Take a look at Vol 1 #12 of my newsletters (http://www.jetdv.com) specifically for the article Blurring Faces a la "Cops".

what is strange is that when I view the subject's while he is talking, it's in perfect sync, even though its pink...it could possibly because I have cut this up quite a bit and overdubbed?

It's quite possible, yes. And in VMS, the synchronization is the same; right click, choose Sychronize by: and choose "moving or slipping"

thanks guys for your help - you saved the day. I clicked on "slipping" and it took care of the problem. There was another option, but I didn't use that..what is that one used for?

You could have a duplicate layer of the footage with a garbage matte applied so only the sign is showing, then blur it on the top layer...if the camera moves, it will be more difficult, but not impossible.

I'm looking for feedback as to any kinks that might exist in this current configuration as I've never built an Intel system (AMD normally) and I tried selecting the components based on what my budget allows and what would be the most bang within that budget:

Intel Pentium D 950 Presler 800MHz FSB LGA 775 Dual Core Processor Model BX80553950 - Retail 3.4Ghz

ABIT AW8D Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 975X ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

4Gb - CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 675 (PC2 5400) Unbuffered System Memory Model TWIN2X2048-5400c4 - Retail

XFX PV-T71G-UDF7 GeForce 7900 GT (470MHz) 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

2 (RAID 0) Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - Used for the video files

1 Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 ST3808110AS 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - used for the OS and Editing Apps

ASPIRE X-Navigator ATXA9N-BK/500 Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case ATX 500W dual fan w/ automatic fan speed control. Connector 20 + 4 pin Power Supply - Retail

Since I already have one I'm considering adding another Gateway 21inch widescreen so that I can make use of both DVI outs on the video card.

The total for all that hits just under $1450 not counting the extra monitor which would push that total to right at $2000. I guess I'm wondering based on the fact that I'm going to be running Vegas 6 and ConnectHD if there are any better ways to spend that money.

Does that get me close to realtime HDV editing using the ConnectHD codec? That's my primary thrust for building this as I have an Athlon 64 setup for DV editing but it's almost 2 years old now.

Thoughts? Ideas? And of course there are tons of new reviews flooding the net today about the Core 2 processors that apparently spank all these existing chips by a wide margin and for less money. I'm so confused. :/

any word on new stuff Vegas 7 will ofer over Vegas 6. All I know is it`s supposed to come out in September and have capabilty to work with Panasonics hvx200

have capabilty to work with Panasonics hvx200
That's not what I heard... perhaps you meant Sony XDCAM?

Anyways, take a look at
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=469198&Replies=36

I found a few posts about this here but none really answered the question of how to lower the amount of pixelation (mainly for red colors) on the outer edges of objects.

I filmed a pageant and many of the girls wore red dresses, filmed with a PD170 and imported directly from dv into vegas with no correction, and ALL have the jagged artifacts even when moving only slightly.

Any fx within Vegas that could limit this (I've tried a bunch before posting) or should I be looking in another direction for a solution?

thanks!

Hey, does anyone know how to copy events and then paste them into a different vegas work file? I have two separate work files, tried copying some events, closed that work file, opened the other work file and tried to paste the events - but it wouldnt let me.

Is there some way to import them or something??

Thanks as always...

Hey James,

You probably need to be a little more specific but I think you want to paste some clips from one Vegas project to another. If this is the case, just hold down your control key while clicking on the video/audio clips individually with your mouse (they should turn a darker color if selected). Cntrl/C from that project and Cntl/V into the other project that you also have open, when you've selected where you want to paste them on your timeline.


Hope that helps.

RayLight works, however it uses lower quality avi renders as proxies if ur previewing in draft, then jumps to real MXF files when u change ur preview settings. Apparently it also supports every one of the 720p shooting modes (even the tweaked framerate crankings)

Im yet to try it, but i have it on good authority that it works a treak. Apparently performance is as good as native HDV editing (ie not all that great) but thats all system dependant

with the GFX card at THIS time, Vegas wont utilise ANY of its features, however if u intend on running Magic Bullet 2, then you'll get good performance from it. If u dont want to use Magic Bullet you may still be futureproofng your investment as noone knows whether V7 will support GFX card acceleration, and more than likely if it DOES support the card, then you wont have to worry about it, but like i said, noone knows whats going on with it...

