I use them both on a P4 3.0 2-gigs of ram using a standard ohci card without any problems. They both feed an Ikegami monitor that has two s-video inputs to monitor ntsc. Vegas uses the firewire>sony dsr20>svideo out, and I have premiere set with a Matrox Pahrlia card with s-video out for realtime preview.. The Matrox card also gives wysiwyg with After Effects pro, which is a real time saver.. So, I just A/B the monitor depending on which app I using. I also use the full Sony current versions of production suite with vegas, soundforge, acid pro, dvd arch, along side the Adobe Pro productiction suite 2.5 which is premere pro, audition, encore, and after effects. Haven't found any big problems.

anyone having trouble with mpeg 2 and Vegas 5d?
 

I've been doing some extensive trouble shooting and, for me, Vegas 5d's mpeg 2 encoder is not a happy camper. I can't render to mpeg 2 for any length of time (about 240 megs) without an error message popping up:

"An error occurred while creating the media file ____________.mpg.
The reason for the error could not be determined."

- thus I can't render to HDV m2t to export back to the Sony Z1 - in Vegas 5d. I can do it in Vegas 5b...Just trying to find out if it's just me or are other people having any trouble?

Thanks a bunch for any info,
Yoyodyne

I'm using Vegas 5d (build 194) and haven't had any trouble rendering to mpeg2. I usually render to DV AVI first and then to mpeg2 but I have also gone directly to mpeg2 with no problems.

The longest file I rendered was about 50 min long.

First, I would check where all of your various file locations are pointing and verify you have enough space in all of those locations. There are several file locations to change in both File - Properties and Options - Preferences. They all default to drive C.

*** problems reinstalling Win2k clean for Vegas Use
 

Hey all - well hopefully I can figure this problem out quickly. Yesterday I went to visit the parents and was going to wipe my mom's HD clean (it had win 98 on it still) and do a fresh install of Win2K and give her my old copy of Vegas 4 because she was interested in trying out some editing. So, we saved all of her important information and before hand, I ran the Win2k install CD on my machine to setup the four floppy boot discs for her install. I then restarted in Dos mode on her 98 machine and did a format of her c drive. Everything went fine but when I restarted with the first boot disc in, I received a weird message: I/O error, invalid disk. I also tried to restart with no boot discs and received a "non system disc or invalid disc, please enter new disc" which I think is normal since its wiped clean. I've done several clean installs of OSs with this same technique and no problems. Is it just that my boot disc was bad for some reason? (they were brand new floppies out of a box). Please someone help me as my mom is out a computer right now, and is not that happy :(

Sounds like there's an error on the first floppy. Just re-create that floppy. I've gotten to the point where I hate floppys. I can take a brand new floppy, copy a 5k file to it, carry it to another machine, and that machine can't read it. I feel I can't rely on them anymore.

Can't you just boot from the CD?

I thought it might be the boot disks, damn -

Unfortunately I can't boot from the CD as it's an older machine before you could boot from CD's - Win2k is also designed to work from boot disks on clean installs- The question is, will a floppy hold up if i mail it to her (in state but still).

Make and send two or three of each one. Surely then she can make a complete set.

ADS PYRO A/V Link - Vegas Preview External Monitor?
 

Anyone use the ADS PYRO A/V Link to preview on a TV with Vegas? I was going to buy it if it will work. Saves the wear and tear on my camera and or deck.

Thanks,

Jon

It should work fine. However, I just use my deck. If you have a deck, I really see no reason to use this. If you only have a camera, I *CAN* see a reason to use this.

I edit at my day job as well. Hauling in my sony deck is no fun. The only reason to haul in the deck is for a tv preview. This would be a cheap solution.

Thanks for the quick response. I am going to go buy one now.

Thanks,

Jon

I had heard that you can set Vegas such that dragging the end of an event would repeat the last frame, rather than re-starting the clip. I haven't been able to get this to work -- whenever I drag either end of a video clip, the clip is repeated (and Vegas puts a notch at the repeat point). Perhaps I'm missing the option that holds the first / last frame when you extend the clip in either direction?

I think it would be a useful option, because then you could just split the event where you want the freeze frame and easily extend as long as you wanted. I find using the velocity envelope a little more difficult to get right because the out point is by time, rather than by frame -- so if you have your out point set, but then put a velocity envelope on the clip, you have to redo the out point again.

Maybe it's just me -- I am still a newbie with this stuff.

How to fix grainess?
 

While watching the video I took in a dancing ballroom I noticed that there are some slight grain on my video. Yes, the lighting on the dance floor was not ideal and very dark. I was using a 10 watt light but I guess it was not enough.

Any suggestions how I can fix and possibly remove the grainess? I am very new in Vegas 5 and any help is surely appreciated.

In the future, any recommendations on how I can shoot better on a low light room without blinding those people who are dancing?

Thanks.

Yes, I use it with a Panasonic video monitor and it works very well.

