Thanks Ed. Appreciate the quick reply.

Hi.

If I'm in photoshop, and I want an object to have no background, how do I accomplish this?

I want to bring something from photoshop into Vegas, without any background around the object.

I thought it was something simple like selecting transparent background, then saving as a .png or something, but I've tried this without success. Thanks.

In photoshop, use the magic wand or the magnetic lasso tool to cut out the stuff around the object. Read the help if necessary.
You may want to feather the edge of the stuff you cut out. Right-click the selection and feather it before deleting stuff. This can smooth out the edges.

Flatten everything (merge layers or something) and save a copy as a photoshop (.psd) file. You may want to scale things down, because Vegas can be really slow with large images.

A png file is nice beacause it is small and supports the alpha channel, allowing many non Adobe apps to allow the graphics layer to appear with no background. I'm not sure how Vegas handles this but as Glen said, save your artwork as a psd file. BUT! Don't flatten everything. If you do, you will include the background or white layer and you'll be back to your logo with an all white background. Import the psd and if the option exists to select the layer to import, do so.

The other way is to have no filled background in your PSD file ... just "layer 1" for example with just your art.

Then key out the alpha channel in Vegas if you can.

If the alpha channel does not appear to be working after you bring the image into Vegas, right-click the image and choose properties - now pick the proper alpha-channel option.

I've been using Vegas 5.0 and Excalibur 3.0 for quite sometime with not many problems. But I upgraded to Sony 6.0 and did not uprade Excaibur to 4.0, and now I'm having audio sync problems. The first phase of syncing the tracks work fine. After I find the flash point and sync 1s and 2s together everything looks and sounds fine. As soon as I run the Excalibur wizard after marking all the camera points (45 of them) it finishes fine. But when I play the video, the audio is out of sync by a couple of seconds. Before I ran the final wizard, they were perfect. This has happened on the last 3 videos I have done. What causes this? Is it because I need to go to Exaclibur 4.0??
Thanks, Dennis

Just wanted to specifically say that Vegas directly supports Photoshop image files, even when they're multilayered. So if it's transparent in the BG, it will show up that way on the Vegas timeline. No need to key out channels or anything.

DJ

I did the PSD thing, and it worked great. Thanks to whoever suggested that.

I might have been too elaborate. I copied the background layer (that was where the object was), hid the original background, and took out everything around the object on the background copy. Imported the PSD into Vegas. Anyway, it works, so thanks.

Josh,

A lot of good "photoshop for dummies" type of books out there. Might help some. (no, no insult implied... I own one)

I just can't seem to get get the capture utility in Vegas to work very well and scenelyzer doesn't seem any better. I can capture whole tapes in Vegas, but if I want to capture scenes or do anything more advanced it doesn't work. As soon as either capture program starts accessing the firewire port my computer bogs down and is slow to react to any commands. The only firewire ports that I have are through my Audigy 2 card. Does anyone have any experience with this setup? Should I be looking to add a dedicated firewire board to my PC? I know this woud be cheap enough, but how effective? Perhaps there is a Windows or software solution that I haven't found.

I'm running an Intel P4, 3.0 ghz. hyperthreading processor on an intel motherboard with 1 gig of kingston dual channel memory and two Western digital 7200 rpm drives. My friends are blown away by the speed of my fairly inexpensive setup, but as soon as I go to capture things seem to bog down.

Playback through my firewire to my camcorder and external monitor seems not too bad, if just a bit jittery on fast transitions.

p.s. when I do capture manually I'm not dropping frames

> Should I be looking to add a dedicated firewire board to my PC?<

That would be my first recommendation.

Gary

I thought there was a way to preview interlaced footage in the preview window deinterlaced, to avoid seeing all those ugly jaggies on my lcd. Can't remember where that was. Any clues?

