There's an extremely good chance that they can simply play the NTSC DVDs. You might want to check with them on that.

As a stop-gap measure, you might try rendering to a full PAL DV-AVI file and then give that to DVDA.

Hello to all:

I'm not a Vegas user as such but I need to prepare some material for a client who is. I have two questions:

1) Will Vegas import a targa sequence and work with it on the timeline along with existing HD material?

2) Does Vegas work with all HD resolutions (1920 X 1080I, 1280 x 720P)?

Thanks,
George

1) Yes. Just to a file - import, pick the first file, and check the box indicating this is an image sequence.

2) Yes. Both of those are supported.

Hello to all:

I'm not a Vegas user as such but I need to prepare some material for a client who is. I have two questions:

1) Will Vegas import a targa sequence and work with it on the timeline along with existing HD material?

2) Does Vegas work with all HD resolutions (1920 X 1080I, 1280 x 720P)?

Thanks,
George


One thing you may want to be aware of George, in most instances TGA sequences are square pixel, and therefore will probably need to be matched ot aspect ratio using the Pan/Crop tool. If you're working with most HD formats in the 1080 flavor, like HDV they're not square like 1920 is, they have an aspect of 1.333, so set your targa sequences to 1440 x 1080 rather than 1920 x 1080.

Thank you Edward. I appreciate the input.
I'm nervous to be sending out NTSC versions for the cost of shipping. This is a fundraiser for a non-profit, so every dollar i can keep benefits them more. However, i'm getting to the frustration point here where i think i just might send out some NTSC copies and hope for the best. Our "audience" can barely tell me the make of their DVD player, let alone what their setup is capable of playing. ;)
I didn't think of the straight DV-AVI. I tried rendering the video and audio together as a single mpeg with 2 tracks (not seperate streams for DVDA as i've always done for best quality) and i think the audio is STILL off. Of course, i'm checking this all on a computer since i have no PAL setup, but they do seem to be off.
Maybe i'll try the DV-AVI re-render, and if that doesn't work, i'll just ship out some NTSC versions and cross my fingers. If i have to re-ship, so be it.
Thank you again.
kind regards,
matt lewis

Thanks to both of you for for the replies...

Douglas: Does that go for 720P as well?

George

720p is a square pixel format. 1920 x 1080 is a square pixel format. Anything in the MPEG 1080 realm is non-square, including the broadcast streams for 1080.

Good information.

Thanks again, Douglas!

I was reading "what's new in Vegas 6" and saw that you can drop .veg files right into a new track.
Looks like I will have to migrate to Vegas 6
Mike

My must-have additions to Vegas are DVDLab Pro for authoring and Procoder for encoding (and debugmode's wonderful frameserver for sending the Vegas output to Procoder). I also sometimes do stuff in Photoshop and import the .psd's into DVDLab Pro.

My Ikegami DV7w won't rec to tape through firewire, either. I use a Sony DSR20 to loop into the NLE. The Sony DSR11 is a low cost deck that is very well made.

Hi everyone; John from dvxuser.com

I wanted to make a simple matte using Vegas and Photoshop. My goal being to use these images:

(Scroll down for images and final result please)

http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread.php?t=39008&page=2

You can see my first goal was to simply drop the Photoshop layer 'On top of' the Live Track and I assumed it would cover it up but it didnt work out that way. In fact, the final comp:

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/3...nedude24wc.jpg

Has elements of the original live plate that I assumed would be covered up by the Photoshop element. I have tried every combination I can think of using the tracks and composite options and am lost.

So I leave dvxuser and seek the advice of the Vegas masters at dvinfo.

Thanks

I'm not exactly following everything you're doing. However, coming out of photoshop, why not make the area you wish to show through be transparent? PSD and PNG can both handle transparency fine.

Yes. That's what I was talking about. Just drop the veg onto a new timeline and everything's brought over. Probably should have mentioned it's only available in Vegas 6.

Thank you for responding Edward

In simplest terms and for illustration only:

http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/662/foredward5ei.jpg

That is what I would like to do. I have been using either TIFF or JPEG but will try PNG or PSD right now

Scratch it

Thank you Edward. I used a PNG (instead of TIFF or JPEG) and it did exactly what I was trying to do; a simple matte

Thank you Vegas masta!

Hi John,

Edward's suggestion would work fine.
Also, you can do this entirely in Vegas by using one image on a track above the other and applying a Bezier Mask to the top one.

Gary

Tiff and Jpeg don't maintain the transparency. Png and Psd do. Glad to hear it all worked out for you.

Hi Gary

I'm still in V4 ( :/ :P )

Edward

Works like a charm. Now lets see if I can be creative with simply Vegas and PS. I'm going to reference the old school ILM stuff

Thank you Edward..
just a conclusion post for anyone reading this with a similar problem.. yes, rendering the project to DV (PCM) and then feeding it to DVDA for re-rendering to PAL format fixed the problem. The video and audio are now in sync!
Kind Regards,
matt lewis

Edward is correct, European PAL DVD players usually also play NTSC DVDs without problem.