Id actually recomend a dual dual-core system if u can afford it.
Also, your raid config, id recommend another drive or 2 (to get to at least 1TB)
Ive got 2TB on this machine and i still struggle to find space...

Open Vegas TWICE. Open both projects. Copy from one and paste into the other.

Open Vegas TWICE. Open both projects. Copy from one and paste into the other.

. .and keep BOTH instances open - don;t close either.

I've never built an Intel system (AMD normally)So why stop now? The AMD Athlon 64 X2 (Dual Core) outperforms anything Intel has up to today’s announcement of the Core 2. So my advice would be to stay with AMD if you need a PC today. The Core 2 looks promising but let someone else get the kinks out of the motherboards etc. if you have serious work to do. AMD has announced that there will be price cuts on their X2’s to keep them competitive with Core 2’s so wait a week or so and see what the new AMD dual core prices are.

Here are the spec for my current AMD Athlon64 X2 4600+ Dual Core PC (http://www.johnrofrano.com/pcequipment.htm). I edit HDV on it with good frame rates. I also selected parts that would keep it super quiet as I do tutorial work that requires me to use a microphone while sitting at the PC recording. So this would be a great PC if you do voice over work as well.

~jr

John,

It looks like you have built a nice system. I will be building my next one in January, once Microsoft releases Vista. I am strongly leaning towards the Conroe chip, even thought I am an AMD X2 fan. I guess I will sit back and watch what happens over the next 5-6 months, to make my final decision. If I do go Intel, I will wait for Nvidia 590 SLI chipset motherboards.

I did have a question on your hard drive config. What do you use the 3 drive letters for? (10K, 7,2K, and 7,2K RAID0)? How do you backup your data? What are the pros and cons of running OS on on drive, data on another, etc. vs running everything on 1 big "C" drive? Is it difficult to manage where to find "stuff" when you have it set up the way you do?

Thanks for you input,

Harry

You *might* try a mask and chromablur in combination with the secondary color corrector, creating the mask with the SCC. That should do the trick.

Raylight in medium mode on a fast computer is just like editing DV.
CineForm also has support for DVCProHD that Vegas (or PremierePro) can take advantage of.

Thanks DSE,

Is there a comprehensive tutorial on this anywhere? I see what you mean about the chromablur (even just the horizontal) seems to do well getting rid of this, even though how it looks after rendering on a tv, i don't know.

However, the secondary color corrector has always mystified me to some extent- along with the primary one, for that matter!

http://www.vasst.com/search.aspx?text=Chromablur

Many thanks!

Registry?? Where's that at? I'm having this problem! I cant select the "custom" button for the MPEG settings when I go to render video.... could you explain a little more how to fix this???

Start/Run/then type in regedit.

Okay....I have a still image on my timeline. I selected the image on the timeline. and pulled Brightness and Contrast onto the clip. I've tried using the setting to brighten the image, but I'm not seeing any difference. Is this a real time effect, am I doing something wrong (probably), or does the effect not work on a still image (png)

Thanks - David Bird

I've had some experience with Final Cut Pro and recently acquired Vegas 6 for my PC. Being told it shouldn't be a problem, I jumped into it with both feet and started importing video clips into my project media. Double-clicking on them moved the clips straight into the timeline - so far so good. However when I tried doing simple In and Outpoints using the I and O keystrokes while shuttling through the timeline I discovered I couldn't cut the clips and remove material using Del without deleting the entire clip. I tried moving it into the trimmer but the same thing occured.

Now there really must be an easier way rather than dragging clips together or putting them in subclip format first. This seems like a silly question but what am I missing here?

The first thing I would check is the Split Screen button just above the preview screen. Make sure that is OFF.

Next, try using Color Curves and/or the color correctors instead of "brightness and contrast".

Maybe you just need to turn on ripple editing. I and O should work fine in the trimmer. And you can easily delete portions of a clip from the timeline by splitting out that section and simply deleting it. You can also create a selection area on the timeline and simply press delete.

Try the stickied "shortcuts" thread in this forum... that should get you up to speed. In particular, the crtl and "crtl+alt" modifiers allow slip and roll editing.

In FCP, you select the tool first and then make the edit.
In Vegas, you would hold the modifier keys and then make an edit. And if you need to ripple, you do that after the edit. Auto-ripple does what the name suggests, although I tend to leave it off. Crtl Shift F will ripple everything... unfortunately it is a fingerful, but you can map it to something else.

