Dito. I contacted a cable station for a project that I am working on and all they wanted was five seconds of black at the head.
They accept mini DV or beta. They also said that the audio levels could be right to zero db. I did'nt feel comfortable with that so -3 or -6 db will be what I use.

They also said that they scope it and adjust levels for broadcast anyway.

Link to Spot's stuff: http://www.vasst.com
Link to Gary's stuff: http://www.vegastrainingandtools.com

I need to put something new at the beginning of a project, how
can I get everything grouped together and move it all to the right? About 11 tracks.

This is how I do it but I'm sure there must be a better way.

I select the selection tool on the menu then I go down and minimize all the tracks and zoom out as much as I can then just use the select tool to select all.

Experts, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you only want to move all those tracks over, just use the select tool and select all but if you want to group them, that's a different thing as the audio track and video tracks will be synch when you group objects together so that when you expand on the video the audio track will also expand together with that.

Hey - thanks for the quick response - that did work.

Most appreciated!

No worries...

One quick thing though, track motion markers can't be moved. I still haven't found a way to move those along with the tracks so I was hoping someone with more expertise can answer this.

I installed the Wax Plugin recently, and when I tried to use it on a clip, I got message to the effect of "Wax cannot determine the event's length. If using Vegas 4.0 and above, make sure you can run scripts, because Wax needs this ability." What does this mean? Can I not use Wax with Vegas 4? (4.0c, to be exact).

Yes, it can run Wax. You just need to make sure you have the .NET Framework installed. THAT is what is required to run scripts.

There are many methods in which this can be done. You can also simply do a CTRL-A to select everything on the timeline and then move it down the timeline.

You can also put the cursor at the beginning of the project and do an "Insert - Time"

You can also use the Select Events tool to select the desired events and move them down the timeline.

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : There are many methods in which this can be done. You can also simply do a CTRL-A to select everything on the timeline and then move it down the timeline.

You can also put the cursor at the beginning of the project and do an "Insert - Time"

You can also use the Select Events tool to select the desired events and move them down the timeline. -->>>

Hi Edward

Does that apply to the Track Motion markers? I'll have to try it when I get home after work.

I was thinking of Cntrl-A as well... ^_^

You'd have to test each method to see if it moves what you want moved. Different methods move different things.

I shall go on a quest to seek this mythical .NET framework, and yon Wax shall come to fruition.

They also said that they scope it and adjust levels for broadcast anyway.
You should do this yourself, or the station will either:
A- Clip all the highlights. (This should be the likeliest.)
B- Squeeze everything into the legal range, lowering contrast.
C- Not do either of the above and risk damage to their equipment.
D- If they really care, they might apply correction to your footage with a soft knee that gentlely compresses highlights into the legal range.

Ok. . .I downloaded and installed that framework, and Wax still doesn't seem to work. I get the same message. Is there something else I'm supposed to do?

Thanks guys.
The commercial looks very good. I finally was able to contact one of the tech.
So here is what I am doing:

10 sec. color bar with 1 khz tone

5 sec. black leader

***30 sec. commercial***

5 sec. black trailer

Thanks again!

Sincerely,

Albert Rodgers

you have to reinstall vegas bro.. or run a a "repair"
had this issue too.. i still run wax on V4..
V5 i havent bothered to try, but i leep V4 as it allows me to import quicktime without forcing me to upgrade to v7.. which is more money out of my pocket..

Yes, as Peter said, try uninstalling and reinstalling Vegas. In many instances this was not necessary. In a few, it was. However, the universal fix seemed to be uninstalling and reinstalling Vegas.

Since you have just now installed the .NET Framework - welcome to the world of scripts! You seriously need to check out scripts as they can save you a TON of time!

