Hi all you lovely people,

What is the best way to edit HDV, is this possible in Vegas? Whats all this DV proxy business? I can do FCP or Vegas. Which is best? I'm going to be making music vids for MTV and a comedy sketch show for Channel 4 in the UK.. whats best, DVX100 or FX-1/one of those new HD panasonic cams..

Oh.. have 2 PCs and a Mac. Specs:

mac: G5 dual 1.8Ghz, 3.5GB RAM, firewire400 ext. 7200rpm HD, 2 internal HD, mbox
pc1: AMD 3000fx, 1.5gb ram, like a few 7200rpm 200GB HDs (mirrored) or something like that, delta66 s/c
pc2: P4 2.5Ghz, 1gb ram, a few 7200rpm 200GB HDs

Can upgrade if nec

Cheers for any input.

Well I did most of my Vegas 6 work on an older P4 2Ghz PC. I recently moved to a P4 2.8 Ghz (1 gig ram) and XP. I find that Vegas 6 is slower. My auto preview seems choppy, title changes, seem to take a few seconds b4 showing on preview etc etc.
Can someone point me to a " How Vegas should be installed " article. Hardrive settings etc. I am sure there is one on here somewhere.

Thanks for your help.

Cheers

Steve

Thanks for that information. I'ma go ahead and get this for me dad.

Raza

Hi DSE...it's about 30 minutes of footage captured in 16bit SP quality.

I was hoping on QT...but I could do it in another format.

I believe that you need to own Quicktime Pro and have it enabled on your computer to render to Quicktime from Vegas. If not, expect an error message.

No, you don't need QT Pro.
First, I wouldn't use Vegas for rendering to QT. Vegas just doesn't excel at QT anything.
Second, I'd really HATE to see any video 30 mins long on the web in QT unless you were positive that you have a Helix or other QT server so it's not a download, it's a stream.
Third, I assume you're using MP4, or Sorenson, and only MP4 will look decent at reasonably low bitrates, but VMS doesn't have the MP4 option.

No, you don't need QT Pro.Oops. My bad. Maybe that was true on an older version? (I've been using Vegas since 2.0.) Or maybe I got confused and gave Apple more money than I needed to!

You've got a lot of questions that are unrelated. Editing HDV in Vegas can easily be done. If you have a slower/older computer, you'll want to edit with proxies, and then swap out proxies for render.
As far as which camera is better, DVX or FX1...you'll need to ask those questions in the appropriate forums.
Regarding which is "best" out of Vegas and FCS, that's an opinion question, not a "fact" question, and asking about FCS in a Vegas forum and vice versa won't give you the answers you're looking for. In this forum, most of us prefer Vegas. I use both, I prefer Vegas.

Another newbie question...

I have several projects that use short clips from a large AVI file. For storage reasons, I would like to delete the large AVI file but in case I want to re-render the projects that use its clips, I would like to save those clips as separate AVI's.

Is there a way to do this without individually rendering each clip to an AVI?

I hope this makes sense. Thanks again,

Jim

There is a handy checkbox in the save-as dialog, "copy and trim media with project". More info about this in the help file and pdf manual, but I think it's what you want.

This will in turn bring up another dialog where you can select to trim the media to what you've used, plus a an extra amount of heads and tails.

DSE's books are outstanding, by all means get a copy. BUT the current version of Vegas and the most recent edition of Vegas Editing Workshop is for version 6. Why get the out of date version when the current edition is readily available? We're not talking about a fortune for the difference in cost between the two editions here. I personally owned Editing Workshop of Vegas 5 and ordered the version 6 edition as soon as it came out, even though 5 wasn't even dog-eared yet. There couldn't be more than about a $20 or so difference in price.

That is exactly what I was looking for. I guess I just did not look hard enough.

Thank you Seth!

Hi all - guess I might be missing something obvious but ...

