Is it possible, and I've tried, to save credit rolls to the library, while creating the library from a current project? I've read the manual and maybe I'm missing something.

My project includes credits and lead in credits that I want to save to a library and reuse over and over for each additional project.

You could copy all of these events to a "Library" project. Then you could just open the other project to copy them into an existing project.

If Vegas 6, you can make the credit roll its OWN project and then just save the VEG file. When you want that credit roll, just pop the VEG file onto the timeline.

So let me make sure I got this right, if I re-render an .avi file to another .avi file, it remains the same as long as no changes are made on the timeline. Does that include even just editing certain clips without adding any FX?

Also, when I render my .avi's into DVD Architect, they require me to do it as .mpeg2's. Does that mean that I'm losing resolution then?

Thank you.

you need to clarify "re-render".

if you change a transition on the timeline 20 times before you get it right, there will be no quality loss, because in the end, it's only getting changed once... despite being re-rendered many times.

if you were to lay a small graphic over a clip in the timeline, export it as a dv avi, then bring it back into the project, put another graphic on it, and export it yet again as a dv avi, you will take a quality hit... if you use the dv codec, you'll be hitting it with 5:1 compression both times, so in that case, you might want to consider using a lossless codec instead of the dv codec.

the market i serve would be able to handle the dv render/export/import/re-render scenario, but ymmv.

yes, you are losing resolution exporting to dvd mpeg2, but since that is the final destination, you don't have any choice.

Ruben, from DV-AVI to DV-AVI will simply COPY the unchanged sections so there will be zero quality loss on unchanged sections. If you add a DV-AVI to the timeline, cut out some pieces, and leave everything as cuts, there will be NO quality loss. If you create a crossfade, there will be 1 generation of quality loss but would not be visually noticable. If you then add that rendered clip to a new timeline with no changes, there would be no additional loss.

Thank you all for your help.

And thank you, Ed. As always, you made it crystal clear for me. (How's that cape of yours?)

Ruben

That's true, I'll look into that idea. I do have Vegas 6. I did end up opening my old project and copying the credits. I guess when I think of a project library, I figured everything should be included.

Gregory, I have only used a DSR-11 a few times but I don't think it can handle 24p DV directly. Here are a few things you can try to get export to tape working with your 24p project.

1. save your 24p project, then change the project properties to NTSC 29.97i and save as to a new project name for safety. Now try exporting to tape.

2. alternatively, open your original 24p project then "render as" the entire timeline to a new NTSC 29.97i DV-AVI. create a new 29.97 project and import the 29.97 DV-AVI you created and export that to tape.

3. some DV devices do not like 16:9 DV. So if your project is 16:9 you may need to change properties to/or render it as letterboxed 4:3 29.97i before you can export it to some tape/AV converter devices.

Did you try saving the Credit Roll as a preset? (i.e., give it a name and press the diskette icon to save it) This will make it available in all your projects under the Preset dropdown.

~jr

Did you try saving the Credit Roll as a preset?

For some reason, and I don't know why, I was assuming multiple keyframes. If it's a single keyframe, absolutely use a preset! Thanks, John, for bringing the forest into view instead of all those trees getting in the way.

Short answer is, if the device isn't a 24p device, Vegas can no longer render out a 24p stream to the device. Not that it ever could. See...

Once upon a time, back in Vegas 5, you could render out 24p to a non 24p device, but it was actually inserting a pulldown without you having to tell it to do so. Therefore, you were really rendering out 29.97.

Vegas 6 will just gray out the screen, forcing you to render to the device in 29.97.

This was mostly an annoiance for people who wanted to give 29.97 a 24p cadence. They would render out 24p to their devices, but now, can't. They are forced to add that extra step manually. The rendering 29.97 to 24p and then printing out to the device at 29.97 again, hence, inserting a pulldown.

If you print out to your DVX100, you can print a 24p stream.

And it has made me crazy. I don't remember this in 5, but i have done too many edits to remember.

David
DCS Video, LLC

It definitely did it in 5.

Great info Mike. Thanks!!

Great info Mike. Thanks!!

