OTOH...

One big file is great for sequences of chapters.

If you want to return to menu after a particular clip, that clip should be its own render, e.g. for "extras".

This has to do with end-actions, as mentioned above. Sometimes you want the option of an end-action returning you to a menu, sometimes you'd just want it to proceed to the next chapter, in which case one big file saves time and steps in authoring.

This would have absolutely no affect on Vegas since Vegas does not use the GPU for anything. It does strictly CPU bound rendering. I would love to see this change in the future but there is no hardware support in Vegas for preview or rendering other than a faster CPU. :(

Don’t forget to visit the Sony site and submit a Product Suggestion for this feature.

~jr

I would like to see the ATI X1600 GPU in my new laptop used as well but until then I will just have to make do with the two T2400 1.83Ghz CPUs reported in Device Manager... (Luvi' it!!!! :o)

I am trying to upload some .avi files to a website to show as samples. Reels if you will. They are rendered out to 5-6 minutes each and are about 1.3 gig. They were rendered to NTSC widescreen in Vegas 6D. Problem is FTP is taking 20 + hours per file. Am I doing it the right way? Is this the right format. I do have a DSL connection.

Jeff

They are rendered out to 5-6 minutes each and are about 1.3 gig. They were rendered to NTSC widescreen in Vegas 6D. Problem is FTP is taking 20 + hours per file. Am I doing it the right way? Is this the right format.
Jeff

You might want to look into a window mediaplayer, quicktime or flash format conversion. I doubt anyone would want to wait for a 1.3 gig sample to load. Check out the forum section on DVD and web delivery. There will be some other threads that will point to information on how to do the file conversion for good web delivery.

Hey Jeff -

If you want to share your work at full NTSC res (720x480), then I suggest using a different format (NTSC AVI files are huge and not meant for the web). I've just started playing with the MP4 format in Vegas 6d and it looks promising - it uses the H264 codec and is optimized for the web - also your viewers will need Quicktime 7 to view the files).

Another benefit to using a Quicktime format is that you can use the last tab in the options menu at rendering to enable quick streaming - I've found that equal sized quicktime files load much faster than wmv or avi's.

Check apple's trailer site for a few examples - if they're letting you stream 720p stuff in the H264 codec, you know it'll stand up to 480p.

What's up guys,

I have this project which starts many different segments with an animated title screens. It has a lot of blacks and grays, but each time I render a preview or export the video, it crushes all the dark colors and the textured background is lost.

Here's how it's suppose to look (you're better off saving it and enlarging the file to see the background detail)

http://www.randrent.net/images/good.bmp

here's how it comes out:

http://www.randrent.net/images/bad.bmp

I'm using the DV codec. I've tried using huffYUV and uncompressed, the problem is my project is a 24p project and I need the 2-3 pulldown and I don't know why Vegas won't let me select 2-3 pulldown with other codecs!

I exported using huffYUV but the playback is jumpy, even when compressed to mpeg2.

Any suggestions?

First thing is if you're looking at it on a computer monitor don't. Set up a deck or camera and pass it thru to either a production monitor or at least a samll TV that you've adjusted with the color bars. That will get you a lot closer than the computer monitor. As for the blacks being what they are you could try the video FX tab and start with LEVELS.
Good Luck,
Don

Hi Nick,

Thanks for the thanks! :)

See my comments that I added to the thread you linked to. In short, I've never seen that problem. I use 24p footage though. If you're doing 35mm adapter work and your goal is film-look, you might as well either use a 24p camera or convert your interlaced footage to 24p to get more of the cinematic/film look.

Also I've made a small bug fix to the flip plug-in, and the update is available at the website.

Change:

1.0.2 Fixed a bug that caused video events with widths less than that of the project setting to not flip properly when the Flip plug-in is applied in the Event FX chain (not Track FX).

http://www.mirkwood.com/vegas

Thanks!
Adam

This is an excellent plug-in, thanks! I just tested it on my FX1 HDV footage and it works like a charm. I've got the SGPro on order, and this will most helpful when using DV footage. (I've got Cineform Connect HD, but I think that will only flip the converted HDV footage.)

I used scenalyzer to index and capture some footage..no problem. I played with the footage on the timeline but ultimately removed everything fom the timeline. I made six media bins and placed footage into each bin, saved the project and told Vegas to keep the media with the project.

