Do a search on MPEGEdit on google and you should find some
programs. I do believe the new Canopus Edius and perhaps
Sony Vegas can do it as well?

All I want to do is be able to capture the video, edit and save the VOB files onto a DVD.


I'm a newbie

If all you want is to capture video from a DV camcorder, then a good IEEE1394 (Firewire) card will do. If you have analog video, the best bet is to convert it to DV either with a camcorder with analog to DV passthrough or with a Canopus ADVC card.

For capturing, any OHCI compliant firewire card will do. To convert to VOB files and place them on a DVD, you will need a DVD authoring program such as DVD Architect.

Once you've rendered to a complete DV-AVI file, you can use any program you want to send it back over the firewire and the results should be identical.

Select all of the clips. Right-click them and drag them to the timeline. Select "Add as Takes" from the dropdown menu.

There are no several clips, it's only a clip with several regions, as created with the looping/recording technique.

Vegas cannot directly import a Premiere project. If you could create a text EDL then maybe. However, you would pretty well be limited to cuts only.

What are PQS and PLB files?

Render each section to a separate file?

Open the clip in the trimmer and select the first section. Add that section (just click and drag) to the timeline. Now select the second section. Right-click and drag to the first clip and choose "Add as Takes". Repeat this process until all sections have been added.

Thanks Edward, good idea, I had not thought that approach, although I would have said that vegas would do that automatically since I have about 40 audio clips with 5 to 10 takes each...that means that I have to add more than 200 audio takes manually, when the recording was done automatically.

The only other option I can really think of would be to write a script to automatically do it.

With the multicam script (on the sundance site), you can layer the takes under each other and it'll automatically put them all into one clip. It's about half the effort.

is it stored as one clip with different takes in the media pool?

mpeg 1 default is 720x480 (quality 15, bit rate 1,700,000)
mpeg 1 VCD is 352x240 ( quality 31, bit rate 1,150,000)

VCD cannot be full resolution indeed.

To use the script Glenn mentioned, YOU would have to manually break it up into the separate sections and add them on multiple tracks below each other. That script will then take those multiple tracks and create a single "takes" track. However, you still have to manually do the splitting.

Hi,

I don't know if it is possible at all, but what I am trying to acheive is to "mirroring" a clip. I don't want to play it backward, I want that all the thing on the left goes to right and vice versa. We can do it easy on still frames in Photoshop but I would like to know if it is possible to do the same trick on a piece of video.

Thank you very much!

Oh I see. Maybe we'll have to wait for Vegas 5.0 for this? Anyway, thanks so much for all your help.

Here is a 3d plugin that can do what you want.

http://www.debugmode.com/pluginpac/

Open Pan/Crop, right-click the image screen, and choose the proper option from the dropdown menu. One option is "Flip Vertical" and another is "Flip Horizontal".

Thanks a lot Edward!

I had not thought of the pan/crop tool. I believed that would be much more complex. Vegas makes the things definitively easier!

I use Vegas 4.0 without the + DVD, and I heard that the AC3 audio codec is only available with the Vegas + DVD purchase... now my question is what exactly is the AC3 codec? Do you only need it for importing DVDs or is it necessary for all DV productions?

AC3 is the standard audio encoding method for DVDs. You can author them in PCM but they may not be universally compatible. The biggest feature of the Sony AC3 codec is it authors 5.1 surround. It has nothing to do with importing AC3 into Vegas, which won't accept AC3 files anyway.

You are taking the fun out of things being difficult! AND of reading the manual, too.

Thank you for it.

-- Andre

Hello all,

Well NAB is coming up fast in April.. Just pondering if Sony will come out with a new update of Vegas to show? Any predictions on what will be new?? How about being able to use Vegas with third party high end capture cards??
I will be attending at NAB in Vegas, maybe will see some of you there.. it is going to be kind of weird to go to the Sony booth for something other than cameras.. Just hope Sony throws money and might, but leaves the independence with the Sonic Foundry group..
Rumours, thoughts ?

Mike

Well.... If you REALLY want to do things the hard way.......

AC-3 is an add-on for Vegas. You can purchase it one of two ways:

1. Purchase Vegas+DVD which gives you the AC-3 encoder AND DVD Architect.

2. Purchase only the AC-3 encoder.

Cost wise, it's more cost effective to buy Vegas+DVD

AC-3 is a way of getting compressed audio onto DVDs. By compressing the audio, you can use a higher bitrate for the video.

NTSC specifications include two allowable audio formats: AC-3 (compressed) and PCM (uncompressed)

PAL specifications include three allowable audio formats: AC-3 (compressed), MPEG (compressed) and PCM (uncompressed)

Due to the transition from Sonic to Sony this year, I doubt very much that you will see anything substantial at NAB---Maybe this summer or early fall. Its been a year since the last upgrade and people are getting a bit impatient but I guess there is little we can do but await the new version.

Muchos gracias, Ed.

I can guarantee you that because of NDA's, if anyone tells you anything - they don't know. If they know, they can't and won't tell. We can speculate all day but until Sony makes an announcement, that's all it is: speculation.

Also, if you want to split your image so it
"reflects" on itself, there is an FX filter called Mirror.