File - Properties?

changing field order I guess, but I thought it was a specific option just for the preview monitor that didn't effect the Project Properties. I could be wrong. Anyone else care to take a stab? :)

seems like it happens only when u render project as PAL DV (vegas dv codec). when I render it as other dv codec it is okay. and it occurs on SOME of the transitions. then, video will be darker if there is TEXT MEDIA on top of it.
unfortunately, I rendered some stuff and when I deleted source, I saw these mistakes. :(

I agree with Peter that you should set the project properties as 4:3 and then 'pan and scan' the 16:9 footage.

Okay... I shot this 16:9 footage with a Canon GL1 so it's actually already lossy if I'm not mistaken. Are there any tricks or specific steps I should be sure to take to ensure the least amount of loss?

-K

Hi! Can anyone tell me how to "flip" an event in Vegas 5? I'm trying to correct eyelines and can't find how to flip a particular take. Thank you.

If you open the PAN/CROP of that event, click on the center spot of the 'F' in the pan/crop screen thee is a menu which will flip the clip horizontially or vertically.
Don

Thank you very much, Don.

I wanted to create a triptych split-screen, but alas I'm quite useless in Vegas.

First I googled for "split screen vegas" but found nothing, and then I searched this forum for "split screen" and very quickly found this thread & the solution.

Track motion was what I was looking for, combined with making the screen wider in File> Properties.

Thanks, Edward!

I had a crew hired to shoot my son's 1st birthday party. Somehow, they misbalanced the white balance in one of the cameras and a lot of that footage is looking real bad. Is there a way to correct it in post with vegas?

http://www.wideopenwest.com/%7Ewvg/tutorial-menu.htm
Billy has some great tutorials here for correction.

Don

I tried the dedicated firewire card and it worked! The controls and advanced capture are working properly. A few dollars well spent. Thanks Gary.

I've been a Vegas user since version 4, and I love it. About 6 months ago, I was on a real spending spree, and bought Adobe Video Collection 2.5 Standard.

I installed it, and I never use it. Vegas 6 does everything I want and I actually know how to use it (unlike Adobe Premiere...)

Anyway, is there any compelling reason I'd keep this? Otherwise I'm just going to sell it and buy some software I'll really use. I'd just hate to sell it and later find out there are tools in there you just can't live without.

Perhaps the audio tools (audition) can do some things that Vegas can't do,
other than that I can't really see any benefits...

No reason not to keep After Effects. It will do quite a bit that Vegas can't.

Forgive me if this has been asked before

So I started out with 5.1 surround sound project in Vegas 6b. Rendered as MPEG2 and imported to DVDA 3b to build menu. When I hit "Make DVD" I have an option to choose the Audio Format and by default Stereo was selected. What should I do? I want my surround sound to stay intact. Do I change it from Stereo to 5.1 surround?

Please help.
AP

Did you export the 5.1 audio as AC-3 from Vegas? If not, you need to do that and use that file for the audio.

Hmmm... I do like Audition. Maybe I should try learning how to use After Effects and then decide. Perhaps between those two products, it will be worth keeping.

I have both and bought Adobe Video Collection because I experienced (allegedly) unrepairable rendering issues with Vegas 6.0 (and Sony told me Vegas does not support 64 bit O/S, HA!) Anyway, I solved the render issue and now also have both programs. I have no intention of sending back Adobe because Photoshop CS and After Effects are well worth having.

My two cents worth. Only send it back if you can't feed your pet turtles without the refund.

If you rendered a dvd compliant mpeg with audio, your 5.1 audio will have been downsampled to 2ch. As Edward said, you need to render the audio to a seperate 5.1ch ac3 file.

While the normal practice is to render an mpeg with no audio, and then render the ac3 to a separate file (unless you also want a 2ch track as well), I just thought I'd mention that to save another lengthy mpeg2 render, you can simply open your project and render the ac3 file, then open DVDA and just replace the audio with the ac3 file - much quicker (provided bitrates, etc are all ok, which they probabably will be).

Well, he gets a lengthy MPEG render either way -- either he renders a new, DVD Architect-compliant MPEG from Vegas, or DVDA re-renders the video when it prepares the DVD.

