Is it possible to do a split screen in Vegas Movie?

I've seen a work of cloning in Vegas Pro where you have one guy show up as two people in one setting. I'm assuming it should be possilbe to do a split screen in Vegas Movie...

Seeing a friends work on Final Cut Express has peaked my interest in replicating something like that for a video project that I'm working on.

Also, I've been looking for a way to lower the audio for a portion of the video. I can't seem to get it to gradually lower the audio for the portion of the video that I want to use. Basically the music gradually lowering to a level where the voice can be heard clearly and the music is a background then gaining back the music when the narration is done.

When I try lowering the audio, it just seems to lower all of the audio clip.

Very easy. You can do this with masks, Track Motion, or Pan/Crop. Any of the three will work. Track Motion will squeeze the images, Pan/Crop will crop out half the image. A mask will allow you to blur the line between the two.
Read my recent tutorial on masking in VMS for an idea of how to achieve this.

http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=e62b6e23-c66b-4a3f-8b6b-9fb00aa783ce
To lower audio, select the audio track you wish to lower the various volume points on, and hit the "V" key to insert a volume envelope. Doubleclicking the blue envelope allows you to put in "rubber band" volume points.

Im looking to do a mulitple split screen, ala 'Woodstock' (for those old enough) . Would you do the same method ? Thanks. ..

If you are watching the video off of the timeline it will look choppy. Vegas has a tough time keeping a constant frame rate during playback. However if you render your project and then play it, it should look fine.

i rendered out using DV NTSC template - went into custom and changed to uncompressed & progressive .. dropped rendered clip back into and it has correct pixel aspect with lower field 1st = vegas see's clip as interlace in Vegas explorer..

render out as DV25 progressive and Vegas sees clip as progressive ..

Douglas,

Thank you. I got the audio to work. It worked perfectly. Click V on the audio you wish to work on and double clicking on the purple line that is newly created on the audio selected, as you said. I was a little confused about the blue envelope that you mentioned but a little trial and error and it works. :)

Now, I'll have to see if I can do the split screens with multiple movies playing on those screens, next!

When I'm capturing--- everyone once in a while I see a slight hesitation and I see a new filename/clip...so its creating multiple clips.

How can I turn that off?
I wanna capture the full tape in one big m2t file.

Thanks

HDVSplit is a free HDV Capture Utility that does Scene Detection (which Vegas 6d LACKS) and detects dropped frames/packets during capture (which Vegas 6d also LACKS). It just for Windows users but it's the best Capture Utility I have used (though I do not use Cineform because of using GearShift instead).

Download version 0.75 here:
http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/
Some Discussion is Here:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=780721

Supported HDV camcorders:
Sony HDR-HC1
Sony HVR-A1
Sony HDR-FX1

If anyone tries this with a Z1u, I'm sure the author, Paviko, would appreciate knowing if it works. I personally want to thank Paviko for doing what Sony has failed to do - make a descent HDV Capture Utility - the 6d update was a real letdown for me in that area, even though 6d had some other great additions. What really bugs me is that you buy Sony Vegas 6 AND Sony FX1 (or whichever Sony HDV), and Sony just seemed to do nothing on the link between them. The Vegas HDV Capture Utility just leaves you with one massive file - SONY do you think I really want to manually find the start of every shot? I presume that Sony did this because they figure that everyone is going with CineForm, but not true. And for those who don't buy CineForm, Sony should offer something comparable to their DV Capture Utility with a minimum of the above two features.

Turn off scene detection.

Shawn:

I saw another thread on here where complaint was that Vegas was breaking up his HDV capture into individual clips-- Doug Spotted Eagle responded to turn off scene detect in the capture utility. That leads me to believe yours is turned off....

Yeah Vegas6c definately has scene detection...

I am sure it has carried over to Vegas6d

When I attempt to burn a dvd the Burning stops and I get a message that there is a IOCTL error. I have the latest firmware (2.1a) and the drive works fine with Ulead DVD Movie Factory as well as Roxio Media Creator. Any suggestions.

I am overlaying a separate music track on top of a narrative in Vegas 5. I'd like to bring the volume up when the narrator pauses, and then back down again when the narration resumes. Is there an enveloping feature that allows me to set points on the audio to fade up and down? There must be a simple process to this, but I can't figure how to do it.

You'll think about smacking your forehead when you read this, Brandon! :)

Just highlight the track, click on Insert and select Audio Envelopes > Volume. It'll give you the blue line all ready for you to set your points!

Brent and Chris - If you're referring to the Vegas external capture utility, then there is scene detection, but this capture does not work with HDV (a tragedy). I have looked again since your posts and cannot find any type of scene detection for the internal Vegas utility which is the only one that works with an HDV camera. DSE's post should be referring to Scene Detection in the non-HDV capture utility, because as Ed Troxel also points out on Jan 3, "Vegas' capture does not have scene detect for HDV at this time." (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=57327)

In any case, if you find an option for Scene Detection in the internal capture utility, I'd like to know exactly how you go about choosing that option. Beyond Scene Detection, I feel a lot more peace knowing that there is a 'dropped frames' counter in SplitHDV. Sony should have added HDV capability to the external utility, or at a minimum added these features to the internal utility, but I see no way to capture HDV footage and use Scene Detection (or check dropped frames) in Vegas 6c or 6d.