Gary

Very close to purchasing Vegas (Thanks to all who have answered my questions, and also contributed to the forums, what a wonderful knowledge base to access!).

My question: Does the academic version differ to the full version, and if so, in what way?

Obviously I'm trying to save a few dollars, but not at the risk of going half assed.

Thanks in advance,

Andy

Hi Andy. There is no difference, other than the price.

Aaron

With the academic version you probably can't use it for commercial use, as in anything that makes money.

Just to be complete: both also support "dts".

If you are just using stereo sound I would probably just go with
uncompressed PCM (which does around 660 MB an hour for
48 khz [note CD is 44.1], 16 bit stereo) if you don't have the AC3
codec already. Then you can still encode the one hour video at
high bitrates. After the hour you will have to drop the video bitrate.

I purchased Vegas 4.0 using an academic discount option through efollett.com for $159. It is the full version and there are no constraints concerning end use of projects created with this software. To purchase at that price required verification of student/faculty status only.

Joseph

This is an official Sony response to a question just like yours, i.e. EULA, functionality, etc.:

"Thank you for writing. There is no difference between the academic and non-academic versions of the software other than the pricing. Please let me know if you have any other questions."

I have always used the Broadcast Safe Colors filter on my Vegas projects. I, also, always just assumed it worked fine. The whites looked grey and the blacks looked lighter on the computer screen. So, I was playing around with a new "trailer" video of mine yesterday that had some really dark blues in it. I ran the the Sony Broadcast Colors filter on it with the Conservative - 7.5 IRE Setup preset. I assumed all was fine. I capped a frame from the video and was playing around in Photoshop and noticed that some of these dark blues still had some lower that "16" Red and Green values. I assumed that all RGB values would be clipped to 16 and higher. Does this sound right? Am I missing something fundamental here that I should know or am forgetting? Any insight or wisdom on this matter would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your time, efforts and inputs.

By accident I deleated a clip from the 'Clip Explorer' in Sony Video Capture 4.0...how can I restore this clip?
I checked my recycle bin but alas it did not go there and it seems that there is no undo function in Video Capture 4.

Thanks in advance.

Shane

When you delete from the video capture, you are given a few options - one of which is "delete this reference AND the file from the hard drive". If that is the option you chose, then you will have to recapture the clip.

Another option is simply to "Delete the reference". If that is the option you chose, the file is still on the hard drive and you should be able to locate it in the Vegas Explorer window.

Thanks Edward,

I right clicked on the the file in the Clip Explorer and just clicked delete, I don't think you get the "either, or" option when you do this (I would have remembered seeing that).

It looks like I need to recapture this clip after all.

When opening the project it was attached to and clicking Recapture Offline DV media; will it automatically look for that particular clip? (assuming I put the right tape in).

What a pain, I'll never do that again!

Shane

Due to the differences in display (YUV vs RGB) you can't accuratly judge your colors by a still capture in Photoshop. It's better to use the various montiors from within Vegas.

Generally though- a video still brought into Photoshop should look a bit under contrast....with it's black being around 16, and white being 235.

Ok, I recaptured my clip, cool feature that "Recapture offline media".

I can breathe easier now, heh, heh...

Thanks again Edward.

I think there is an option that you can set up to prompt you on how to delete the file. On my old computer it didn't ask- on the new computer (new install) it shows the dialog Edward mentioned.

I didn't even think about the colospace difference. My workflow typically does not follow this path and it just caught my attention as being out of the norm.

The actual blacks and whites were definitely within 16-235. Just the dark blues showed this "problem." Colorspace conversion errors at their finest I guess. :)

Yes, the recapture offline media has helped me a few times as well. Go to Options - Preferences and check all of your settings (and WANT to see the messages). And, of course, always be extra careful when deleting :-)

I think you may be confusing NTSC 601 standard, which is IRE 7.5, with the RGB Lab color requirement of black defined at RGB 16. The NTSC 601 requirement relates to voltage levels of the signal while RGB Lab Color is a color map definition. Vegas has checkboxes that allow you to turn these both on or off individually, both in the B'cast color filter as well as in the Waveform analyzer. You MUST check both the filter and the Waveform window in order for the waveform analyzer to readout the right value. And all this applies to what was mentioned above...the colorspace in PS is not the same as in V4.

Thank you everyone! I certainly appreciate the help. Now, I have some topics to study up on.

Thanks to those who replied, and so quickly!

Cheers,

Andy

Ok, so I'm previewing footage via an NTSC monitor. Here's the chain of gadgets: computer, via firewire, to my XLs, and then the XL1s, via S-Video (or RCA, doesn't matter), to the monitor. Now, when I'm watching UNDOCTORED footage, that is, without any extra layers, or FX or anything at all done to it, it looks sharp and just like playing it right from the tape. However, if I add any kind of visual effect, or put another layer over it (like a 16:9 matte), then it softens quite a bit, even when I preview at "best." Is this normal? Is this just how it is when previewing in this manner?

Also, audio is always out of sync when I preview on the external monitor, even if I offset that buffer by 4 seconds. It may stay in sync for short time, but inevitably it ends up way off. This is the audio from the computer speakers, by the way, though I believe I've tried it out through the monitor speakers, with the same results. Any ideas why?