So really... everything in Vegas is "backwards".

Got it....just nailed a sign on my monitor.....CHECK SPLIT SCREEN VIEW
db

Ok, I love Vegas 6.0, but can anyone tell me why or if I'm doing something wrong?

When I slow down or speed up video, there's a noticeable dragging effect on the result. The video isnt smooth anymore, just choppy....

Even when I used to use MediaStudio Pro, I could slow video down and it would look smooth....

Oh, and BTW, I'm using 24p video shot from a DVX100B....

I'm trying to render a 20 min movie trailer from vegas 6. I have tried using the .wmv at 3mps, the movies quality is greatly reduced and the file size is about 160mb. I tried it at 500k, terrible quality.. file size still around 100mb.

anyone recommend anything, I understand my trailer is kinda long, I am willing to compromise on quality, but I need a happy medium for both quality and low file size.. thanks. -Ryan King

I want to burn about 20 dvd's for clients...I haven't rendered the timeline as of yet....I would like somebody to explain what the best steps would be in creating a dvd (including authoring or finalizing in Architech)....I want the DVD to play on clients players' trouble free.

Here is what I did before for my own personal dvds:

1. Click on Make Movie
2. create file name
(not sure what to click on here...I created the project in 16x9 - so which box should I check here?? 1. Stretch video to fill output frame or 2. Save projects path reference in rendered media? Or can I check both??

3. After rendering, take into architech, create a simple title, and then burn it.

Any ideas that would work better for multiple burning and helping the dvd play on different players out there. I do have DVD - R dvds ready to burn.

Okay, this comes from someone who doesn't do 24p, but it seems to me that stobing, jerkiness is an issue at regular speeds, so why wouldn't you expect it to be more jerky in slow motion ?

As I understand it the best slow motion clips come from higher frame rates like 48p, 60p, and more.

Whatever you use to burn your discs, turn *validate* on, and tell the thing to burn "n" discs. (N=20 or so.)

With validate, your PC will burn the disc, then read it back to make sure that it has no errors. Just read a book near your PC and swap the discs every time your PC beeps. You'll be guaranteed that your discs will be error free.

Don't add a big, thick sticker to your DVD. Some of the CD labels are too thick for some DVD players.

And burn to the best media that you can find. I'm not sure what that would be these days. Some searches on the web might find some reviews.

Still, not every player handles every media. If you are going mainly with DVD-R, you might burn some DVD+R discs for the people who can't play the first batch.

Then again, DVD players are so cheap these days, you could probably jsut buy them a decent player!

The jerkiness maybe down to the speed you've chosen, e.g. maybe it's trying to show a frame twice then the next frame three times. If you choose 50% or 25% it may be smoother.

Ideally you want every frame to be different, captured at a different moment in time. To do this you really need to record interlaced, then slow it to 50% and render it out progressive with interpolate deinterlace. When you do this vegas creates two frames from the two sets of interlaced fields. You take a res hit but the motion is much smoother because each frame is a different moment in time 1/50 of a second apart for PAL (or 1/60 NTSC). If you choose any other speed you will either end up with undercranked footage which will be jerky depending on the speed you choose, or frame blending will be introduced (I hate frame blending) depending whether or not you've chosen to resample.

If you want smooth slomo for speeds below 50% you need to use something like Twixtor (not compatible with Vegas unfortunately) which generates intermediate frames by morphing between the frames either side.

Here's some of my first experimenting with Twixtor, shot interlaced 1/350 shutter on GS400, slowed to 50% rendered progressive interpolated, then used Twixtor to slow it to 25% and 12.5% at different points.

http://www.savefile.com/files/7473482

While I haven't had as much trouble recently, when I was first burning DVDs, some DVD players just had trouble playing one type of DVD or other (+ or -)

My video is very crisp at normal rates... but maybe its more jerky at a slower speed because now Im using 24p - I never thought of that....

My video is very crisp at normal rates... but maybe its more jerky at a slower speed because now Im using 24p - I never thought of that....

Exactly. That is likely the issue, and Abdy post goes into detail.

