View Full Version : Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q1Q2)


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Edward Troxel
May 10th, 2005, 10:54 AM
I have 3 AG-DV2000 decks (1 at church and 2 at home) and all three do pass-thru just fine. Going back to the original post, the basic settings look like they match mine. On the main display, do you have an A1 or A2? If yes, press the "Input Select" button until nothing is displayed there. THAT is the "firewire input" mode.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
May 10th, 2005, 11:44 AM
"http://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses_assets/vegas.html
offers a one-week course in Sony Vegas at Stanford's Digital Media Academy.
Great location, lotsa fun coming up there. Hope to meet a few of you!
Topics include HDV, Vegas, and general editing techniques.
Taught by Keith Kolbo and Douglas Spotted Eagle.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
May 10th, 2005, 11:45 AM
http://digitalmediaacademy.org/courses_assets/vegas.html
offers a one-week course in Sony Vegas at Stanford's Digital Media Academy.
Great location, lotsa fun coming up there.
Topics include HDV, Vegas, and general editing techniques.
Taught by Keith Kolbo and Douglas Spotted Eagle. You can view the week-long agenda on their website. It's very exciting to see Vegas join the DMA lineup this year.
Hope to meet a few of you!

Mark Errante
May 10th, 2005, 12:03 PM
Ok so Im working in vegas 5 and am ready to render my AVIs out to Mpeg for DVD. Right now I will be using the MainConcept Encoder that came with vegas. My project has been in 2:3:3:2 24p timeline. I will be burning the DVD with Adobe Encore not architect...I dont have it. The only template for 24p in MainConcept is for Architect. Will this make any difference as far as encore is concerned or is it just an mpeg?

Also, the disc is right now about 1 hour 15 minuets. The audio has come from a recording studio and sounds amazing. Will I have to go to ac3 to fit it all on a standard DVD? If so is this the recomended thing to do anyway? Is the quality and compatibilty better with ac3? Or should I do PCM? I really want to get this right as Im on a tight timeframe and cant afford to render everything multiple times. Thanks!

Also is you have any sugestions concerning using MainConcept to optimize my 24p XL2 footage to keep it its best PLEASE let me know now. Thanks!

Kim Kinser
May 10th, 2005, 12:16 PM
Seems like only yesterday I went to VV 5 and now there is a 6.

I don't see much there for me except the project nesting.

Do you need to to upgrade in order to be able go to VV 7 when that comes down the pike or can I skip 6 without penalty?

Thanks,

KIM

Edward Troxel
May 10th, 2005, 12:23 PM
The 24p Architect settings should work just fine. They create a standard MPEG2 file which should be accepted by ANY authoring program. The one thing to note: It will NOT include audio. Render your audio separately as AC-3 and give both the Encore and all should be fine.

Edward Troxel
May 10th, 2005, 12:26 PM
If history is any indcation.....

You can currently upgrade from V4 to V6 for the same price as V5 to V6. For that matter, the same price will even let you go from V3 to V6.

Question: do you use DVD Architect? If yes, UPGRADE. DVDA3 alone is worth the price of the upgrade. But there's several neat new features in Vegas 6 that would also warrant the upgrade. Take a look at my April 2005 newsletter where I talk about what's new in each.

Aaron Koolen
May 10th, 2005, 03:09 PM
I am in a similar boat. Been using the trial (9 days left) and really there doesn't seem that much added of any real benefit - to me. I can't see what in DVDA3 is that much better either, I usually just make a DVD with a menu, maybe a submenu and that's it. Edward, I'll look at your newsletter and see if there's stuff I'm missing - thanks.

That said, I think one thing I've noticed that's good is that the Project Media manager doesn't seem to move all my media around the bins from what I can tell so far. V5 used to move them EVERYWHERE. Shame I have to fork out $200 or so just to fix a bug.

Kim, I think you have to look at what you do with it. I am not a pro editor who does this for a living, so I have 1 job (And I don't really get paid for them) I do every 4-5 months. For me the upgrade then becomes more of an issue; 200 can be spent elsewhere on other gear. If it's the same for you then maybe you should save your money.


Aaron

Brent Marks
May 11th, 2005, 01:17 AM
Anyone have a steadi-cam plugin for Vegas?