You're welcome Sean. Thanks go to Edward though for all his hard work putting these newsletters together and sharing them with us.

Mike

I created 9 mini-projects - one for what was going to be each chapter in the final DVD.

I was thinking that I could simply nest these projects into one project when done and work out the chapter transistions. But nesting the projects was crashing the PC - seems some kind of rendering occurs as you nest projects (maybe I had C: chosen as some default rendor work space?).

I then tried to create a new project and copy/paste each of the mini-projects workspace into this new project. That crashed the media-manager with some kind of sql duplicate error.

Now I tried to render each mini-project to DV-AVI and put them into a new project, but a test burn of a DVD doesn't look as good as the original mini-project test burn to DVD.

I am starting to think that I need to re-do the edit work in a new project, media clip by media clip, making one large project.

Am I lost? Anything that I can do to recover this?

Would it help to clean up unused media and make sure each file is named different? Do the folders in the MEDIA BIN need different names as well?

.

Not sure, but I think there are some alternatives that might work...

If your cam doesn't support true 24p, then you must print to tape in 29.97 (aka 60i). Now depending what your goal is, you have two choices at this point. You can render out your 24p timeline to 60i using either: (1) 2-3 pulldown or (2) 2-3-3-2 pulldown. If you want to actually "watch" your 24p footage on a 60i display device (like a TV), then you should probably use 2-3 pulldown because it'll look smoother. HOWEVER, if you are archiving your footage, you should probably render out to 2-3-3-2 pulldown because if you ever want to bring that footage back into Vegas (or whereever), 2-3-3-2 pulldown can easily be stripped back out (reversed) to get you back to a perfect 24p avi again (which is not possible with 2-3 pulldown). So using 2-3-3-2 60i will allow you to save your video to a 60i device and still be able to get back to your original 24p at a later time.

Also, you shouldn't have to dual render if you shot 60i, but want to eventually get yourself to 24p in a 60i 2-3 pulldown format (for that movie look in post when originally shot interlaced 29.97). Just bring in your 60i-based events into the timeline, set your project settings to 24p, and then when you render out, render out to 24p inserting 2-3 pulldown (which actually results in a 60i avi file) -- that should only require a single render. I believe you should be able to do this straight to print-to-tape also (if not, just render out, then print to tape the rendered file). This technique will cause Vegas to convert your 60i events to a 24p timeline, then during render it'll go back to 60i with a 24p 2-3 pulldown.

If you originally shot in 24p, and your project settings are 24p, but now you're trying to print-to-tape using a device that can't accept 24p, then print to tape using 24p inserting 2-3 or 2-3-3-2 pulldown (pick depending on use). If your eventual target is DVD, there is no need to go back to 60i at all, just render to 24p mpeg2 and bring into a 24p project in DVDA. After the burn, people's DVD player's (or TVs) will insert the 2-3 pulldown to get to 60i automatically for you. This is also nice because you can actually fit more video on a single DVD this way.

I'm not 100% sure of all of that, but hopefully some of it might inspire you to find something that works?

:)

Hehe. Thanks guys. I really just wanted to know if i could export 24p to my deck. I know i can render it in 29.97. However, I shot it in 24 and i wanted to export it the same way i brought it in without using my DVX as a deck.

Nonetheless the comments are much appreciated. I couldn't find any support on the Sony site when it came to a question like this.

Thanks Again,

Greg

Can anybody recomend how to get better rendering from Veags?

Here is the problem, I have been using Cyberlink's Power producer. I really like the sofware. I can render the video and chose the image size, bit rate and all parameters when rendering.

Vegas does a much better job of titles, fades, slow motion, watermark overlay (big deal for me Power Producer would not do it at all)

However when rendering in VEGAS I can not choose the resolution and bit rates for MPEG2, so the files are huge, and higher quality that the original files. And Windows Mewdia 9 Codec is making larger files at lower res than Cyberlink did in Win MEdia 8 codecs

are there any plug ins for VEGAS to allow selectable attributes for the Win MEdia 9 Encoder, and the MPEG2 encoder, I gues that is what I really need.

Simple question. When I nest a project, which takes presedence? The deinterlacing settings that I used in the nested project, or the master project?

