You basically have two choices:

1. Pan and Scan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_and_scan
2. Letterbox it

I've never done it but I think you could use track motion to pan and scan. It might be a bit tedious.

Letterbox would certainly be the easiest - do a search here, should be lots of posts on technique.

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=257603

Check the links within the posting above for some additional advice.

I can't advise on the drive you mention but I CAN tell you that I have a problem with my WD 250Gb drive conflicting with my Canon GL2/XM2 (different sources suggest the camera or the drive)

Voytek: that's the same drive I have. Both USB2 and firewire
seem to work fine. I did find the drive a bit slow, but I'm not sure
if this is the drives fault or my firewire / USB connections (I can't
do an accurate USB test since I only have USB 1 here).

It has worked great with Vegas and all of my DV work.

<<<-- Originally posted by Peter Jefferson : or a more efficient way might be to let it run on left...
then run the onboard mic on ch2...(right) -->>>

When I do this, I'm recording 4 channel: Stereo 1 = on-camera mic and Stereo 2 = Wireless (Y'd to both channels). Sort of the "best of both worlds"

when I do a velocity envelope to make a clip slow motion the sound says at the same rate, how can I make the sound slow as well?

thanks

Not sure what you are looking for but there is a time stretch in the audio fx package----keep it between 75% and 115% and you shouldn't have a problem. Hope that helps.

Ill give that a try!

thanks

EXACTLY!!!!!!

and it works fine too :)

Audio does not have a velocity envelope similar to the video. However, you CAN change the speed assuming you want ONE constant speed change. Hold down the CTRL key are resize the event.

Would like to get some help on some stuff I'll buy lunch..

Thanks

Vince

You might want to look at my newsletters, Gary Kleiner's DVDs, DSE's DVDs and Book, and asking questions here.

Hello,

Something I never have tried yet, but have wondered about, and now may have a need for.. Can I use DVD Architect to create a menu based CD(not a DVD) ??
It would have 2 buttons, one launching a picture slide show, and the other palying a piece of video that is 30 seconds long.. (surely this will fit on the much less capacity of a CD versus a DVD)


Thanks,
Mike Moncrief

Not exactly sure but I think DVD is the format you will have to wrk with not CD.

In other words you an do anything you want AUDIO wise but will still have to do it on DVD to be played in a DVD Player even if it is just Music.

Thanks Edward ..You have already helped me I got another ILink card its working now

haning fun playing ...pretty cool to edit video on a 599.00 Dell

Thanks

Vince

DVD Architect cannot burn to CDs. However, there's no reason DVD Architect cannot create files small enough to fit on a CD. However, there's no guarantee that it will play in your player.

Not sure what you mean by a menu-based CD but:

You can make a music compliation DVD with DVDA

You can make an audio CD with Vegas.

Gary

There are two official formats basically:

1) DVD with menu's

2) VCD (2.0?) with menu's

Most DVD authoring packages do not support making VCD's
with a menu, but some do. A VCD is a movie encoded with
MPEG1 at lower resolution than DVD and put onto a CD. DVD
uses MPEG2 at full resolution.

Now there is also something we call "miniDVD" where a full
DVD structure is put on a CD. You can't put much footage on
such a disc and it won't play on most players.

I would stick with either DVD or VCD 2.0 (you need a VCD menu
creator or something like that).

Hey all. Well I had applied a "widescreen" mask to a 4:3 project I had completed and had some problems. I have some cuts from MS to LS etc. and sometimes when I do this, a single frame will have the original positioning if I hadn't moved the frame inside the widescreen mask at all and then the next frame is where I moved the 4:3 picture in order to reframe items. When I go frame by frame there seems to be no problem but when I render out, it has a few jerks. They are almost unnoticeable but I can tell and it bothers the hell out of me. Thanks guys!

Why not just apply a mask on the top track? That way it would EVERYTHING beneath it.

Or for simplicity, render everything out and then apply the mask?

I am considering buying Vegas 4, which would be my first major NLE software purchase. I know the minimum requirements as listed on the Vegas site, buy I was wondering what current users would consider the recommended requirements as far as processor speed, RAM, HDD, etc.

Any reasonable speed PIV will work well. Get as fast as you can afford. I would recommend a 512 Meg or 1 Gig of RAM. Get as much hard drive space (separate from the system drive) that you can afford. Otherwise, Vegas will pretty well work on any PC.

Because, certain shots were a framed with the subject a little higher in the frame, if I simply apply the mask to the entire project, then I chop heads. If I apply it to seperate parts, I can reframe my subjects and have perfect framing.

You could still apply the mask to the entire project but use Pan/Crop on the individual trouble areas to adjust the position as needed.

Vegas will run fine even on really wimpy computers.

Rendering speed is about proportional to CPU clock speed (among the same processor family, so don't compare Pentiums to Celerons or AMDs). Hyperthreading and 800FSB vs 533FSB (front side bus speed in mhz) add a few % each, but not much to worry about. For MPEG2 encoding hyperthreading should give about a 15% speed boost. A faster computer would be nice since you have to wait less for rendering, but Vegas has real-time previews so you should be able to get decent quality previews of your video.

RAM... Vegas doesn't need much.

I wouldn't obsess too much on performance. Like Edward said, "Vegas will pretty well work on any PC." An exception to that is your monitor resolution. 800X600 just won't really work that well. Try the demo.

I'm upping my RAM from 256 RAM to 512 MB not because of Vegas per se but because I have so many plug-in programs for it that I think it can only benefit performance.

