Ah ha, that was easy. Keyframes that is, 2 minutes to figure out how to do...2 months I waited to ask how to do it!

Thanks for all the information. I'll give it a try and let you know how it goes.

Keyframes: One of the most important concepts to learn to take editing to the next level.

First keyframe at the beginning: B&W. Second keyframe at the end: color.

However, this WON'T work in ALL cases. For example, if you wanted to go from plain to embossed, there's an embossed option you can pick. However, the transition between the two goes through some really strange steps. In this case you need to render an embossed version and then use a standard fade to go between the two.

<<<-- Originally posted by Gary Kleiner : Actually you should fade out the topmost media and don't worry about fading in on the lower one.

Gary -->>>


The ONLY time this has NOT worked for me is if the upper clip has transparancy (usually a title in my case) or the clip does not fill the full screen. So, there ARE times when the lower one need to be set to fade in.

Thanks, good to know DVD cannot support beyond 480x720.

I guess there is really no point then to shoot in HD, 480x720 widescreen is the furthest to go.

Is there some kind of HD DVD coming soon? Presumably in a few years, every one would have HDTV.

DVD-HD is under development. There are two camps in this. One is using blue laser for more data storage per disc and the other MPEG-4 with existing discs. Neither are standards yet.

That said, using Vegas to size down your HD to 728x480 out to still look really good. And possibly save it to data DVDs as HD Windows Media to play on the computer.

You can output to Windows Media 9 HD, this doesn't require DVD architect btw. You can then burn a dvd-r or +r disk. Maybe even get a master for distribution. The encoding tools (directshow drivers, interfaces...) are free from Microsoft. There is actually an Windows Media HD version of Terminator 2 available in both 720p and 1080p.

There are several DVD/Windows Media HD players coming out, per press releases at this years CES.

Also, these same new players have dvi out and technology to uprez and convert standard DVD to 720p. All of them seem to be going for less than 300.00 US.

If you can shoot in HD with a good camera (not the JVC HD10), then you should, and downconvert to 720x480 (btw, in resolutions usually the horizontal is put first). That will look better than if you shot in 720x480 (DV) to begin with.

The thing about the HD WM9 players is there's no standard for format or software, so we don't know yet how to make disks that will play in these players natively. Maybe they will just search the disk for WMV files, but I think there's probably more to it than that. But you can always save the HD version for the future.

I am happy to report that all went well. Thanks Edward, Tor, Gary, and Don for the help!

Whenever I make clips to be shown online/computer I use the VCD templates for MPG1. Oddly enough during pans I'm exhibiting a bizzar squiggly effect I never noticed before?! What could be the problem?
The original footage is 60i, made a simple selection and chose render as, switched it to NTSC VCD. Made no other changes.

Example:
http://www.msprotege.com/members/LazerBlueP5/squiggle.mpg

Been doing different test the last 15 minutes or so and found out turning the video render quality up from the default "Good" to "Best".
Oddly enough if I turn it down to Preview or Draft quality it's fine- it's only "Good" that gives me the problem?!

Is this normal- must you always use "Best" to avoid graphical abnormalities during fast pans on output?! I remember Ed describing the difference between Good and Best...maybe he can elaborate one more time....plus maybe give me some insight as to why Good gave the the results I posted?!

I don't think Videoguys actually sell the Standard Boxed Vegas 4 software anymore though it is still on their website. I called to place an order and the Gentleman I spoke to said that Sony is changing their Marketing strategy and they no longer carry it.

I purchased the Canopus ACEDVIO card bundle that comes with a full version of Vegas 4 for ~$500 from B&H. It did come with a full version of Vegas but there is no hard copy of the manual, I just downloaded the one from Sonys website and printed it out (~300 pages).

There IS no hard copy of the manual. The only way it comes is in the PDF file. If you want a hard copy, you either print it or take it to someplace like Staples.

I am trying to Print to Tape to my Sony TRV38 and having major problems.

I try to Print to Tape and it appears to be working but all I get is a blue screen recorded on my camera.

Any ideas? I have tried setting the AV/DV to in AND out and both don't appear to work.
I have my camera plugged into my external firewire hard drive (the same drive that has the DV file on) and the hard drive is plugged into my soundblaster audigy firewire port.

Any ideas?

Everytime I think I have everything covered I find a possible hole in the production line, so to speak. I have Vegas, and a slew of DV tapes. I also have years worth of 8mm tapes. I have VHS tapes too. I also have a AG DV2000 deck--discontinued, but one heck of a sexy unit. I'd like to convert my 8mm/VHS tapes and place them into the Vegas interface, and for this I would have to add an analog converter, correct? I noticed the ads for ADVC 100/300 as being a plausible addition to make all this happen. The ads imply this, but I'd like feedback from people who have done this. Once the old tapes are incorporated into Vegas world, I then could output to tape or DVD, and that is part of the production line I have no particular question about yet. Oh yes, is the ADVC300 worth the extra $$$?

