i'm 50/50 on NAB .. it's HUGE !!! this time will not even try to see ALL of it .. might go in 21st AM and out 22nd PM ??
i think there's a lets meet thing sponsored by VASST on the 22nd 7:30am to 9:30 am ....

I would not trust any information until any official release announcements are made by Sony.

The information in Videography looks pretty official. It's in the NAB preview section.

You want a miniDVD, which can be burned with Nero 6.

I don't know your camera, but check to see if it has black bars.

I'm not sure what you mean with "drop" option, but I'm using
a mask I created myself in Vegas. Go to this page (http://www.visuar.com/letterbox/calc.htm) and
you'll be able to download the mask near the bottom of the page
(the PAL 16:9 mask is the one you want)

Make sure it is in the top video track in Vegas and select the
correct compositing mode (can't remember which one that is on
the top of my head, so just try the options on the list). Make sure
you have some footage beneath it on another track.

Why did you resize the pictures to 655x480? That sounds like
you are loosing resolution. What was the original size? You might
also have the wrong pixel aspect ratio.

Where did these pictures came from? Digital camera?

Hey All!

I just wanted to know if it was possible to create true time-lapse clips in Vegas 4 from full length video.

I don't want to be having to use the 'reduce length - preserve content' feature and I would be grateful if anyone could inform me as to whether or not I can create frame-rate specific time-lapse clips in Vegas 4.

Thank You!

You just need to speed up the clip. You can do that by either holding down the CTRL key while resizing the clip (smaller) or by applying a velocity envelope. Not sure what you mean by: 'reduce length - preserve content'. There is a "Preserve Pitch" option related to audio.

Probably meant reduce the size of the clip but without clipping any of it off. Technically it's reducing the "duration"....he just decribed it in an odd way.

Speaking of time lapse, I'm looking to do something similar soon. I want to get a shot of a church with the clouds rolling by. I know the footage might have to be sped up well beyond what a ctrl+drag, or velocity envelope will allow- so I have to do it in steps. Speed it up- render it out- speed it up....will this result in any lesser quality, rerendering it so many times?

Glen, in your case, yes that will work fine. However, remember you can use BOTH the CTRL-Drag AND the Velocity Envelope on the same clip. By doing this, you can get up to a 12x speed increase in ONE pass. If you need faster than that, just do what you said and speed up the rendered clip. When removing frames (which is what you're really doing) this is much less of problem.

I was doing a picture montage with scanned images from pictures. I cropped each picture to 655X480 72pix. I resized them because vegas only recognizes 655X480 to fill screen. If you have a larger image, lets say 800X600, vegas doesn't handle it as well. I did my first montage with the original res and then did another with cropped images and it looked better in my opinion.

Thanks,

Jon

I'm converting my Star Wars original trilogy laserdisc's to DVD soon. As I understand it the LDs are 60i but would have had 2:3 pulldown done from the original 24p like any film transfer.

My question is can I use Vegas to bring it back to 24p and make this a 24p DVD? Or do I need something else (Magic Bullet, etc.)? Is the quality of the reverse pulldown going to be as good as if it was 24p to begin with? (2:3 pulldown shouldn't actually lose any data if I understand the procedure correctly).

<<<-- Originally posted by Jon East : If you have a larger image, lets say 800X600, vegas doesn't handle it as well -->>>

Nope, Vegas handles them just fine. Here's what you do. Add the pictures to the timeline. Open Pan/Crop, right-click the image, and choose "Match Output Aspect". Then you can adjust the picture (and create movements) as needed.

Take a look at the issue of my newsletter (http://www.jetdv.com/tts) where I discuss how to do this in detail.

Also, there is a script available that will set all of the "Match Output Aspects" to ALL of your images in a matter of seconds.

Can you believe I just learned the other day you can set the speed manually via right clicking and selecting playback rate. I could have sworn it wasn't there before in 4.0b, though I'm probably wrong.

So how fast can each method speed up footage. It's 12x with both velocity envelope and ctrl+drag...whats the limit on each respectively?

Oh...and one more question Edward, how do you know so much about Vegas. Granted I know it pretty well now working with it for 6 months or so but you seem to have the technical manual memorized! I can only wish to gain the apprehension of a complex program like Vegas that you possess. Thanks again.

Yes, going to properties and setting the playback rate will adjust the CTRL-Drag speed to a specific value if you need an EXACT value. I usually either fill a hole or drag till it looks the way I want. (and, yes, it was even in version 3)

CTRL-Drag will give you up to 4X (and can slow down to .25x)

Velocity Envelope will give you up to 3x (and can slow down to 0x {stop} OR go on to -1x reverse)

you seem to have the technical manual memorized!