20 min is a short not a trailer !

if 3mgs was too big and 500k you don't like quality then try 1mgs ..

does you project have allot of movement ?
try - select 512k then CUSTOM - varible bit rate 2 pass ...then under bit rate change from 512 to 700k

i prefer 24p slo mo vs interlace ..
i assume you are editing in 23.976 time line ..
sometimes slo mo is a bit smoother when you have your vegas preview window set to GOOD (auto or full) ..good/best forces V to resample while preview ( auto/good) does not force a resample .. the difference is resample has dissolves like between frames .. non resample just repeats frames .. i usually look at both and then decide which i like for that section ...note: if you decide you like the non resample then you'll have to either render using Preview quality or you right click on the video in TL - properties - then check the do not resample ...

When a software does everything, it doesn't do anything right... sort of like mobile phones taking terrible pictures (take me for example: I upgraded from a 3 year old Nokia to the fantastic MotoRazor... looks sharp, sends multimedia messages, browses the internet, etc, etc, etc... but the audio quality is terrible compared to my ancient Nokia)!

Try a stand-alone compression software like Sorenson Sqeeze. Even the free Windows Media Encoder should do a decent job at 512.

so if i'm buring to a widescreen project, I should check "stretch out to rendered media??" And what about the other box stating to save all rendered media box??
Just checking. I'll make sure I click on validate.
thanks
dean

I encode to WMV from Vegas all the time. You're not going to find better quality from Squeeze, Cleaner, etc. They do offer better workflows for various tasks, especially setting up big batchs, etc.

All these are built on the Windows Media Encoder. It's just a question of what WME controls they expose and what filters they add. Vegas exposes almost all of them, has a great set of filters, and allows encoding from the timeline, which I do frequently.

But WMV, as good as it is, is not a magic format. You still need to start with the audience - how will they see your short? Via internet? If so, 3 megabit per second is way too fat for most users to stream with acceptable waiting times.

Most of my work is between 200 to 500 kilobits per second for internet at 320x240 pixels.

But only you can decide what quality works best for your short, your audience, and the method you're using to deliver it to them.

See some WMV on the web you like, view properties and statistics on it (via right-click) and you'll get a better idea of what's working for people and whether you're making any mistakes in creating your renders.

OTOH, if this isn't for web distribution, or if you feel that your renders aren't looking as good as WMV should, give us more info about your content & settings.

Here's another thing to consider. I read long ago somewhere that some burners will write hard to read DVD's if you burn at maximum speed.

I tested this a few days ago by burning 2 copies of a DVD I made, one at 8X, and one at 2X. I looked at the burned side of the DVD's, and on the 8X burned disc I can see rings. The 2X burned perfectly with no rings visible.

I don't know if this really means anything, but to me it indicates the laser was more consistent when it was burning slower.

This may help with players that are marginal, they should have an easier time reading a disc that was burned slower.

Anyone else have an thoughts on this?

I want to put a few photos on my timeline - what size should I save them to?? I had 180 resolution on them, but I thought that may be too big....would 72 resolution be better??

It's not about DPI, it's about total number of pixels.
You could have a 55 x 100 image at a resolution of 72dpi, and it would look horrid.
You could have a 4000 x 4000 image at 72 dpi and it would look great.
You want to scale/scan the image so you have a minimum of 720h x 480 v for best results, regardless of the inch size of the image. You can over do it too, so shoot for not more than double the 720 value in either direction.

I'm doing sort of a compilation project, editing from lots of avi's (of which i am frameserving vdub to vegas). The problem is, all of these videos have different resolutions.

I don't know anything about pixels/ratios/square pixels etc, but i know the output video is not going to look like/match the input videos when i do final render. I don't expect perfection in render but I'm just trying to find some middle ground.

Can anyone experienced look at the following and try to figure out a project resolution that might be sort of
an average of the bunch and that will have the final output looking as close as to these inputs as possible.

Here are the resolutions

320 x 240
512 x 384
384 x 288
368 x 272
704 x 576
576 x 432
720 x 496
720 x 576

thanks in advance

Here's another thing to consider. I read long ago somewhere that some burners will write hard to read DVD's if you burn at maximum speed...

Anyone else have an thoughts on this?

Disks that I burn at 8x or 16x with Nero will play correctly on my own PCs and one of my DVD players, but often don't work on other systems.

DVDs that I burn at 4x play fine anywhere, so far. I only use DVD-R.