When I opened the project the next day all of the media that was placed in the bins was gone. Does anyody know what happened and how I can avoid this the future?

I Just Bought "Vegas 6 Studio + DVD" And Now I'm Wondering If Need An Editing Keyboard? I Looked Them Up and They Run About $100 but I just want to know if it is worth it or not?

Thanx,
David Desper

CEO of Indigo Productions

I have the Sony HC1 and I cannot capture HD with it using my notebook computer. I get a message saying something like 'device not available'.

I searched other threads/posts here and the problem usually was that someone had SP1 and when they upgraded to SP2 everything worked.

My problem is that I have Windows XP Home-SP2 and I cannot get my computer to recognise my camera in HD mode no matter what setting I use.

It does recognise my camera when it is set up for SD and I can capture SD but I don't want to capture SD, I want to capture HD.

Works just fine on my editing computer but not my notebook computer.

I have Vegas 6.0D on my notebook computer.

Note: The notebook computer came with SP2 installed.

Any ideas/guesses?

Danny Fye
www.dannyfye.com

Roger,

On my calibrated 24" LCD computer monitor the "bad" looks good.

// Lazze

no u dont need one

With XP SP2, the driver should be there already. In your Device Manager, it shows up under "sound, video and game controllers" as "AV/C Tape device". Can you see it there? Does windows think it is functioning OK?

If not, you can install it manually by:

Bring up Device Manager, right click on the Microsoft AV/C Tape Subunit, choose Update Driver. Say no to Windows using windows update to find it. Next screen select "install from a specific location". Next screen select "don't search". Next screen, if AV/C Tape device is there, select it, otherwise untick "show compatible hardware". Scroll down the manufacturer list to Sony, then on the right you should see the Sony D-VHS option. Choose that and then try it again.

Mark

With XP SP2, the driver should be there already. In your Device Manager, it shows up under "sound, video and game controllers" as "AV/C Tape device". Can you see it there? Does windows think it is functioning OK?

If not, you can install it manually by:

Bring up Device Manager, right click on the Microsoft AV/C Tape Subunit, choose Update Driver. Say no to Windows using windows update to find it. Next screen select "install from a specific location". Next screen select "don't search". Next screen, if AV/C Tape device is there, select it, otherwise untick "show compatible hardware". Scroll down the manufacturer list to Sony, then on the right you should see the Sony D-VHS option. Choose that and then try it again.

Mark

That took care of the driver problem but there are other problems. Everytime I run Vegas to capture it would say something like 'unloaded' so I would have to change the settings of the cam to DV and then back to HDV to get it to work again.

It would capture the video but when I tried to stop the capture it would lock-up Vegas and I would have to do a CTRL+ALT+DEL to shut down Vegas.

Anyway, I finally got so sick and tired of it and other problems I was having that I uninstalled Vegas from my notebook computer.

When it comes to editing, I absolutely love Vegas, when it comes to capturing, I hate it! Worst capture software if any NLE I have EVER seen.

Sorry 'bout the rant but I'm afraid I will have to use something else to capture HDV with.

Got any suggestions?

Thanks much for your help.

Danny Fye
www.dannyfye.com

P.S.

I used to capture HDV without any problems with Ulead's MSP8. I even had a display of the video while doing so. Vegas won't even do that. Shame...

Yes - use HDV Split
http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/

I didn't have the problems you had with Vegas, but I prefer HDV split mainly as it provides a dropped frames counter. You can also (optionally) have it split the source into clips based on timecode. Just be careful doing the split part if you have lots of clips; Vegas will only take 100 or so HDV files on the timeline before it crashes.

Mark

Yes - use HDV Split
http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/

I didn't have the problems you had with Vegas, but I prefer HDV split mainly as it provides a dropped frames counter. You can also (optionally) have it split the source into clips based on timecode. Just be careful doing the split part if you have lots of clips; Vegas will only take 100 or so HDV files on the timeline before it crashes.

Mark

Will it allow me to capture direct to hard drive? I have been capturing DV direct to hard drive but I want to capture HDV direct to hard drive. No sense in having a HDV cam and capture in DV.

I wanted to get the drivers and tape part working first so I could then try direct to hard drive.