Oh crappity crap. Alright, thanks.

i have a still image, in which i want to create camera motion. i cropped the image to the desired size and created 3 keyframes.
my intention was to create a pan motion from keyframe 1 to keyframe 2 (horizontal motion only); and then tilt down motion from key frame 2 to keyframe 3 (vertical motion only).

the result was not as i had planned. instead of vertical motion or horizontal motion, it turned out a sort of circular motion, moving from one keyframe to the other.

i'm sure there is a way to do what i'm looking for. but i can't find it.

please help me.

thanks.

Click on one of the keyframes. Change the "smoothness" to ZERO. Now repeat for the other two keyframes.

I am very pleased to announce the release of my new Vegas instructional DVD set, The Vegas 5 Companion. It is 9 hours of in-depth Vegas instruction.

The Vegas 5 Companion not only covers the basics such as manipulating media on the timeline, but has demonstrations of different uses for various features. For example, I show you seven different ways to use Bezier Masking.

The 5-Disc set has over 200 chapter stops which are cataloged in an index so you can quickly find what topics you need to learn or review.

Disc 1

Brief Overview
Tape Capture
Tabs:
Explorer
Media Pool
Edit Details
Trimmer
Transitions
Video FX
Media Generators

Disc 2

The Vegas Interface in depth

Saving Configurations
Customizing Keyboard
Time Selections
Working with Media
Keyboard Shortcuts
Trimming, Split Edits, Slip, Slide,
Takes
Ripple Modes
Subclips

Disc 3

Envelopes
Keyframes
Working with 3D

Disc 4

Pan/Crop tools
Bezier Masking and applications
Audio
Channels
Busses
External Surface Control
Audio FX
Automated Envelopes
Surround Sound
Recording
Pitch Shifting

Disc 5

Using Scripts
Multi-Camera Editing
Color Correction
Color Isolation techniques
Printing to Tape
Network Rendering

Pricing: 5-Disc set $145. Special Introductory Price $99.
Discs are also available separately.

Please go to http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com for details.

Thanks,
Gary

Congratulations, Gary. I KNOW you've put a lot of work into this set.

I am trying to create a text effect in which the text appears to be typed onto the screen one letter at a time. Is there a simple way of accomplishing this in Vegas (version 5)?

Hello,

I know in after effects 6.5, that is one of the new animations presets.. But if you do not have After Effects.. I guess you could use a Bezier Mask.. You could add the text on top of your footage, and move the Bezier Mask to Reveal a letter at a time like it is being typed on.. Of course sound effects will sell this greatly.. try www.findsounds.com and search on typewriter or keyboard and you will find and be able to download the sounds, that you can import into Vegas..

Mike M.

Thanks, Edward. I am going to take a nap now :-0

Gary

Can anybody give me some pointers on using the batch render script that ships with Vegas 5? When I run the script it just allows me to choose how I want the output rendered (altough it appends a different name to the end of the file I render). I'm looking for a tool that will allow me to queue up several videos to be rendered overnight.

Thanks in advance!

We'll see some of you tomorrow night at Pauls Porterhouse 10960 Composite Dr, near Love Field, at 7:30 p.m.
The local Sony rep with be with us, as will their HD Cam specialist, on hand to answer any questions and talk about HDV and so forth. Plus a sweet sneak preview.

You may want to look at a different script then. A couple that come to mind are the Veggie Toolkit and Batch Render Pro

There's several VEG files available that demonstrate this task. Take a look at the VASST site and I'm sure you could find one there.

There's actually several ways to do this but most require a lot of manual keyframes.

A couple of ways:

1) use a linear wipe to just let the letters gradually appear (real easy to do)

2) Add the letters in the text box one at a time at different keyframe points. (would require one keyframe per letter)

Network rendering will cue up sequential projects.

Gary

Does anyone know how feasible it would be to use convert the Mpeg 1080i output of the new HDR-FX1 to 24fps?

Edward's RC3 script works so well, is there any reason that the HDR-FX1's lack of a true progressive ccds should be an issue?

Just a thought:

HDR-FX1 + Vegas 5 (6?) plus RC3 HD script = poor man's Cinealta?

This potentially sounds like the biggest paradigm shift in independent filmaking since the advent of minidv.