Well... I DID read (most of) it. A lot of the anecdotal information comes from places like this. The forums are a GREAT learning tool.

I would like to hear others "recipe" for creating Black & white footage...other than just using the Vegas B&W filter or dropping the satural level to "0" in the color corrector. I still haven't got anything I truly like... I've seen some B&W-created footage from Final Cut Pro that is awesome....

What exactly is it that you are looking for? Black and white is just saturation to 0. If you want other aspects of the picture to look different you'll need to be more specific. :)

I was thinking more of inserting a ColorCurve and B&W filter in series, then adjust the individual RGB color curves to get the "best" B&W result...curious if anyone had something similiar to share to create something more powerful/dramatic than the usual "wimpy" B&W.

Mike, the problem is not the video editor, but the set-top DVD players.

While most players support playing VCD, majority of them "act funny" when handling a VCD menu. I have tried this in real life, with many many DVD players.

The VCD's that are popular out there (I never get hold of one), I suspect, don't have a menu. I bet they are more like a digitized VHS, run straight thru.

Sorry.

Here's what I'd do:

use color curves + desaturation to control the amount each channel contributes to the B+W image. Maybe there is a better way to do this.

Step 2:
Use color curves against to add a tint to your footage. Colors I like are sepia and blue. You have to think carefully before you go ahead and mess with the curves. You can get even fancier by controlling colors based on hue, saturation, and brightness information.

On the x-axis of the curve is brightness. Each brightness value gets mapped to a certain color (you get to control the RGB values). The way I think of it, you figure out where you want each brightness value to go.
0 should get mapped to black.
255 (the brightest value) should get mapped to complete white.
in the shadows/dark areas, you want a deep saturated tint.
In the highlights area you still want the tint except less saturation and with the hue shifted a bit and brightness bumped up.

You can incorporate a s curve in there too to bump contrast, or stack another curves filter on.

Even more insanity:
You can add film grain too (use the film grain filter).
You can duplicate footage onto itself and develop all sorts of wild effects.

i prefer using Channel Blend .. depending on the clip might use either the distribute red, green ,or blue channel

i prefer the RED to get the skin tones really light and get rid of skin blemishes

then use color curves fx to my likeness ...

if you want a QUICK look to see what Channel blend setting look like
on the Vegas preview window use the Overlays icon set to red , green or blue as greyscale ...

Indeed.
And if you're going to re-render, make sure to first render uncompressed.

DV avi format, but of course.

Hey All, I'm in need of help.

It's like this. I'm going to shoot a short in a few weeks. Format is DIGIBeta. That means DIGIBeta tapes. So I asked my cinematographer about DIGIBeta and how to get it in to my computer so I can edit what he shoots with Vegas. He looked at me and told me I can't. I got worried and asked why, he asked if I got raid hardrives wich I don't. I have a really fast system though and can run uncompressed AVI files from Vegas in Windows. (Well, almost) :)

He told me about EDL. And I almost already knew vegas didn't have EDL. I'm correct right?

I don't want to tamper with EDL's. I want to be able to render out to BMP files and edit in Photoshop and be able to work with the digibeta materials in Vegas the way I'm used to do my work.

I always thought that DIGIBeta material where edited ONLINE in computers with help of some Mjpeg codecs. But I was wrong right?

I also have a upcoming musicvideo shoot and that's going to be on Super 16. I wanted that scanned to Digibeta to be able to edit ONLINE on my computer..

So what are my options at this point? I'm a controlfreak and I want total control over my work. I want to be able to use all my skills with filters, colorcorretion, photoshop and so on..

Anyone care to enlighten me? Or am I lost to go out and find Avid somewhere?.......

Thanks,

Andreas

Goto TVone.com

Look at the DV-1394Pro-SDI (about 2000k from us)

This will handle getting your SDI video into Vegas.....

But you prob dont have a Digibeta Deck... What you need to do is
get the Digibeta copied over to DV so you can use it.

Many production houses will do the transfer for a fee.

Regards,

Chris H
@
B&H

Would not the DV PRO -SDI thing mean I loose some resolution?

How hard would it be to get the Digibeta video to uncompressed video on a hardrive? Is this uncommon?

Anydrawbacks in going for a uncompressed solution in Vegas?

you might look at blackmagic decklink products ( now has direct show support ) ..
not sure but i think if you capture with it's PCI hardware /software ?? -

well once clips on on your computer i know you can then use Vegas to edit the clips ...

you could edit the 4:2:2 clips or
make a dv.avi copy of them ... you then edit using the dv clips .. when you are finished editing you then HIDE the dv clips and when Vegas tells you it can't find them you lead it to the digibeta clips ..

you then render using the blackmagic 4:2:2 codec .. then use the decklinks hardware/software ?? to go back to digibeta ...

http://www.decklink.com/productsdeckhd.asp

Thanks for the response.

