View Full Version : Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q3Q4)


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John Rofrano
November 18th, 2005, 09:54 AM
So I downloaded 3ivx and put it in the video plugin folder. But Vegas doesn't seem to find it. Has anybody had any experience with this program?Did you install it? I'm not sure what you mean by the words "put it in the video plugin folder"?

You should install 3ivx on your PC. Then go into Vegas and make a render template for it. Start with a template that is close to the dimensions you want and then press the Custom button, go to the Video tab, and select 3ivx in the Video format dropdown list. Finally save this under a new name. You will now have a render template for Divx in Vegas.

~jr

John Rofrano
November 18th, 2005, 10:02 AM
I can save you the time to sync but I can’t create the titles for you. Downlaod the VASST Freeware (http://www.vasst.com/search.aspx?entity=16&category=Freeware) script called SubText. It will allow you to load the DVDA .sub file and it will create regions on the timeline in Vegas with the subtitle text as the region label. All you have to do is double-click in each region to select it, add a Generated Text Media (which will default to the length of the region) and cut-n-paste the region label into the generated media text.

This should at least speed things up a bit.

~jr

Peter Sieben
November 18th, 2005, 10:14 AM
Hi John,

Thanx for this. I'll check it out this weekend, it sounds good enough. The worst part of work is the syncing to the actual audio which is a horrible work.
I never used a script before, but I'm sure even I will find a way to get it to work.

Best regards,
Peter

Milt Lee
November 18th, 2005, 10:39 AM
Ok so when I say I put it in the video plugin folder, what I meant to say was that I installed it, and when I installed it, it asked what folder I wanted to unzip the file to - that's when I thought that I should unzip the file to that folder. Perhaps I should just let it install in the folder that came up which was c:/program files/3ivx

Does that help?

Thanks again,
Milt

John Rofrano
November 18th, 2005, 10:42 AM
I never used a script before, but I'm sure even I will find a way to get it to work.Gotcha covered. We have an on-line tutorial called Using Scripts in Sony Vegas Software (http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=116be894-1966-4e2d-92b2-1b58c059dc6f) that will help you get started.

~jr

John Rofrano
November 18th, 2005, 10:55 AM
Yes that does help. I would uninstall it and reinstall it in the Program Files folder like it wanted to do. Vegas (and all other programs) will find it because it will register itself as a new video codec, not because it’s in a particular directory.

It should still work, but I would re-install it into its own directory just in case you uninstall Vegas at some future point, you don’t mess up 3ivx.

My other instructions still apply as to how to get Vegas to use it for rendering. You have to build a custom AVI rendering template that uses the 3ivx codec.

~jr

Fred Foronda
November 18th, 2005, 01:20 PM
Faster? No. Think about it: Going from 1080i to 1080i is a straight re-encode. Going to 720p requires a resize, deinterlace, and re-encode. The speed of your PC will determine how much longer 720p takes to render but it will definitely be longer than going straight to 1080i from 1080i source because the computer has to do more calculations to make 1080i into 720p.

~jr

Indeed that make sense, I kinda figure that also but wasn't sure. Thanks!!

Jon Omiatek
November 18th, 2005, 03:10 PM
Worked great. Thanks as always.

Jon

Vince Debart
November 18th, 2005, 06:11 PM
How can I get powerpoint presentations into Vegas ...just stills of graphs and stuff like that
Thanks

Vince

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 18th, 2005, 06:14 PM
The easiest method is to go to the File/Save As in PowerPoint, and save the slides as jpgs or png files that Vegas can import.
Then in your Vegas prefs, set the "Still Image Length" in your Options>Prefs>Editing dialog, to the length of time you'd like the slides to appear in Vegas.
That's it....just drag em' to the timeline in Vegas in the order you'd like them to appear.

Ian Stark
November 19th, 2005, 04:13 AM
Vince was asking about stills but I wonder if we could expand it to cover animated Powerpoint presentations.

I have had only limited success using software like CamStudio and Camtasia to capture a full screen presentation containing animated elements. I wonder if anyone else has enjoyed better success with any other tools?

I'm not aware of any tool that can convert a Powerpoint presentation into, for example, an avi. Anyone know of such a beast?

While writing this it occured to me that there may be tools to convert PP into Flash which can then be brought into Vegas. A brief search tells me there are, although the couple I looked at were a little out of my price range.

Any experiences people might like to share?

