Hello,

Thank you Tor, I was not aware of this little goody.. This is a good trick..

Thanks !!!
Mike M.

Please also see this thread for a fast Vegas introduction
with what does what, keyboard shortcuts etc.

Yes, the text should be placed on a track above the video. And, as you have seen, there are a variety of ways to accomplish fading in and out. The simplest is to hover over the upper right or upper left edge of the event, get the quarter moon icon, and click and drag toward the center. There are also scripts available that will add the fades for you.

Well it's working now. The problem was the onboard 1394 port. I installed a Canopus ACEDVIO card and the Preview on Device and PTT both work fine. If I try pluging back into the onboard port, video capture works but not preview or PTT.

Thanks for the quick feedback on the file format issue.

Paul.

Vegas 4 with Red 3GL vs. Premiere Pro with After Effects 6?
 

I am a beginner and want to know which of these systems I should settle on. Is one suited to certain tasks better than the other? Tentatively I must say I found Vegas 4 more intuitive than Premiere Pro. What are the prospects of Vegas being updated by Sony? I would hate to make a time investment on Vegas if it died at 4.0

I work with DV (software rendering) to make documentaries and short films.

First of all, which NLE are you more comforatable with? Use the one that suits YOU.

Premiere and After Effects work together quite well. However, Boris integrates directly to the Vegas timeline - you don't even have to switch applications.

Ultimately, you need to try the demos and see what matches your workflow and needs. Besides, the other combinations (Premiere + Boris and Vegas + After Effects) might be a consideration as well.

Good to hear it's working. What kind of port is the onboard port? Is it, by chance, a VIA chipset? If it is, you may be able to get it working with a driver update.

zoom limits
 

I've been doing alot of zooming a 16:9 box onto 4:3 footage to correct for framing errors made by 'Uncle Charlie' (who videotaped a friend's wedding that I was in).

Has anyone found a combination of filters to work around the pixelation that occurs when 'overzoomed'? Maybe some combination of unsharpen mask and gaussian blur?

Scott

Mike,
As a variation on the fade in/out method, try this:
Create a text event. Open pan/crop on the event.
Doubleclick the kreyframe-line at a half second after the beginning and a half second before the end. Now go to the very beginning and pull the frame to your left until the text disappears to the right of the preview window. At the very last point, pull the frame to the right, watch the text disappear to the left in the preview window. Now play the whole thing.

If you make a note of the numbers you get in the Center box when you've pulled the frame, you could just type it it next time, to get an exact repeat of the movement.

Considering the source, if you zoom in you are losing information. So, there's really very little you can do besides what you've already stated.

Edward- I thought you'd get a kick out of this....
 

Cool. Maybe they should include a copy of Tsunami with each one! I also find it interesting the Vegas is listed under "Video Editing Card"

Edward! You didn't tell me you were into PC building - as well?!?! - "With every copy of our new Editing tool for Vegas you get a Free PC!" Edward, don't know HOW you do it - honest?!?!

Grazie

I can't seem to customize the dern prices... I keep getting 0.00. Does this mean I get one for free?

But, Grazie, then I'd have to charge over $3000 for Tsunami instead of $30 :-)

Imran, maybe you should call and ask them if they're free? After all, that's what the website said! :-)

(ps. if they are, I'll take one!)

Secondary Color Correct questions
 

Couple things... I'm doing something screwy here, and can't figure out what.

a) On an over exposed shot, when I adjust to make everything look richer, the dress on one young woman changes shades and becomes too blue. I dropped on the secondary color correct to isolate her dress, and couldn't get the "show Mask" to do anything/show up so I could extend the range to get the parts in both the shade and the sun. I've used "show mask" successfully before but can't figure out what I toggled on/off this particular time around. I removed the effect, tried again. Nothing. I checked the preview FX window, but that wasn't it. Restarted Vegas and "show mask" worked fine. What do I look for that I might be doing wrong or have accidentally hit/turned on when that happens?

b) When applying effects that are meant to last for the duration of the event, as opposed to the frame I'm parked on (which I'm using to spot for the changes I'm making) if I set an in/out point shouldn't it "take" for that whole section? Not sure why I'm seeing changes in the numbers over time as the clip plays. (sigh)

Not sure about your first problem. You may want to try soloing that track. Or maybe check the split screen options?

