Hey all, well I have a friend who wants his reel I cut together for him in Vegas 4 on his computer so that when he needs copies, he can burn some on iDVD (he's from South Africa so me burning copies for him doesn't work). I originally figured mpeg-2 made the most sense and would save him the render time only to discover that iDVD and his mac don't support mpeg-2 encoded files (odd). When I go to Quick Time, I can't get a reasonable file size (6.3 gigs for a 4 minute piece) or as soon as I touch compression, the file size and quality plummet. Any suggestions?

ok. so if i understand what you're saying, i should set the audio data rate to maximum (if i am interested in acheving maximum audio quality). and the only thing i have to worry about when doing so is not to exceed the DVD media available memory.

correct?

Can somone tell me if this is completely insane?...this person seems to be selling Vegas 5.0 and a number of plugins for under $100. When I ran on search on ebay for Vegas 5.0 this guy
(ebay# 3685837779) was at the bottom of a pile of other Vegas 5.0+plugins for the same price (#'s 3684897847 others) ...looked like some kind of wholsale thing. The only thing was, this seller and the other seller had the exact same page, exact same words, except the other seller had some bad feedback about bootleg and copied software. So I'm thinking maybe its the same guy, who just changed his identity to get rid of the bad feedback. He claims to be "reselling".
#3684897847

Something smells fishy...but at this price...should I care?

thanks
-alex

You should always care! Unless it is legal software, you should never pay someone for it. You are asking them to continue stealing and selling, after which others see how cheap it is and want to buy it too, after which others who sell it realize they can make money doing it, after which it spreads so rampantly that the software company cracks down and then raises the cost of their software for innocent bystanders who actually paid for the software to begin with.

It all starts with one person - you!

At the bottom of the auction it says this..

This software is FULL Version, NOT academic. It's not used neither registered, but not in Retail Box. I don't know if it can be registered. It's fully functional and working great without registering it. Sold As Is. I am just reselling it. These picture are for reference only. User Manual is included on CD for all programs that come in package.

If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.

My guess is he is selling a copy of the 30 day trial.. All of his statements are true. It works great, for 30 days...

Stay away...

Alright, I was thinking that, but good to be sure. Thank you very much.
-alex

Okay, I resolved it; I phoned Sony and realized I was incorrect about the upgrade price--it was way less than I thought, and not greatly more than the original promotion--so I ordered it. Though it's still an added cost I wasn't looking for, at least now I'll have the Architecture program finally incorporated into my Vegas 5 program!

And Ulead owes me a few good lunches. :p

Josh: I've moved your post to the Vegsa forum.

Keep in mind that Vegas is just using the fonts that you have
installed on your system.

Do those fonts work in other programs like Word or other
graphics applications?

I'll have to check. I thought I posted in the Vegas forum in the first place? My bad.

Well it seems to think it needs to do that for some reason. I'm
assuming the logo's and trailer are already in MPEG? That does
not mean they are DVD compliant. DVD's use a strict subset of
MPEG2 and not every MPEG2 file fits that criteria.

Easy to test. Render some DVD MPEG2 with Vegas. Does it want
to recode that? No? Then the other MPEG is simply not compliant
enough.

What you can do is load those files up in to Vegas and render
out DVD compliant MPEG2 files. Then you can use those files
from that point forward without needing the originals. So you
only have to do it once.

One other reason I think this might be happening is because
dolby gives out there footage in NTSC? So if you are in PAL it
will definitely need to be converted to be used in a PAL project.

Hello,

If it is not boxed and cannot be registerd,then I would not buy it..
But it is possible to purchase a good copy of Vegas from Ebay if you pay attention to the details and ask all the right questions..I purchased my copy from there for a much reduced price than retail , and all worked out well.. Make sure it is boxed, not academic(unless you are a student), the seller has very high marks on his Ebay history, and that is is a registerable version of the software..

Mike

No, that is incorrect. From the DVD FAQ:The bitrate is 64 kbps to 448 kbps, with 384 or 448 being the normal rate for 5.1 channels and 192 being the typical rate for stereo (with or without surround encoding).Source: The DVD FAQ - Audio details of DVD-Video (http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.6.2)

So the minimum supported bitrate is 64 and the maximum is 448.
Personally I would stick with 192 or 384 because that seems to
be the most used out there.

Keep in mind that a lot of people cannot hear the difference or
have a good enough set to be able to hear the difference. Just
so you know.

Sounds like an illegal copy with a "crack" or something. Since
it does run according to his claims. Smells bad!

Vegas uses your default Windows fonts. However, not all fonts installed will work. True Type fonts will. Some others won't. You just need to experiment.