I had a plug in for Premier about a year ago that tremendously reduced camera shake.


Does anyone happen to have one for Vegas?

thanks!

Robert Crawford
May 11th, 2005, 07:01 AM
There's nothing I know of that runs inside Vegas itself, but there's the Deshake plugin for VirtualDub and the Boris stabilizer that is shipped with Vegas 6.

They do different things, so which to use depends on what you're trying to correct. The DeShake filter smooths out camera motion, while the Boris stabilizer attempts to remove ALL motion.

Hugh DiMauro
May 11th, 2005, 07:30 AM
I am rendering a 90 minute documentary as an MPEG-2 DV Architect Template and the render freezes at 16% each time. When I check the CPU usage indicator it has dropped to zero, meaning the rendering process has just stopped. Why is this happening? I am in a panic because this thing has to be finished for the client by TONIGHT so it can be entered at the IFP in New York by Friday!

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!

Edward Troxel
May 11th, 2005, 07:46 AM
Try doing a pre-render (to DV-AVI) of the project. After the pre-render, do the MPEG2 render.

Andriy Zolotoiy
May 11th, 2005, 08:38 AM
I had one of those before with older Vegas, v.4 I think. Problem was in source AVI file, Vegas couldn't retrieve a frame and stuck there. I used VirtualDub to re-save that AVI and problem was gone.

Hugh DiMauro
May 11th, 2005, 11:00 AM
Ed:

I did as you said and I got past the 16% mark. Now let's hope that it renders all the way. Just so I'm clear on your suggestion:

I take the finished rendered file and place it on a new timeline then render that out to MPEG-2 with the AC-3 file separately for DV Architect?

Thanks a million for all of your priceless help. I hope I can give back to DV Info a modicum of what it has given me.

Mark Errante
May 11th, 2005, 04:50 PM
Alright Im panicking. I just burnt a DVD from encore that was rendered in vegas 5 with mainconcept. It was set to the standard dvd 24p acrhitecth setting. When I watch it on tv the letterboxing (tried pan/ as well as a mask) moves up and dows slightly and I every once in a while see a whitish line beneath the letterbox. Between the bottom of teh tv screen and the mask. I dont see it on my smaller tv but I think the whole image is moving. Has any one experienced this before? It does not do it with mainconcept on premiere, but premiere seems to have waves through it.errrr....

Thanks!

Owen Hughes
May 11th, 2005, 05:04 PM
I have done a fair share of editing on Avid Pro and find the picture in picture function easy to use. It is especially helpful when doing promo projects.

I havent been able to get it to work on Vegas 6 yet. How do you do this?

Greg Jacobson
May 11th, 2005, 05:39 PM
Just using the interlal plug ins already inside of the softwares, which is faster as rending HDV footage?

Also, I know you can put Vegas on up to 3 computers, can you put PPro on more than one computer?

Brian Kennedy
May 11th, 2005, 06:50 PM
Owen, I use Vegas 5, not Vegas 6, but making a picture in picture is as easy as putting two video tracks stacked on the timeline, then using the pan-crop tool on the top one to shrink and position it.

Greg Jacobson
May 11th, 2005, 07:12 PM
Anyone using Vegas with a render farm?

I have 5 computers sitting in boxes and was thinking about setting up a render farm to get the render times down to what it takes DV to render.

Anyone doing this? How many computers you using and how much is it helping render times?

Dennis Vogel
May 11th, 2005, 07:40 PM
Make sure your cam is in record mode. If you have it in playback mode you will not see anything coming to the cam from the PC.

Good luck.

Dennis

Edward Troxel
May 11th, 2005, 07:43 PM
Actually, to create a PIP you're better off using Track Motion. Owen, go to the link below my name and look at the first three issues. I cover PIP's extensively there.

Patrick King
May 11th, 2005, 07:49 PM
Actually, to create a PIP you're better off using Track Motion. Owen, go to the link below my name and look at the first three issues. I cover PIP's extensively there.

