No matter which tool you use, the tracks have to be named some way for the script to tell them apart. There are three good offerings available: Excalibur, Ultimate S, and Infiniti-cam and all require the tracks to be named. If you already have Excalibur it will do the job and do it well. In fact, Excalibur 5 will build the project for you and name all tracks as needed - just point it to the clips and it will add the clips to the timeline and name each track appropriately.

As far as the loading speed - the first time is slowest (but still under 20 seconds on my laptop - plus this includes the time loading .Net). For me, subsequent loads are very fast (under 2 seconds) and the camera switches are way under 1/2 second in Excalibur 5.

There ARE keys that will constrain the movement. Try CTRL or ALT while moving the envelope points.

I recorded a shot, and I need to speed it up 50x-100x times, but I cant get it to go over 4x. Is there a way to make it faster?

to speed it that many times, you either need Time Bandit from PeachRock software, or you need to render it more than once. 12X is the fastest you can do on a single clip at a time. Velocity envelope plus right click/properties/playback rate

Are there any free tools I can use? I dont feel like spending money on something Im only going to use once.

Yes, Ctrl and Alt do constrain X and Y. I could have sworn I had already tried that.

Thanks for that.

Both Ultimate S and infinitiCAM will allow you to name the tracks anything you like for up to 9 cameras. So you can use your existing track names with these tools. If you don't like having to name your tracks something different than what you want, I recommend you try infinitiCAM. Just point it to your existing tracks and you're all set. For over 9 cameras, infinitiCAM uses the 1,2,3 method just like Excalibur (it’s about the only strategy that makes sense once you have that many tracks). InfinitiCAM will also build the project for you and insert and name the tracks automatically if you want.

~jr

Are there any free tools I can use? I dont feel like spending money on something Im only going to use once.Yup. You could use the built-in script called Render Image Sequence. Since you are speeding your footage up 100x you only really need one frame out of every 100. Just have it render every 100th frame and then import those back into Vegas as an image sequence. If that doesn’t have enough motion blur, render every 50th frame and speed it up by 2x in Vegas.

~jr

You can use a combination of:

1) Avisynth (http://www.avisynth.org) a scripting language for video
2) The DGDecode plugin for Avisynth (http://neuron2.net/dgmpgdec/dgmpgdec.html)
3) VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org)

All are free. There is also a version of VirtualDub that reads MPEG2 natively.

You will need AviSynth + DGDecode to import MPEG2 TS (.M2T) into VirtualDub and decimate by whatever rate you want.

Actually, you can probably do the entire decimation in AviSynth, then use VirtualDub to encode to a format that you can edit in Vegas.

I use a combination of these methods to make timelapse sequences. It takes a bit of time to figure out AviSynth, but then it is almost completely automatic.

Just multiply it 12x, like DSE said, render it out uncompressed (if you're even worried about that) and do it again. Do it until it's fast as hell.

And if you aren't worried about DV recompression, I suggest getting a little lossy. Some of that natural furry blur helps high speed stuff sometimes.

Also, add a motion blur envelope to blur over any jumpyness from the extraction of frames.

Just by 2 cents.

DJ

Maybe tempermental was the wrong word. My issue is more once excalibur has made the cuts into a new track. In my thinking, it should be just that little splice of whatever camera you have picked. But, instead, there is a track under it. So, editing after you have run the script (taking out fades, changing which shot you want, etc) seems to be a challenge for me. So the real issue may be the fact that I am not doing something right. Regardless, I have used the program many, many times and it has saved me countless hours of editing. Hope this clears up my comments earlier

doubletake is the free 2 cam script from vasst.. brilliant tool and non destructive if ever u need to go back and redo the cam switch.

Derek, have you tried the new version 5.0?

The new version is much faster and does not touch the original tracks. If you don't like modifying the Master track via the standard Vegas methods and/or using the Takes options, you can easily move the markers around and run it again.

I have a 16:9 veggie that is fine but I want to create a 4:3 version. I need to change the video in the veg file using pan/crop to the 4:3 aspect. I am having to do this all invidual clips. I want to make one change and then affect the entire video track with all events.

How can this be done easily rather and painstakingly selecting each video event and modifying? tks

If you're using Vegas 6, just drop that veggie in as a nested track, and do that, or, you can select all media and use one of half a dozen free scripts to crop the widescreen you've got to 4:3.