Practicle example for this would be, say, can I turn off all blending, resampling, everything, in the clips, and then just turn it on in the master project? Or should I deinterlace the clips and turn everything off in the master project?

And if I'm using Mike Crash's Smart Deinterlacer, should I apply it to the nested project, or the master project?

Thanks,

DJ

Why can't you change the MPEG2 or WMV settings? Just pull up the File - Render As box, pick the MPEG2 format, and then click on Custom. Change the settings as desired on that screen.

Edward,
I suspect Dan is using Vegas Movie Studio 4. Sony really screwed up IMO when they gave Movie Studio the Vegas name. People get confused all the time.

That could be. Now if everyone using Vegas will use "Vegas" and everyone using Movie Studio would use "Movie Studio Vegas" a lot of questions could be more accurately answered.

How exactly do you go about implementing that "rewind" effect, basically playing a video clip backwards? I have Sony Vegas 6 and I've tried searching around the help files but there isn't really anything that serves much assistance. Maybe someone here knows how to do something like that?

Thanks.

Highlite clip-right click-menu "reverse"- that'll do ya'

Don

Seems that the DV AVI render does make a very good file for import into a new project - I think my problems have gone away.

I've got a particular JPG image in a project that's not playing well on a DVD player/TV.

It is a JPG cut from a poor AVI file - so it already looks like a very poor resolution image. I only have the JPG file at this point - AVI is gone.

On the final DVD it flickers - the brighter parts of the image move back and forth.

Is there some kind of effect I can place on this image to change this? I'm open to anything, since it looks so bad right now.

Then ad a velocity envelope for a speedier reverse playback.

I don't know about the bad tracking lines, though. That's an effect that is kind of less relevent or realistic these days.

Try deinterlacing the image in your paint program.

It is Vegas Movie studio 4.0

Any sugestions on what I can do?

Dan

Open the image in your image editor.
Adjust levels to compress the darks, mids and whites.
Filter for video safe colors.
De-interlace the clip (still) in your nle.
If it still looks like sh*t, let it go. A compressed frame grab from a poor avi now lossly saved from your image editor ... yeeks ...
Bon chance!

It is my understanding that VMS does not allow custom templates. You can upgrade to Vegas senior or some folks like TMPEGenc.

I need a basic "Lower Thirds" overlay to use in Vegas, but have no money to spend. I'm willing to go the DIY route or just use some free or open source lower thirds that are out there in Net land. Any suggestions for me (don't suggest paying for anything, as I already know about those options, I'm looking for cheap/free solutions).

If I go the DIY approach, what's the best way to go? Can I generate it from entirely within Vegas? Of should I create some sort of alpha-channel image in photoshop and bring that into Vegas? Looking for simple and easy method.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions...

Thanks for heading me down this path...

I found that if I right-clicked into the properties of the CLIP in Vegas, there was an option for "reduce interlace flicker" - and it worked great - right in Vegas.

You can create an alpha channel avi or, if it's simple, you can create a seperate project and then bring it in as a nested project when needed.

One of my newsletters has an article about how to build lower-thirds in Vegas.

You can certainly do it all from within Vegas. The Lower Thirds that are in the GrafPaks (http://www.vasst.com/?v=grafpak/grafpak_main.htm) that come with Ultimate S2 (http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=c8cec3c4-7ec3-43db-8d32-f703f5050400) were all done with Vegas Generated media and few PNG files.

For a DIY lower third, I would start with Generated Media, Color Gradient, and use the Rectangle setting. Or use a Noise Texture with a Pan/Crop Bezier mask to limit its shape. Don’t forget to feather the edges of the mask if you want a nice soft look. You can even use the Bezier mask with the color gradient or any other generated media.

~jr

Strange that no one has answered this yet. It seems like a question someone would have had a quick answer to.

I'm not sure, but I bet it works like this...

The nested event probably works exactly like if you had rendered the embedded project according to that project's properties. So, if you delaced the original, then embedded it into the second project and delaced again, that in fact it would delace twice. So, if you started with 60i, then made the project 24p, then nested that veg into a new project with 60i settings, I bet you're video will go from 60i to 24p to 60i.

