My guess would be this is a problem in your Windows Media
stuff. I'd suggest trying to (re)install the latest Windows Media
Player from Microsoft and reinstalling Vegas. See what that does.
Sounds like something is buggy in your installation.

How do you add Links in Vegas?

When creating a mask in photoshop what dimensions should I start with...the standard 720x480? Also what do I do create an all white/black image to be used as the mask...or do I actually have to create an alpha channel? How about animating a mask like this?

The mask only needs to be black and white. If you make it 655x480, it will fill the screen correctly. However, If you are going to be moving it around, you may want it larger to make sure you cover the edges at all times. Use Pan/Crop to move and size it.

Put the timeline cursor at the proper location and press "C"

That will create a "Command Marker" which can place commands in a WMV file.

Square pixel (i.e. computer images) that are 654X480 or 720X534 in dimensions will look the same in Vegas (no stretching or stuff cropped off). That's because DV pixels are rectangular, not square.

Aw, but I wanna . . .

For future segments I'll make sure my head is still (I've got a kids basketball hoop on an extendable pole which I thought I could jam my head into, although I think my wife would more unnerved at the sight of that than me wearing her lipstick).

Unfortunately, I had already shot a load of footage which was originally going to be used as a straight talking head PinP until we came up with the action man idea. As I have started down the road with the original footage I kinda didn't want to have to reshoot it all again as I would then have to re-edit the already completed segments.

However, your advice is sound!

I'll take a look at some of the solutions you mentioned but I don't really have the budget right now . . . maybe later in the year.

I've heard it's best to create the graphic at 720x534 then resize back to 720x480 before importing. Thats for graphics not masks though. I probably would have to create the graphic much larger than 720x534 to accomidate any motion I want to add with key-frames.

So I *don't* have to create an alpha channel- just a simple black and white image and Vegas can use that information (black=mask, white=no mask).

Liteon Ldw-811s
 

Does Vegas support the LITEON LDW-811S drive? I know it is not on the list of supported drives, but I am hoping it still will work.

I'm not sure, but you can try out the demo of DVD Architect to
see if it works?

fading audio
 

I'm sorry, but I just got vegas, got some video up there and have added separate audio, but cannot seem to figure out how to fade the audio independently (before the end of the song) Do I have to do it in Acid or Sonor ( I have them )
thanks for any help,

Dave

That's very easy and is done in the same way on the video track.
At the end and beginning of an event (whether it's video or audio)
you can see a small triangle in the upper corner. If you hover
your mouse over it, it will turn into a triangle with two straight
edges and one round. It also has a double sided arrow and
displays a text regarding the gain (audio) or opacity (video).

Now hold the left mouse button and drag it either left (end of
the event) or right (beginning of the vent) to fade out/in.

An event is a single media item in a track. If you have multiple
files (scenes for example) on a track you have multiple events
(one for each). Audio and video are seperate events (entities)
in Vegas.

If you need to fade in/out during the event, you have two options.
You can either split the event at the cursor position (with the S
key. If you only want to split one track instead of all, just select
the event you want to split [by clicking on it] and then hit the
S key. If you moved the position bar you can get it back without
losing the event selection by using the cursor keys). Once the
event is split you have two triangles on either side of the split
and you can just follow the example above.

The second way is to add envelopes (with key frames). Right
click on the track (can be audio or video) OUTSIDE any events.
Now go down the "Insert/Remove envelope" menu and select
"Volume" (Shift+V) for audio tracks and "Fade To Color" for
video tracks. A line will be added in the middle of the track
and you can right click on any part of the line and choose
"Add Point". If you make two you can drag one of them down
to change the opacity/volume from that point on. You can also
drag points to the left or right to change when the change
begins or ends, or you can set a specific value by choosing "Set To"

Thanks Rob, That was extremely easy, but I sure couldn't get that out of the manual.
Dave

ASR [ Attack, Sustain, Release ] - Page 121 Manual "Using Audio Event Envelopes"

The Triangle Thingy - page 122 Manual "Setting An Event's Fade in and Out"


Loads of stuff there . .