I'd go with Vegas, because for the most part, any time you make a change to the DVD (fix a typo, reorder the menus, etc.), it will have to render the video AGAIN (though, as Ed Troxel pointed out elsewhere, DVDA3 does a little better with this). Render it from Vegas, and you render only once.

Hi all,

I'm working on a dance recital video and I have each camera (I used two) on a separate track.

What I've noticed is if the upper track is playing there is a "ghost" of the lower video track that shows in the preview. I've checked to ensure that the top track's opacity is at 100% but there are still faint "ghosts" of the other track visible.

What I've had to do is cut the bottom track so that they only overlap as the dominant track fades out or in.

Is this ghosting effect the "nature of the beast" so to speak or can I do something other than going back through the video and ensuring that there is no overlap between video track one & two?

Thanks for the help.

sincerely,


ian

Perhaps you changed the compositing level of the EVENT. You do that by moving the mouse to the top edge of the event, clicking, and dragging down. It's really noticable if you have a fade in/out as the curve will not go all the way to the top of the event. If that's the case, just click on the "line" that appears on the event and drag it back to the top of the event.

Hi folks & Ed especially,

Well, I'm messing about with the various settings and I focus on the compositing button and go through the various settings and then I notice, quite by accident, that the slider to the left of the compositing button for the event (my top video track) was slightly off of 100%.

D'oh!!!

Thanks Ed for the clues that pointed me to the culprit which was, um, me.

*sigh*

sincerely,


ian

LOL, Ian!

Most of us have been there, so don't worry about it! As far as you being the culprit? I don't know...it seems like those sliders and lines just drift on their own sometimes!

it seems like those sliders and lines just drift on their own sometimes!

What happens to me is that I think the track has the focus when, in fact, the track HEADER has the focus. Now I want to move left on the timeline so I use the left arrow. My cursor doesn't move so I click on the timeline and use the left arrow. If I'm not careful and look, I may never notice I just lowered the Levels slider below 100%.

Aha!!! So that's it! And here I thought Vegas had gremlins. (Hey, if Excalibur can have its wizard...) :)

What are the benefits of rendering compressed versus uncompressed?

If you're capturing DV, you're already compressed. In that case, there's no need to go uncompressed as it's much larger and won't make things any better than they already are. There are times to use uncompressed (or one of the other codecs instead of DV) but when starting with DV, you might as well stick with DV.

Lorinda,

Speaking of Excalibur...Edward, isn't there something in Excalibur that will check if you've got unintended gaps or displaced sliders?

This always throws me when I am trying to convert 60i to 24p in Vegas 6:

I have de-interlaced a 29.97fps interlaced project to 59.94 fps progressive from After Effects using fields kit 2x setting which doubles the frame rate.

So now do I create a 59.94fps or 24fps project in Vegas 6? If I do a 59.94fps no fields project I will convert using the mpeg2 encoder to 24P with 2:3. If I import the 59.94fps footage into a 24p project I have no idea how to do the output.

Do both ways work or is one better or required for this kind of progessive project?
Or do I want to back to 29.97 interlaced using 3:2 pulldown for a film effect?

If I could just get this process right for output to DVD I would be very happy.

Excalibur will let you eliminate all gaps but it won't check for them. There is currently no way to check for a reduced track level slider other than manually looking.

Ultimate S has the ability to check if gaps exist on the timeline and eliminate them if desired.

Just wondering the major differences between Ultimate S and Ed's line with Excalibur, Neon ect. It looks as though I could buy almost all of Ed's line of products for the same price as U-S. Suggestions? I am looking to improve my work flow with short cuts. I tend to do two camera shoots, however there are times I will do three, and it looks as thought U-S will only do two. I liked Excalibur's interface but was unable to get my demo of if installed correctly and I gave up on it, this was over a year ago and I'm sure it had more to do with "user" error than any fault in the program.

Hi.

I'm just upgrade from Vegas Movie Studio to Vegas 6.0.

After editing my first project, I've encountered a rather disturbing problem. When I render it, I get no audio.

I rebooted, tried again, in several different formats, and still no audio.