This applies to the filters I should use in Vegas so I am posting here. I have an interview clip where the sound needs to be increased to hear everything ok however when I do there is a noticable background hiss that appears.

How would I filter out just the hiss if possible? I'm guessing that I would need to stack filters but am unsure. Please point me to another post or would the one mentioned above work in some way? tks

Hey Ron, no. No WinTV PVR card. I was able to fix it by manually changing the location of the file to an external hard drive (capture scratch) and recreating it there.

Yup. You could use the built-in script called Render Image Sequence. Since you are speeding your footage up 100x you only really need one frame out of every 100. Just have it render every 100th frame and then import those back into Vegas as an image sequence. If that doesn’t have enough motion blur, render every 50th frame and speed it up by 2x in Vegas.

~jr

How would import the sequence into Vegas? Cant seem to find that option.

Re-rendering the video 3 times seems kind redundant (and time consuming), but rendering every 3000th frame sounds like the best option.

Even simpler method:

1) render from Vegas to Cineform intermediate,
2) open the resulting AVI in VirtualDub,
3) in the Frame Rate dialog set it to decimate by 100,
4) set VirtualDub compression mode to Direct Stream Copy,
5) Save As... (no need to specify codec if using Direct Stream Copy)
6) Use the AVIFrate util (http://www.inmatrix.com/files/avifrate_download.shtml) to reset the framerate to 29.97 or 25.
7) Import the resulting file into Vegas.

Step 1) will be the most timeconsuming, but everthing else will be very, very quick.

How would import the sequence into Vegas? Cant seem to find that option.To import a still image sequence into Vegas do the following:

Select File > Import > Media... this opens the Import dialog
Navigate to your image files and click on just the first one (do not click all the files! Just select the first one)
Check the checkbox at the bottom of the dialog that says "[X] Open still image sequence"
Press the Open button
Adjust the properties in the next dialog to match what you want the media to be (frame rate, field order, etc.)
Press OK

That will place a new media object in your media pool. Just drag and drop this onto the timeline.

Tip: The easiest way for you to do the export is to first change your Time Ruler to Absolute Frames. Then run Render Image Sequence and set the Step Time to 100. This will give you every 100th frame. Then when you’re done, set the Time Ruler back to SMPTE Drop or whatever it was originally set at. The Render Image Sequence script will always expect the parameters to be in the time ruler format. Setting the time ruler to Absolute Frames makes the math rather simple.

~jr

Best solution: Always monitor all audio with headphones during shooting always.

Also, this is an area where on-camera microphones have MUCH poorer performance than boom or lav mics. The further away from the subject, relatively more environmental noise is recorded.

I work with eq, gates, compression, and noise reduction frequently and every time I remind myself that these fixes in post are not as good as and much more difficult than fixes in production.

But I still do them...

I guess my favorite filters for this sort of work are:
Noise Gate. The idea here is that when the subject is speaking, noise tends to get masked by their voice. It's when they pause or stop that noise comes up dramatically. In some situations, a noise gate filter can be adjusted with minimum attack time and perhaps a 500 millisecond release (that's half a second), then adjust threshold to a point where soft dialog is heard, but noise is not. Doesn't work all the time.

Noise Reduction. This one doesn't come free with Vegas, as Glenn mentioned, but it is a great tool. Lots of people also mention the Soundsoap noise reduction plugin, but I've not used it.

There is a freeware N.R. tool that comes with Audacity (audacity.sourceforge.net). Very simplified controls, compared to the Sony plugin - but hey, it's free and might work for you. Check it out. You'd render a .wav from Vegas, process it in Audacity, then reopen in Vegas and sync it up to your existing sound track, then use a volume envelope or something on the original to drop it out as needed. I suppose syncing might be an advanced audio editing skill, the idea is that you adjust the position of the .wav track while listening to both until echo is reduced to a minimum.

When you're done with noise gate or noise reduction, you might find that the track doesn't sound the same as the rest of your footage. Grabbing a piece of environmental sound (aka. room tone) and looping it under the edited section can help smooth things out.

A friend asked me to help with her problem. I am enclosing the email and my reply. Obviously I didn't solve the problem for her. I would appreciate any help with this.

"Well, I thought I would just make a simple DVD of my church's baptism. Last summer, I captured the file, as an avi file. Now, when I open it in Vegas, there is no audio!!!! But the audio exists, because it plays video and audio in RealPlayer and in Movie Maker....any thoughts?"

My reply:

"Do you have the "mute" button pushed in?
Is the volume set to zero?

