Thank for the reply Edward, I also have a Pinnacle's DC10+ but have had a real bad time in the past trying to render my movie into one big file. To put it lightly "im over it". Ill try capturing through firewire, Thanks.

I'm not sure the Pinnacle card is OHCI compliant. You may be better off removing that card (and it's drivers) and installing a standard OHCI firewire card using Window's drivers.

As for large files, you should be able to make them as large as needed assuming your drives are formatted to NTFS. If they are FAT32, you will be limited to 4Gig files (about 18 minutes of DV).

I've just noticed that the 2 extra buttons on the MS USB IntelliMouse Optical mouse moves the playback head forwards and backwards following the ruler lines on your timeline. This could save lots of time looking through footage.

The mouse is also nice for webpages since the two extra buttons act as back/forward.

Conclusion: The evil empire wins again. ;)

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=26-105-122&depa=0

Ok, minor gripe. The plastic around the side buttons are squarish and not rounded so they can get a little irritating.

2- Anyone have any other mice of human interface devices they also like? I haven't tried a Contour Shuttle Pro with Vegas yet, so I don't know how it compares... but you could get both :D

Interesting finding- wonder if you can map the extra mouse buttons to other actions in Vegas now that V5 allows you to remap keyboard shortcuts and the like.

The NewEgg site says it's a 5 button mouse (plus wheel). You only mentioned 4 buttons. I'm asuming the wheel is also a button. Do you know what it defaults to in Vegas?

Dennis Vogel

I'm doing my first DVD Architect 2 project. I have a single MPG file that I made a single movie DVD from. When I played the DVD the audio stopped after 49 seconds on both my settop player and my PC. I played the MPG file in WMP and it is fine--audio plays throughout the file. I played the first VOB in the TS_VIDEO folder and the audio stops again at 49 seconds. So it appears the render in DVDA failed to write my audio to the DVD files. Oh, if it matters I rendered the DVD to disk first then while in the same DVDA session burned the DVD. Standard PCM to AC3 conversion in DVDA.

I notice the timeline at the lower right of the DVDA window when I added the MPG file to the project. The audio track was probably still building the peak file when I started the render. I would have thought that only affected the screen view and not the render. Could that have prevented the full audio from being rendered? Must the peaks all be built before rendering?

If that's not the problem, anyone know what else might be going on here?

Dennis Vogel

Let it build the peaks and then re-build the DVD. Let us know if it works after that.

You call that a mouse? That's not a mouse. This (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=26-105-114&depa=0) is a mouse. It even works on my Macs.

Up until recently Vegas was rendering my video flawlessly. About mid-way through the most recent .AVI render, it started inserting a single black frame about every two seconds through the remainder of the video. By selecting that portion of the video where the problem began, I've attempted to render that with every possible combination of settings offered by Vegas, and still get the black frames. Any ideas?

I'm adding a slide montage to my project. I've saved the photos at 655 x 480 pixels. Dropped the jpgs on the timeline and viewed result on preview window. When the preview window is docked and Best Full is selected, the picture fills the window. When I undock the window and enlarge it to full size, there are small vertical black bars on the left and right side of the picture.

If I set the preview window to Preview Auto, and leave it as a small docked window, the bars are again visible.

Is this normal and will it look right when viewed on a NTSC TV? I don't have an external monitor to preview. Thanks.

Just a question on the format of the hard drive. I have 3 hard drives all formated with the FAT32 system. Would I be able to format one of these to NTFS and run them compatibly or do all hard drives have to be the same format?

Yeah I'm not sure what the 5th button refers to. If you press down on the mouse wheel, it's kind of like a button. It brings up the left/right scrolly thingie just like other wheel mice.

Of course, you need to be running WinNT, Win2K or WinXP to use the NTFS file system. Win98 does not support, nor will it even recognize, NTFS drives. To answer your question, you can mix FAT32 and NTFS drives with no problem.

John

Thanks John, Im running XP so there should be no dramas.

Since they are well within the safe area, you'll never see them on a TV. However, I always scan my pictures at whatever size they are. I don't worry about "655x480" or any other sizes. I have a complete writeup of the process I use at http://www.jetdv.com/tts

Is there a black frame there on the timeline? What is the source? Anything common about those areas? Did you try a reboot?

Thanks Edward. I just discovered that the picture fill the entire frame by setting source/maintain aspect ratio to no in the Pan/Crop window. Tried this on a few photos with different resolutions and it always filled the frame. By doing this, will the final aspect ratio be correct when viewed on a 4:3 TV?

Or, as you suggested, should I always leave the source/maintain aspect ratio to yes and assume the bars will be outside of the safe area?

Thanks also for the link to the writeup.

Edward,

Are you referring to your Vol 1 No. 8?

Yes. Vol1 #8.

