Edit: I got distracted while writing my reply and Edward already answered the question.

Vasst Gearshift is a script (a very useful script, but just a script) that runs in Vegas, automating Vegas functions. So, it has no additional abilities above what Vegas can do. The bottom line is, Gearshift creates vfw (video for windows) CineForm avi files using version 2.1 of the CineForm codec because that is the version of CineForm included in Vegas 6.0c.

Edit: I got distracted while writing my reply and Edward already answered the question.

Vasst Gearshift is a script (a very useful script, but just a script) that runs in Vegas, automating Vegas functions. So, it has no additional abilities above what Vegas can do. The bottom line is, Gearshift creates vfw (video for windows) CineForm avi files using version 2.1 of the CineForm codec because that is the version of CineForm included in Vegas 6.0c.

In terms of the render, this is true. However, in the process of the render, we're also applying ITU 709 colorspace correction to the proxy, as well as the ShiftGears function, which is where the main value in Gearshift lies. It also allows you to render from regional selections and rippling, therefore only rendering what you've selected.

Also as pointed out, GearShift uses Vegas' backbone to render the files, therefore the output is VfW and not DirectShow.

Since (as Edward and Matt pointed out) GearShift is a script, it can only access tools Vegas already has built in. However, replacing/swapping out media, applying colorspace correction, properly converting to progressive, rendering multi-formats in sequence, shifting framerates, selecting media from Timeline, Bins, or Explorer, are all huge timesavers, which is all scripting really is. A monster timesaver, and somewhat of a preventative measure, as to do all of these things repetitively and consistently is a challenge in and of itself.

In short, GearShift does a little more than just the "exact same thing as choosing File>Render As." Actually, quite a bit more.

In short, GearShift does a little more than just the "exact same thing as choosing File>Render As." Actually, quite a bit more.

Spot, I didn't mean to imply that it does not automate the process of doing more things before and after actually creating the files. I know it's a very useful tool that helps simplify the process and has many time saving features beyond simply "rendering". I just meant the process of actually creating the file is the same as doing a "File - Render As" meaning the the file will be vfw and not directX as asked in the question.

The couple of VASST scripts that I have (Ultimate-S and Gearshift) are just so incredibly valuable to what I do, it would be hard to imagine using Vegas without them!

I'd just like to add that I also find Gearshift to be a valuable tool. In short, I wouldn't attempt to edit HD in Vegas without it or an alternative. I use a slower system to edit and HDV on the timeline in Vegas 6 is just painful. Since all my projects are SD DVD I have been making DV widescreen proxies, editing those, and then switching back to the original m2t's for final render. I'm also going try creating CineForm files with Gearshift and do the final render from those. Also, don't forget that Gearshift can be modified to create any kind of proxy or editing file you want to work with. You could use it in a SD project to automate switching between DV and SD YUV, DV50, or MJPEG, etc.

This is frustrating. I keep getting the following error:
Sony Vegas 6.0
Version 6.0c (Build 153)
Exception 0xC0000005 (access violation) WRITE:0x0 IP:0x2AB31708
Thread: ProgMan ID=0x3C8 Stack=0x2DED000-0x2DF0000
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=001b EIP=2ab31708 EFLGS=00010216
EBX=00000013 SS=0023 ESP=02ded610 EBP=206ce038
ECX=2ab31708 DS=0023 ESI=0065f210 FS=003b
EDX=00000002 ES=0023 EDI=2ab31708 GS=0000

I have captured from my HDV (Z1 and FX1) and have created a 7520x576 widescreen project for delivery to DVD. The HDV files were converted using Cineform's Connect HD and have been working with these files.

Yesterday, when rendering, I had no problem. Did a few cosmetic changes to a short (about 5 minutes) and tried rendering again. Ever since then, I have been having the above problem and I have no idea where everything is going pear shaped.

I have tried rendering to avi, wmv, mpeg2 - you name it - I always get this error and never in the same place while rendering.

Any help here would be appreciated.

Cheers

Can vegas have seperate video sequences in the same project file like in Premiere Pro. A sequence would be like cutting a many clips together and then you can put that sequence in to a master clip or something. Any comments would be great. Thx!

You can use nested sequences, here is the best article on the subject.

http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=8dd62b47-b10b-4c53-88f6-f65a2f28da5d

Jim

Awesome
This is exactly what I want

Hi,

I have just finished my video and I want to capture it back to mini dv via firewire through my camera. Well, I did. And when I play it back, whether on the camera, or on the TV, it skips at certain points. The audio skips. I did this on a tape that stuff was on. I also captured on a brand new minidv tape. But it still doesn't come out flawless. I've checked wire connections and I made sure everything was plugged in correctly, but still to no avail. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.