Yes I was referring to the CTRL-Drag method and was aware that you can use that in conjunction with the Velocity envelopes, I just thought there may be another way to do the time-lapse (i.e specifying to delete a certain amount of frames etc) but I guess it works fine!

Sorry for my obscure explanation of the simple process!

Well, VirtualDub will do it, but Vegas will not. The good news is the results are quite good.

Well, there IS another option (if you want to recapture). Take a look a Scenalyzer Live - it has an option for capturing 1 every n frames.

Decklink is a great idea!

Vegas should work great with SDI uncompressed video. I have heard of people doing HD projects in Vegas on a Laptop.

So aa good fast machine should support your SD video wonderfully.

Chris

I created a mask in order to lay one image over another. However, everything after the mask plays as black in the preview window, even though there is still video remaining in the parent track of the timeline. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?

Recently i was editing a video wit extensive affects and key frames in it. I filmed a whole other sequence loaded it onto my computer and went into a new project. I did ALOT of work on that piece but i have encountered a problem. How do i get that piece of the movie onto my original project. I already tried copying, exting, and then getting into my original project but it will not let me paste it. What do i do because i don't want to loose what i edited and start all over again.

Copy and paste will work but you have to do it differently. Open Vegas and load the "destination" project. Now Open ANOTHER copy of Vegas and load the "source" project. Select what you want copied, copy it, move to the first instance of Vegas, and paste. This should work.

One thing I frequently do is work on sections in different projects, render each section separately, and then compile a final project consisting of those sections.

I'm assuming the tracks have a Parent/Child relationship turned on. Just create another video track and move everything after that mask to the new track. All should be fine.

Satish has just announce his new "Wax" tool. Here's the info:


Wax 2.0a for Vegas has been released and is available at http://www.debugmode.com/wax/ . Wax can work as a standalone app as well as a plugin for Vegas to create advanced 3D and 2D effects including 3D text, rotoscoping, use 3D models, particles etc.

Wax is the next generation of the PluginPac plugins. You can still use PluginPac and Wax inside Vegas but with this Wax release PluginPac Plugins are phased out (except the FrameServer).

Features.
--------------

1) Use graphics acceleration available with your video card for preview as well as render

2) 2D and 3D Plugins and transitions for creating effects. Full featured 3D compositing with 3d objects, lighting, shadows, texture generators, etc. Plugins include the following...

---- RotoMate - rotoscope/paint over video with fully keyframmable shapes and masks
---- Shatter - create explosive effects
---- ModelLoader - load 3d models from .3DS, .MD2 and .MS3d files
---- Particle Generator - generate various natural particle effects like fire, smoke, rain etc
---- Text 3D - create extruded/beveled 3D text, and much more...

3) Has native support for Plugin Adapter technology - can load and use VirtualDub filters, DirectX plugins and Windows ® Movie Maker presets inside Wax (inside Vegas when you use Wax as a plugin with Vegas)

4) Compatible with Vegas 3, 4, and the upcoming 5.

Wax comes with sample projects (created using Vegas 4) and a UserGuide. Please view them before starting to use.

You will need an edl and frame match software if you plan to conform the film negative. Don't know if Vegas does that or not. This can be done with Avid or FCP. If you don't plan on conforming the negative, but just outputting the transfer... not a problem.

Vegas does EDL, it's a script. So, if you don't have it already, you're going to need first the .NET framework from Microsoft, then the script, and then an understanding of how to generate an EDL and what it's good for.

Vegas EDL's are cuts only, which really isn't all that bad considering little else translates well. Or, so I'm told.

Vegas does SD/HD at 4-6fps on the timeline, but you can use a proxy file to edit in real-time, then match back all your cuts/FX at render time. You're going to need to learn about frame-serving and proxy files.