Yeah, that's my next test. I'll check the VOB before wasting another DVD.

Dennis Vogel

Just as an FYI, we'll be closing the Sundance access shortly. We're moving all the tools, tutorials, reviews, and files over to the VASST site to save on how many sites we maintain. You can already view the new look and tool feature of the site now when you log into the Sundance portal.
The new location is faster, smoother, and can manage more media/space. We've also sorted the scripts, files, tutorials, and reviews are coming soon.

The new access will be via the VASST site; http://www.vasst.com/login.htm

We'll give folks a while to get familiar with it, but wanted you guys to know first.


p.s. there are several new veggies up there as of last night.

Is there a way for Vegas to provide the same feature as Premiere's "Scenes" where you can separately edit many scenes for a long form project, saving them separately, yet render out as one long project?

It appears "Regions" may be somewhat similar, and I note that Tsunami and Neon have tools which are helpful towards achieving this, I wonder if there is some simple feature I have overlooked.

Brian

This may sound like a stupid question however I cannot manually select the compression rate, the box is ticked and will not let me get into the compression settings.

I have 4.7 GB selected, the movie itself is not very big and the recompression settings are set to 40% of the media for some reason. How can I manually select the settings? I re-installed Architect 1.0 as I have used it before with no problems and the same issue is occuring.

I had a problem with Vegas 5 not letting me render to MPEG2 but I got around it by rendering to AVI and then to MPEG2 could this problem be linked to the recompression problems in Architect?

Brian,

What you may be looking for is the "Takes" feature in Vegas. This lets you paste two or three or more 'takes' in the same place on the timeline. Then you preview with each take to see how it fits. Before you complete the project and render your movie, you have to decide which of the 'takes' to be the one that goes to print.

When you press the middle mouse button it brings up a circle with arrows on either side. Then if you move your mouse to the right or left it scrolls the timeline at varying speeds according to how far to the left or right the mouse is.

The Premiere feature I saw had numbers, say, 1 through 7, with a click on each one bringing up a new timeline within the main timeline.

The "Takes" feature sounds interesting, but what I liked about this Premiere feature was the ability to have one file open with numerous timelines (and numerous effects, transitions, etc.) within, and the ability to switch these around on the fly, putting one scene before another, etc.

Otherwise, if a two hour production were to be done, with multiple tracks and effects, and you wish to insert a single frame or re-edit one scene, the entire project must be adjusted.

I do not believe individual Subclips would provide the same feature, but perhaps Subclips and Regions combined would.

Neon's storyboard feature is also very promising, and if there is no Vegas procedure analogous to the Premiere feature, perhaps a script could be created?

If anyone has a simple solution, please let me know.

Thanks,

Brian

Sounds like you are talking about having multiple timelines in one project. Vegas does not currently do this. However, I do what you mention for every project. I simply create a different project for each section of the video and render each section out separately when completed. I then start a "Final" project and bring all of these rendered sections together for the final print or DVD render.

If you need multiple timelines open at the same time, remember you can open Vegas multiple times with different projects open in each one.

Edward,

Thanks for the confirmation, and as I recall from a previous note of yours, each rendered track (if rendered as an uncompressed .avi) should remain lossless throughout this process.

Seems like a useful tool for the next gen of Neon (or perhaps part of a new script aimed more for film projects?).

Imagine using the storyboard feature to reveal the action occuring within each Sub-Timeline.

Now this would be useful for a long-form program.

Brian

I render to DV-AVI - not uncompressed. I see no reason to go uncompressed as you're not gaining anything by doing so. Besides, to PTT you have to go back to DV-AVI. For rendering, the UNCHANGED sections are simply copied anyway so there's no loss at all for those sections. For the sections that did change, the Sony codec does great for many generations so I doubt you'll see a problem with one or two renders.

The scripting API is not yet powerful enough to implement something of this nature. Too many things you can't yet access.

So the big question is:

How far does this go to providing a usable alternative to a ShuttlePRO ?

Brian

Well I just tested it and it actually shuttles pretty well using that method. I think I still prefer the shuttle for that, though. But beyond that, my shuttle has 13 buttons (new one has 15 buttons, I think) where that mouse only has 4 left.

Well, I let the peak file rebuild and re-rendered the DVD files. I played the VOB file and it was fine. I played the entire DVD from disk and it played fine. I made a DVD and it played fine on my set-top player.

As another experiment, I removed the peak file and started making another DVD to disk before the peak file had rebuilt. The individual VOB and the DVD files played fine. So I can't say it was due to starting the DVD render before the peak file was rebuilt. Perhaps I hit a button somewhere that stopped the audio from being added (DVDA2's interface is a lot busier than DVDA1). Or maybe it was a fluke.

Dennis Vogel

Glad to hear you at least had a successful conclusion.