To answer in reverse order;

Depends on what you're shooting with. Even a 20W light isn't "blinding" in most cases so you can turn up the juice a little OR if you're shooting with a camera with adjustable gian, say like a PD150 or 170, you can set the gain up to about 6 or 9 and still be good. Over that and it can be a bit touchy.

As for removing grain in post with Vegas, Mike Crash has a denoiser program that works pretty well. Its free and small and does a good job. I'm sorry but I can't recall his website off hand but I believe it has been posted here before in a thread or 2. I think he's out of the UK (could be wrong) so his site is mikecrash(something).UK (I think) Sorry 'bout that. I'll look for the url and if I find it I'll post it for you.

Don

If it is truly the LAST frame in the clip (not the event) then you can just drag it as long as needed with looping turned off and the last frame will be repeated.

If it's NOT the last frame, my preferred method is the velocity envelope.

Jon, if you're having to carry it back and forth between places, then I can see how it would be better than a deck. It should do you a good job.

Track Motion Drift
 

I'm trying to have a video clip fall through the frame. I have movement in X axis locked, but after I set the begininng adn ending key frames, it still drifts out right after the start of movement. Any ideas why it might be doing this?

First of all, make sure the "smoothness" setting for all keyframes is set to 0 (default is 100).

Next, make sure you don't have any EXTRA keyframes.

I have already entered a number of keyframes, I need to change two tracks worth of keyframes to 0 smoothness, is there any quick way to force that for the duration of the whole track?

Unfortunately, you need to do them one at a time. Did you test it on a couple and did it work?

Helped much! Thanks again Ed!



Now for the hard part....I'm trying to fly cookie cutter squares from off screen, but they seem to not want to go all the way off. Is there another tool I can fly from off the screen ? I am tring to segue from moving images to moving masks over a full screen image (black with small moving masks showing through to the under image) following the same movement pattern as the track motions.

I figured. I didn an install with it on a vegas version a few back and had some problems but 5 thus far seems very solid. I"m a user and fan of DVD architect so thought' i'd give it a shot.

Thanks.

You may want to check your bios settings. A lot of times, computers are shipped with "boot from diskette" turned off. That would mean system is still trying to boot from c drive. Are you seeing/hearing diskette drive activity when you boot?

Yes, when I was trying to boot, the 3.5 inch drive light came on and I heard disk activity.

Thanks, Edward.

Second Monitor
 

Any input would be great. I'm using an ATI 9600XT video card. DVI connection to primary monitor and VGA to secondary. When I employ the second monitor in Vegas the screen is real dark with a blue tint to it. I can't figure out why. Thank you

why does it look like that??
 

In my project I have scenes where it speeds up and slows down. When I render it the video looks good on windows media player but when I brun it to dvd it don't look smooth or clean ( the speeding part) same goes with scenes that fades in and out. I tried changing the field order also. The final render is on avi file and the recorder is a sony dvd recorder gx7. NLE on vegas 4.0 Any feed back is appreciated.

Is it just in Vegas or on all programs? If it is that way in all programs, I don't think you can do much other than adjust the hardware color levels / brightness / contrast to taste. I don't think the PC allows for ICC color profiling of two monitors at the same time.

FWIW, my second monitor is not color corrected, while my "main" monitor is -- so the second monitor has a slightly different color balance to it. But since I use it only for tool palettes in programs like Vegas, Photoshop, etc., it doesn't really matter.

Also, just thinking -- you might see if your video "control panel" settings allow for different color curves. Mine doesn't.

I think it is possible, but you need the right profiling suite. I know ColorVision does not ('coz that's what I have), but I think GretagMacbeth and MonacoVision do.

What happens if you turn on supersampling?

Are you going through firewire to your video camera and then from your camera to the second monitor via s-video or composite? I believe that is the correct setup for previewing Vegas on an external monitor.

I have got cookie cut images to move totally offscreen by setting the z values to -600 or -700 in the 3D track motion.

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : What happens if you turn on supersampling? -->>>

Whats supersampling? Sorry but I'm a newbie.

search for "Supersample" in the help file. That will give you all the info you need to turn it on and explain what it does. However, it will drastically increase your render time.

Steve, yes as far as previewing on an external monitor but I'm referring to having the Vegas layout across two computer monitors. Thanks

fix it. its not vegas its the gx7 recorder's settings...changed it from SP to HQ looks good now. Thanks!!

I have a letterbox calculator and matte downloads available:

www.visuar.com/letterbox/calc.htm

I have no idea what could cause that white line you are describing.

Did this problem not happen when testing the workflow?

I would switch to work on the original source files. Yes it may be
a lot slower, but you should not have that problem at least!

Did you try to use any other interfaces? I have had my share of
(driver) problem with the m-audio sonica USB audio device. The
newer drivers never seemed to work (with digital out), the old
one that came with the CD did. You may want to play around with
driver versions etc.