I recently completed editing a video for a client - all talking heads. When I filmed it, I had to increase the volume/gain on the camera to compensate for the individual talking heads depending on their voice level.
Well, now in post - when I turn the TV up, I can tell the amount of white noise in the background is completely different. So my question is probably complex and simple at the same time - is there a good way to make all the audio levels the same? I am trying to look at the waveform and use it as a guide to match up with the other ones using the gain control. Unfortunately I learned a lesson too late that more volume is better than less volume. A few of the talking heads are great, there is little or no white noise behind them because they talked loud, but others who talked soft, I turned up the volume in the camera and now when it is turned up louder, there is white noise.
Any experience in this matter? Any advice? Thanks

I would be inclined to use noise reduction (http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/Products/ShowProduct.asp?PID=14).

did you use the on-board mic? external mics, lavs clipped on will save you from this hassle.

capture some of the white noise in each clip and apply noise reduction. Its something you will have to do by trial and error as the amount of noise reduction you apply can have a negative effect on the voice (depending upon the frequency of the noise and those in the individual voice)

Unfortunately I'm not at my house right now so I can't test (and I'm totally incompetant with flash anyway) but I was thinking of finding someone to do some MTV-style bumpers for my music vids to label them with, and wondering if they will import correctly (with transparency layer) into my Vegas workfiles?

Cheers!

Yes you can drop the .swf file onto the Vegas timeline. ActionScript, motion video, and audio are not supported. And you need to use Flash 5 files, the Vegas reader plug-in can't read Flash 6 files or higher.

Cheers for that! Any idea if v7 of Vegas has changed anything with regards to those "cants" ? I'm hoping Flash MX will have the ability to save as a legacy version as I can't see many people I know still having an older version. Thanks for the positive news tho :)

The scoop on Flash (http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/sonypictures.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1042)

Ah excellent, hopefully everything I'll need to do will work then... fingers crossed!

Hi there - While slowing down some motion with velocity the render looks terrible, is there a way to get a fairly smooth slo-mo post camera?

After reading a lot i think i understand the workflow of using raylight with vegas. But what about when your finished editing? Can you render again to dvcprohd?

try to keep the speed at exactly 1/2 of the original (go to properties). Depending on the format you might even enable the 'reduce interlace flicker'-filter.

If you do have to have another speed then 1/2nd, just enable the reduce antiflicker.

Depending on the speed and your likings: enable or disable smartrender: If fluent images have the priority on focussed images: enable it. If scharp en focussed images are of utmost importance, disable it (but you'll get less smooth video). - I personally like to disable it and be sure not to slow down too much (never more then 1/2). If I MUST use 1/4th of the speed, I still disable it - But that's a matter of taste. I personnaly dislike the blurry images more then the low framerate (if there's a lot of movement in the picture - of course)...

interpolate or belnd.. ur choice... check the project properties my friend.. also check out the supersamping..

Much, much thanks guys...

I am in a last minute bind here. The audio for this DVD is fine, I listened to it with my media player - but when I burn it to DVD it warbles - like a puttering of a motor. I have tried several types of DVD's mfgters and nothing seems to be working to fix it. Any ideas and I need them quick please!

Is the audio PCM or AC3? Does it "warble" all the way thru or in certain parts or sporadically? Please provide a bit more info so we can try to help you

Don

Thanks Don,

It warbles from the get-go, like a stuttering. I have recently rendered out the audio separate as an AC3 (it was originally render as a separate audio file when I rendering it out with the video, but rendered at the same time, if you understand what I mean) and I am going to try and insert that and see what happens. It is really weird because I burned a DVD today with no problem, I re-rendered the video (which took 3.5 hours), and previewed it with DVDA, listened, no problems - but as soon as I prepare and burn the DVD, it sounds like a stutter all the way through...

EDIT :
Fixed it. Took out the audio and re-added it in DVDA, sucks to be me, went through about 10 blank/lightscribe DVD to find out...thanks anyways for your help Don

After reading a lot i think i understand the workflow of using raylight with vegas. But what about when your finished editing? Can you render again to dvcprohd?

You can if you have the codec installed. You can get the codec for free from Avid.

Note that you can only render DVCPRO HD as Quicktime with those codecs, though.