BJ_M and DSE over at the DMN forums will be your best bet for finding out all the dirty details -- do a keyword search under their names with words like "SD," "HD," "frame serve" and "EDL" and you'll dig up a lot of info to begin with. (edit: I just asked your question for you, as I'm very interested in tightening up my knowledge in this area (http://www.dmnforums.com/cgi-bin/displaywwugpost.fcgi?forum=sonic-foundry_vegas&post=040226152951.htm))

On that note, here's something that might be of relevance -- a quote from BJ_M:

a transport stream explained in depth here: http://computermodules.com/broadcast-systems/transport-stream.shtml
as for editing it - well not directly.. you can convert it to a program stream or you can frame serve it or you can demultiplex it and frame serve it or demultiplex it and convert it to program stream .. often it contains 1 or more audio stream (and can contain several video streams) - the audio would have to be converted to other than ac3 and you would (if more than 1 stream) have to break out the streams .
all the above is not to hard if you have the right tools.. (i do it)
in vegas - ALL mpeg editing requires re-encoding ..
HD can be 8 or 10 bit (or in some cases more with wavelet compression) .. The "standards" with HD is that there is no standards per say on frame rates, resolution , data rates , GOP structure (in the case of interframe type encoding (wmv9 and mpeg) , delivery method, storage methods, and on and on (including i might add: aspect and pixel ratios), even major broadcasters don't use the same methods and formats...
there are generally accepted common standards that are used for HD and also (in the case of brodcasting - agreed upon (somewhat)formats and guidlines (see links below for astc org), but myself and others (more in the film industry), don't really follow them (for the most part) as they are to restrictive and not related to the D-Cinema that i am involved with (D-cinema means less than even High Def. and is more a marketing term that anything else IMO) ..

Here's a link to a program that generates transport streams:

http://www.lilapple.com/products/mp2tsms.htm

Good luck -- and please return and tell us how things go!

- jim

i don't see any need for a EDL for film matchback .. the original poster has stated the short is being shot on DIGIBETA

his 2nd project (music video ) is being shot on super 16 but again it's DIGIBETA as master not back to film ...

I am new to the whole video scene. Purchaced a Canon GL2 in December and shot some ice fishing footage in the cameas standard mode. Nothing fancy. I think the camera shoots in 29.97 mode, am I correct. Now I am using Vegas 4.0 for editing and simple cropping and titles. When I start a new project and import the media from the camera which preference settings would I use.
The first one I did I set the preferences to NTSC DV (720x480, 29.970 fps) and the frame rate to 29.970 (NTSC). From some of the reading I have been doing on this forum should I have set the preferences to NTSC DV 24p (720x480, 23.976 fps) with a frame rate of 23.976 (IVTC Film).
The problem I had with the first project was when I printed back to the DV Tape from the timeline I got some frames that were dropped and audio blurps and a bit jittery in spots. Everything looks good in the editing stage but printing back to tape is giving me trouble. So basically what I need to know is what preferences in Vegas should be used for regular footage shot with the Canon GL2.

Any help appreciated.

NTSC 29.97 FPS 720X480. Thats what your camera is set to do.
As you improve your camera and editing abilities you can play with the other settings but for now use the "stock" settings and you'll have some super video to show everyone.

Best of Luck,
Don B.

If doing cuts only edl, getting the Black Magic codecs isn't needed. If rendering back out to tape, then by all means get them. DigiBeta is 10bit and the 10bit codecs from Black Magic support that. Besides, 10bit color is a DVD spec too (hint, hint).

Kudos to BM for being so generous.

Good luck.

Thanks for this link Edward.

RotoMate was just what I was looking for!

I second your advice about reading the user guide and looking at the sample files. This isn't the most intuitive app I've encountered! And despite reading and re-reading the user guide, I'm still unclear about how to get RotoMate to interpolate between keyframes. I'll get there.

I'm sure the DebugMode forum will be buzzing any time now . . .

As a side note, while I was at the DebugMode site I downloaded FrameServer - something I had been reluctant to do as I was not entirely clear on what exactly it was for or why I would need it.

Now I know. Outstandingly useful!

Thanks again.

I'm no expert in PTT as most of what I do is destined for viewing through a browser, however it strikes me that your problem is not to do with the video settings but with getting the data out of Vegas and back onto tape.

Are there any other apps running at the same time as the PTT? I had problems once (going the other way, ie during capture) when my virus checker kicked in during the capture and caused unpleasant frame dropping!

I believe I have also read people's experiences of frames dropping when Outlook polls for new mail.

I seem to have an issue with an external firewire drive - it doesn't cause dropouts, it trashes PTT completely!

I also found a thread that suggested that the GL2 doesn't release control of the firewire bus, ie that it isn't the firewire drive but the GL2 that's causing the problem. The links are here : http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17908&perpage=15&pagenumber=2.

Anyway, I'd be inclined to first check out the possibility of other apps interrupting the process. I'm sure there are more knowledgable people here that may be able to offer further insight.

Good luck.

You're capturing standard NTSC-DV - leave your project at normal NTSC-DV (29.97). Don't worry about the wide variety of options until you learn more. For now, just capture and print using the standard format.