It's your computer. After I upgraded to Vegas 6, I have never been able to get a clean "print to tape" on my old computer. It has skips and stutters.

Make sure you are defragged and ALL, and I mean ALL of the programs are shut down in the background. No messengers, to Google Desktop. Nothin'.

Then try it again, and I'll bet things will be better.

DJ

Sadly - no response. BUT!! I've solved the problem and post my findings here to warn others against the same fate.

Never, I repeat NEVER, overclock your system which has Serial ATA hard drives installed. No amount of defragging, reducing system resources or anything else will work. Your system will work beautifully fast and flawless - just don't try and render!!!!

SATA drives are very sensitive to changes in the SRC clock and changing your ram or bus frequencies or other settings also influence the SRC clock - which as you have all guessed, was the cause of my problem. I do believe the later versions of SATA drives are not as easily affected but your mobo needs to the latest and greatest as well otherwise you wind up in the same boat.

Good luck to all!

Cheers

Thanks for the heads up!

I have video footage that I just want to saturate the background only and leave the subject as is but not sure how to accomplish this...can someone point me in right direction.

Thanks, it worked

1- It might be easiest to shoot this as a green screen. Composite the subject over the background.

You would need to shoot a good green screen though.

There may be other ways to shoot this so you don't have to rotoscope (rotoscoping can be time consuming). i.e. change the subject's costume to be very (un)saturated, and use secondary color correction on the face to increase its saturation. Then affect overall saturation.

2- You could rotoscope the subject out of the background. This is not too painful because you want to affect color information. Your eye has less resolution for color than for brightness. So if you are messy with the rotoscope, it's ok.

In Vegas, you can kind of use the masking tool to cut out the foreground subject. If the subject moves too much, it's a little faster to use a dedicated compositing program like Combustion (but it would still be a tedious, time-consuming process).

3- You might be able to pull a difference key, although that can be tricky. Not sure how to do this in Vegas.

i thought it may have been the ridiculous resolutions of 7520x576... lol

i am a nutter for OC'ing a PC and ive never had problems..

Damn I'm good. :-)

Whats the difference between 6b and 6c. I've been reading a lot and 6c is always mentioned never 6b. I have 6b do I need 6c?

Thanks

Whats the difference between 6b and 6c. I've been reading a lot and 6c is always mentioned never 6b. I have 6b do I need 6c?

Thanks

The differences are significant.
http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=c2c9b927-d612-4b09-bd0e-e49570d837fa has a listing and explanation of what's new, and downloads to experiment with new features.
Yes, you'll want to upgrade to Vegas 6c.

Hola Amigos!

I picked up a copy of Sony Movie Studio+DVD Platinum a couple of days ago and have been testing it out since. It handles very well on my system. It comes with a Sony sound effects sampler, some light audio production software, and DVD architect. The WMV-HD codecs are also included, along with another output option listed only "HD 720p" and "1080i." The HDV codecs are in there as well, only 1080i and 720p30. Sadly there is no 720p24 for the HD-100 (darn!) Well, I guess it's only because it's consumer software with a $130.00 price tag. The HDV stream handles really well on the timeline, and although I never thought I would move from Adobe to Vegas, this software has really grown on me. I also thought it was cool that it came with a copy of "HDV: What you need to know." Good reading. The only thing I notice when I re-export as an HDV stream from the software, there is a slight degradation: larger blocks of pixels, but I'm quite sure that it was due to a very dark shot. The software also had no trouble reading my JVC 30k deck, which I thought was cool. Now I only wonder if it will read the BRHD50. I'll just have to treat myself to one to find out :-)

Happy cutting.

Help Needed - Canopus AVIs & VegasI'm quickly losing my mind here.
I have AVI 5 files, edited on a Canopus Rex system (not by me!!), that I need to make into a DVD using DVDA 3.0
I rendered them out from Vegas (6.0c) as mpegs & ac3s but, when I brought them into DVDA (3.0c) , it said every file had to be re-compressed. When I did this, lip sync was off as well as what appears to be a field ordr problem.
The files are only 9 min. max. each.
I've done this numerous times before and NEVER had to go through this before.
Is this a Canopus (type 1 vs. type 2) AVI file issue? I've got the Canopus DV file converter but have never used it so I'm not sure which settings to choose.
Any help is gratefully appreciated.

Mike

edit: I did a test render using AVI files I created in Vegas so I know this works. It's the Canopus AVIs that are giving me grief :-(

So u were able to do it perfectly in V6c rite? Check your settings in DVDA3. Click on the particular file and u will see the time line in DVDA3 at the bottom right.Do the preview there.. WYSIWYG.. the sound track could have been shifted a little over there..