By the way, Vegas will do all of it correctly on my editing computer but not on my notebook computer. Only problem on my editing computer is that I cannot see a display of the video on my monitor while capturing.

Notebook computer is probably not fast enough.

Oh well, maybe I should give-up, sell my notebook computer and use tapes again. Yuck! and Grin!

Danny Fye
www.dannyfye.com

Danny,

I've not used HDV split direct to disc, but from this thread it seems that yes that works:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=61892&highlight=recorder

As far as editing HDV from your notebook.. there is no PC too slow, it's just how you do it. You don't want to edit the native HDV, that will be slow on even a high spec PC. With a reasonable PC you can edit using the Cineform intermediate codec.. with a slow PC you can edit using a DV proxy.

What spec is your laptop? I edit with a 1.6 Pentium M; with that I can just about edit with the Cineform codec (need to use preview quality preview to get full rate), or can use a DV proxy and edit just as fast as editing DV (although it requires a render step first to create the DV proxy). Look for threads on editing with Gearshift.

Mark

Ok - so I've mastered Vegas (yeah - I wish!!!) - I'm now onto DVDA.

I'm confused with the Themes. I thought a theme would basically be a template with backgrounds, buttons, menus, etc. But if I open the themes tab and drag it to the preview window - I just get a background, no butons - just as if I'd gone to the Backgrounds tab. What am I missing?

Incidentally I downloaded a very nice PixelPops template but I think it's gonna be a real pain to use in DVDA - all layers look as thought they need to be renamed.

Thanx

Ian

I'm confused with the Themes. I thought a theme would basically be a template with backgrounds, buttons, menus, etc. But if I open the themes tab and drag it to the preview window - I just get a background, no butons - just as if I'd gone to the Backgrounds tab. What am I missing?

Have you tried adding a clip to the menu? That should add the button for you.

Incidentally I downloaded a very nice PixelPops template but I think it's gonna be a real pain to use in DVDA - all layers look as though they need to be renamed.

Yes, the layers would have to be renamed. The PixelPops templates were not designed specifically for DVD A.

Just go to the help file, look at the keyboard shortcut section, and learn the key sequences you need. The good thing about the keyboards is they show you the main function of each key. The bad thing is they don't list ALL functions for that key (i.e. letter vs CTRL-letter vs SHIFT-letter vs ALT-letter etc...)

There's also a key summary in one of the stickies at the top of this forum.

I agree with them... you don't need it, but it can make things a little easier. If your cheap, like me, you'll just print out the short cuts and look them up as needed. After a while, the ones you use most will become second nature.

I've just started playing with the MP4 format in Vegas 6d and it looks promising - it uses the H264 codec and is optimized for the web - also your viewers will need Quicktime 7 to view the files).

So I rerendered to MPG4 and uploaded to the site. When I checked the files, it actually downloads it back to me. Is there a way for a player to open up and just view the files? I really didn't want people to have to download then watch.

Jeff

Are you using the Sony AVC/AAC (MP4) not the MPEG selection in the "save as type" field of your render window?

No, I thought that was for PSP. I looked up in the help files and it looked like it was for PSP. Do I need to do it with the Sony Codec? I used the other mpg4? Does it make a difference?

Jeff

A ShuttlePro is more useful; it has a jogger in addition to remappable buttons.

Although it says Sony AVC/AAC, the information underneath (the H264 codec) isn't owned by Sony or proprietary to their PSP as far as I know.

It should use the Quicktime player as it's default player and also play in your browser window.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=59887&highlight=Sony+AVC%2FAAC
That was my first reason for exploring the Sony AVC/AAC selection.

I have not worked w/ the MainConcept renderer MP4 renderer very much, but check here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=63948&highlight=mainconcept+avc%2Faac

On further investigation it looks to offer more rendering options and result in the same file size as an equally tuned Sony AVC/AAC file.

For more help putting together a web deliverable in general, you might want to search the section on DVD and web delivery like Stephen mentioned earlier.

The codec isn't proprietary, how it's prepared for the PSP is. If you have Vegas 6d, you'll also see the MainConcept h.264 option. It'll play in any Quicktime player. So will the PSP, but you can't use the MainConcept option for the PSP.

"Will it allow me to capture direct to hard drive? I have been capturing DV direct to hard drive but I want to capture HDV direct to hard drive. No sense in having a HDV cam and capture in DV."

