to the fact that the rendering is done thru your ram and cpu, BEFORE your graphics card takes over to create the image u see.

things like Hollywood effects and some openGL apps like combustion and some pinnacle apps do use your gfx card and its respective drivers...

with vegas though, it doesnt. (oh unless your running Boris, sorry)

i think the heat your seeing is your mobo automaitcally picking up that the gfx card is idle, so to save power, it may have dropped the rpms of your gfx card fan.

or you could have answereed ur own question :)

good call Edward, another one is to cut the scene in b&w. depending on the shade of blue, you may be able to get away with it :)

SoFo have a pitch changer plugin for your audio, while, vegas can work on teh video, u can export the audio run the plug, and reimport the audio to your project.. but Edward's is a better idea IMO...
pitch changer and time stretch plugins are ok, but costly if u dont use them much..

The "stuttering" you hear could be from the flange introduced from slowing it down too much. There is a limit to where the audio can be played slowely before flange is introduced.

If the MPEG2 file is not DVD compatible, DVD Architect MUST recompress it. The final size will vary depending on the the bitrate you choose.

While Vegas plugins are based on DirectX, the video card doesn't make any difference when editing. CPU speed, bus speeds, hard drive speeds, RAM speed.... these will affect the rendering speeds. The CPU WILL get a lot hotter during rendering which, I suppose, could affect other items within the case.

I'll say I'm sorry right of the bat here. I downloaded the demo's for Vegas 4.0 and Screenblast. I am not used to the 4+lines for text/video etc. Do they explain better in a manual how to use them all together. The text still work's in the video line etc. So whats the point of all of them? It's still all very new but very frustrating to me. Can you please explain this?
Also when I play back a video in the viewing box I get all kinds of blurry lines through the middle. Is that normal before rendering, and will it go away?
One more thing, when doing text like a credit scroll. Why can't you put a body along with the headline etc? Do you have to just keep making one per box and putting them together? Thanks in advance.

Multiple video lines allows for complex compositing options. As you have seen, text gets placed on a video track. Video placed on a lower video track will show through behind that text. You could have additional video tracks above that to place additional pictures (such as the "bug" in the corner of most TV programs)...

Preview quality will depend on the quality level setting and the power of your computer. If the computer has to do a lot of work, you need the preview either on a lower setting. Also, frame rate will drop when the computer cannot keep up.

Not sure what you mean by the "credit scroll". You can have 3 different types of entries in the "credit scroll" tool. Of course you could use the standard text box and add keyframes to scroll it. You can also create the text in Photoshop and use keyframes in Vegas to properly scroll it.

You're only other options is to export the audio to some other program (such as Sound Forge) and modify the speed there.

Is there a way to zoom in to the pixel level in the preview window in Vegas, something akin to Photoshop? I can get at the big bits when working with the secondary color correct, but not the glow. It's maddening.

I tried the cookie cutter btw, but needed more careful animation, so I put on a garbage matte, but I'm still not happy with how it looks. Bottom line, correctly exposing the image for what was happening under the arbor, and ignoring the hot white in the distance beyond the groom, was a costly mistake. In hindsight, I'm not totally sure what I could've/should've done differently cuz the rest of the shot looks pretty good, albiet still a little dark for my taste. I wanted to string a couple of Pro Lights to hang down off the limbs, but the bride wanted "natural" light. Should've pushed them harder on that.

Edward, how would you match the speed of your clip if you import the audio into Sound Forge? Say if I used Ctrl+drag to slow a clip down- how would I get the unknown % speed figure matched.

I am struggling to reduce the frame rate of a Vegas project to produce the old-time silent movie effect. The video looks great on the preview with the project set to 12 fps, but Vegas only gives me 3 options when I go to render for NTSC (29.9997 & 24 with 2 different pulldown modes). I cannot seem to render the video with the low frame rate that an old-time silent movie requires.

If anyone knows what to do, please tell me.

You really can't zoom in like you can with Photoshop. If you set your preview quality to one of the full settings, you'll get the full 720x480 image. You can also resize the preview window so that you can see the whole 720x480 image.

You CAN get the speed so it's not really unknown. Just right-click the clip, choose properties, and look at the "Playback Rate". Another way would be to render out the original cut clip to a new file, resize the the proper amount, and then make the same size correction in the other program.