For the second one, you have to set the proper keyframes. Apparently you have two keyframes on the keyframe timeline. What you are seeing is it changing gradually from the values in the first keyframe to the values in the second keyframe. If you don't want the values to change, make sure both keyframes are the same (copy the first one and paste it on the second one, for example).

Yeah someone should put ALL the options on and go ahead and order it. Make printouts and copies for your records and when they try and bill your credit card $6,000 contest that the website stated it was $0.

Seriously though they are probably ashamed to post their prices- they are sky high. I can build the same thing for literally half the price. That's some major overhead!

It doesn't look like the card would automatically be charged anything but the $20 shipping. But that is sad. I built a system much better than those, a month and a half ago, for less than half of what they are charging.

Does Vegas support GL2's frame movie mode footage?
 

I am wondering does Vegas support GL2's frame movie mode footage? I've heard they support 24P, but dunno about the frame movie mode....

Another question is that I notice in Vegas, you open new footage that is 24P or regular NTSC which is the 29.97fps... What happens if you DO use frame movie mode on the GL2 or other camcorder, then try to save/open as 29.97fps or 24fps? This might be one of those FAQs....

Just treat it normally. Capture normally, edit normally, and print normally.

My settings for export to quicktime
 

This is the most successfull set of preferences I've used for exporting to quicktime. Please share yours.

http://www.instantclassic.org/ftp/we...tings-main.gif
http://www.instantclassic.org/ftp/we...ings-video.gif
http://www.instantclassic.org/ftp/we...ings-audio.gif
http://www.instantclassic.org/ftp/we...-streaming.gif

-- Andre

Vegas usually knows the clip is frame mode. it plays it back same as any 29.97 clip ( interlace). from vegas explorer you can highlight a clip and vegas will give you the clips specs below IE:720x480x24, 29.97fps then it will say either interlace or progressive ( frame mode).

you can set up your project properties as 24fps .. then vegas will delete frames/fields during play back so it equals 24fps. frame mode usually comes out quite "jerkey" played back as 24fps.

Bump

Has anyone else used this book? I'm thinking of ordering it from Amazon ( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...703569-1419869 ) but I'm not sure if I should. Is it very helpful for someone totally new to Vegas and somewhat new to working with video?

Yes, it is a good book. So are all of the other resources mentioned in this thread.

I can definitely recommend the book and DVDs by Douglas Spotted Eagle as well as the DVDs by Gary Kleiner. Also look at my newsletters mentioned above.

Thanks for the info Edward! Nice tips!

I would set the project to 30p (or 24p if you want) and not at
interlaced.

It would be nice if you included how large a movie would get for
a specific number of minutes/seconds. On our Lady X project
we use the Sorenson codec with IMU 4:1 audio @ 22 khz. Our
video is 320x180 (widescreen). We get 7 minutes in 35 MB or
something.

I'm always wondering why everyone is choosing good on their
render settings and not best...

Qdesign for audio sounds crappy unless you get the pro codec. MPEG4 audio is good, but needs QT6 to play back.

sorenson3 is the best video codec I believe, definitely better than MPEG4 video at low bitrates. The pro version of the sorenson3 codec will give you better quality.

V4 and 3D applications
 

So, does anyone here use any major (or minor) 3-D applications in conjunction with Vegas?

I have been experimenting with Bryce 5 animating some moving text against a green background and have found that Vegas does a great job at chroma keying out the green. I am getting some transparency on the text's surface (reflections on the texture in Bryce I am assuming), but I'm sure this is correctable.

I am suprised how easily V4 & Bryce play together (though I shouldn't be).

Also, has anyone happened upon the cool "Monty-Python" animation tecnique that is SO simple to do in Vegas with alpha channels?
Vegas keyframing rules!