In case anyone else runs into the same issue, I ended up using the Canopus DV File Converter and converted the Canopus AVI files to Microsoft DV (AVI 2) files. Brought them back into Vegas, rendered out to MPEG-2 & AC3, back into DVDA (where they had to recompressed) and made my DVD.

Mike

if i understood you correctly, there is something seriously wrong with that workflow.

when you import dvd-legal mpeg2 & ac3 files into a dvd authoring application, they should NEVER have to be recompressed into mpeg2 & ac3 again... it ruins the picture quality.

perhaps when you said "recompressed", you were referring to the actual creation of the dvd itself... that process does not recompress the video footage, only the stills.

Somehow I got the docking station to disappear beneath something so it is invisible. First it was the Video Preview. I did a alt-D-1 to bring up a stored Vegas layout. That got my video preview back.

But I still don't have the Media FX. Whenever I open it, it flies down to the bottom of the screen.

What's the magic command (undocumented in Help as far as I can tell) to restore the default editing layout.

Is there a way to rescue these hidden windows.

BTW: Its Vegas 5. Thanks!

-Tom-

To restore EVERY setting back to factory default, hold down CTRL-SHIFT and start Vegas.

You may be able to find your window by changing your screen to a higher resolution, finding the window and dragging it back to the main screen, and then changing it back to your current resolution.

All you folks out there make sure you get Excalibur.

I do multi-cam theater work and use the Multi-cam wizard in Excalibur all the time.

Also the Align A/V wizard can save your *ss if you should happen to get the audio out of sync. It happens.

It definitely did it in 5.

That things in Vegas really sucks... posted a lot of times in suggestion box... no response, maybe in V7 ...

Wow, this thread turned out to be alot more helpful than I imagined, thanks for that last piece of info Brian, that will be very helpful in the future

Plus, you can download a script at vastt.com, that puts some nice buttons to call and save "layouts", i use it every time, really nice and it's called Layout icons.

I made this photo montage thingy in a PAL widescreen setting, did the sub titles in DVDA3. It flickers a lot on my PAL TV.. is there anyway to solve this? I've not tried sub titles on the moving videos yet..anyone has such experience?

Make sure the text color is broadcast safe (235, 235, 235 at most). I could be wrong, but I think the default for DVDA2, at least, may be pure white (255, 255, 255). I make my subtitles a yellow color and they look a lot better. Also, you might want to try a different font to see if it works better for you.

I was having a similar problem and thought I might add that I simply used the print-to-tape function in Windows Movie Maker and it worked flawlessly... 16:9 progressive, too.

Ok, I'll check the broadcast settings. Hope they work better! Thanks.

It could also be the size of the text that's an issue. If parts are 1-pixel tall, that will produce interlace flicker. Antialiasing and "fanciness" (i.e. drop shadow, edge glow, etc.) and increasing size can help.

Small titles should be avoided in any case, because it can be hard to read (your display device may have lower resolution that what you see in studio). Also, small text is prone to chroma crawl (the rainbow stuff on the edges of black and white text is an example).

Additionally, try to avoid serif'd fonts and fine-line fonts such as script/fine lined handwriting fonts.

I am rendering out a small project that has a company logo splashscreen at the beginning of the segment. Their logo is a round grey circle on a white background, when I render the project to MPG2, the grey is almost completely gone and all I see is the white background of the Logo?
If I render to DV-AVI, everything is fine.
What can I do to fix this? The final project needs to be on DVD.

Thanks

Increase the bit rate?

What does it look like if you take that rendered DV-AVI and then render THAT to MPEG2?

Done! Its pretty cool I can upload it to the Sony's Playstation portable. That way I can show my stuffs to potential cients?!!??


Thanks!

Applacation:
Write, produce, direct, edit video based content not to exceed 3o minutes
Direct to dvd with high quality informative content.
Limited distribution – in the hundreds
DVH aspect ratio desired. (I know thereis no media, (DVD) available yet.
Professional but not broadcast quality a must.
Content, titles, nice cuts, limited CGI or motion graphics
My thoughts on a production package:
• Capture: Sony HVR-Z1
• Edit: Avid Xpress Pro HD Mojo on authorized dealer configured system (any comments on Promax as a vendor)
Questions
• I want a system that works out of the box with minimal glitches.
• Is the Avid price premium worth it versus Vegas w/ CiniForm, Premier Pro or other?
• I want a PC based platform