I have some mixed footage that I am trying to put together in Vegas. Some shot with dvx100a in 24pA and other with a consumer camera.

Would it be better to have the project properties in NTSC 29.97 instead of NTSC 24p?

If I want the 24p look I suppose the standard footage could be converted in Vegas, output and then dropped into the project with the 24p properties and footage. I thought I read a whitepaper that the conversion step isn't required in Vegas, however, I think I read somewhere else that you should take all your 60i footage convert it in Vegas, output and then edit it all in 24p.

I have had problems in the past when I had to mix 60i and 24pA, most likely due to the vertical resolution loss in the standard footage...it had horribly visible "scan lines". That coupled with the project being in widescreen.

Is going from 24p to 60i "easier" with better quality than going from 60i to 24p?

That's one of the thing's I haven't got around to playing with in Vegas5 yet. I'm somewhat intimidated by the process even though I've read (and reread) their white paper on the subject. I think I understand the process when I finish the white paper, but it doesn't seem to stick long.

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/download/step1.asp?catid=16

Yeah, I believe that is one of the white papers I have read as well.

I'm not too familiar with the various pulldown modes of the DVX100, but two of them will look fine when played back (the other one does 2:2:2:4 or something like that, which will look wrong).

I would probably edit all in 60i. You save time and you really don't get much benefit from editing 24p.

Usually the way this is done is to shoot 24p standard, then combine it with the 60i footage on a 29.97 timeline. The 24pA footage will also work, but you won't get the benefit of shooting in the Advanced mode.

That is probably what we will do. I have to add more footage and I really want the 24p look to it.

The dilema is one of the guys only likes to work/shoot with widescreen and I think we will lose too much vertical resolution on the standard footage so I am probably going to shoot the additional footage without digital squeeze on.

I prefer to shoot in 24pA though with 2332 pulldown.

Edward, I determined the cause of the aspect ratio problem was my source photo. I thought I was saving the photos in 655 x 480, but that wasn't the case.

I resolved that matter in my photo editing software and dropped them into Vegas. The pictures now fully fill the frame. In Pan/Crop, match aspect ratio is yes. Works like a champ! Also using your writup to create the photo montage, which also works great. Very simple.

Glad it all worked out for you. I feel Vegas is the easiest tool for creating a photo montage.

Hi,

Well i've had a poke around and i cant, for the life of me, find info inthe help on how to render outto still images. Its probably right under my nose but i have NFI where. LOL

Can any kind soul point me in teh right direction on how to render out to still images (say .PNG/.JPG/.BMP/.TGA etc)?

Cheers

You do mean capture a single frame AS a still yeah?

Preview window, .. tiny floppy disc icon above Screen? Click on that it will give you options of what format JPG or PNG and where. When do ing this have the Preview set to GOOD - yeah?

Yeah, been in front of you all the time . .. ;-)

Grazie

Hmm. no i actaully wish to render out to still images. Not just take a snapshot here and there. So ifi can render to still image sequence it would REALLY speed up what i am trying to acheive. its just not feasable to use that little snapshot thing i'm afraid.

:)

Okay . then you'll want to render to Snapshot script .. You can set to how often you take it .. I think down to 00:00.01 menaing sigle frame - yeah? that's what yer after? Go over to the script forum or try the sundance site RenderImageSequence.js I think it is called . . I often use it to create monatges then I set them to the n=beat using markers .. with SnapShotToMArkers script .. neat!

Grazie

YAY! :D Yep thats pretty much what i want to do. I set the FPS to .01 and just wan tto rende rout a heap of screenshots at the highest possible quality of the selected video stream.

Thanks for the pointer i'll take a look when i get a spare moment. :) I thought it'd be a default of Vegas but i dont think it is coz i cant find it for the life of me! :)

Are you using V5? I think The render Image Sequence came withitr. Go Tools>ScriptingDrop down menu "remderImage Sequence. NOW, this might not be showing if you haven't GOT the scripts IN the correct place and you HAVEN'T yet run the "rescan Script Menu Folder" utility . .yeah?

Anyways here's a "Go knock yerself OUT!" option to get Loadsa stuff

http://www.blue7media.com/vegas/

A bunch of very VERY valuable tolos for Vegas and us VegHeads !

Grazie

There are several scripts available that will output a series of PNG or JPG images. However, if you are doing a significant amount of time on the timeline, they are relatively SLOW. If you are doing more than a few seconds worth, you may wish to frameserve to some other application such as VirtualDub and let it output the actual images.

I will be installing this over the weekend, any recommendations, advice, things to watch out for, settings, bad install experiences?

I know it's kind of wide open but I figured the question might reduce some headaches. Also, is there anyway to install it on my laptop as well? Thanks!!

Just install both, register both, and you should be on your way. I have quite a bit of setup information in the newsletters. Just click on the link below my name.