Grazie

I only have 99 pages in my manual

Dave

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.co...p2.asp?DID=447

This'll get you to the Monster 300+ page V4 Manual. Great stuff . . .

Enjoy!

Grazie

The 99 page manual is more of a "quick start guide".

Download the full manual from the link Grazie gave you AND press the F1 key - the help file is a tremendous asset.

creating a mask
 

I am editing a short film I made in Vegas 3. In one of the shots, a character is looking through a pair of binoculars. I want to put a mask over the shot to show this. I tried using paint, but the mask looked more like looking through a periscope than binoculars. Is there a way to create the mask in Vegas? If not, is there anyplace I would be able to obtain the mask?

Thanks

Thank you
 

Thank you, Ian and DSE for replying to this.

I looked at both the vegas file and the hologram tutorial.

I achieved the tv signal artifacts I wanted by scripting the TV simulator properties in adjacent frames.

For the film I added the TV simulator with no aperture grille nor interlacing so that I could use the sync properties to simulate "skipping" of the film (the frame moving up or down, off the center of the "film projector".

What I noticed though is that it takes a lot of keys on the timeline and was wondering if there is a script which randomizes the parameters given minimum and maximum boundary.

Thanks,
-- Andre

My first short is available at http://weeklydv.com/short.php?id=125

create it in photoshop ...or get a black piece of paper - cut out the shape you want .. shoot it with white in b/g or scan it ( should be white background from scanner lid - if not white then use white paper together with black cut out) ...
then drop it on track above .. use the chroma key fx on the WHITE .

ask friends if they know anyone that has tracking software - some of the upper AVIDS have it , FCP maybe ? , some pinnicale NLE software comes with commotion ... boris red 3 tracks ...
maybe friend is going to college that has it in edit lab ??

You don't need to use Chroma Key for the mask. Just Parent/child the tracks. (make sure the mask is black and white!

Zenote has a randomizer plug-in.

The film look/effect filter in Vegas4 does the same thing. Set it to jitter, and turn the other options off.

<-- wow. That's a great short film.

Synching audio and video
 

Ok lets say i want to slow down my footage via velocity envelope to 50%...how do i go about synching the audio to that speed as well? Thanks!

hit control and drag the audio for a time stretch :)

What about feathering the edges of the "eyepieces" so they appear slightly out of focus.

Thank you so much!

Dave

You would need to do that in photoshop. Just use varying shades of gray.

You cannot control the speed of audio with a velocity envelope. So, your options are:

1) Use CTRL-Drag to change the speed of the clip
2) Adjust the audio in an external program (such as sound forge)
3) Split the clip at relevant points and only adjust the speed of the sub-clips (assuming you can adjust the audio in some other method).

Sorry Edward, I was making the suggestion rather than asking how - I didn't want you to think I was being curt!

But while on the subject of ways to make the binoculars mask look more realistic, I think that keyframing varying degrees of blur on the lower track (ie what is being seen through the binoculars) would nicely simulate the viewer focusing on the target.

Sorry Ian. I mistook it as more of a question instead of a statement.

Converting 30fps to 24fps?
 

I posted in the filmlook forum about software that would convert 30fps to 24fps (XL-1s footage shot on framemode) and someone said Vegas would do it. How in vegas would I go about doing this? Would it just slow down the footage or actually convert it to 24?

No worries! My grammar I suspect, rather than your interpretation.

By the way, I wanted to say how much I enjoyed looking at your most recent newsletter. When I get home I'll be sure to subscribe and to trawl through the archives.

Assuming you don't plan on slowing the footage down or haphazardly excising frames, this is going to require some temporal interpolation, of which there are different varieties, none of which isn't going to cause distracting artifacting in the scenario you describe. How important is it to convert to this particular frame rate?

It's preferable to shoot in 60i when you intend to convert to 24 fps.

You can also whap the camera on the side during taping or playback.

In Vegas, simply choose File - Render As and pick one of the 24p templates.

LOL!!

There's also an interesting article related to this at:

http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/tu...s/filmlook.htm

We get it when someone kicks the tripod!