Brian

1.5) make different alpha channel maps in your favorite paint program to make letters appear

2.5) make a new generated media with an extra letter from the previous one

3) Use Boris Graffiti LTD (which comes free with Vegas 5) which has a preset for making the letters appear one at a time. Other programs are available as well which also do this such as BluffTitler, Cool 3D, etc...

However, this method requires using a separate program, rendering, and then bringing that back into Vegas.

<<<-- Originally posted by Gary Kleiner : Network rendering will cue up sequential projects.

I know - but the other machines on my network don't have the guts to do reasonable renders (at least I don't think they do - 800 MHz Celerons, 256M RAM, 20 Gig disks - student machines for my daughters homework).

My work profile is that I edit for 2-3 hours in the evening after I get home from the job that is actually paying the bills. I generally cut my projects into several pieces of 8-15 minutes each. I edit and render these separately and then glue them back together in one final cut. Each evening I wind up with anywhere from 1 - 5 of these chunks (I refer to them as my "reels"). I'd like to queue them up to render overnight and even through the next day (although they generally take 1-2 hours each to render).

When I saw the batch render in the script menu of Vegas 5 I thought I was all set. But...

Network rendering will also work on a SINGLE machine!

Does anyone have a download site to suggest or instructions for how to manually generate a clean 1 mKz tone for a custom leader layoff? Avid's, FCP, and everything else I've used come with a pre-made clip you can just pop in. Seems screwy that Vegas has multiple bars and no sound fx to go with them. But maybe I'm missing something...

Marcia

Hi Marcia,

I emailed you a 1 khz 30 second sinewave.

regards,

=gb=

Vegas generates the tone upon printing to tape but does not include one. What many people have done is do a print to tape, then recapture the tape in order to get the tone.

Sound Forge will let you create whatever tones you need.

Hopefully the one Greg sent you will work for your needs.

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : Network rendering will also work on a SINGLE machine! -->>>

You mean I start a network render process on my primary machine and let it pick off things to render? Gosh - great idea! I'll root around in the manual tonight to figure out how...

btw folks, this is why it's a good idea to get a dual monitor setup.

Got it Greg. Awesome. Thanks!

Marcia

P.S.

You wouldn't happen to have ever built bars 'n tone, leader (countdown) etc. for a 24p transfer to film and sound editorial by any chance? It's been too many years since I worked as an assistant and had to do this stuff myself. (sigh) And then it was "simple" telecine issues, going back to film. I'm not 100% sure with what I'm doing at the moment. I've got the timeline in Vegas set to SMPTE film sync IVTC (23.976 fps video) as the whole project was shot 24pA. But I'm wondering if I should have the timeline set to seconds or audio 30 fps instead. I should probably post in the audio section, but if anybody reading this has any feedback, feel free to comment! Just when I thought I had it down, and checked with the timeline out all the way, things were off. I've been messing around with it (quantize to frames on and off to try and nail the exact point), and I find myself going, "so if it's 23.976, should total duration on the timeline be reading as :23 or 1:00 for the 1 second number/countdown clips?" And of course, when I mess around with one thing, another gets thrown off and doesn't match up, or at least, doesn't seem to match up by the way I'm trying to fugure it (so FFOP comes up/begins at exactly 01:00:08:00, with the required 8 seconds between it and the end of the Picture Start "frame"). Think I need an early lunch break. My head hurts. ;-)

Naa... just play it back on your big screen TV while sitting in your easy chair trying things out on your laptop! :-) (does that make them all deductible???)

I have a question on the standard brightness and contrast to be used for distributing world wide dvd's or at least in the U.S. I am not sure where to post this but since I used Vegas to do everything except the actual encoding (used TMPG for that) I thought this might be the right area.