I put a series of scenes with associated sound on the timeline. Then I decide to either another scene at the beginning or at another point between scenes. Question - how do I shift everything on the timeline to the right and preserve existing edits? If I move an existing scene to the right it seems to increase the overlap on the following scene.

Newbie here to Movie Studio here!

Paul.

Paul,
Several ways to do it. Click first event (scene, sound file), shift click all other timeline first events, then holding the cursor over one of the selected events, right click, select events to end from the pop-up window. Now you can drag everything. Another way is to group up all of the event you want to move (select them all, right click, group, create new or use the shortcut by pressing G after selecting the all), then drag them. Also, turn ripple effect on (button at top of screen), insert your clip by dragging and dropping where you want it, all events after will move to the right. Or, I think you can insert time in VMS from the insert menu too. Not sure about that. Anyway, hope this helps. I'm sure others will post with different methods too.
Randy

If its like Vegas:

1. Place cursor where you want it. Right click on event and choose select all events to the end. (will select all events to the right of the cursor)
2. Move to the right.

There are other ways to do it but this one is pretty quick.

I have just gotten my HC3, and am interested in the best approach for creating DVD format from and HDV master.

What would be useful to me (and maybe others), is a step by step tried and true approach.

My goal is to shoot all my masters in HD, but do all my video projects in DV format on DVD.

Should the video be injested as DV (using the camera's downconvert), or brought in thru Cineform and edited using Cineform intermediates? What settings should the project be set to and what setting would result in the best DVD render?

Thanks in advance. The response to this might be a good "sticky" thread.

Harry Burnette

I've been playing around with vegas 5. when I capture clip, the same clip is represent several times in the media bin but a different thumbnail is used to represent the same clip. seems redundant. is this normal?

Are you sure it's not different clips generated by scene detection?

The answer is...there is no answer.
If you have the full CineForm product, it's likely the best way for you to work.
If you have a fast computer.
If you have a slow computer, then the CineForm product may or may not be of great benefit to you, and editing native HDV (painful) or using proxies is the best solution for you.
If you ever plan on returning to HD with your projects, ingesting as DV will never do you any good, because there is no frame accurate recapture of HDV.

Hi Edward,

I just came back from out of town and got your message. Thank you.

As I mentioned, rendering the 60i section as 24p, makes that section lose definition. Do you think if I render the whole project (including the majority of the film, which is in 24p Anamorphic with 2-3-3-2 pulldown) as 60i, will lower the resolution of the larger 24p section?

What do you think?

Ruben

Are you sure it's not different clips generated by scene detection?

I'm positive it's the same identical clip appearing 9 different times with 9 different thumbnails. The clip has 9 different shots. and It seems every time the camera stopped recording it creates a new duplicate clip that is represented by different thumbnail yet the overall clip (consisting of the 9 different shots) is identical.

Hi all you lovely people,

What is the best way to edit HDV, is this possible in Vegas? Whats all this DV proxy business? I can do FCP or Vegas. Which is best? I'm going to be making music vids for MTV and a comedy sketch show for Channel 4 in the UK.. whats best, DVX100 or FX-1/one of those new HD panasonic cams..

Oh.. have 2 PCs and a Mac. Specs:

mac: G5 dual 1.8Ghz, 3.5GB RAM, firewire400 ext. 7200rpm HD, 2 internal HD, mbox
pc1: AMD 3000fx, 1.5gb ram, like a few 7200rpm 200GB HDs (mirrored) or something like that, delta66 s/c
pc2: P4 2.5Ghz, 1gb ram, a few 7200rpm 200GB HDs

Can upgrade if nec

Cheers for any input.

one thing no one seems to dispute about vegas is that it has unmatched audio capability. I know sound engineers that use Vegas in lieu of pro tools.

Are you previewing externally over firewire?
Then maybe this will help ... XP SP2 sets firewire speed to S100 = slowest.