Suggestions?

Which format are you rendering to?

If it's a DVDArchitect preset, this will be a video stream, and you need to also render the audio. If the video (MPG) and Audio (Ac3) have the same name and are in the same folder, then DVD Architect will automatically import both when you drag the video file to a menu.

They are both good products. You can try either of them out for a demo period and see the features you like best in each.

There is no longer a "Neon" or "Tsunami". Instead, Excalibur 4.x (now at 4.5) includes everything that was in Excalibur 3 + Neon + Tsunami + new tools and features. So now a single product gets you everything.

The new Ultimate S 2 update will do up to 4 cameras. Excalibur has presets for up to 25 cameras.

I've done that a few times with different reasons being the cause.

1. Check the master volume fader. Is it up to -12db or at least past -30? Also check the audio track volume settings. Also is the mute button enabled on your audio track?

2. Do you have markers? If so did you have the
render loop region only selected in the render menu? I once had a very small section that did not have audio selected. Shortest render I ever had, but not what I wanted.

3. Do you have any volume envelopes? Are the pulled all the way down on the event?

4. Are running V-6 out of the box, or have you downloaded the upgrade to 6b? I don't think this one should be an issue, I didn't have audio issues, but there were a few gremlins that 6b fixed.

What is your destination render format? MPEG-2, AVI? There are so many to choose from.

Fixed. I went deeper into Render - Custom and found that the audio box was not checked.

works now!

thanks to all....

The latest version of Ultimate S 2.0, the original all-in-one multi-tabbed scripting tool, is now available from VASST. We have really concentrated this release on exploiting the deeper features of Vegas 6. There are tools to import veg files into a master project and retain the markers, tools to save and trim projects with nested veg files (Vegas does not save and trim the nested project but we do), some convenience features like the ability to save pan/scan presets, improved marker manipulation, etc. You can read all about it here (http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=c8cec3c4-7ec3-43db-8d32-f703f5050400).

The 5 most advanced new features are:

QuadCAM: Four camera editing with custom tally indicators, real-time switching, and built-in Shuttle Pro support

Lower Thirds: A collection of 4 new graphics overlays packages called GrafPaks with animated lower thirds that you can just drop in and use or apply, push, dissolve etc. with a single push of a button. GrafPak-1 & 2 are included in Ultimate S2. GrafPak-2 Wedding and GrafPak-3 Worship are available for purchase.

Special FX: Compositing FX like Water Color Painting, Pencil Sketch, Romance Look, etc. to give an artistic quality to your videos.

Audio Mastering Plug-In: A DirectX plug-in from iZotope® custom made for VASST is included along with AudioPak-1, a package of 38 Track and Mastering presets specifically designed for voice over, mastering, and special fx.

4 New ReelPaks: There are now 5 ReelPaks in all with film looks from the past, Classic TV, and Hollywood looks. These can now be added to a track, events, or master video bus.

Ultimate S 2.0 is beyond just a scripting tool for editing convenience. It is a one-stop, multi-cam, film look, audio mastering, lower thirds, special fx tool; to not only keep you more productive, but improve the quality of your productions with the new content. No other scripting tool provides this.

The 15-day free Trial comes with sample content from GrafPak-1 & 2 and AudioPak-1. Check it out at VASST (http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id=c8cec3c4-7ec3-43db-8d32-f703f5050400). Please read the ReadMeFirst.htm file included in the ZIP file you download. It contains important installation details concerning changes in our install procedure.

Attention Celluloid and FM users: A new free update to Celluloid is available that includes additional functionality and support for the new ReelPaks. A new free upgrade to FM is available that includes the iZotope® plug-in and AudioPak-1. (FM users contact VASST for AudioPak-1 after you have installed the new version) There is also a new update to Ultimate S 1.1 to support the new ReelPaks. Be sure to update your copy today.

Note: Because of the new Vegas 6 functionality we have exploited. This version of Ultimate S2 will only run on Vegas 6. We are working on a Vegas 5 version that should be available by August 1st.

~jr