Since DV and HDV have about the same bitrate, you shoulld be able to transfer both. Problem comes in trying to view the video on computer as you are downloading. It requires a lot of processing power for the CPU to capture the stream, and then render the HDV. Premiere Pro solves issue by telling you to look at your camera for preview of what you are downloading.

The 1's and zeros of HDV are not a problem to capture, but it is the interpretation of those in the HDV codec that takes a lot of resources both for playing and editing. Remember HDV, which is a form of mpg2 has to resolve current the current frame using information from prior frames. The CPU and/or video card provide that power, and the older equipment will have difficulty doing the job.

The Cineform intermediate capture formats solve the problem by actually creating independent frames that do not require interpretation from prior frames. This is what .avi files are about. The problem for older equipment is that they take up a lot storage-- about 5 times the HDV space for the same amount of footage.

Start off with learning the shortcuts... the sticky thread in this forum is pretty comprehensive.

Do check out:
hold CRTL + ALT over an edit
hold ALT over an edit
They enable roll and slip editing.

The following tutorial on levels might help:
http://www.vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=a7a8c403-64dc-420d-97d0-90d2f8de9fc1

I have an clip in Vegas that I want to divide into 3 vertical strips - the 2 outermost being black and white and the centre being colour - don't worry it's not going to look like a 1982 Duran Duran video. Techinally it doesn't have to be black and white/colour - it could be other effects - eg the outer part of te picture could be blurred, centre sharp - you get the idea.

I've done it by placing 3 clips stacked above each other and used event pan/crop and it looks OK. But I can't help feeling there must be a better way of doing it using masks and composite things that I haven't really got into yet. I also don't think I could do it in pan/crop if I wanted to soften the edges where the 3 clips meet.

Ian

Edward

No, I hadn't got that far - but now I have and yep - you're spot on again - button theme was adopted.

Shame about pixelpops - they got some nice designs - I might persevere and have a go at renaming all the layers. I can't find any 3rd party themes for Vegas - the ones on Sony's webiste are the same as waht comes with DVDA with ery few additions.

Ian

I was having problems with Vegas crashing whenever I ran Excalibur - was really frustrating as it was also inconsistent. Through a series of emails and a debug script Ed sent me, we tracked down the problem and I now have a working Excalibur. Great service - and that was just the evaluation version!!!

Cheers Ed

Ian

I'n going for the record number of postings in one forum today - the result of newbie-ness and late night working!

I know there's lots of keyboard shortcuts in Vegas and what has focus is very important but I find a couple of niggles - but it may be my lack of knowledge....

Say I drop a long video and audio clip on tracks 1 and 2 - I create track 3 and 4 as another video and audio track. The idea is to go through tracks 1 and 2, find the best bits and move them to track 3 and 4. So I find a bit of track 1/2 I like and split it to create a new clip. Audio and video are grouped together. I click and hold on track 1 and drag it to track3 - but when I release the moise it leaves the audio on track 2 - when I want it on 4. I need to click track 1 and control click track 2 to move them BOTH down to a new track - I guess I haven't grapsed what 'grouping' means?

Also - when I do drag the clips to the new track is there a way of them butting up against existing clips on that track as I find myself constantly moving left/right as I build up my new track and I get further along track 1's timeline which could be 60 minutes long whereas my new track may have only acumulated a few minutes

And finally - after doing a clip move as above - track 1 seems to have focus (the track header is highlighted) which means when I'm ready to split track 1/2 again, I'm hitting the S key and nothing happens - I have to ctrl-shift-a to unselect before splitting.

But it's still a great piece of software!

Ian

Welcome to the Vegas Community!

I use Trimmer to scrub and plop stuff on to the T/L. This way I'm not confusing myself with what I've already got up there! And yes of course I do do much editing ON the T/L, but for a first draft, getting stuff together, I use Trimmer. Plop/open events in trimmer and "scrub" t0 the bit I want and then a simple drag or COPY and Paste does it.

You SHOULD be able to get some BUTT resistance when you slide an event to the end of another already T/L event? What version and release of Vegas are you using? Some previous incarnations/builds had a "butting2 issue. Make sure you DO have Quantize to Frame "ON".

Others will jump in with there thoughts ..

Good to meet you here . .I'm just up the M4 in Wembley!!!