For Related Discussions:
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=420732
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=54446

Shawn is correct, the Vegas internal capture for HDV does not have scene detection.

OK, I've been editing with Vegas since it was called something else and owned by someone else, but I've got to admit, I'm as lost as last year's Easter eggs when it comes to placement of the plug-ins that are available for Vegas.

Based on some links here and in the Sony Vegas forum, I downloaded Wax, and several other plug-ins. Some are VST plug-ins for Audio and some are video transition plug-ins and some are video effect plug-ins. I've got them scattered all over my Programs folder and only about half are in the right place I think. And then there is the whole Presets thing; where are they supposed to be? I know where I have them, but none of these things self-install so when I unzip them and put them away, I'm just guessing what the organization should be.

Has DSE, Edward, Johnny, or anyone else written a tutorial about plug-in and preset management?

Thanks Lorinda,

You're right. How simple!

Thanks

Brandon, if you have a lot of this to do, both Excalibur and Ultimate S have voice over tools thatwill totally automate the process, inserting "ducks" in the music whereever the voice is.
Additionally, if you wanted to get really fancy but with slightly less control, you could route both dialog and music to a bus, and use a compressor triggered by the voice, that would then lower the music. Envelopes are the easiest/accurate, but putting them in manually is the most time consuming.

If you have a lot of these "music ducks" to do and don't have Excalibur or Ultimate S, an easy way to get an initial rough draft of the volume envelope is to automate it. Then when you adjust the levels as you play, Vegas automatically adds points to the envelope. You can manually clean it up later.

Wow. Bummer. Must create some kind of problem with .m2t interpolation. Now I am curious about PPro 2.0. Does any one know if it has it. So far I've just been capturing using logged clips in PPro 2.0. I will check it out this evening.

For Video Effects and Video Transitions, they should simply appear on the Effects and Transitions tabs in Vegas.

For Audio Effects that are VST, you may have to point Vegas to the proper location. Vegas looks in c:\program files\vstplugins by default but you can also specify a couple of alternate locations.

I'll second the on-the-fly automation solution Brian mentions. For a tactile-experience guy like me, it works the best -- it's kind of like drawing with sound.

Can you stop and start the capture manually selecting clips....ie: only capturing what you want rather than the whole tape with Vegas 6d? Would this work as a poor man's scene detection with HD?

Sure, you could do that.
You could also use the HDV split utility (topic of this thread) to capture, then edit with Vegas.

I know DVDA has some funny issues with certain drives.
For instance, a pioneer DVR-109 with +R discs does not work, but it will work with -R discs, even though the issue cannot be repeated with other software.

My suggestion: don't trouble yourself too much with it - prepare the project in dvda, then burn the disc in nero or some other burning software.
That's what I do - never fails

Have you, by chance, come across this problem. Bought new PC, have installed Vegas and DVDA3. Vegas can find the DVD writer, DVDA can't. I have tried re-installing and checked firmware, updates etc, but no joy. Any bright ideas much appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

Edward, thanks for the response. I know they should show up in the Effect and Transitions tabs. But does the .dll file have to be in the \Sony\Vegas6\Plugins folder? Where do you put Presets for them to show up in the Plugin Manager tab?

Edward, thanks for the response. I know they should show up in the Effect and Transitions tabs. But does the .dll file have to be in the \Sony\Vegas6\Plugins folder? Where do you put Presets for them to show up in the Plugin Manager tab?

Assuming the .dll files are for VST plug-ins, put them in any folder you want. Then, in Options - Preferences - VST Effects, make that folder your "Default VST Search folder".
As far as Presets go, download and use the Preset Manager from http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/download/step2.asp?DID=469

Mike

Edward, thanks for the response. I know they should show up in the Effect and Transitions tabs. But does the .dll file have to be in the \Sony\Vegas6\Plugins folder? Where do you put Presets for them to show up in the Plugin Manager tab?

No. As far as I know, they can be anywhere - whereever the installation program wants to put them is fine.

I've asked this before, but haven't got a usable answer, so I'll ask again!

What are the advantages of preparing with DVDA but burning with Nero?

Assuming DVDA will burn, why would I choose Nero?

Andy

AND HDVSplit is free. Personally, I like to do something else during capture, like eat and see my family. ;)

I always 'burn' an ISO image on my hard drive with DVDA, then I simulate a DVD drive with deamon tools so that I check all the menus' and chapters' functionnality. This gives me the bonus of being able to cut copys whenever I want in half the time. As for actual burning I just prefer Nero because it works flawlessly with my recorder, with adjustable buffer, auto detecting media speeds so why bother. I'm so used to Nero, I haven't even given DVDA's burning a try... YMMV

Thanks guys. If it isn't folder placement I've got to figure out why a couple of the plug-ins aren't showing up in Vegas.

