<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : You have several options:

1) Use a velocity envelope and then manually resize the clip after applying the new velocity.

2) Hold down the CTRL key and resize the event to the proper size. This will also change the speed of the clip (but you are limited to a single speed change).

3) Use Excalibur's Velocity Wizard which will automatically add a velocity envelope and resize the clip to match the new speed.

p.s. remember you can also combine the velocity envelope and CTRL-Drag technique on a single event. -->>>


and where can i find this....Excalibur's Velocity Wizard? is it some plugin?

Paul,

Excalibur and Neon are at: http://www.vegastoolsandtraining.com/

I have both and highly recommend them. Also, you might want to take advantage of the last few days of the 'Vegas 5.0 Companion' and 'Authoring with DVD Architect 2.0' training DVDs on special pre-order pricing. Gary's previous DVD set was a tremendous help in teaching me the Vegas toolset and workflow.

I'm not paid by these guys, just glad they've made such a fine set of tools and training products to help me.

<<<-- Originally posted by Paul Bisaillon : and where can i find this....Excalibur's Velocity Wizard? is it some plugin? -->>>

Just click on the link below my name for info on Excalibur, Tsunami, Neon, and other things such as the free newsletter.

Edward,

You just reminded me that I've been meaning to pick up Tsunami. I want to add a Picture-In-Picture effect in a project I'm working on and while I know I could do it myself, why bother when you've written the script to do it for me.

Thanks a ton for taking the time to create your newsletter. I faithfully print them out in full color for an immediately available deskside reference and have found them extremely helpful.

yeha... not happy dude..

basically i had some interlaced footage i was editing ran afew different speeds of slo mo..

all good in the timeline, final render looked so shit i wanted to scream.. and thats WITH supersampling on to 4..

switched to render as progressive from interlaced footage, now my slowmos are nicer than standalone slow mo apps like DynaPels slowmo and thats without supersampling... its absolutely beautiful now :)

Peter, what speeds do you slow your footage to? The timeline "should" be an issue of WYSIWYG. I've never had any issues with slow motion looking bad on output. I always render on "HIGH"- with a constant bitrate of 8 mb/s beings my programs are usually under an hour.

Peter, let me understand what you did. You captured as interlaced and rendered as progressive and that worked?

I believe this footage was shot as progressive and I rendered as each option I could find with no luck. (Couldn't figure out how to supersample) I thought I might try After Effects as they are supposed to have a great slow motion. I really haven't figured a way around the timing problem other than slow motion. (Stills are out of the question)

Possibly there are other settings I haven't tweaked?

Additionally, the clip, at the part where the bridesmaid is walking in runs at 21fps. It doesn't seem to ever get up higher when looping. If I RAM render, then it gets to 30 frames and then it is jerky. PAL runs at 25. Is there a way to make the clip run at that frame rate in NTSC?

This is killing me!

Charlie the footage from Bernard's two XL-1s's were shot in "frame mode" which is a faux progressive achieved through frame blending. It's still technically interlaced.
I'd think, if anything, progressive would provide choppier slow motion than interlaced. That's why I don't quite understand what Peter was explaining.
The doc me and Jesse shot was completly in "frame mode" and was treated as normal interlaced (60i) without a hitch.

When encoding to MPG2 try and use a DVD Architect template/preset. Make sure video quality is set to "High" and try a constant bit-rate of around 8 mb/s. Try that on a small section and see how it works out for you.

Again I wouldn't encode it as progressive- but if the above doesn't seem to help....it can't hurt to try.

Edward, have any input on this?

You activate supersampling on the video bus track.

Since you say it looks better at a lower framerate, had you track changing the "undersample" value in the event's properties?

i read an earlier post regarding rendering with vegas to mpeg4. they mentioned something about downloading a codec.

is this true also for rendering to mpeg2? do i have to download a codec?

I can import the video by USB, as a file, then import to Vegas. Or, I can capture through a composite "Video In" on a video card. That you ask, I now wonder if one of those two methods is causing the problem. I have in the past used the video from this camera without the notorious black frames. I can't recall which method I used for which. I guess that will be the next test. Thanks for asking, and I'll let you know the results.

Rendering to MPEG2 comes standard with Vegas and Vegas+DVD. All you need to do is go to File - Render As and pick MPEG2 as the format. Then you can pick any of the presets. To change the bitrate, just click on Custom.

when printing a project straight to tape, does this process require a significant amount of hard drive space? if so, is there a way to know how much?

It requires "some" hard drive space and the amount is totally dependent upon your project. When you do a PTT, it must render all sections of video that have been modified. So, if you've only applied a few crossfades here and there, it won't take much disk space. However, if you've color corrected (or done anything else that affects) large portions of the video, then those entire areas must also be rendered taking a significant amount of space.

Once all of the video segments have been rendered, it will then render ALL of the audio into a W64 file. If you have a 1 hour project, that would probably take around 600 meg.

ok. that's fine. i was worried a 1 hour project with many effects, color corrections and fades will take up more than 5GB or something in that range.