Or even better, download the free trial of Excalibur (which Edward and Gary developed, I think?!?). Excalibur will do some really cool PIP stuff, very easily. If you use the trial, be careful...you'll buy it! ;)

Owen Hughes
May 12th, 2005, 01:12 AM
Why didnt i think of using the pan-crop tool! DUH! Thanks for all the advice guys, I'll check it all out and see what suits me best.

This forum is like having IT services on hand 24/7, except you have one great advantage over IT services, you know what you're talking about!!!

Thanks again
Owen

Steve Roffler
May 12th, 2005, 02:43 AM
I was trying to use Bezier masking to make a puzzle appear to break into peices and leave the field of view. I made a whole bunch of peices with the Bezier mask with no problem and then made them move with the 3D track motion. The problem is I used ADD masking to put all the peices together (one peice per track). I had to render (in DV AVI) every few tracks to a new track to keep rendering from crashing my computer and to prevent motion aftifacts.

The ADD mask caused two problems.

First, overlapping peices (as they move off the field of view) turn brighter (because they are added). This is anoying but can be acceptable. Second, as I rendered to new tracks, the puzzle became progressively brighter. It seems that some low level background is being added during each render to the new tracks and this slowly accumulates until the puzzle is superlit. Since I start with 286 tracks, this is a significant problem. I used some of the filters to adjust the final output but it looks terrible. Low resolution.

Any suggestions on how to solve these problems? I also tried converting my Bezier masks to regular masks (with the blue screen mask, forgot what it's called) but render times then increased exponentially. A render of a 60 second piece of only 5 tracks was estimated to take 8 hours before it crashed my new notebook.

BTY, I'm using V5.

Thanks.

Milt Lee
May 12th, 2005, 09:07 AM
Hmmmm.....clicked on the link and it redirected me to a microsoft site. Is that right? Love to find out about the academy.

Milt

Douglas Spotted Eagle
May 12th, 2005, 09:14 AM
http://www.digitalmediaacademy.com/courses_assets/vegas.html is the direct link.

Milt Lee
May 12th, 2005, 09:19 AM
I've been entering a video that I completed this winter in various festivals and I had a question about the best ways to go from my computer to a tranfer house, and which facility has done a good job for people.

My film (VIDEO LETTERS FROM PRISON) is a 30 minute piece that I edited in Vegas and have turned into a DVD. I also have an AVI file of the same piece.
What I need is a BetaSP to send off to the Winnipeg Festival. Other festivals want Digi-Beta.

My question is - can these transfer facilities use an AVI file, and would that result in better quality, or should I just send a DVD? Because it's 30 minutes long, I used a higher constant bitrate, and it really looks good, but the original tape was 24P from my DVX100A and I'm wondering if it would be better if I sent them the AVI file, without the 2332 pulldown.

Shameless plug - the film recently won BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT at the Native Voice Film Festival.

Thanks for the help!
Milt Lee
Hollow Bone Films

Milt Lee
May 12th, 2005, 09:20 AM
Cool, this time it worked!! THANKS!!

Milt

Edward Troxel
May 12th, 2005, 09:48 AM
I fixed the top link. It should also work now.

David Bird
May 12th, 2005, 10:07 AM
Hi,
I'm considering the purchase of V6 for my son who is a broadcast journalism major. Does the "student" version of V6 have any limitations as respects functionality as opposed to the standard retail version?
Thanks - David Bird

Greg Jacobson
May 12th, 2005, 12:34 PM
Never aswer the phone, just get on hold forever listening to that stupid music.

Never answer emails.


If there is any sign of life over there then post here and let me know.

Edward Troxel
May 12th, 2005, 12:39 PM
Short answer: Yes.

Longer answer: My understanding is that they only answer during normal business hours. Plus there is an hour period of time during lunch during which the phone is not answered.

Confirmed (straight from Sony's website):
Hours: 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST, Monday through Friday.

Edward Troxel
May 12th, 2005, 12:42 PM
There is ONE version of Vegas - just different pricing depending on qualifications. So, no, there will be no limitations.

David Bird
May 12th, 2005, 01:10 PM
Thanks for the info, Ed.
David Bird

Brian Kennedy
May 12th, 2005, 02:54 PM
I've gotten pretty good support from them (when I had an install issue with CDA 5.2, and once on a SF plug-in), but you do need to call during business hours. Unfortunately, business hours don't include weekends.