Does your new PC use the nVidia nForce 3 chipset? If so, there is a known problem with all Sony Media Software applications not recognizing the CD/DVD drives from these motherboards (DVD Architect, ACID, Sound Forge, & CD Architect). As you saw Vegas 6.0d has the fix. Contact Sony Tech Support and they will email you DLL’s to patch your other software.

~jr

Thanks guys. If it isn't folder placement I've got to figure out why a couple of the plug-ins aren't showing up in Vegas.

Which ones are giving you problems?

Mike

Mike,
I'll check when I get home to my editing compter (on the road with the work laptop now).

I think there is a possibility that some of the .dll files I think are not loading might have loaded with an Effect or Transition name other than the name on the .dll.

I just wish that there was a dang folder labeled "Effects .dlls" and such to make it clear. I guess I can't complain about free effects, transitions and presets not showing up like I think they should.

Registration for the Vegas Users Group event at NAB is open/live now. This event is sponsored by a number of folks like Pixelan, ProDad, Nero, Sony, VASST, Artbeats, and our own DVInfo.net.
http://www.vasst.com/registration/register.asp?tour=Vegas+User+Group+Party+at+NAB&city=Las+Vegas&state=NV

be sure to register in advance so the catering will be sure to have food and drink for ya!

I happen to be learning Vegas right now, so I'm posting this here, but I'm sure this is not specific to any particular piece of software:

I was wondering if anyone has some ideas on how to mimic the type of still-picture, massive depth-of-focus effects like the ones done for the title intro in HBO's now-defunct Carnivale series.

I've also seen it done recently in a History channel documentary where they give a 3-d or stereoscopic look to old drawings and such.

Thanks for any pointers...

I'm trying to apply Film Effects to an event. So I clicked the Event FX button and added 'Film Effects' (set the preset pulldown menu to Very Old Film).

The problem:

When I previewed this event the Film Effects was NOT dynamic. It stayed motionless. From previous experience using this effect, I remember flickering, dust and scratches appearing randomly at different places. But now nothing happens. There's only a Film Effects tint and some particles which stay put and don't move throught the whole playing of the event.

I tried rendering the event to see if this problem is only with the preview. But the rendered .avi acted exactly as the preview.

Does anyone know what the problem could be?

Thank you

Greetings Marc,

Have you checked out HBO's website? It goes into detail about the process and the meaning behind the intro. Enlightening indeed.

As far as the technique used to achieve the effects, I'm almost certain (99.975%) that After Effects was used to create the animations and transitions between live action and the animatics. I'm not sure if something similar can be done in Vegas, but in AFX it's just a matter of applying blur. Easy pie, but it ain't free.

What version of Vegas are you using? Early versions of Vegas 6 had this problem. Update to 6.0d and all should be fine.

It can be done in Vegas. Look at Edward's "Kid Stays in the Picture" tutorial in his newsletters, or look on the VASST site for similar. It's done with Bezier masks, blur, and 3D track motion with parented tracks.

Since Vegas support says my edl functions will not work with my HD on line editor, I am having to get my on line editor to do a manual digitizing of my project. Basically, I shot a 3 camera shoot of a music performance. The performance breaks down into 13 songs about 3 minutes each. Since I can't figure out how to color correct, I was going to get my on line editor to take my sd down convert (HDCam captured through a J-H3 deck via firewire) and do the color correction so he can give it back to me to put to dvd. I used Ultimate S to do my camera cuts. It created a new master track with the cut segments on the timeline. How can I send each of those cuts with say an extra couple of seconds on the handles to later install disolves without having to render the entire track to avi? We are going to trade back and forth with an external drive. Also, how can I learn to actually do the color correct myself. All of the Vegas stuff I see is very general. Is there a step by step to tell me EXACtLY what to do?

Jeff

You also have to open the Film Effect dialog box and the use the pull-down menu to select Hair, Dust, Scratch, etc. And the use the slider bar to introduce more (or less) of each effect. I went overboard once and it looked like I edited the film in a barber college.

Thanks Ed. You were right on the money. Downloaded the update and now everything is fine.

The editor who is working on my project works in FCP (yeah, I know) and I only have Vegas and am pretty comfortable working in it.

He's sending me clips from the assembly cut to reveiw. And it's not a problem to drop them in to the vegas time and look at/work on etc.

Is there a way that I can create the equivilant of an edl so that I can make changes to the clips and he can update his version in FCP without having to do a lot of re-editing?

Barring that, is there a way to embed instructions in the clip or somehow make my notes evident to him in his FCP?

I came across a thread on the Sony forum at http://tinyurl.com/phe4c dealing with this exact issue.

Does your Mac editor have a product called Automatic Duck?
If so, export AAF from FCP, open AAF in Vegas.
FCP AAF does requires the plug-in from http://automaticduck.com/

I have no idea which version of the product to get as I'm just passing along info. Also, I'm not a Mac user.

editing with Vegas 4 or 5 on a Dell 600M Celeron M at 1.4Ghz, (400Mhz bus). Intel model 360. 1.0 GB of DDR SDRAM , Windows XP Home SP2 and burn DVDs with DVDA2

think this will work as an editor and burn OK?


Thanks
Vince

Vegas is the King when it comes to audio, as well as many other things

Vince