I have some sample comparison still frame captures below that were taken before and after making changes with Vegas. I made these while looking at a TV screen going into my VX2100 and then on into my computer using the external monitor view. The TV was calibrated using the DVD test provided on many DVD's THX www.thx.com

I made the background more blue by giving the lows more blue and added more warm skin tones by turning up the red on mids and highs. I also tried to reduce some of the brightness from the harsh stage lights by trying to turn down the brightness on the faces a little while keeping the background the same darkness by messing with the brightness and contrast.

My main concern is that the footage looks quite dark on a tv or even a monitor's default settings. For instance I now have my monitor set up on a scale from 0-100 set up from the default of 50 to 63 for brightness and 90 for contrast after taking the THX test and the footage looks good on both my TV and monitor as I did the THX test for both my monitor and TV set. What do you think of these still captures as far as brightness and contrast for distribution on DVDs? Will it be a problem with those that don't like to adjust their settings of their TV's from the default factory settings?

http://webpages.charter.net/dan76/cantoncomparison_1.jpg
http://webpages.charter.net/dan76/cantoncomparison_2.jpg
http://webpages.charter.net/dan76/cantoncomparison_3.jpg

Regards,
Daniel Melius

Couldn't you just open 5 instances in Vegas and have each one render a different 'reel' over night?

Andy

<<<-- Originally posted by Andy Shrimpton : Couldn't you just open 5 instances in Vegas and have each one render a different 'reel' over night?

That's actually what I do right now, but I've had problems with machine lockups when I open more than 3 instances of Vegas (and it always happens in the middle of the night well into the render).

I wanted to be able to queue up the renders since it has never crashed when I've had three instances or fewer rendering at one time.

I'm also starting to experment with rendering the audio and video separately, which will double the number of renders I need to complete.

This may sound like a dumb question (or it could be a dumb ommision from Vegas), but how in the hell can I insert a new line of text in a credits roll? I'm not talking about at the end, but I want to insert a new line of text halfway through the credits.

teh FX1 ISNT a 24p camera..
i dont think the ZX1 (pro model) will be either considering HD is an interlaced format.

Im waiting on my FX1 to come in so i can have a play, however you CAN change yoru filed options within your project (if ur using Vegas)

you wont lose all that much considering youre going to have to downsize it back to SD for delivery anyway

highighlt any area in the text write field and hit the "insert" key

Phew, thanks Peter! :-)

Peter,

Thanks, but allow me to restate the question this way:

It is precisely because the FX1 is NOT 24p, that this question is asked.

As the FX1 is not 24P, but is interlaced, this may actually be to our advantage - is it not possible to run Edward's excellent de-interlace/24fps script on the 1080i footage and still arrive at something pretty close to 720P?

As Spot stated in his article on “film-like appearance” subject, "These small tips should help you to create a look that approaches the film-look fairly easily". Now if we apply these techniques to HD, what then?

I use the DVX100 in 24p mode, but for certain effects related purposes (slo-mo, high speed effects) I will shoot in 60i, adjust the speed in Vegas to suit the purpose, render as an uncompressed .avi, bring it back into Vegas and run Edward's script. I have been very pleased with the resulting footage and intrigued by the many creative possibilities opened up by this technique. I now understand the value of interlaced footage, as described by Spot. (I come from a film background, and video is still a foreign language to me).

When JVC first came out with their HDV cams there was furious online debate about the problems inherent in 30p (from the filmmaking perspective). People were grasping at straws trying to find a way to convert 30p to 24fps, even looking at running feature length projects through Re:Vision’s Twixter and other processes.

Now here we have a 1080i stream which potentially may provide a mind-blowing Super 16-like output, if it can somehow be harnessed. Imagine converting this to 24fps, down-rezzing it back to standard def, and dropping it on a DVD. You are now playing with power, and ushering in the new era of the digital democracy.

Potential formula:

Take the new FX1, add Vegas 5 or even Vegas 6 which may presumably have additional features better suited to the HD mpeg format, convert to 24fps, and where does this put the budget conscious filmmaker who sees a potential poor man’s Cinealta or Varicam within their grasp?

So the question needs to be asked. Is this a pipe dream? Maybe not.

Vegas could be the difference.

Brian