Thanks. I found a site called www.1001freefonts.com that has a ton of true type fonts, so I guess I can probably find whatever I need there.

Josh,

Thanks for the 1001freefonts link. It'll come in handy for my next project's titles.

also go and visit dolby.com for technical info regarding bitrates and encoding routines..

i thought about the PAL vs NTSC and i think thats the case, however im using the SAME intros in DVDA1 and i can easily skip this step and let it author the files untouched..

basically the TSA doesnt alow me to manipulate the material provided by Dolby.. :(

Well if you are in PAL land and you have NTSC footage there is
no way around that. Unless you can get PAL footage from them.

Anyway it should not matter much. If you do it correctly they
cannot see you re-rendered the footage.

I am making available some of the Vegas script tools that I have written over the past year or so. I have tested them on my machine, but I would like to get some other Vegas users to try them out. The tools in the toolkit are:

CaptureCutter - a workflow enhancement tool to speed up capturing video tapes and reduce wear and tear on the tapes. Can also be used to render multiple regions or in/out markers of your project to individual files.

TimeBandit - a effects tool to speed up or slow down multiple events beyond the limits of Vegas's built in support. It can slice video into a sequence of single frames to get extreme speedup effects.

MultiRender - yet another rendering tool to automate the rendering of multiple jobs from multiple projects. I originally wrote this before Vegas 5.0's network rendering came out.

For more information and to get the beta, go to:

http://www.peachrock.com/software/veggie-toolkit.html

Thanks,

Randall Campbell

Looks good. I'll download it when I get home tonight. Thanks!

I just recieved my V5 production bundle upgrade. I have a dual monitor set-up, question, Is there any way to expand the timeline across both monitors? If so how? I have been able to move everything else around except that. Also I recieved the magic bullet plug in as well as the lite version of boris. The boris works, but when I try to install the magic bullet plug in, it errors out. It then shows up in the start up menu, but the only option that it will allow is to uninstall it. Anyone else had this issue?

For Magic Bullet, I believe you have to download an updated installation program.

For dual monitors, you should be able to simply expand Vegas over both screens.

Are there certain keys that I have to use to do it? I try to drag it over, but it just won't go. The magic bullet thing makes sense though, my system is not connected to online service. Also, do you know the link for that software update? Since it came with the bundle, I am not sure if Red Giant would offer it or not.

When you get the fonts, do you just import them into vegas? Also, if you do, do they stay in there? (like when you select insert text)

How do I remove (delete) a section of video/audio from the center of my clip? I'm deleting this question if I can after I find the answer because it's so bad. I just can't figure it out...

Are the dual monitors set up side by side or vertically in windows display options? You may need to drag the window down instead of accross.

Definitely check the settings on your graphics card and make sure it is set for side by side monitors instead of the same signal going to both monitors or, as Jason mentioned, top & bottom.

I believe the update IS on Red Giant's website but I do not have the link.

Create a region around the section you want to delete (click and drag). Now you can just press the delete key and that area should be removed. If you have ripple turned on, the area will also be closed (clips to the right will move left to fill the hole.

From the trimmer or the main window at the top?

No. You add them to WINDOWS. Open the Control Panel, go to Fonts, and add the new fonts there. Vegas will automatically see them.

Ok.. when i click and drag the entire clipped moved right. I held shift down and drug out a section and deleted it. Thanks! now just have to turn ripple on. This is progress!

Click ABOVE the timeline and drag. This will create a selected area highlighted in blue. Then pressing delete will delete that entire area.

From the TIMELINE.

got it. which I suppose should just remove it when i render it to a new file. I was looking for a right click option to delete. Never though of the delete key... thanks for putting up with the ignorance.

I downloaded a whole bunch a once, and wanted to do a mass install, as well. I had to take an extra step, just for anyone out there who's never done this before. First I had to extract each zipped folder (each font is downloaded as a zip file) to a directory, and then, I had to go to THAT directory, and move the font file itself out of its folder (yes, even though it was extracted, there was still the same file/folder structure in the new directory. Hmmm), and into the raw directory itself, and do this for each font, and then I could install them all at once. I hope that makes sense to someone.

You can also split the track with the S key in two places. Highlight
the middle piece and hit the delete key. I think you can also
right-click and choose cut perhaps? (not infront Vegas at the moment)

Yes, there are MANY ways this can be accomplished. I tried to give the shortest number of steps to accomplish the task. However, when I really do it, I DO normally press "S" to split out that area before deleting it.

I just checked and there is a right-click option for cut. However, there also IS a right-click option for Delete as well.

That's the exact reason I added it as well Edward, I also always
use split first <g> How funny!

Thanks all, problem solved! Will know soon on the plug-in issue. I e-mailed red giant and sony.