Also . . have you tried this Forum .. lodsa Pals here too!

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowTopics.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=460742&Page=0

.. and yes, this is one helluva product!!

Grazie

Hi Graham

When I got a reply so quickly I figured it must be have been from a UK user - all our US friends are in bed!

Of course - the trimmer - I haven't even looked at that yet!

On the bit about butting up to existsing clips - yes there is "resistance" but what I meant was that when I move the clip to a new teack it automatically butts up againjst whats already on there further to the left of where I currently am on the original track. But if I use the trimmer that pretty much eliminates the problem.

Yeah I've been to that site, there's a also a Vegas forum on a UK site.

Thanx for the welcome!!!!

Ian

Great!

Out of curiosity, what was the nature of the solution?

I ask because I am having sporadic crashing problems with Vegas. Not with Excalibur, but with the Veggie Toolkit.

When I ran Excalibur, more often than not, I would get the "vegas6.exe has encountered an error and needs to close - report to Mircorsoft, etc" message - but frustratingly Excalibur would then open behind the error message - but of course closed when Vegas closed. Ed immediately suspected plug-ins. He sent me a script which basically displayed the name of each plug in encountered - but I guess it must have "interrogated" that plug in in the same way Excalibur does.

I got the same crash message with this script every time it encountered Magic Bullet Editor. I think this was installed as part of Vegas 6. As soon as i uninstalled MB, Exclaibur worked perfect.

Please note that I am not saying there is any issue at all with MB; just that in this particular instance unistalling it allows Excalibur to work and I need Excalibur more than I ned MB. I'm upgrading computer soon so will be reinstalling all software - I'm sure everything will work fine together then.

Ian

Ian, to move both video and audio, simply select BOTH. Click on one, Ctrl-click the other, and now both will move together.

Is it one continuous clip over the entire width of the screen? (i.e. there's ONE image on the screen but only the middle stripe is in color)

If yes, you could use masking.

Track 1: White Generated media set where the white is a middle stripe - Track composite mode set to "Multiply (Mask)"
Track 2: Video clip (which will show the color) - Track set as a child to track 1
Track 3: Video clip with an effect added to make it black and white (either the Black and White effect or one of the color correction effects bringing down the saturation.)

This will give you a stripe of color between two stripes of black and white.

Hi Edward

Yeah - but I thought the idea of 'grouping' was that they would move together - ie - you jove one and other moves?

Ian

Left/Right - yes
Up/Down - no

In other words - grouped they will stay in sync.

Ahhhh (look of realisation crossing face).

As ever, many thanx for clarifying that!

Ian

Ian, if you're looking to move clips into another track, but maintain their L/R position in the timeline, try this keyboard shortcut:

Highlight the clip, then use the 8 key on the number pad to move up, or the 2 key to move down.

I use this all the time when I'm trying to maintain sync. Also, if you are trying to get in perfect sync with something, try dropping a marker (m key) at the point you want the clip to start. If snap-to-markers is turned on, this is a very reliable way to place your clip at a certain point in the timeline.

Do check out the newsletters available from the link in Edwards signature line - great info there as you are getting into Vegas, including a 1-page article on numpad shortcuts.

Other keyboard shortcuts may be found in the Vegas help file, and in a "sticky" post at the top of this forum's messages list.

I've just installed the MS Office 2007 public beta on a pc and I have to say it looks really rather good! However, when installing the Business Contact Manager add-on to Outlook 2007 it says I need to upgrade .NET to 2.0.

The machine I've installed Office 2007 on is not running Vegas - in fact, it only runs email/internet/office/web dev etc kind of apps - but I would be interested to know whether anyone has had any experience of upgrading .NET to v2 on a pc running Vegas and whether there have been any problems.

Cheers.

Ian . . .

Vegas 5 requires at .NET 1.1. Vegas 6 needs .NET 1.1 SP 1 (which Vegas 5 can also use). Neither can use .NET 2.0. Fortunately, .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 can co-exist on the same system so it's safe to have both installed.

Ah, that's interesting - I hadn't considered that the two could co-exist; I assumed 2.0 would simply replace 1.1.

I'm happy to NOT install the Office 2007 beta on my production machine though - I was just curious.

Thanks for the response Edward and may I add my personal note of 'welcome back'.

Best,

Ian . . .