THANKS

Depends on the definition of "many". If "many" means every frame, it'll take about 13 Gig. If "many" means 10% of the project, it'll take abou 1.3 gig.

ok. thanks edward. that's exactly what i needed to know.

Yes yes, this is a basic one; but even in the archive search i can't pull up this answer so i must be using the wrong words.

Well my question is fairly simple (although i'll let you judge that).

I have a completed project on my brothers computer, i want to take the dv signal from the computer to my SOny PD-170, but i don't know how to export the completed project, any ideas? Once completed, going to the VCR should be easy, but i can't figure this one out.

If all you want to do is take a DV-AVI file and output it via firewire to the camera, just choost Tools - Print Video to DV Tape

ah yes, i was going to answer myself but its too late. For the record i'm embarrased, stupid question. Thanks for the help, i'm new at editing and after 4 hours of editing today, i lack the ablity to think outside the box.

Does anyone know, is there a white flash transition effect in Vegas?

Yes there is. Transitions tab - Flash - hard/soft/yellow (your choice).

OR you could always make your own. Put a very short white generated media above the video and fade it out (like 5 frames long with a 4 frame fade out), for example.

As always...Thanks Edward!!

"Peter, what speeds do you slow your footage to? The timeline "should" be an issue of WYSIWYG. I've never had any issues with slow motion looking bad on output. I always render on "HIGH"- with a constant bitrate of 8 mb/s beings my programs are usually under an hour."

the speeds i render to vary from 90 down to 33... i wont go lower.. and i only render to high AVI as i prefer DVDA to render the full project to mpg according to the disc size left to me after i create a menu etc etc its alot quicker this way too especially when im ripping elements of the final product for highlights etc idont lose any quality with this "over processing "as its all AVI

Interlaced slow mo is just rubbish whe it drops below 75..

then i thought.. hmm.. why not, lets just see..
so i imported ths interlaced footage, set the project to Progressive square pixels ratio (nice for plasma screens less colour bleed thru the firing pixels :) ) then rendered a slow mo all the way down to 10%.. super smooth, and gorgeous and theres no hint of the main base frame (ie the originating frame) the sow mo looks natural....

i guess the centre field was getting messed up with some type of encoding algorythm.. i honestly dotn knwo but im happy to render to progressive if it gives me teh results i need

actualy, in Vegas, you need to register the codec that is already instaled. So, the first time you try rendering somthing in mpeg2, it will ask for a serial key or something like that.
Maybe Vegas+DVD has that codec registered on instal, like Edward sais...

Hi
Need your help.
Maybe someone also stuck with the same problem. I trying to edit my film, which is not short I assume, approximately 30 min long. This is what came out of 2 hors material, which has been taped on JVC HD1. So after downloading all files on the computer I have about 550 m2t files. My problem is, I can’t drop on timeline more then 120 files. Vegas doesn’t aloud to do this. Nothing helps. Restarting the program, computer etc. Maybe some problem with Vegas cash memory, but I can’t find were can I modified it. I also use Panasonic DVX100A, and with AVI files I never had this problem before.
Frankly a have never edited such a long HD film before. Maybe Vegas is limited somehow, to edit more than certain amount of mpeg files.
Thanks.

Vegas requires the secondary registration of the MPEG2 codec.

Vegas+DVD does not - It's automatically done when DVD Architect registers.

I have very little experience using Vegas 5 to output 16:9 mov files for QuickTime and have run into some problems. First of all the quality of the QuickTime files seems to be poor--even at the 1 Mbps quality option--the rendered video is blocky and poor quality. Also, I can't figure out how to output a file without letterboxing. The original video was letterboxed in-camera and I'm using the Vegas 16:9 event crop/pan template to crop. I don't have the letterboxing in my preview, but it always shows up in my QT files. Thanks.

Glen, the problem needs to go away when I render as an .avi before I bother with making the project .mpg but I will remember your advice.

I did take Edward's idea and I chose an undersample rate of 21 secs. It looks like it does on the timeline rendered to .avi. Not perfect but might not get any better.

I called it jerky but it was more than that. I saw "trails" as well on the audience as the camera followed the bridesmaid.

Edward, just what IS "undersample rate"?

yeah i know that. i managed to create an mpeg-2 with vegas. the reason i'm asking is this:

i've been having recent problems with dvd's i've been making (actually there were only two of them). the dvd's are of wedding receptions. i edited on vegas 5, exported video to mpeg-2 (compatible with DVDA) and audio to AC3. then i authored dvd with DVDA 2. burned with my LG 4082B dvd burner both on -R and +R memorex media.

i decided to try a different dvd authoring system to see if that makes any difference. i went to a studio that has SONIC SCENARIST (a high end dvd authoring program). but a wierd thing happened. for some reason, when dragging the mpeg-2 file (created with vegas 5) to the scenarist work space, nothing happened. as if scenarist won't accept the file. funny thing is that the people at the studio said that whenever there is a bad file or a file scenarist won't accept, it always gives an error message. with the vegas made mpeg-2, this didn't happen. just plain nothing happened. we tried dragging the audio file (AC3) to scenarist, and that went fine.

so i began to think that maybe there is something strange going on with vegas' mpeg-2 encoding.