Edward Troxel
November 19th, 2005, 06:15 AM
Camtasia (or it's smaller brother "SnagIt") is probably one of the better ways to go in order to get the animations. Here's a tutorial where someone used Camtasia:
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/powerpoint-to-dvd.htm

Another option would be to run the computer output through a scan convertor back into Vegas. However, that's a long convoluted process - camtasia's much easier.

If you're only wanting the stills, check out Liam's image convertor:
http://stream.imagebeam.com/tools/powerpointimageexporter/

Jim Rog
November 19th, 2005, 10:55 AM
Hello

I have a few questions about vegas

1. once i have applied an effect to my video is there any way to preview the footage in full screen without rendering out the whole seen first?

2. what settings do i need to choose when starting a new project?


3. i have the FX1 PAL what settings do i need to output to, in order to get the highest quality? final results will be put onto a DVD for viewing on a HD set.


Thanks for the help.

Hendy Witanto
November 19th, 2005, 10:59 AM
Hi, does anybody know, how can i integrate the H.264 in Vegas?
I have licensed H.264 V2 encoder, I can converted my output files in this encoder, but i would like to do it in Vegas, like with MPEG2 (or Divx and etc.)- just choose codek and run rendering.... there is also problem, that Vegas does not recognize files in H.264 ...

Tanks, H.W.

Seth Bloombaum
November 19th, 2005, 11:39 AM
I don't think the On2 codec is better than WMV, but finally it is in a decent ballpark and flash video has come of age. I think the choice of flash video is now reasonable, but you'd probably choose it because of the other things you can do in a flash layout. Best interactivity, best vector animation, best ability to deal with layers, best ability to change screen layouts on the fly.

Cleaner is dead-ended and hasn't received an update in a long time. Apparently Discreet (who bought it from Terran several years ago) is not and will not be putting any resources toward keeping this formerly great application up to date.

Edward Troxel
November 19th, 2005, 03:41 PM
1. once i have applied an effect to my video is there any way to preview the footage in full screen without rendering out the whole seen first?

Sure. Assuming you mean external preview, you can just connect an external device via firewire (through a camera or convertor) and click the 'External preview' button. This will show you your effects UNLESS you've pressed the split screen button just above the preview screen. You also have an option of sending the external preview to a secondary monitor. That's all configurable in the preferences.


2. what settings do i need to choose when starting a new project?

Depends on what type of project you're doing. Assuming you're using HD footage (based on the next question), and you're going to an SD DVD, you'll probably want to use one of the widescreen presets. You can also use any appropriate HD preset as well.



3. i have the FX1 PAL what settings do i need to output to, in order to get the highest quality? final results will be put onto a DVD for viewing on a HD set.

There are many answers to this question in the HDV Vegas forum. For example, take a look at this thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=384976

Edward Troxel
November 19th, 2005, 04:05 PM
First of all, are you using Vegas 6.0c?

Jim Rog
November 19th, 2005, 04:27 PM
Hello

Thank you very much for the reply.

2 other quick questions

1. is it possible to use the LCD display of the camera to preview the footage in vegas?

2. i have just ran into a problem everything seems to be working ok but when i try to apply a transition it does not work. i have read through the help and still does not work for me. what i do is go to transitions choose the effect i want then drag it onto the timeline but its not going on there nothing happens any ideas? Am I doing it correct by going to transitions choosing the effect then dragging it onto the timeline?

Thank you for any help

Glenn Chan
November 19th, 2005, 04:39 PM
1. is it possible to use the LCD display of the camera to preview the footage in vegas?
You can but I wouldn't recommend it. Low resolution, and doesn't show artifacts that would appear on CRTs.

It also may not overscan.


2. i have just ran into a problem everything seems to be working ok but when i try to apply a transition it does not work.
Is there a fade transition there already? Drag the end of one clip and overlap it onto the other.

Then apply the transition.

Jim Rog
November 19th, 2005, 04:51 PM
Hi Glenn

Thank you for your help works great now

i am going to order the vegas training dvd i think that’s going to be the best because there is a lot in there to learn and to get the best out of it the training would go along way so i am going to get that and hope i can learn all the things i need to.

Thanks again for the help

Hendy Witanto
November 19th, 2005, 04:54 PM
First of all, are you using Vegas 6.0c?


yes, i have the 6.0c version..

Edward Troxel
November 19th, 2005, 10:11 PM
Jim, you might also want to check out the newsletters on my website. Especially look at the "Beginner's Corner" series beginning in the 4th issue.