Patch available..
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=885222

And a hack to restore speed if you have SP1 available
http://www.rme-audio.com/english/techinfo/fw800sp2.htm

Other than that... the usual stuff...
- XP Swap disk on separate drive?
- Media files on a SATA drive?
- Virus check / killed all unnecessary background processes?
- Updated all graphics card drivers?
... and a gazillion other things which could be the source...

/magnus

This is my last question(smile). I know some of the questions might seem dumb but like my 3rd grade teacher use to say, “The only dumb question is one not asked.” We’re done editing. We followed Ed Troxel’s steps concerning ‘ Preparing for DVD’
(1) Render project as MPEG-2 <allows greater compression>
(2) Modified bit rate to compensate length of video
(3) Author DVD to DVD Architect as single movie

Then someone mentioned Douglas Spotted Eagle’s ‘Mastering Audio for Video with Vegas.’ The terminology in the article was way over our heads. Adjustments to the audio tracks were made during editing.(Track Compressor, Noise Gate, and Track EQ plug-ins)
Should some of that solve a lot of things with the audio Mr. Eagle wrote about?

To add a tad to Davids question... by chance could you have had a dirty head or glitched tape that caused 9 scenes to be created? how long is each clip>?
Otherwise, I don't think I can remember ever hearing of any problem like this before, and would recommend recapturing the tape.

Then someone mentioned Douglas Spotted Eagle’s ‘Mastering Audio for Video with Vegas.’ The terminology in the article was way over our heads. Adjustments to the audio tracks were made during editing.(Track Compressor, Noise Gate, and Track EQ plug-ins)
Should some of that solve a lot of things with the audio Mr. Eagle wrote about?

Track Compressor, Noise Gate, and Track EQ plug-ins aren't "terminology" but rather "nouns." They're all names of plugins. You'll find them in the Audio Plugins options under "Insert>Assignable Audio FX

I can no longer split my timeline footage....the split button is no longer highlighted...any suggestions?

Lemme get this straight;
you have your cursor over a clip(s) and you can't split?

Make sure clip is selected.

whoops, I had the lock on....couldn't do anything until I unlocked that.

Vegas Folks,

Is there a way to update an event or region in a rendered video without re-rendering the whole thing?

Frankly I can't imagine how this would be done unless it is possible to place rendered video on one track and the un-rendered update on another track at the appropriate spot on the timeline. When re-rendering Vegas would "skip" to the update section, re-render, and "stitch" it all together.

My problem is that I don't spell check until I have rendered the whole thing, but generally this could be a convenient way to update lengthly clips. Just thinking (but not spelling :)) Thanks in advance, Paul

...unless it is possible to place rendered video on one track and the un-rendered update on another track at the appropriate spot on the timeline. When re-rendering Vegas would "skip" to the update section, re-render, and "stitch" it all together.

If you've rendered in DV (not mpeg) then what you've described will work pretty well. Vegas doesn't quite "skip", but it will plow through AVI/DV25 very quickly, only slowing down to render transitions.

If you've rendered in mpeg, IMO there's not much to do in Vegas but rerender the project.

Can I do this effect in Vegas like picture bellow. My point is having three video tracks on the timeline, splitting main Vegas window to three and time after time zooming in first clip to whole screen, stayng about 3-4 sec. then zooming out , spliting screen to three again, stayng 3-4 sec. then zooming in second clip to whole screen, staying 4 sec, zooming out then splitting to three and zooming in third video clip as main window.
I sow this effect in one serial on TV. Can I do this in Vegas or I maybe I have to try this in some 3D program.
Regards.

Absolutely. Use Pan/Crop to crop the video/images as needed and then use Track Motion to resize/position the various pieces.

Take a look at the first few issues of my newsletters (http://www.jetdv.com) which talks about using Track Motion.