Applacation:
Write, produce, direct, edit video based content not to exceed 3o minutes
Direct to dvd with high quality informative content.
Limited distribution – in the hundreds
DVH aspect ratio desired. (I know thereis no media, (DVD) available yet.
Professional but not broadcast quality a must.
Content, titles, nice cuts, limited CGI or motion graphics
My thoughts on a production package:
• Capture: Sony HVR-Z1
• Edit: Avid Xpress Pro HD Mojo on authorized dealer configured system (any comments on Promax as a vendor)
Questions
• I want a system that works out of the box with minimal glitches.
• Is the Avid price premium worth it versus Vegas w/ CiniForm, Premier Pro or other?
• I want a PC based platform

Darius, this is the wrong forum to be asking about Avid Express. Having only recently received my updated Avid software, haven't had a chance to compare it just yet. But, Vegas and HDV work very, very well together. Promax is a decent dealer, but I'll recommend the supportive vendors here first, such as B&H, Zotz, etc.

Thanks go to user MarcoB on the Sony forum for providing this fix.
I can verify that it works perfectly :-)
I've added a follow-up comment from him as well.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Vegas analyses and uses the Canopus AVIs coming from Rex not correctly. For Vegas them are Upper Field First though actually them are Lower Field First.

I had the same problem several times and Sony Support helped me by telling me how to modify the "Vegas profile.ini" file which is in the Vegas program folder.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Open the file "Vegas profiles.ini" within an editor. Search for this phrase:

"Key2=0, "None", 720, 576, 25.0, 0
Attributes2="Upper First", 1.0925925925, "Undefined", 1"

Modify this one to

"Key2=0, "None", 720, 576, 25.0, 0
Attributes2="Lower First", 1.0925925925, "Undefined", 1"

Save the file anew .

Be sure to have copied the original file with another name first to have a backup!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now when you reopen Vegas it will analyse and use the Canopus AVI files correctly as Lower Field First.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Follow-up:

The modified ini-file seems to be perfect for any dv stuff because dv must be lower field first and even if Vegas is confused by certain dv files like the Canopus ones it'll be perfect - lower field first.

But if you have a video input which fits 720x576 size and 25 fps but which is NOT dv then it does also change the field order to lower field first which might be not correct then.
So if you import or capture video which is Sony YUV it actually should have upper field first but with this modified ini-field it will be read as lower field first in Vegas.

This means you probably will not have any trouble with that kind of modified ini-file when using dv video. But you must reset the ini-file if you're going to use video which actually is upper field first.
If you have a project running with mixed stuff - both upper and lower field first - the modified ini-file is no help at all.

Update -
First of all thanks for the info. I did figure out a solution, though it's odd I had to do this.

Vegas was outputting my files at 23.976023 fps but the project settings were only doing it at 23.976 (IVTC film). I have no idea why this was happening, but when I set my project settings to 23.976023, everything was good again. Very wierd.

Hello everybody!
When I want to render a video footage out in AVI, if I choose LAME MP3 for AUDIO, I get the message: "An error occured while opening a codec."
So,where is the problem? I have LameMP3.dll in my system but not in Sony Vegas directory. What to do?!?

I've tried searching, but the search doesn't seem to work anymore... I went through the keyboard layout, but couldn't find how to change something specific like number of frames, just that I could tell a key to move by a frame.

I want to be able to hit like ctrl-> and have the cursor move 25 farmes forward.

Alt+left/right arrow will move you a single frame at a time, regardless of how deeply you're zoomed. If you're zoomed in deeply enough, just the arrow key alone will do this.

If you wanted to always move a specific number of frames, you could always write a script that moves that many frames and then assign the script to a keypress. As Spot said, the zoom level will control the number of frames the arrow key moves. If you zoom in to the exact right zoom level, you should be able to get 25 frames. The script method would probably be the most precise method, though.

Do a search on "divx xvid mp3", I have a thread around here somewhere about this EXACT topic. Basically, Vegas can't handle it, so best choice is to render out to full res avi (or frameserve), and then use VirtualDub to encode to Divx/Xvid video muxed with MP3 audio -- VDub probably does a better job than Vegas could anyway, and it's pretty easy to use. But search for my old thread, it's got way more info.

http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=34866

http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=c8cec3c4-7ec3-43db-8d32-f703f5050400

Charlie White says

If you’re using Sony Vegas editing software, there’s a powerful group of tools and scripts that can make your life easier. VASST Ultimate S 2.0 ($149) is an add-on to Vegas 5.0 or 6.0 that can create complex effects with just a simple click of the mouse. It’s also packed with practical editing tools, audio and video effects enhancements, a great Film Look applet, and even a utility for editing multicamera productions. After plugging Ultimate S 2.0 into Vegas 6.0, I went to work, and found myself repeatedly saying, “Ultimate S, where have you been all my life?”

Looks like an amazing tools to have!!!