Thank you all!

Barry,

You already have what you need. The DV2000 will do the Analog-Digital conversion you need without having to purchase an external converter. Just select the input you plug the camera into (either the front or back analog inputs) and it will come out digital through the FireWire connector. You can also record to DV tape (if you need a digital archive or something to recapture from in the future) or just let it go through on the fly.

David is correct.

I have the Canopus ADVC-100. I got it a couple of years ago to replace all of the dazzle and other crap out there. It took care of all my analog to digital/digital to analog problems. It's a very impressive piece of equipment.

I also have the AG-DV2000 deck. It works GREAT for what you are wanting to do. Just plug into the RCA and/or S-Video plugs on the front of the unit, press "input select" until the display reads "V2" (or video 2) and it will pass the signal straight through over the firewire to the computer. There's absolutely NO need to purchase anything else.

We do this all the time with the TRV-38 and it is also daisy chained through an external HD. It will work.

The first thing is you need to have the pic show up in the cam. Do this by playing the Vegas timeline.

You are turning the cam on in VTR mode right?

You might start by re-booting your computer. If you have XP - it should recognize the cam when you plug it in and turn it on.

Wow--evidently I haven't been tapping into the deck's full capabilities after so much DV-related stuff. Thanks--I now have about eight years worth of 8mm/VHS tapes to keep the deck busy. :)

The weird thing is that the colour bars are being recorded to the tape and then nothing but a blue screen

Well, I have a large clip that I loaded in my trim window... I made the picture smaller (so I can see more of the video left and right) with ctrl+shift+cursor... but...

The problem is, when you drag that horizontal scrollbar of the trim window left and right, Vegas is drawing frames only when you RELEASE the scrollbar... So, it makes a little bit difficult when searching for some particular part of the clip.
You need to drag, and then to release the scrollbar and wait for vegas to draw frames...
I looked into preferences but I saw nothing...

Is there any way Vegas can draw and display all frames interactively as you are dragging scrollbar left and right ?

Sounds more like a system problem, then. Can you try it using a standard OHCI card instead of the Audigy? Or maybe update the drivers on the Audigy?

I'm capturing a VHS tape through that deck right now. With 2 analog ins and two analog outs, it's VERY flexible. Just remember you have to press the "input select" button to switch between firewire and each of the analog inputs. The analog outputs are ALWAYS active.

No one has any idea?

Thanks--it's certainly a wonderful piece of equipment; those who can still find any remaining units should do so.

Another weird thing is that if I copy the file off the external drive to my internal drive and then try printing to tape it works fine??

It sucks because I don't have much free space on my internal drive.

Weird

You are referring to the Trimmer?

Unfortunately, you cannot change the way the thumbnails refresh.

Gary

I can't repro this, because the machine I'm working on at the moment doesn't have a parhelia, and I'm too lazy to go to the office to fire up a parhelia machine. But I do have a parhelia in 2 of my office machines, and no problems there, plus the machine I'm working with at home has a P650 with the triple head upgrade, basicly the same as the Parhelia without the plugins for Premiere and other apps. It's a 128 meg card too. Anyway, just switched primaries on it, no troubles....
Sorry for being of no help.

Does your internal drive have enough room for ONLY print to tape? In other words, capture to the external drive, edit on the external drive, and do a final render to the internal drive. This would still give you the benefits of the extra drive space.

Another question.

Why is Vegas re-rendering a straight DV-AVI file before printing to tape?

I didn't think it should have to do this.

What I am doing, incase you were wondering is:

I recorded a bunch of footage straight to my external hard drive. I want to archive the footage and want to just dump the DV-AVI files back to tape without any editing.

Why is Vegas taking 10 minutes or so to render before the print to tape process starts up???

You may be confusing "rendering" with creating the "w64" file for the audio.

Was wondering what happens to keyframes when the trim point of a clip is moved? Do the key frames move proportionately to the change in length, or are they pegged to the time they were set at, or? Of course I guess I could just try it and see....

Is there any way in Vegas4 to view and edit the keyframe curves directly?

thanks,
Scott

Hi, I'm hoping someone can tell me if I'm doing this the proper way.

I've captured some video from S-VHS straight to DVD quality MPEG using my ATI AIW 8500DV card. I set my ATI capture settings according to recommendations from LordSmurf.com ( http://www.lordsmurf.com/capture/atimpeg/atimpeg.htm ).

What I'm doing for various clips is I'll select certain portions of video in the trimmer and send them to the timeline. When I've got the video the way I want in the timeline, I select "render as...". I choose the Mainconcept MPEG-2 codec and save the file.