I purchased the book Instant Vegas Movie Studio + DVD book (VASST training) and I love it, (but) it leaves out quite a bit when it comes to the 6.0 version that I have - I'm trying to Title, but I find no place where there is a type-background tab. I'm quickly discovering the book doesn't cover my version of the software - so the forum has helped out tremendously in that area. If anyone can offer any help, that would be great. I'm trying to do a simple black background with white type, but I cannot find the editing tab to compose type.

Mapping sound in Vegas Movie Maker

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I would like to do a "mountain pattern mapping" of background music over dialogue - lower and raise it in relationship to the dialogue without just lower the db of the whole audio wav - can I map the sound on the timeline so it can go down during dialogue moments and raise it up for non-dialogue moments??

Can Vegas Movie Maker + Platinum do a slow-mo

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I'm wanting to do a slo-mo montage of some clips, but not sure how to go about this...Can I take existing captured footage and add just this effect to those clips in the timeline WITHOUT altering the whole project as slo-mo??

I'm not sure about the Movie Maker version, but in pro you can add an envelope to a given track's timeline and then ride the volume up and down as needed. You can even do this on the dialog syllable by syllable to make it more even and intelligible.

Right click the track control window to the left of the timeline, and enable the volume envelope. (Again, if available in that version.)

You can also use compression after the two tracks are mixed together (on the pro version for sure). Compression mixes both tracks up when quiet and down when loud automatically.

Personally, I like doing it manually as much as possible to ensure that the dialog is as even and intelligible as possible. Compression is great when used well, but can be easily abused.

The description Jon gave is the identical procedure for Vegas Movie Studio as well. Select audio track, hit the V key on your keyboard. Double click the resulting envelope to put in envelope points. Use the mouse to raise/lower the envelope points.

Actually, the title tab is the same in all versions of Vegas Movie Studio, I'm not sure where you're missing the tab, unless you've closed down the Generated Media tab. If so, simply go to "View" and select Generated Media.

Hold down the CTRL key and resize the clip.

re-sizing it by dragging it out without looping??

the only tab I have from what you have described is "Media Generator"...

OK in Generated Media there should be a menu of sorts that gives you some options, RE: Text, Scrolling text, backgrounds Etc.

Don B

I found the text, but not sure how or where to preview the text when composing it....

1. Drop the text on the timeline.
2. Click the small green indicator in the upper right of the text event.
3. The Text Editor opens, edit the text. If you have your cursor over the area that contains the Text Event, then you'll see the text as you type it in.

I don't use the text this way, I prefer to create a region, right click in the region and choose "Insert Text." The dialog/editor opens immediately.

Thanks, Magnus. Good stuff.

Hi,

I recently bought one of those Letus35 35mm film lens units but am getting some vignetting on my HC1. I can zoom in to fix but would like to try getting rid of the problem in post to see if that allows me to have the widest angle.

I got the following reply on the Letus Forum regarding creation of an anti-vignetting filter:

"Nick,
i do it in After Effects:
1. before every shot i shoot uniformal surface(or after changing lens)
2. open it in AE.
3. create mask using given footage(from black to white).
4. open my actual fotage in AE
5. use on my mask blending mode(overlay, stencil luma ...depends of masks character)
"

-I kinda get what the guy was saying -you use a mask as a kind of gradiant filter. The darkend corners will apply some brightness gain to the underlying image. The white centre sections will not apply any.

Is this sort of things easy to do in Vegas? Has anyone done it of perhaps a pre-prepared anti-vignetting filter is available?


Regards, Nick.

New Vegas 7 for HD video editing and production
See the newest version of Vegas® software! Vegas 7 includes key enhancements that provide better editing solutions for HD, increased playback performance for both audio and video, a robust XDCAM workflow and advanced editing functionality for increased productivity. Also on show is DVD Architect™ 4, which is included in the Vegas+DVD Production Suite. Vegas 7 is available in late September, with French, German, and Japanese versions available in the following weeks.

http://www.ibc.org/cgi-bin/exhib_detail_cms.cgi?db_id=4287