I saw at the other forum you got it fixed. Glad you did. Sometimes things happen for no appearant reason. Case in point, I have had 2 instances in the last year (which I guess is a very very small % considering the number of DVDs I burn) where all audio is sync'd-in the Vegas project, in the rendered AVI in the rendered MPEG, in DVDA preview-everything is A OK! Burn the DVD and certain parts of the audio fall out of sync, about 3 to 5 frames-just enough to make me crazier than I normally am. First time I just tried EVERYTHING to fix it then finally just said the hell with it and re-rendered the AC3. Reburned another DVD and BAM! perfect. No rhyme, no reason, nothing different than the first render. OH well, ain't technology wunnerful! :-)
Don

Yeah Don, I don't get it either, just glad it is done! Thanks for the support

For example, I wanna change a footage from 25fps to 20fps. Ok, there is a way for that purpose. But the result is every 20 frames on and the last 5 frames off per second, so 20fps. BUT: is there a software which can remove for example every 5th frame, so the result to be again 20fps but not without the last 5 frames??? Interesting question, huh? I hope you understand what I mean. Any ideas???

I could not get my head around the question, but I am sure a retiming plug-in, such as the one in After Effects 7 can do it, if anything can. Alternatives are Twixtor (http://revisionfx.com/rstwixtor.htm) and ReTimer (http://sfx.realviz.com/products/rtpro/index.php?language=EN).

So, are you slowing the event using a velocity envelope?

I am trying to find a nice equivalent to the filter in Photoshop called posterize. IS there anything like this?

So, are you slowing the event using a velocity envelope?
Look, I mean that:
20fps -1 2 3 4 x 6 7 8 9 x 11 12 13 14 x 16 17 18 19 x 21 22 23 24 x .
So "x" is every removed frame. I want exactly that as result from 25fps footage, instead of that:
20fps - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 x x x x x . So "x" is the removed 5 frames in the end, i.e. that's what happens if I change the 25 fps footage to 20 fps in Vegas. I JUST WANT TO AVOID REMOVING OF THE FRAMES IN THE END, WHICH MAKES STRANGE MOVEMENT OF DESTINATION VIDEO. I just want to make it removing every 5th frame instead of every last 5 frames.
So, give me any advice and solution.

I have a black and white picture I want to use as a mask - how do I go about using it with compositing? I am going to use it instead of greenscreening to alpha channel the black. I think I can do it in Vegas, but I want to know the steps if someone is kind enough to show me.

Yes. NewBlueFX and Pixelan both offer a "Posterize" feature in their plugin suites.

I have edited a video for a company. This video was shot in 4:3. It now turns out that this video will be on a 50" plasma at this years SEMA show. Can I render this 4:3 video to work and it will be full screen on the tv?

I did this once beofore and it seemed that everything that I edited didn't move. I hade space at the top and the bottom and like normal on a 16:9 widescreen but my text that I had originally added was now in the black spaces.

Thanks, Jason

Take a look at the "Split Screen" article in Vol 3 #1 of my newsletters. It shows multiple methods including the use of a Black/White generated media which you can substitute your image for.

This is a PC question but I want to target the PC for Vegas so posted here... hope it is correct forum...

I am almost convinced a notebook can handle HDV editing and am thinking of getting one for this purpose. My projects usually use a Sony Cam (Z1U) for capture, I usually use Sony Vegas for editing... and now I am thinking of a Sony Vaio Notebook for the editing machine. In your opinion or experience would this machine handle HDV pretty decently?

Sony Vaio
Windows XP Pro
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 (shoot... doesnt say how much memory)
Core 2 Duo T5600 (1.83 Ghz)
1GB Memory
100GB HD (5400rpm)

I figure Sony, Sony, Sony... things will run REALLY smooth... however am a bit concerned about the HDs spinning at only 5400... I have used trusty old SCSI drives for years now and they have never let me down...

what do you think?

Again... I appologize for the simple questions. I'm trying to get up and running on Vegas 7.0. I've looked around for a while for the answer to this. Perhaps I'm not using the correct phrasing in my search.

In P-Pro you can simply fade in and out of a clip using the keyframes. I can't seem to figure out how to perform this simple task in Vegas. That goes for motion and scaling too. Any help would be appreciated. Or perhaps point to the right thread.

Thanks..

In Vegas, turn the opacity envelopes on. I think there are opacity envelopes...

There are also the cross-fades of course. You need to mouse over the upper corner of a clip, and then drag left/right.