Now to the problem: you say it stutters upon recording back to tape. Did it capture fine (no dropped frames during capture)? It stutters using Tools - Print Video to DV Tape?

Unfortunately, there's LOTS of things that can be checked and 95% of them deal with your system - not Vegas. Here's something you can try, though. Render the entire project out to a single DV-AVI file and then try printing that file. Did that work better?

Without knowing a LOT more about your system, it's going to be really hard to try and diagnose much.

I am trying to use a few scripts that I downloaded, but each time that I try I get the message "Failed to initialize script engine. Please install the .NET framework"

I have downloaded all of the windows updates that there are, and I have even tried just installing the .NET framework from Microsoft but with no avail. I have uninstalled Vegas, then installed the .NET and reinstalled Vegas, but it is still not working.

If there is anyone that could help me with this, I would appreciate it very much. Thank you.

I have closed out everything I can find so there is nothing that I can see running in the background. Actually I do all the editing on my main computer which has a 336 Celeron chip. I know not to fast by todays standards. But I am networked to another computer in the house that has a AMD 1.2 Gig chip. All the files are stored on the faster computer and I do the final render and print back to tape from that machine. It is quite possible there is something in that 1.2 PC that is running that I am not aware of but I thought I would ask if I had the preferences right when importing the media to do the editing and the correct preferences for the final render and print to tape. Once I had the correct preferences selected I could rule out that as a cause. There is one of these two computers that is trying to dial my internet connection with out me doing anything but I have not found which PC or app is trying to dial up. Possibly this could be the trouble.

<<<-- Originally posted by Ian Stark : I'm no expert in PTT as most of what I do is destined for viewing through a browser, however it strikes me that your problem is not to do with the video settings but with getting the data out of Vegas and back onto tape.

Are there any other apps running at the same time as the PTT? I had problems once (going the other way, ie during capture) when my virus checker kicked in during the capture and caused unpleasant frame dropping!

I believe I have also read people's experiences of frames dropping when Outlook polls for new mail.

I seem to have an issue with an external firewire drive - it doesn't cause dropouts, it trashes PTT completely!

I also found a thread that suggested that the GL2 doesn't release control of the firewire bus, ie that it isn't the firewire drive but the GL2 that's causing the problem. The links are here : http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17908&perpage=15&pagenumber=2.

Anyway, I'd be inclined to first check out the possibility of other apps interrupting the process. I'm sure there are more knowledgable people here that may be able to offer further insight.

Good luck. -->>>

Hi Ed: Ya everything looks good up until the time when I print back to tape. When I view it during the editing stage everything plays normal, all the titiles and sound is all fine and no dropped frames. Then I render the whole thing to a single avi file before I print to DV Tape. After i print to tape I check it on the TV with the camera hooked up and sometimes I get a spit second blue screen and the sound will be missing some small pieces and it looks like it cuts off a frame her and there as it seems to be through out the tape in different spots along the way. It seems to capture just fine as everything is there audio and video. I am sure as well that it has to be something in the machine that is the cause but I was getting confused on the different templates from reading some of the posts. I thought I read in the Vegas help to work in NTSC DV 24p (720x480, 23.976 fps) as well. I will try and go into msconfig and systematically shut everything down I can think of. As I replied in a previous post to another fellow I do all the editing on my slower computer which has a 366 celeron chip but the final render and print to tape I do on the faster computer which is a Compact AMD 1.2 GHZ with a 120 gig hard drive. The only thing I can think of is something is interupting the process. I just have to track it down but though I would check and see if my preferences were correct. Thanks for the help though, I really appreciate the forum. Good place to learn.

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : You're capturing standard NTSC-DV - leave your project at normal NTSC-DV (29.97). Don't worry about the wide variety of options until you learn more. For now, just capture and print using the standard format.

Now to the problem: you say it stutters upon recording back to tape. Did it capture fine (no dropped frames during capture)? It stutters using Tools - Print Video to DV Tape?

Unfortunately, there's LOTS of things that can be checked and 95% of them deal with your system - not Vegas. Here's something you can try, though. Render the entire project out to a single DV-AVI file and then try printing that file. Did that work better?

Without knowing a LOT more about your system, it's going to be really hard to try and diagnose much. -->>>

Uninstall Vegas and Reinstall Vegas

In a few cases, Vegas must be installed AFTER the .NET framework.

Are you trying to print files over a network???

Assuming you are not trying that, SOMETHING is stealing CPU cycles somewhere. Try turning off all networking, any USB devices, anything else you can think of, and verify that DMA is active on the hard drives.