Thanks for the advice. I just downloaded the demo and I'm pretty sure I'll be making my purchase within a few weeks.

Hi Guys.

Just hanging about, waiting for the postman to tell me My Vegas 4 + DVD has arrived.........


In the meantime, are there any Vegas users on the Gold Coast, that might be interested in drinking a few beers at my expense in return for giving me a quick tour of the program?

I'll even get the wife to cook dinner!

Waiting, waiting....

Cheers,

Andy

LOL

I wish I could be there. Check out Klieners 2 DVD Vegas tutorial. It helped me tremendously. (I was new to NLE). I have a solid grasp now because of these!

I'll drink a beer anyway and think of the Gold Coast!

Hello all,
I'm trying to embed an mpeg2 (default setting), into a Power Point slideshow and it seems to work OK on my PC but when I try to play said file on my client's PC it will not play. Same OS, same version of Power Point.
Should I render as an mpeg1?

Thanks in advance.

Shane

David Hague is a very knowledgable Aussie user although I am not sure exactly where he lives in Australia---He actually was the technical editor for DSE's book. You can find him over at http://www.digitalvideoediting.com---in the Vegas forum section---

You need to install the MPEG2 codec on the other machine. MPEG2 is not standard.

Based on newsletter subscriptions, I can say there are MANY Vegas users in Australia.

Thanks Edward,
The spot is a 30 second advertisement that will be projected from a PC using Power Point at a local theater chain. Installing the MPEG2 codec might not be an option in this case (not sure how many theaters as of yet).
Would MPEG1 be acceptable in this use?
I did notice some serious degredation when I rendered it to mpeg1.

My last moronic question; where would I get the MPEG2 codec?
Is it on my Vegas CD? (I should know this, huh)

Edwards suggestion is excellent. This is exactly what I did for my
Lady X episode. I put a mask on one track above everything else
and almost every scene has been moved slightly lower or higher
underneath this mask with pan/crop tool. Works PERFECT.

Perhaps you've accidentily keyframed something?

That's interesting. I've been asked to investigate embedding a small segment of video in a PowerPoint presentation that will be distributed around the client's business partners - all of whom are using PowerPoint but with almost inevitable system differences.

Is there a "safe bet" format that would offer the highest probability of successful playback from PowerPoint/different versions of Windows etc?

No it isn't on your Vegas CD. Most MPEG2 codecs in use today
have been installed by a software DVD player like WinDVD or
PowerDVD.

MPEG1 should be supported on all systems out of the box. It
does have a bit lower quality indeed. Not much around that
I'm afraid. You might try increasing the bitrate a bit.

Thanks Rob. Experiment time!

It will be run from a CD/hard disk anyway so size isn't an issue.

You might also investigate formats such as WMV as well. With a high bitrate, they can also look quite good.

Just what it says. I'm in a rush and a director friend of mine needs to make her music video she shot for a NYC band on a Panny DV953 to look less videoie and more 24pish. The thread only has a broken link for the script now.... thanks in advance!

It's still there. You may be looking at an OLD link. Here's the current link:

http://www.jetdv.com/scripts/RC3_VegasFilmLooks.exe

HI,

I just purchased DVXA Pal!


1) Anyone can tell me how can I be sure how much should I mask 4:3 LCD screen for 16:9?

2)Does Vegas have this 'drop" option?

Thanks for help,

Voytek

I resized my pictures to 655 X 480 and when I watch it on TV it cuts off some of the picture. When I watch it on my computer I can see the whole image. I know I don't have the same res on my tv that I have on my computer but I must be missing something. I have a plasma tv and a normal analog tv and it cuts it off on both.

Any ideas would be helpfull.

Thanks,

Jon

The part you are missing is in the "safe area". TV will always show less than the computer does. Push the button that looks like # above the preview window to see the safe area lines.

Thanks so much Edward, I guess I was looking at the old link! We can make the rush to fedex this puppy off today now. Cheers!

Edward,

Thank you for the tip. I fit my picture in the square, outer square and it only cuts of a tiny part of the photo. If I reduce it to the inner square it shows the whole picture but has extra room. Is there a size that will fill the whole tv screen? I have played with the safe area to try to get it fill the whole frame with no success. What book would you recommend for a how to on vegas 4.0.

Thanks,

Jon

Only if you are lucky.

The safe zone may be different on different tv's. Set an unobtrusive background behind your pictures that won't distract from the project, just in case.

As Harry said, every TV is different. If you MUST see the entire picture, put in inside the inner safe zone and you'll get a slight black border on all but the oldest of TVs. Personally, I just leave the picture full size and let the TV cut off what it does. Just make sure you don't have anything important in that area.

Also, I never bother making my pictures 655x480. I just load any size, use Match Output Aspect in Pan/Crop, and then adjust the size using Pan/Crop.

I gathered there would be a few users here, just was hoping I'd get a reply from someone on the coast, or even Brisbane.

BTW Edward, been doing what you suggested and using the demo version. Already it's coming together, but how frustrating is it when you can't save what you've done!

Waiting, waiting.......

Great. Thank you both. I made the pictures 655 x 480 and let it cut out what didn't fit and it looked good. I am just a perfectionist, wanna be perfectionist that is. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something simple that would make it look perfect.

Thanks again.

Jon

I saw in my issue of Videography that Vegas 5 and DVDA 2 will be announced at NAB.

I have several DVD projects sorely in need of alternate audio tracks and menu transitions. Anyone seen these features that's not under NDA? Anyone going to NAB? Any ideas of release date and pricing?