Milt Lee
November 19th, 2005, 10:47 PM
totally cool. It worked like a champ! Thanks.

BTW- is there a good guide to the various codecs that are out there, maybe something that would describe the various changes a person can make - what the various controls mean, and what the effect is on your finished video?

I know that a person could run many tests, but then again, maybe somebody already has.

Thanks again for the help!
Milt Lee

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 19th, 2005, 11:23 PM
There are lots of codec comparisons, but nothing I've seen that's remotely up to date...codecs nowadays are coming out faster than the government spends money.

I've not seen anything that makes comparisons based around various codec controls, that could grow into a huge comparison just on one codec alone.

Peter Wright
November 20th, 2005, 12:53 AM
Because saving as stills from Power Point saves each COMPLETE slide, the way I've gone about getting each line from a slide as it's introduced is simply to Print Screen after each line is brought in. PSP has a multiple Print Screen feature, so I expect Photoshop does too.

I then have a series of stills which I can apply linear wipe or other transitions to in Vegas to "simulate" the Power Point presentation.

This doesn't copy the "cheesier" PPt transitions, but personally I think this is a good thing ;)

Wipes are better than slide transitions because the latter displaces the whole slide whilst Wipe just "paints" each new line in.

Vince Debart
November 20th, 2005, 09:27 AM
thanks guys

Vince

Dan Measel
November 20th, 2005, 01:20 PM
For whatever it's worth, I use the 4:3 standard template in Vegas with clips from an FX1, VX2000 and Panasonic, for my final product being SD mpeg2 for DVD.

Lance Spratt
November 20th, 2005, 05:50 PM
Vince,

You may also want to look at an application called PPT-100 from Datavideo. This is an application that converts powerpoint shows to a DV stream in real-time. They also have a downloadable demo on their website at http://www.datavideo.us/products/ppt_100_main_page.htm. MSRP on this software is $199.00 US.

Check out some of the gear on the Datavideo site. They make some very cool pieces depending on your need. An no, I am in no way affiliated with them!


Hope it helps!

Lance

Guest
November 20th, 2005, 09:15 PM
I've been with Vegas since v4. I've got the current version of v6. It's like an old friend, sort of.

Now I've got a brand new Sony DSR-400 (which is an absolutely awesome camera), and I capture to Vegas. But I have no camera controls through Vegas. And, worse, I can't burn to tape through it after I edit.

I know this is a camera problem, not a Vegas problem. But I just spent $14 Grand on a camera and accessories, and I can't burn to tape unless I burn through my old XL-1s, then dub to the DSR-400 from the XL-1s.

Any better ideas out there? Please.

Much grass.

PS: The reason I still need to burn to tape is I shoot news features and I take the tape, not a DVD, to the station.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 20th, 2005, 09:22 PM
Hey Charles, long time-no see.
Congrats on the new cam! It's a sweetheart.
This one's likely a job for the folks at Sony/Madison. You've got firewire enabled in the camera, correct? (It can be turned off)
I know there are a few older DSR products that can't be run correctly from Vegas, but I thought all the newer products were good to go.

[edit] Charles, I was talking to one of the engineers this morning, and he told me they've tested the 400 with Vegas 6c. Are you using the latest build? I should have asked that first.

Hughes Hall
November 21st, 2005, 09:21 AM
I've been considering putting together a seperate HD monitor using the 24" Dell DVI monitor and HDLink from Black Magic Designs. What I'm wondering is if I'm working primarily with 1080i footage, how can a progressive scan LCD monitor show this correctly? Am I wasting time and money and losing accuracy with this setup?

Also would it be possible to feed this monitor video from a PC graphics card, or would HDLink be the only way? HDLink seems to take the HD stream via USB. Does Vegas 6 support this?

Guest
November 21st, 2005, 09:38 AM
Hi, DSE... and thanks for the reply.

In the camera' operating manual, I just found out, it states in black and white you can't burn to tape from an NLE. Bummer. So, I guess now I'm going to have to buy a deck of some kind... then burn to the deck, and dub to tape through the camera. That sucks.

But the camera is so sweet I almost don't mind. I cannot believe how awesome it is in low light conditions, and those 2/3" chips make stunning images. I did a piece for CBS News' Early Show two weeks ago, and they were blown away. (It helped, I must admit, that I shot the stuff with the Aspen Glow in the background behind my subjects.)

