Rob,

1. I know Vegas can edit my MPEG files natively...I wanted to know if anyone had any experience converting MPEG to AVI.

2. I wanted to convert MPEG to AVI because it "is generally not a good idea to use such a highly compressed inter frame compression algorithm for editing."

3. I don't have the AVI files, so I need to convert the MPEG back to AVI.

4. Converting MPEG to WMV does create resolution loss and stuttering...again, that's why I was asking about anyone's experience in converting MPEG back to AVI and then editing.

Brent:
1- You probably shouldn't start multiple threads on your problem. Just add a post to your original thread so people can see past replies. Your thread will get bumped to the top automatically.

2- What about taking the RAID 5 out of the equation? Can you capture to the system drive or non-RAID drive?

Interesting, I wonder if the DVX follows that formula down to the pixel, i.e. 16:9 = picture height 364 pixels 76% and bar height 58 pixels 12%

My estimates from blowing the image up and moving the cropping tool to what appears to be the exact edge of the image is about 372....



...Well, I found a very in-depth thread over at DVXUSER on this subject: http://www.dvxuser.com/V3/showthread...x+pixels+7200G

Barry Green says:

"..letterbox on the NTSC DVX100 (original model) adds 54-pixel bars on the top and bottom of the frame. *That leaves a 720 x 372 image in the middle.

Using a strict interpretation of 4:3 (which would mean a basic frame size of 640 x 480) you get 1.72:1. *However, DV video isn't a pure mathematical 4:3, because TV screens provide for a few pixels more...

Using the Vegas aspect ratio of .9091 you'd get (655/372) 1.76:1. *That's within a pixel or two of being exactly 16:9.

Using the Vegas cropping preset of 16:9, it crops the letterbox bars exactly, and one pixel more (i.e., Vegas thinks the letterbox bars should be one pixel thicker than the DVX thinks they should be).

So, it'd be fair to say that the letterbox bars in the original NTSC DVX100 are almost exactly 16:9, maybe just the tiniest bit taller, at 1.76:1 instead of 1.7777777:1."

There are 4 drives in the system.... each 250gig... under RAID 5 they make about 750 gig....
There is No System Drive.


I will hook up an external firewire and try to capture...
You are right, that should help me pintpoint things a bit...
To see if its the drive system, or perhaps the firewire card`

the easiest way to do this (and the safest in case of drive failure) is to run each drive as a seperate unit.

also go out and buy an 80gb drive and use that as a system drive.

ive got 5 drives here
80gb, partitioned as 30gb for system, 15gb for personal use, and the rest is all business documents and artwork etc

i have 3 200gb drives and 2 120gb

the 2 200s are for raw material. it allows me to work on 2 longform projects at once. theyr not raided, but if they were and one was o fail, id prolly lose the lot, so i went the other way. Id rather smaller drives as i can easily defrag and manage tehm as well as swap them around when i need to.

the other drives store music, and the prerenders, and anything thats been masterd.

i find this to be aa efficient workflow when working with this high capacity. segregating drives also allows for finite diagnostics as well as management of data

Thanks guys, I think I found my problems. 1) I have a 128 GB hard drive, I only had 3.2 GB of free space left, and, when I was doing the burn it was giving me a warning that I was VERY CLOSE to exceeding the 4.7 GB max on the dvd. I cut the progect in half and ran it on two disks. So far no problem.

Subtitles?
 

I have a 15 min training video that I need to add subtitles to...

Any tips for creating subtitles in Vegas 5? I'm aware of this ability in DVDA, but I don't use the software.

Anyone done this in vegas?

Thanks!

Are you talking about subtitles, as in providing translation, or closed-captioning, as in providing for those who can't hear the audio?

Jay

Sorry, I suppose I should have been more clear -- subtitles for translation...

Thanks for the reply --

DVD Burner/CD Question
 

Can I get rid of my CD/ROM and just use my DVD PLayer/burner as a general all around media player?

Yes. .

I add subtitles sometimes in V5 because my kids speak Chinese, which the granparents don't understand. It works fine but it is very labor intensive.

You will have to play around a bit to see how long to leave the subtitles on. Also, be careful to keep them on the viewable area of the screen. You can use the templates on the preview to make sure they stay in the viewable area. Finally, you may want to use bold and change the size of the font to make them more watchable.

What I meant by the following:

"is generally not a good idea to use such a highly compressed inter frame compression algorithm for editing."

Was that it is better to edit in the original format if you still have it.

Since you only have the MPEG file it should NOT matter in what you edit. The
quality will be the same since the source is that lossy compressed MPEG file.
No way around that. The only reason you may want to convert it to AVI is
to speed up the editing process.

However, Vegas can transform that MPEG into AVI as well, but I suspect you
tried that and got the same problem.

What you have not told us is what settings you are using:

1. what are the project settings when exporting to AVI or WMV?

2. what are the EXACT (including advanced!!) EXPORT settings when exporting to AVI or WMV?

How large is the MPEG-2 file and what did you use to create it?

You say in the latest post:

" Converting MPEG to WMV does create resolution loss and stuttering "

I'm confused. Is this with Windows Media Encoder (as you said in the first
post) or is this with Vegas, or both?

Ed To The Rescue Again.
 

Thanks. It just doesn't make sense to have both cluttering up my internal bays. I used the extra space for an enhanced IDE hard drive.

Save to Previous Version
 

Okay, say for some crazy reason I created a file in Vegas 6.0b, but now what to open that project in Vegas 5.0a..... can this be done?


Thanks for the help!!