Yes, the recapture offline media has helped me a few times as well. Go to Options - Preferences and check all of your settings (and WANT to see the messages). And, of course, always be extra careful when deleting :-)

I think you may be confusing NTSC 601 standard, which is IRE 7.5, with the RGB Lab color requirement of black defined at RGB 16. The NTSC 601 requirement relates to voltage levels of the signal while RGB Lab Color is a color map definition. Vegas has checkboxes that allow you to turn these both on or off individually, both in the B'cast color filter as well as in the Waveform analyzer. You MUST check both the filter and the Waveform window in order for the waveform analyzer to readout the right value. And all this applies to what was mentioned above...the colorspace in PS is not the same as in V4.

Thank you everyone! I certainly appreciate the help. Now, I have some topics to study up on.

Thanks to those who replied, and so quickly!

Cheers,

Andy

why are my previews blurry and my audio out of sync?
 

Ok, so I'm previewing footage via an NTSC monitor. Here's the chain of gadgets: computer, via firewire, to my XLs, and then the XL1s, via S-Video (or RCA, doesn't matter), to the monitor. Now, when I'm watching UNDOCTORED footage, that is, without any extra layers, or FX or anything at all done to it, it looks sharp and just like playing it right from the tape. However, if I add any kind of visual effect, or put another layer over it (like a 16:9 matte), then it softens quite a bit, even when I preview at "best." Is this normal? Is this just how it is when previewing in this manner?

Also, audio is always out of sync when I preview on the external monitor, even if I offset that buffer by 4 seconds. It may stay in sync for short time, but inevitably it ends up way off. This is the audio from the computer speakers, by the way, though I believe I've tried it out through the monitor speakers, with the same results. Any ideas why?

Because your computer has to work much harder after you add the effect. Therefore, it does what it can to play in real time. The result is dropped frames which gives the "appearance" of being out of sync and causes the blurriness.

You can eliminate the blurriness by changing to one of the "full" preview modes. However, you may drop even more frames.

.psq and .plb files are used by Premiere to import sequences and batch lists, basically. They don't seem interoperable with other programs, except where other programs generate those files so that they can be imported into a Premiere project. Ergo, those programs either need to generate an EDL for Vegas, or I need to start reinventing some wheels.

Thanks for the help!

You can frame serve a project out of Premeire into Vegas correct?
www.debugmode.com

I'm not sure I understand the suggestion to frame-serve the project. I would like to be able to export the project from Premiere and continue my work in Vegas, but this probably requires actual transfer of the clip data, not just a rendered sequence. I may well be missing something here--am I?

levels
 

can the levels be adjusted like a photoshop histogram from within vegas? i want to capture directly to my hard drive for a few shots, and check with a chip chart on-screen and look at levels/color correction..

any other software i could use to just capture and color manage?

thanks

Yes

There is a histogram that allows you to monitor color levels and contrast of your video in the Video Scopes window.

I'll try it. . .though I think I've tried it before with the full modes, and still blurry. I usually don't need to see the FX in motion, just to see how a certain color or something looks. . .know what I mean?

If anyone is interested, while researching, I found a really nice explanation of illegal signals, waveform monitors and such...

http://www.execulink.com/~impact/scopes.htm

Hey, thanx Todd. This is the first time I've ever seen an explanation of Chroma limits. Usually, just the luma is referenced. Thanx again for the link.

No problem Bill! I appreciate good tech and I figured others in this forum would too. :)