It will work in Vegas if it plays elsewhere. Did you put it in a new project with the default settings or did you add it to something?

Try this, open an old project that you imported .avi files into. Rename it as soon as you open it. Call it audio test. Now you can't mess up your original project. Import this .avi file as an additional .avi to the project and see if it plays. If it does, your setting are correct in your project. You can delete everything but the .avi you just imported and start from there. this method won't tell you WHY you had no sound, you won't learn from it, but it might get you up and running if your time is limited."

And hers:

"In answer to your questions, the audio should be OK. I put in a new project with default settings.

Well, I was trying to follow your directions, and I opened another avi file, but it said it was building an audio proxy file, so I decided to see what that did....it gave it audio. However, it does not prompt me for an audio proxy file when the baptism file opens, nor do I see a way to do it manually. Is this a clue?

Anyone know how to recreate that 16-18 fps look to mimic the old 8 or super8 mm choppy filmlook in Vegas? A script or filter maybe?

I have the everything down as far as the grain, scratches and such, but it just doesn't look quite the same without that "choppiness" you see at that filmspeed with an 8mm projector - which I know of course is the projector's shutter opening and closing - not sure if it can be done.

hehehehe this is where Vegas shines... right click your clip, and check properties... teh lil box will pop up now look down to see playback rate and undersample rate...
the Undersample rate is what u want to mess with...
i usually set mine to increments of thirs, such as 0.33, 0.66, and 0.50 for film reel emulation. It wont change the speed of your footage but it will kill off afew frames.
1.0 = full frame rate, then from there u can literally just throw down some random numbers until your happy. Couple this with some film looks filters and your on your way

one thing ive found, and im yet to find a solution for, is that when working to create a VBR mpg, how high can one really go?? I mean ive rendered out to 8500kbps with an average of 6k, but some players just cant handle this.. for some reason???

ive now resorted to encoding down to averages of 7500 as a high, 6 for the average... which really isnt to my liking...

thanks Peter - I should have guessed you would know...lol

excellent!

Software vegas 6 +DVD Arcitect

The software recomends to save the audio and video seperately I never done this before.

If I burn the video to mpeg2 and the audio sperately to ac3 how does DVD artitect assemble these two files?

Do I simply import the mpeg2 file and then drop the ac3 file below that?

Also I do not want to spend all the time rendering 4 hours then have to have DVD arcitect have to render it all over again because the files are to big. So what settings should I use to fit 4 hours on a 4gig size DVD?

Also should I choose top field for output, it will be played on SD TV.

If they're both named the same, and there's no audio in the MPEG2 file, it should automatically happen. If it does not, you can manually add the audio. Take a look at Vol 4 #1 of my newsletters (http://www.jetdv.com) for more info.

Okay I utilized the CFHD file and batch render to dvd architect and made a dvd. Now in order to print back to HDV tape do I re-render that file again or can I upload the rendered dvd architect onto the timeline (since its already rendered) and print to tape.

Thanks

I think I may answer my own question after looking into it more. I need to re-render to print to tape because I needed to change the porperty settings since its going to HDV not dvd.

I am trying to make the who timeline wide screen (16x9), but only the first clip (I have a series of individual clips) is showing borders at the top and bottom in preview box.

Here is what I am doing:

1.Create widescreen project (DV NTSC widescreen)
2. Import the 4x3 footage
3. Click on pan-crop tab / select 16x9

And after I do this, only the first clip will show the balc bars at top and bottom....once it plays the next clip in the timeline, it goes back to 4x3...How do I select entire project to be 16x9?

Thanks
Dean

Two ways that are free, one that isn't.
1. Right click and copy, then select all other clips, right click and choose "Paste Attributes."

2. Use the Match Aspect Ratio script found on vasst.com

Paid way:
Use Ultimate S 2.0 to match all events to project settings.

I am not too familiar with Sony Vegas systems, and I wonder the following...

Using an NVIDIA dual-head GeForce 6800 card with an S-Video out, can Vegas use the S-Video out to send the preview output to an NTSC monitor? Both DVI heads on the card would be actively being used to drive 19" flatscreens at the same time.

Would this be do-able, or prove problematic?

Vegas can send it out, but like all video cards used in this manner, the color will be inaccurate as can be, and barely useful for anything other than preview. You're much better off using a firewire/converter system to accomplish a 3rd monitor.