Anyway, I don't think there's anything Vegas can do about this problem. Rats.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 21st, 2005, 10:03 AM
I guess I misunderstood, I thought you couldn't capture from the cam, nor control it during capture. My error.
yeah, those cams are designed to be used as cams, not as decks. PITA sometimes.

Dale Nicholson
November 21st, 2005, 10:32 AM
I'm doing something wrong--either in Vegas or Architect:

Before I render my project, the audio synchs-up perfectly with my video using Vegas 6.
Then I render my video as MPEG 2 and then my audio as AC-3. When I open the project in DVD-A 3.0, the audio is out of synch with the video by approx. 1 to 1 1/2 seconds.

--Dale

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 21st, 2005, 10:45 AM
It's probably in your Vegas encoding. By chance, are you using any region or markers to identify the area from which you're encoding? That would help quite a bit, I'd think.
If the start times aren't to the sample accurate, you'll find sync issues are commonplace.
My workflow is to identify the render zone/region, and then create a region using that identified space

Matthew Lombardo
November 21st, 2005, 04:54 PM
I have Vegas 5 and Photoshop CS and wanted to add some software to improve future projects. Could anyone suggest some software you would want in addition to Vegas and Photoshop CS. I would like to make great DVD menus and some effects and titles. Any must haves?

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 21st, 2005, 05:22 PM
I have Vegas 5 and Photoshop CS and wanted to add some software to improve future projects. Could anyone suggest some software you would want in addition to Vegas and Photoshop CS. I would like to make great DVD menus and some effects and titles. Any must haves?

I'd recommend having Swish/Flash of some kind in there, those really help. You'll be surprised at what you can build with CS. Richard Harrington has a great DVD set out for doing exactly this.
Another handy tool is Bluff Titler, and same with Heroglyph. But in terms of DVD menus, CS or CS2 are wonderful for most applications, unless you're looking to build multi-layer vid.
What I often do is build part of my menus in Photoshop, with transparency in certain areas, and then put those into Vegas, to create deeper motion menus.

Vince Debart
November 21st, 2005, 07:41 PM
thanks Lance

Matthew Lombardo
November 21st, 2005, 08:09 PM
Thank you Douglas, look forward to seeing you next time you travel to NYC.

Steven Davis
November 22nd, 2005, 07:40 AM
So here is what I'm working on http://www.johnrofrano.com/tutorials/parentmotion.htm

I wanted the clips to continue indefinately, and I understand how to repeat the motion group of clips to make that happen.

Where I am having issues is, in the preview. I don't have an external monitor so I use the preview on the computer. And it is so jerky and lagged it's impossible to really use.

I just built my NLE, it's an AMD dual core 3800 with 2 gigs of ram and the new Matrox Melinium with 128megs of ram.

I was thinking about turning off the preview on each clip to see if that would make a difference. By preview, I mean when you look at the clip on the timeline you can see it's actual view.

For what ever reason with 21 clips running on the scroll, the preview is terrible, lagged even on the lowest preview settings. BTW, I'm not using the audio, these are only video clips.

I'm a little annoyed that with a brand new system, that this idea is dragging so bad.

I guess I need a new approach to my issue.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 22nd, 2005, 07:43 AM
What quality do you have your preview set to? For HDV, it's best to be at Preview/Auto.

DMA enabled on all drives? You're not using your C: drive for media, right?
Are you editing m2t streams, proxies, or CineForm DI's?

Steven Davis
November 22nd, 2005, 07:49 AM
What quality do you have your preview set to? For HDV, it's best to be at Preview/Auto.

DMA enabled on all drives? You're not using your C: drive for media, right?
Are you editing m2t streams, proxies, or CineForm DI's?


I'll have to check [at my slave job right now] when I get home about what preview settings I have. I've tried every one of them, even the lowest quality, but at that point alignment of the clips is impossible.

DMA should be enabled on all my drives, but I don't use my C drive for media storage, I possibly may use it for the project files, but not the video files themselves. I'm using my finished mpeg 2s for this project.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 22nd, 2005, 08:03 AM
I'm using my finished mpeg 2s for this project.

There is no way any non-hardware assisted system can decode m2t files and have track motion for several files, while still giving reasonable playback. This is why proxies and/or CineForm are recommended, or in your case...required.

Steven Davis
November 22nd, 2005, 08:54 AM
There is no way any non-hardware assisted system can decode m2t files and have track motion for several files, while still giving reasonable playback. This is why proxies and/or CineForm are recommended, or in your case...required.