I believe Scenarist requires an elementary stream. You would need to check the "elementary stream" checkbox when encoding the MPEG2 file.

The undersample rate allows you to simulate a lower framerate. Should not be needed for slowmotion, though.

Charlie- move the footage and Veg files to the IOMEGA drive and bring it over. I'll hook it up and see if I can't figure something out. Maybe thursday or friday night. Call me and let me know.

Adi, why don't you simply give DVA the avi file without rendering to mpeg in Vegas?
Prepare and burn should work fine in DVA and you'll have the mpeg file for future copies. This way you are also flexible to adjust the bitrate. If you give Architect too big mpeg file it might reencode.

I will be able to see later this week If I have the same trouble and check back in, I wish i wasnt so busy I would try it tonight.


I am not sure I ever used 120 files (are you talking transitions, music, filters and such or just mT2s?) even for a 1 hour + wedding film but I will be sure to keep track when I finish

edward, you were on the money!!! i checked "elementary stream", sent a sample mpeg-2 to the studio and now scenarist recognizes the file. thanks!!!

now, i can check to see if my problem is software based or not.

thanks again!

DVDA 2 will also recognize elementary streams. DVDA 1 would not. So it is possible that you could simply use elementary streams for both.

Hi Mark.
No transitions. Not sound yet just clips. No color corrections or any sort of filters. I can imagine what is going to happen with all this stuff. By the way my computer is now slouch ether. Pentium 4, 3.4. Raid 2 HD Western Digital Raptor 74 gig each. 2 gig 2 channels ram. Radeon 9800 Pro. I think it’s limitation of Vegas. But i would be appreciated for any type of help and suggestion. Thanks.

Much more RAM is needed when processing HD, else the system spends all its time paging data into and out of the pagefile. 2 Gigs is the minimum recommended!

wowsers, I am in trouble to start with, I am running 1 gig Ram with almost the same CPU as Michael ( with a Abit IC7 Max3 motherboard, 74 gig Raid Rapters, crappy ole GeForce 5200 and Sound Audigy) , with little troubles upto 20 minutes on the timeline now with multiple transitions and even some color correction experimentation.

whats the largest RAM you can buy? I guess Im gonna need more when its render time

I have solved my problem; this is not the easiest way, but its work for me. I use Vegas foe smaller number of clips 15-20, I do everything what is necessary, composing, color correction etc. Then I render them in transport stream, and combine in MPEG editor, I forgot the name, which came with JVC. This program handle transport files very well. But still maybe buying Aspect HD not a bad solution either.

Mark,
How do I manually change .mpg to .m2t?

it's getting quite annoying. after time i would highlight a section of a clip i want to cut vegas crossfades the end result. how do i turn this off?

Turn the auto-crossfade on/off by hitting ctrl+shift+X.

There is also a button for it - usually at the top - looks kind of like bunny ears (or an "X")

peace
jes

Could you help me, telling me what workflow do you use in Vegas?

Workflow to do WHAT?

Perhaps I don't understand the question. If you have ONE clip and split it into TWO clips, you will simply have two clips. If you then manually overlap them, it will create a crossfade (unless you turn off auto crossfades.)

Wow, what an afternoon! Even though it was raining monkeys and snakes (euphemism for cats and dogs) in Singapore, nearly 300 people attended the Sony Software Media Showcase here, traveling in from around the Asian-Pacific area!! Simply amazing. Great group, awesome questions, awesome responses. Imagine being there with everyone clapping along to mark time when doing Slideshow to Markers and other ACID-loop related functions in Vegas. I don't think it could have been any better, unless it was a longer day. Large group of Premiere, FCP, and Avid users that all had great things to say as well. It was great to see so many new faces in the Vegas world.

Thanks to A-One and their dealers for making this event so much fun, so well-attended, and a great experience. DVInfo.net got some airtime there as well, since it was shown as one of the great resources for Vegas information.

You can view some pix at: http://www.vasst.com/tourstops/singapore.htm

I'll post more pix as the Vegas training day, Audio for DV day, and Power Production Techniques day pass by.

First, Vegas isn't the best tool for Quicktime encoding... Further, Quicktime generally is crappy at lower bitrates. But that doesn't help you much, I guess...
Letter boxing will show up if you are rendering to a square pixel format vs non-square original. You might want to reset project properties and use the Match Aspect script to fix this if that's what's causing the mis-match.

If you shot in 4:3 you don't have true 16:9. So I'm not following
what you are trying to do?

When exporting to the web you want a lower resolution so at
least CROP the bars off and only put up the widescreen video
portion. This will yield a better quality at the same bitrate or
afford you to do a longer movie at smaller filesizes.

For DVD you can either do a fake anamorphic signal or just put
the blackbar footage on it. See what works best for you.