Shane

As others have stated- treat it normally, after all it IS. It's still 29.97fps interlaced. The fields are doubled giving it a film'ic "look", however in reality it's no different than any other 29.97 interlaced footage in regards to working with it in an NLE's timeline.

There was a discussion about this on the Vegas Forums on DMN that might be of interest:
http://dmnforums.com/cgi-bin/display...0113185041.htm

I don't happen to use one but am not surprised that Vegas works well with them.

When I bring my frame mode clips into Vegas, I set the project properties to progressive. Is there some reason not to do that? It sure does render a lot faster that way.

Default Track Motion frames
 

Hey all, just wondering if anyone has the defualt track motion frames, as for some reason, mine have all vanished, and i can only view frames which i have cretead and saved.

basically, ive lost all my Widescreen, NTSC and PAL default configs..

I dont particularly want to reinstall vegas, but if anyone knwos where i can find the config files which i can just throw into my vegas install directory, that would be great.

thanks in advance
Pete

You may try a repair install instead of a full uninstall/reinstall. However, you *may* have to resort to the full uninstall/reinstall to get them back. The default presets are not something that's easily copied between machines.

Edward,

I can now produce MPEG2 files using the default settings in Vegas and have MyDVD burn the DVD. It works the first time I try the burn. If I make changes to the project in Vegas, re-render as an MPEG2 file and use MyDVD to burn another updated version, MyDVD balks at writing the file and issues an 'invalid mpeg2 file' error.

I noticed that MyDVD creates a sub-folder during the first burn attempt. It uses the MPEG2 filename and a suffix of '_ses'. As long as that sub-folder exists, I can't get a successful repeat burn.
If I delete that folder, then the very same MPEG2 file burns fine.

I don't understand why, but if I want to reuse a filename for an updated version, I must delete that filename_ses folder and then MyDVD is happy to burn the disk.

This explains why I could get a draft version to burn okay and then MyDVD wouldn't burn the finished project under the same name.

What made me suspicious of the filename_ses folder is the way MyDVD handles the saving of the DVD project. It prompts for a project name and then creates a sub-folder with that name under the MYDVD's folder. At the prompt, if you duplicate an existing name, it doesn't ask if you want to replace the existing file, if refuses to let you continue until you give it a different name. I'm in the habit of deleting this pesky DVD project folder before attempting a new burn.

Have you ever seen this problem?

Joseph


Joseph

Blue on face from sun glare/correction needed
 

Hi all,
I've been trying to track down something, and while I now know what's going on, I can't figure out how to correct it.

There's a blue flare on the side of the grooms face, at the jaw line, which didn't show up on my TV's at home (saw it on the father of the bride's huge new set) until I cranked up the color past where I normally have it on my own sets. I then managed to zoom in, in Vegas (after figuring out where to look), and spotted, albiet faintly, what shows blue on his. Thing is, the wedding was outside, in the shade of a beautiful arbor, but over the groom's shoulder the sun blasts away on the guests. And it's that light that's causing the blue. I've tried the Broadcast filter, and even pulled it down further than the most extreme setting, but that only trashes the whole shot. The blue remained. I tried several layers of the secondary color correct, with each layer carefully nabbing a little more which I shifted toward flesh tone, then lowered the saturation way down. At present it looks passable, but I'm concerned that blown up on his mondo TV the tweaks are going to look stupider than even the blue did (though it was pretty bad). So my question is two-fold:

1) is there a spot filter color correction plug-in I can try?
2) is there a better way to handle this with what I've already got?

Re: Blue on face from sun glare/correction needed
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Marcia Janine Galles : 1) is there a spot filter color correction plug-in I can try? -->>>

You can effect a small spot by using the video on multiple tracks, applying the cookie cutter to just cut out that one small area, and the modify the lower track to eliminate the blue.

The Video_TS and Audio_TS folders for the DVD have to be created during the encode process for burning to the DVD. Sounds like MyDVD has problems overwriting the folder it creates those in. At least you've found that manually deleting it allows MyDVD to work correctly. It's safe to delete it since it will be re-created in the next DVD creation process.