Like I said, not sure, but I can't image it working any other way because of the incredible amount of different things that could be happening when nesting...

I read in DSE's HDV book that still photos for 1080i HDV should be converted to a resolution of 1440 x 1080 with a PAR of 1.33.

First of all, is the reason for this conversion to take load off of off Vegas and to ensure that you get the best conversion possible by using a photo editor?

Second, in DSE's HDV book, there is a picture of Adobe Photoshop Elements (p. 109 in the HDV book for those that have it), suggesting that it can do this type of the conversion. However, I cannot find anywhere in Photoshop Elements where I can set the PAR of a photo. Does anyone know how to do this with Photoshop Elements, and if so what version are you using?

I read in DSE's HDV book that still photos for 1080i HDV should be converted to a resolution of 1440 x 1080 with a PAR of 1.33.

First of all, is the reason for this conversion to take load off of off Vegas and to ensure that you get the best conversion possible by using a photo editor?

Second, in DSE's HDV book, there is a picture of Adobe Photoshop Elements (p. 109 in the HDV book for those that have it), suggesting that it can do this type of the conversion. However, I cannot find anywhere in Photoshop Elements where I can set the PAR of a photo. Does anyone know how to do this with Photoshop Elements, and if so what version are you using?

Because the HD stream from the FX-1/Z1 is 1440x1080 1.3333 Pixel Aspect Ratio, any still images you may wish to utilise during editing need to also have the same dimension and PAR - otherwise strange things will happen!!

It's not a Vegas thing - it's a HDV (Sony 1080i stream) thing.

I don't know about Adobe PS Elements and PAR, but Photoshop CS and CS2 certainly have it - under the "Image" menu drop-down.

You may also find the PNG (rather than JPEG) format worth using for still frames as well...

You are absolutely right: Vegas does not use Mainconcept to encode AC3s; I was thinking of the MPEG-2 encoder. Anyway, I resolved the problem by creating a surround project. You can indeed create 1.0 AC3s with Vegas.

So David Newman was nice enough to let me try out a pre-release copy of ConnectHD 2.0. You may recall I was having quality issues when exporting CFHD footage from Vegas. Those problems are completely solved. I did dozens of comparisons between Cineform output from HDLink, multi-generational Cineform output from Vegas, and other codecs, and in all cases the Cineform output from Vegas was now just as good as that of HDlink, and almost as good as uncompressed YUV. Certainly far better than any MJPEG codec. Combined with the low file sizes this is definitely the best HD codec for use with Vegas. My trial ran out yesterday and I promptly bought a copy.

I think I accidentally done that with the velocity envelope once.. still cant figure out how tha happened! I think u could try pulling the velocity env to the bottom.. u should see the reverse effect.. let me know if it works..

Yes you can do the reverse effect with the velocity envelope. Insert envelope, set to -100% OR pull all the way down to reverse.
Don

When using the velocity envelope to reverse, remember you have to START AT THE END. The first frame of the event you reverse will be the first frame after it is reversed as well. However, once reversed it will go backwards from that first frame! So if you cut out a section you want reversed and reverse it using the velocity envelope, you will get the section BEFORE that section.

As for doing a "rewind" effect, you can just use the velocity envelope to change from a positive % to a negative % and then back to a positive %. If you wish to change the speed of the reverse (i.e. reverse faster than 100%), I would probably then render out that clip and then apply additional speed changes to the new clip which has the reverse "built-in".

Peter, thanks for the info. I too use Vegas. And live not too far from you (I think). Hopefully we could get together sometime. Email me if you are so inclined.

To me, the whole issue of smartrendering is also incredibly important. Cineform codec stuff smartrenders. Boy does that increase quality and decrease rendering time!

How would you compare ConnectHD 2.0 with VASST's GearShift plugin for Vegas.

I know it also uses the Cineform codec, let's you convert MT2 files to Cineform Codec for editing, and will let you convert video back to HD or MPEG after editing i complete.

Is ConnectHD2.0 faster and better than using GearShift in Vegas 6.c?