It seems to me it's re-encoding this MPEG, which is already at a quality I want, isn't there a way the software can just stitch up the video as I've assembled it in the timeline? Or am I going to need other software to do this?

Is it in fact "rerendering" (if that's the proper term) the MPEG? Isn't there going to be further loss of quality? How should I be doing this in Vegas?

Last year I made a 47 minute film of a group of students performing a remake of "A Chorus Line", the musical. We shot it over one week in the summer and it took a further 12 weeks, on and off, to edit. Everyone was very pleased with the results and it gave me a great opportunity to learn and practice the whole range of skills, from storyboarding, lighting and camera work, through to 'sensible' use of filters, lip-synching and project management. I made plenty of mistakes, some of which are now glaringly obvious.

Because of this, I'd like to go back to the original footage and start again, using my now increased knowledge (and DSE's fantastic book which I bought in Dallas last week, during a 6 hour lay-over en route from Mexico to the UK).

Oh, sorry, my question . . .

Is it possible to somehow import a text file that contains the dialogue text (only) so that it appears somewhere on the timeline, for me to then edit each line into it's correct position as a region? Hope this makes sense!

Thanks in advance for any tips (although I am doubtful this can be actually be done!).

I suppose you could add a text generated media and paste pieces at a time. I definitly wouldn't try pasting the whole thing into ONE text media.

It is NOT advisable to edit in MPEG2 format. This is more of a final format than an editing format. Capture through a convertor as standard DV-AVI and then render THAT to MPEG2.

If you render to MPEG, it will ALWAYS be recompressed. So you gain no advantage by capturing MPEG and, in fact, insert many problems.

It varies depending on how you do things. If you just shorten a clip, the keyframes at the end may be chopped off. If you CTRL-Shorten a clip, they will be moved.

You can vary the curve by right-clicking the keyframe and picking from the various choices (slow, fast)

Yeah I knew I shouldn't be capturing to MPEG, but I had a bunch of old low quality VHS-C tapes to convert to DVD. Space was an issue. I found a couple of programs that won't rencode an MPEG when cutting and joining.

Thanks for the help.

heh, too bad...

I hope they will implement this in future versions.

hmmh, sorry if this is a lame question, but I did a search through the board, and I did not find the answer to my question...

why pixel aspect ratio for my PAL DV project in vegas is 1.093, but in Premiere and After Effects it is 1.067 ... The picture LOOKS the same, but is there any difference Vegas is interpreting footage?

This HAS been a long drawn-out discussion in the past. Basically, Sony (Sonic Foundry) went to great pains to get the math correct while everyone else seems to use "common standards" that are "close".


http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums//ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=81847

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums//ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=199016

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums//ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=198829

i can't tell if your swiggles are from having quantize off or it is from the camera movement and the mpeg 1 just can't handle the info ??
now some of the swiggle i see on your posted video i've seen on clips that were dropped into TL that has Quantize off so the 1st field is NOT at a frame line .. make sure you have quantize ON before you drop a clip in TL

if quantize is ON - i sort of wrote it off that mpeg 1 just can't handle the finer detail of good ( slider at 31 vs normal 15 )

i see an improvement by doing the following .. render as mpeg 1 DEFAULT .. CUSTOM - Video .. change the size from 720 x480 to 352 x240 .. this will put the bit rate at 1,700,000 VS 1,100,000 and the I frames every 15 vs 17 .. also slide the slider to 31 ...
the higher bit rate will improve motion/movement ...

What's the story behind I-frames? How do they affect compression?

What are all the differences between an MPG Default vs MPG VCD templates?


Btw, thanks for the input!

The subject line says it all--is this possible?

Also, can Vegas make use of .PSQ or .PLB files (clips generated by other programs)?

If this is possible, how is it done, and how easily?

Thanks.

The VCD template just takes certain restrictions (like resolution,
datarate etc.) into calculation to make sure your MPEG will be
compatible with the official standard. Personally I always render
everything at best.

To the best of my knowledge none of this is possible. You might
perhaps export an EDL from Premiere and load that into vegas if
both support it.

Don't drag the scroll bar - just drag the cursor across the Trimmer display, and you will see each frame as you pass it.

(The mouse wheel is the best way to zoom in and out of Trimmer and Timeline)

Hi, I have just recorded voice over using the looping/takes technique that I learned from Spot's book, what a great feature. From what I've seen, this creates an audio file with several regions, one for each take. Now, when I put the audio event on the timeline, the event is fully extended with all the regions instead of presenting itself as an audio event with several takes. Is there a way to drag this audio to the timeline and that vegas recognizes it as an event with several takes? thanks!

Ok, that makes sense.

My next question, does Vegas do anything in particular when printing to tape that is superior to other programs?

I can use DVIO to send the file back to the tape and it is super simple and quick, just press record on the camera and send the file and then stop record after it has played.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't use DVIO to send DV-AVI files back to tape?