2- Motion and scaling is controlled by the pan/crop window. There are probably tutorials for this, but I haven't read them.
Edward Troxel has a free newletter with good tutorials.
There are also lots of free resouces on the VASST website. vasst.com

List of tutorials:
http://www.vasst.com/training/Tutorial%20link.htm

When I buy a new laptop with Vegas and Adobe CS in mind it will probably be an Alienware. I would not get hung up on all Sony. Just my opinion after spending 5 years at the happy M ranch in Redmond.

be aware that alienware have just been bought out by dell, so by the time u decide, u may end up buying piles of bloatware...

I recently bought a Toshiba A100 Pro
dual core@1.73, 1gb ram, 80gb drive, 256mb Nvidea display (dedicated) and i can run magic bullet through after effects in realtime... multi burner, and a 15.4' screen (which is equivalent to one of 17' CRTs

Cant fault it, Im using V6, and edit HDV for corp clients with it. I also use it on photography gigs and dump CF cards onto it as i work... It runs CS2 without skipping a beat
Superfast, BUT i run an external media drive for ALL video... much easier and less wear and tear on the main system drive. Considering theyre mobile's theyre going to be knocked arond a bit, so IMO its just a safer bet

Dell bought Alienware back in March. The deal was they would keep doing their own thing. Do you have any evidence that big evil Dell has scr*wed up Alienware? The good news is you can buy DEll Dell 24" 1920 x 1200 UltraSharp Widescreen bundled with Alienware for around $600.

...but that is what should happen when you resample. Did you try adjusting the event's playback rate and undersample rate by right clicking and selecting Properties? Setting the undersample rate to 20/25=0.8 should do the trick.

Tim, Vol 2 #8 has an article on keyframing.

...but that is what should happen when you resample. Did you try adjusting the event's playback rate and undersample rate by right clicking and selecting Properties? Setting the undersample rate to 20/25=0.8 should do the trick.
I am not satisfied by the result. Oh, no idea...

You might not be satisfied with the result, but Vegas is doing what you asked! Maybe you want something else, like this (http://www.avisynth.org/Pulldown).

Read this on the net as a possible workflow, think it'll work in vegas? Lots of mixed reports about HDV downrezzed to SD. Is this the answer?

capture in cineform>render cineform timeline to CF movie> use procoder II to transcode to m2v at 720x480, 16x9, par 1.2, upper field FIRST > dv architect to burn.

Has anyone tried this?

I haven't tried it, and I won't because I'm from a PAL-country. Anyhow, I would change one thing for sure: if you captured HDV with the JVC, then it is progressive, so I would choose a progressive SD format to downconvert to....

The wax-plug-in keeps giving errors when using in version 7 of vegas. I can't find any info wether the problem is that it still doesn't support vegas 7. Wax keeps telling me that I should check if scripting is enabled (and refuses to open), but of course it is....

You might try checking in the support area on the debugmode.com website.

Hi - Does anyone know where I might find a border from like a silent film when they used the title cards?

Hi all,
I am new to vegas,
I used to see the FX's effect on the preview window (on the full window),
but after I pressed the 'copy to clipboard' button, the best I can see is a half frame (the other half is bypassed, or showing the frame I copied to the clipboard), HOW can I see the FX effect on a full frame ?
Thanks, Sassi.

Why are you copying to the clipboard? Put the FX on the clip and play it out. If you don't like it open up the clip and remove it. The clip board worls really well for color correction-pick the frame you want to match, copy to the clipboard then move the cursor over to the clip you want to work on, press the slit screen icon and do the work to the clip.

Don

Thanks again for the help. This is going to be a slow process.

Try as I might I can not get Vegas to recognize the Blackmagic Design Decklink (device unavailable). Works fine with Vegas 6, do I need to uninstall?

Jim

Don,
Thats what I usualy do, but i mistakenly copied a frame to the clipboard.
Can I 'empty' the clipboard ? again I preffer to see a full window of the effects.

You don't need to 'empty' the clip board and to see the clip or frame full frame it sounds like you have the split screen icon pressed on. It's next to the clip board icon in the preview screen, turn it off and you should be fine.

Don

To convert from 4:3 to 16:9 you should first change your project properties to DV Widescreen. Then use Pan/Crop on each event and apply the 16:9 Widescreen crop setting. Check to make sure something important didn’t get cropped off of the top or bottom and move the crop as needed. (I like to lock the movement to vertical only so I don’t move the crop sideways) Then proceed to the next event. Finally render using one of the Widescreen templates.

This process will, of course, decrease your vertical resolution and that decrease may be noticeable on a 50” plasma, but you got what you got. There aren’t a lot of options.

~jr