Brian Kennedy
May 12th, 2005, 03:00 PM
Steve - maybe someone else could help, but I can't understand how Bezier masks would be used in a "breaking apart a puzzle" effect.

Admittedly, I haven't thought this out, but what I would do is make the puzzle pieces in Photoshop from the image. It would be easy enough to draw the pieces with the pen tool, turn the path into a selection, then CTRL-J to make a new layer for that piece. Then you could, one by one, save each piece/layer as a PNG. The transparency of the layer remains transparent in Vegas.

Then you could import each PNG as a track in Vegas, and could animate each piece independently, rotate, pan, 3D motion, spin, etc. It'd be easy to make them all end up where you wanted, joined together, by just stacking them up (each fills in the other's transparent areas).

This way, there's no need to use an "add" blend mode or anything unusual like that.

HTH. And like I said, I gave it about 10 seconds of thought. There may be a lots easier way to do it. ;-D

Edward Troxel
May 12th, 2005, 03:18 PM
Steve, how about e-mailing be the VEG file so I can play with it?

Steve Roffler
May 12th, 2005, 08:38 PM
Edward, It's in the mail. If you have trouble getting it let me know and I'll put it up somewhere for downloading.

Brian, I know I'm probably going about this the wrong way. I'll think a bit about your idea.

Thanks

Mike Sun
May 13th, 2005, 12:37 AM
Can someone help me out please?

Recently I switched over to Vegas 6 (yes, I'm a new user) and when I was importing some video clips from my camcorder to the computer, I noticed that the clips captured seemed to be deinterlaced. My shots are done in 30fps interlaced, and when I watch the raw uncompressed footage, I don't see the horizontal lines, which I used to when I captured clips from Premiere Pro.

My question is, does Vegas 6 automatically deinterlace when caputring clips to the computer and if so, does this degrade the video quality? Am I supposed to see the horizontal lines showing up when there's a lot of camera movement/action going on?

Steve Roffler
May 13th, 2005, 01:07 AM
Capture via firewire just transfers the video from your camcorder tape to your computer. Both are the same format (DV AVI) so there is no loss of resolution. The video is not deinterlaced upon transfer.

Horizontal lines don't sound good. I've never seen this in my transfers.

Kyle Ringin
May 13th, 2005, 01:10 AM
Mike,
The capture window is usually of a low enough resolution to get rid of any interlace lines if that's what you're talking about, but it sounds like you mean the preview window. At the top there is a resolution/quality drop down - if you select best/full it will show the full resolution and hence any interlace artifacts.

BTW I have Vegas 5, I haven't used 6 yet but I guess this still applies..

Cheers.

Charley Gallagher
May 13th, 2005, 05:20 AM
One never knows....is this just something I bumped on a menu somewhere or is this going to be a crisis of epic proportions?

Anyone know what may have happened?

Edward Troxel
May 13th, 2005, 07:07 AM
Steve, I never saw it. Can you send again and make sure "Vegas" is in the subject line somewhere?

Edward Troxel
May 13th, 2005, 07:09 AM
Options - Preferences - Draw waveforms and frames in events.

Make sure it is turned ON.

Steve Roffler
May 13th, 2005, 08:40 AM
Edward,

I resent the files. The veg file is around 4 megs, don't know if that is the problem. Or it could be I took out some of the spaces in your email address.

Hope they get there this time.

Thanks,

Steve

Edward Troxel
May 13th, 2005, 08:55 AM
Something's coming through right now. I'll look it over later today.

Dan Keaton
May 13th, 2005, 10:51 AM
Dear Charley,

The thumbnails on the timeline will disappear if you minimize the timeline (in other words compress it vertically.)

Just expand the timeline (event) vertically and the thumbnails will reappear.

Greg Jacobson
May 13th, 2005, 11:36 AM
5 days and still no answer to several emails.

Pathetic.

Edward Troxel
May 13th, 2005, 12:00 PM
Your best bet is to call them. E-mails seem to be taking over TWO WEEKS at the moment.

Mike Sun
May 13th, 2005, 03:36 PM
Thanks guys, I just needed that reassurance!