Hi

is it possible to have 2 clips on the timeline joint together? what i mean is can i have one clip from 1 video and another clip from another video and have them both side by side, So only one half of each clip will be showing to make a full video.

Hope i have explained that ok

Certainly. And there's several ways to accomplish it. Rather than try to give a full explanation here, take a look at Vol 3 #1 of my newsletters (http://www.jetdv.com) for the Beginner's Corner - Ways to Split Screen article.

Jim,
There are several ways of having a split screen effect. Using track motion, using Pan/crop, or using masks...it's very easy to do.
http://www.vasst.com/search.aspx?text=split%20screen will show you about 5 different methods of accomplishing this.

Greeting,

I am looking at a couple of projects where a commercial client requires some interactive CD's to be generated that incorporate video, links to web url's, and multi-page menus.

What software have any of you successfully used in generating this type of disc?

As usual you feedback is greatly appreciated!



Lance

Hi

Thanks for the links guys


Yes i am so happy i done it i have wanted to do this effect for so long, just one problem tho i put the camera on the tripod kept it in the same place through out the filming and used the pan tool in vegas and done 50% on each clip. The problem i got is now i have joined both clips together i can see a very fin line in the middle where they have been joined together is there any way to get rid of this?

Thanks a lot

Being one who stays in PAL land, I can confirm that all the NTSC dvd's that I receive all play on PAL players - from movies to homegrown NTSC dvd's.

Cheers

Still a tad confused by a reply from Douglas Spotted Eagle on my posting for importing targa sequences into Vegas... specifically dealing with the anamorphic size of 1440 x 1080.

If I need to maintain the aspect ratio of a still image sequence that is now at native DV resolution (720 x 480) what is the enlarged frame size I need to
create to keep the aspect ratio intact when importing into 1440 x 1080 anamorphic?

Example: to import into 1280 x 720 I create a new frame size of 1080 x 720... ti import into 1920 x 1080 I create a new frame size of 1620 x 1080.

According to my figures, then, I would need to create a new frame size of 1218 x 1080 allowing for the 1.33/1 anamorphic ratio of the horizontal dimension.

Does this make sense (Douglas, if you're there) to anyone?

You need to feather the edge so that it's not a distinct joint.

I know that the CCD blocks in the XL2 are uniquely built to support native 16:9 capture on a regular, non 16:9 1/3” chip. As such, when editing with 16:9 footage in any NLE, what would the correct pixel aspect ratio setting be? Do you keep it square, widescreen, or what?
What shape are they on the chip itself?

Jeff

The XL2 shoots standard anamorphic DV at 720x480 (NTSC) or 720x576 (PAL). So you should use your NLE's preset for anamorphic DV. Don't confuse the CCD's image mapping with the data which is written to tape. All standard definition DV is 720x480.

I don't know what software you use, but on the Mac in FCP you would choose either the DV-NTSC Anamorphic or DV-PAL Anamorphic easy setup. These setting are actually identical to DV-NTSC and DV-PAL except the "Anamorphic" box is checked in the dialog.

Aye, thanks.
My school has, as they should, an all-mac platform, so I use FCP there... and I have a pc at home so Vegas is my NLE of choice.

I am still experimenting around with the camera, and I noticed allot of vertical smearing (best way I can describe it) in my footage. It disappears when I set to square pixels, regardless of the resolution.

Perhaps this is more of a Vegas question then, as opposed to one dealing with the camera itself.

the CCD blocks in the XL2 are uniquely built to support native 16:9 capture on a regular, non 16:9 1/3” chip.The target area of the CCD is in fact native 16:9. See http://www.dvinfo.net/canonxl2/articles/article06.php for more details.

Perhaps this is more of a Vegas question then, as opposed to one dealing with the camera itself.

Jeff: I've moved this thread to the Vegas forum where someone will hopefully provide you with an answer.

Aye, thanks.
My school has, as they should, an all-mac platform, so I use FCP there... and I have a pc at home so Vegas is my NLE of choice.

I am still experimenting around with the camera, and I noticed allot of vertical smearing (best way I can describe it) in my footage. It disappears when I set to square pixels, regardless of the resolution.

Perhaps this is more of a Vegas question then, as opposed to one dealing with the camera itself.

if you're importing anamorphic into Vegas, then the PAR should be 1.212, but Vegas should also be sensing the flags, and setting it correctly for you, unless you're dropping it into a standard project.

sorry about this guys...

I solved the problem. The answer was so embarassingly simple that I don't even want to say.


Hopefully as I get better at being a ‘prosumer’, so-called, my participation here will have some more value.

Perhaps I will post some stills of my work in the days to come.

Again, thanks to all.

EDIT: Chris... I know that the target area is native widescreen... but the chip itself, including the inactive pixel space, is not 16:9, right?

nVidia offers a similar function to users of Magic Bullet now. I have had a string of bad ATI issues as a result of their drivers, so spending the money to buy one to replace my 6800 aside, I'd (most likely) never switch to ATI.