Thanks, that's exactly what I needed to know. Aside from using an HD or DVCam for this purpose, can you recommend a decent break-out box that can accomplish the task?

Canopus or ADS Technologies are my preferred converters. You can't accomplish this with HD, either. Only SD can be passed down this format. If you want to go to HD, you'll need to make some choices, and one of them isn't an inexpensive one. (BlackMagic Design plus fast/big RAID)

Sorry, I mis-spoke, this system is being built just for SD at the moment. Thanks for the assistance. I'll take a look at those brands.

I'm getting a "use external monitor" in preview box when I'm trying to view my clips...not sure what is going on....also getting (frame recompressed) words, too.... How can I watch the clip? What did I screw up this time??!!
I'm using Vegas Movie Maker + Platinum.

You've likely selected the "Preview in External Monitor" button in the preview window, which tells Vegas to play back thru an external device/monitor.
Looks like a small television screen. De-select this, and you should have your monitor back.

On the other hand, how do I use an external monitor as a preview monitor? I connected a LCD monitor to my computer, then clicked the small TV icon, and even adjusted the properties settings on my computer to use two monitors, but it still wouldn't make my second monitor preview my project fullscreen.

it has to be enabled in the Preferences.

Is it ok to use Connect HD version 1,5 with Vegas 6.0d? I found it much cheaper on internet than version 2.0.

I have Vegas 6 with the most recent updates installed. I have just begun experiencing audio problems during capture. The video capture is OK, however, the audio is all broken up through out the entire capture.

I recently installed DVD Xpress and un-installed it thinking that may be conflicting some how. I also closed all unnecessary processes that were running in the background. I also re-installed Vegas. One of our IT guys said to try defragmenting my hard drive. I tried using a different DV tape. Nothing has corrected the problem.

I have a fairly new Dell laptop D810, Pentium M processor 2G with 1G RAM running Windows XP. I have used Vegas on 5 other projects with no problems. I last used Vegas about 3 weeks ago and did notice a couple skips in the audio of a short capture, but nothing like the constant break up I have now.

Has anyone experienced this before or have any suggestions?

Hi folks.. just got my FX1e and preparing for a wedding and to my horror, I cant render it to avi. The workflow is as below:
1. Capture in Vegas 6d>m2t. (works fine)
2. Place the m2t on the timeline, and render to avi. (Urgh!!!)
3. Place the rendered avi on the timeline for normal DV editing. (When will I ever get here?)

I believe Vegas has the basic cineform codec for that application but I had installed the cineform connect HD 2.1 trial previously n it expired. Right now, it says that the trial has expired. Is the only way out to buy connect HD?

I don't use Connect HD at all but I render to Cineform intermediary using the one already in Vegas 6.0d. I put the .m2t clip to my HDV project template timeline, then render as and choose Video for Windows (.avi) and use the HDV intermediary preset. Chose the 1080 50i one if that's the one you want. It then creates an intermediary file for you to edit with, although not as good as the one you'd get using Connect HD.

That is exactly what I did. I think the trail corrupted the original codec as well. Man!!

Explain your problem more specifically? I don't see how the original .m2t file got corrupted because of rendering.

I select render to "video for windows", HDV1080-50i intermediate. Once I click ok, the erro message pops up:
"Your trial period has expired. Please contact cineform support to activate your product". After that the error message from vegas pops up,"No compatible video codec was found"

Try re-installing Vegas and see if it puts the old CineForm codec back. Otherwise contact CineForm and ask for help. Their installer should not have disabled the Vegas version of the codec (or at least it should have re-enabled it when uninstalling).

~jr

Hello all,

I recently purchased Vegas and a Canopus analog-to-DV converter to capture and place my laserdisc collection on DVD before my players eventually give up the ghost and I find myself not being able to find a decent enough replacement.

I have had good luck so far with all of my DV captures and processing using Vegas, except when it comes to converting the 29.97 fps NTSC video to 23.976 fps NTSC video. On scene changes it seems to be blending two frames together; a frame will appear 'ghosted' within the previous frame.

To better illustrate, here are links to a couple of frames I captured from my rough 23.976 output.

First Frame (http://www.drcreep.com/matts/frame_1.jpg)

Second/Next Frame (http://www.drcreep.com/matts/frame_2.jpg)

I have tried several different settings over the past few days to resolve the problem, but nothing seems to work. Is there a specific setting that I am simply missing or is IVTC even possible using Vegas?

Thanks