So this is your recommendation?

http://www.cineform.com/products/ConnectHD.htm

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 22nd, 2005, 09:01 AM
Assuming your system is faster than 3.2 GHz, yes. There are other options as well.
Keep in mind, the CineForm intermediary is included with Vegas 6 if you have that. It's getting to it that takes a little extra time. There is also GearShift, which is a VASST product, which does all the work for you.
http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=5830e4f9-d99b-4d0b-908d-aa4954c324a3
You can download a 14 day demo of both the full-blown CineForm (which is a wonderful asset) and download a 14 day demo of GearShift as well.

Steven Davis
November 22nd, 2005, 09:10 AM
Assuming your system is faster than 3.2 GHz, yes. There are other options as well.
Keep in mind, the CineForm intermediary is included with Vegas 6 if you have that. It's getting to it that takes a little extra time. There is also GearShift, which is a VASST product, which does all the work for you.
http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=5830e4f9-d99b-4d0b-908d-aa4954c324a3
You can download a 14 day demo of both the full-blown CineForm (which is a wonderful asset) and download a 14 day demo of GearShift as well.


Thank you, I just bought Vegas 6 a month ago. Thank you for your time and help.

Michael Pace
November 22nd, 2005, 11:36 AM
Sigh.

I just typed hammer and tongs asking you experts why a wav render would consistently crash at 78%, whether on a 101 minute long project or a 2.5 minute long one (made both sizes fail at the same 78% this morning).

I believe in Searching before posting and gleaned this little nugget about checking yr RAM allocation in Vegas if having render-crash issues. So i lowered my RAM cache from 300Mb down to 20, just a bit more than the default 16Mb value. (I'd jacked that value up last year when doing a project that needed dynamic previews constantly)

So while composing my 'Help!' post this morning I set the 101-minute long movie audio to rendering, expecting to get yet another data point in the crash cycle. Typed many paragraphs to you all, setting up the conditions, the specs, the subtle variables etc that might explain why i've been unable to render any audio today past the 78% threshold.

Welll....looks like it was the RAM value. The full 101 minute movie audio just now rendered normally and plays perfectly. No sweat.

Hope this still serves as a data point for someone--

Still a valid question: when would anyone use W64 as a wav template?? That "Render large audio files as W64" option in Prefs has always intrigued me, but neither in Vegas nor Forge can i find info on when to use it.

Valid question #2: how much benefit is afforded by rendering say, several tracks of music and effects to a new single track? That's what i first assumed was the choke point this morning: a scene that had 9 tracks of M&E, with much panning, vol envelopes, and pitch shifts-- the ref to new-track rendering in the help files mentions downmixing as a means of conserving processor power-- what's the scoop? DSE??

Best wishes all,

MRP

Jeff Mack
November 22nd, 2005, 01:00 PM
I have decided for my projects that I will hire out the camera work to be shot in HDCam. I want to do the editing and have a 32 bit processor so I can't add a deck link card. I am going to upgrade my whole system to handle HDSDI. Can anyone tell me if Vegas can edit uncompressed w/o Decklink? I am considering a system such as Matrox with it's own real time pci card vs an onboard video card. If I capture this way, can Vegas still recognize the capture?

Douglas Spotted Eagle
November 22nd, 2005, 02:06 PM
Vegas will recognize the captured *files* but won't recognize the capture card.
Workflow would be:
1. Capture using Matrox (or other card) and accompanying software.
2. Open files in Vegas, edit, render
3. Print to tape using Matrox card and accompanying software.

Vegas doesn't use any of the accelerator functions, nor codec functions of the Decklink card. It simply uses it as a recognized I/O

Matthew Lewis
November 22nd, 2005, 10:41 PM
Hi all,
I'm trying to convert a medical symposium video (shot in NTSC) to PAL for some overseas customers, and i'm having some major problems!! I've re-rendered each Vegas file (i'm still using Vegas 4) to PAL format, and am trying to rebuild the DVDA projects with the new PAL mpeg2 files. First, i observe that the DVDA project becomes much bigger in file size (as much as 2 GB bigger) when set to PAL output. I am currently trying to compensate for that by decreasing the filesize. However, the biggy is that DVDA keeps wanting to recompress the audio (ac3). It's the same audio i've been using in the NTSC versions of the DVD with no problem. It's also out of sync. Any ideas? Am i missing something or doing something incorrectly?
I appreciate any and al input. My customers are great and very patient, but i'm looking forward to shipping some copies and getting the project out of my hair!
Kind Regards,
matt lewis