Hi folks, I've asked this before - back when I was using V5 but I wanted to find out if this function has been added to V6.

Maybe its the way I work but I since I came from an audio background, I got very used to bringing all the clips into the media manager (using SAWSTUDIO which I Love!) and then mixing my piece, and when I was done I would save the pieces that I used, by clicking "trim and save". SAWSTUDIO would then make new files of all the pieces that I had used in the timeline - trimming them to the size that I used, adding a little bit on each end if I wanted to.

This of course allowed me to save the pieces that I used in a much smaller archive than if I had to save all the pieces parts - including the pieces that I didn't use at all.

So my question is - is this function a part of VEGAS?

As I said maybe I need to change my style of working. I like to look at all the stuff in the trimmer and make decisions about what I want to use there, without editing while I capture the footage. Again, I might be missing something here that I just don't realize at all.

Anyway thanks for your help here.
Milt

Yes, Vegas does this, always has.
Do a "Save As" and in that dialog, you'll see a "Copy And Trim" checkbox. This will then allow you to save XXX length heads and tails, and it will save exactly what's on the timeline with the heads and tails (if you want them) so you can delete the rest of the media that you didn't use. Be sure to save to a new folder or location so you don't mix the new save with the original media.

So FINE!! I really need to take a course in Vegas, so I don't miss all these really simple WONDERFUL things. I can't tell you how happy this makes me!!!

Milt

Milt, one thing you need to note about this process: Using DV-AVI as an example, the video will be copied to a new DV-AVI file. The audio will be copied to a separate W64 file. While you end up with 2 files, it can still save a lot of space. The resulting saved VEG file will properly reference both files, though, so it's an automatic process.

Good to know, I'll pay attention to that.
Milt

I'm running out of memory during rendering. I'm absolutely beside myself...new system build, 2GB 667MHz DDR2 memory, low-level formatted my hard drive and reinstalled windows XP SP2 twice...

Disassembled entire PC, reseated all components, problem not fixed.

I gradually increased my page file to the point of having 4GB page files on each of 5 drives...i(total of 20GB) it helped in a previous installation, but only worked once...then I ran out of memory even with 20GB of page files.

Would bad memory sticks (Kingston 667 DDR2) cause this problem? The memory seems to check out fine during POST. Processor Pentium D 830.

If you have any suggestions please post or e-mail me

jeffharpervideo@yahoo.com

Are you trying to render a project that has a lot of large still images? If so, Vegas loads each file into memory and can eventually run out of memory. I have had the best luck using .PNG files and, if necessary, I render out a series of short sections and join them up later. Vegas v6.0c improved on the memory mamagement issue and it works much better than previous versions.

John

John,

Yes...it is the photos...I have been using TIFF files...I can't believe it! When I scanned the photos for this project I used the TIFF setting instead of PNG...

These files are huge....that is most certainly the problem.

Incidentally, John, if you're interested, Sony gave me a workaround which I got from them earlier...they had me go to PREFERENCES - VIDEO-tab and then change the "MAXIMUM NUMBER OF RENDERING THREADS" to a lower setting. I did this and found after trial and error I had to reduce it to 1 (ONE). It slowed down my rendering time, but who cares...I don't have to redo the project!

Best Regards,

Jeff Harper

Jeff if you haven't done so already, change your RAM settings in your Preferrences to 16MB used.
I had the same problem when trying to work with Still Picture Montages, and this fixed the problem. It seems that Vegas 6 doesn't dump the RAM when it comes time to render, and working with pictures uses up much more RAM than video, as there is more processing needed.
You also may see your preview improve while doing this as well.

In anticipation for my first HDV cam, the FX1, I've rendered a ton of HDV photo slideshows (one taking over 5 hours to render) Using 2 NLEs (including vegas), both with the MainConcept Encoder. My question is: Would Vegas transfer my .m2t files without dropping a ton of frames or would I need another printing program to increase performance (must be free, I'm on a budget). And can you print an .m2t file to the FX1 directly from a DVD-R? (VLC didn't drop a single frame when I played an HDV .m2t file from a DVD-R, is the same true for printing?)

What was the solution? I don't even have an XL-2, I'm just curious to learn. No reason to be shy around here; nobody gonna heckle ya. :)

O.K. Michael...I have changed the setting. Thanks much! I'll experiment and see if I can increase rendering threads just for the heck of it!

Jeff


Addition to previous post:
Michael...I did try rendering with new setting, didn't seem to help...ran out of memory...till I changed number of rendering threads back to 1 (one). I think the reason is the TIFFS I'm using are just TOO large! I must say, however, that the video came out beautifully using the TIFFS, best quality I've ever seen.

Appreciate your tip and will continue running with the setting you suggested...

Is there a way to apply a bunch of settings to a group of avi files in Vegas as a batch process ?

I am using the Letus35A 35mm adapter on my footage, which has all the images flipped vertically (a property of the adapter), hence when I have my raw captured files I want to process them all with track motion orientation of 180 degrees so they are flipped back the right way up.