In first - two different fragments (events) are two different fragments
In second - specify you Vegas
In third - to groupping 2 differen events - select audio and video files on timeline (Ctrl + left click on first and second event) after this right click - > Group - > Create new (or simply press G)

PS Sorry for my english

Thanks Newdjeen,

Worked like a charm on individual clips. I just wish there was a way to do it for two entire tracks.

I've never tried to group an entire track or group two tracks together, but if you select all the events on one or both tracks and press G to group them all together, maybe it does it -- I'm not sure.

As for splitting one event and not another, if you hit S when you have one or more events selected, it splits only those events that are selected. You do this, for example, to split the main audio and video, but leave a music track intact. On the other hand, if you have no events actively selected, it splits every event the cursor touches. It sounds like you want to do the latter. Click in an empty space below all tracks to deselect, then move the cursor where you want and hit S.

Yes, if you select a BUNCH of events and press "G", they will ALL be grouped

Splitting usually also splits everything else in the same group as well as the selected event. You can override that too, though, by turning on "Ignore Event Grouping". I would make sure to turn it back off, though.

Guys... I still need help here...
 

I can't get my computer to capture video...

It starts... but then will randomly just drop a frame and stop.

I am using vegas5-- comp stats: dual xeon 3.2mhz, 2gig ram, 750gig storage (RAID 5) and a PCI Xpress 256meg for video.

I have tried removing the 1394 in system device manager and letting it re-find it... no luck... it still drops

I have tried each of the 1394 ports.. (there are 2)--no luck

I have tried 2 different 1394 cables... no luck


HELP!
ANY IDEAS????

What motherboard? There is a huge prob with a couple of the Xeon MBs....



ash =o)

Not sure... this is a DELL Precision Workstation 670...

It captured absolutely fine when I had the system setup as RAID 0

but I have no moved to a RAID 5 because I had a system crash and had no redundancy.

I would start by trying the disc on as much computer / standalone DVD players
as I can. See if they all have the problem or not. If they do, try burning the
exact same project to another BRAND of DVD and repeat the steps above.

If the problem still persists through all that then there must be some problem
with the project or the source files.

Vegas can edit your MPEG files natively, no need to convert. Except perhaps
the audio, since it cannot edit AC-3 audio (mostly used on DVD's).

It is generally not a good idea to use such a highly compressed inter frame
compression algorithm for editing. So if you still have the original AVI sources
then use that.

Otherwise simply load the MPEG and output as WMV. Make SURE you use the
same framerate and progressive/interlaced setting. The movie should not
stutter (unless you go to 15 fps for example). Resolution / quality loss will
be a thing you'll have to live with though.

Also see my letterbox page:

www.visuar.com/letterbox/calc.htm

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!!

Basically, NO. There is no "save as Vegas 5" option and it's not backward compatible. You could render the timeline and the place that render on the Vegas 5 timeline.

DVDA2 menu questions...
 

Hi gang,

I just finished a dance recital DVD and I put together a nice little menu.

A quick synopsis for you. The main menu is a pic (.tga) of the front of the theater. I have a button on the street part of the menu pic that highlights for someone who wants to watch the kids show up for the recital in a limo. The limo "button" links to a quick clip that is identical to the menu but has a limo screeching onto screen, stopping and then zooming off the screen. It then goes to the actual limo video.

My question. Is there anyway to set up the menu so that there is no short (about 1.5 second) blank screen between the menu screen and the clip of the limo zooming onto and off of the menu screen?

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

sincerely,


ian

The only way would be to add the video of the second menu to the actual beginnin of the limo video. In other words, the limo video would INCLUDE the transition. Otherwise, the delay time you are seeing will happen and can vary from player to player. The delay is actually a player issue.

MPEG1 Constrained Flag Question
 

I'm still getting used to encoding. I am wondering is there any way to set Constraint Flags for MPEG-1 in Sony vegas. Is it automatically set at 1?

Thanks

Thanks Glen. Yeah I created a bus and assigned one track that was blown out to that bus.

vegas movie studio + DVD
 

I want to upgrade, but just so i don't confuse myself with "a lot" of new things.

i have pretty much mastered "vegas movie studio + DVD"

what will the next best software be....

thanks

Vegas 6+DVD

Everything you learned is still there. However, there is soooo much more available in the full version. You can find a comparison chart between movie studio and Vegas 6 on the Sony site. Take a look at my newsletters to see some of the things Vegas can do (link under my name).

p.s. scripts are WONDERFUL and can speed up many of the processes you had to manually do before. Vegas has scripting - movie studio doesn't.

Can i make a offline DV project
 

Hello. I have around 8 hours of HDV material. I have a P4 3,2 but still is slow. Is there any way that i could edit the whole video in DV and then renaming the files to go directly to the HDV original files?
How could i do this in vegas?

thanks!

Absolutely. Just render the files to DV, do your editing, and then replace them when you're done. In fact, Spot has a tool to make the process even easier called Gear Shift.

Couple of niggles
 

I have a couple of strange things that happen from time to time with Vegas 5 and I'm hoping they're just pilot error so that there are solutions.

One is that sometimes when I select all my tracks and Insert Time, no time is inserted. On other occasions it is. What setting or switch might be causing no time to be inserted?

The other is that sometimes when I'm trying to do a fade in or out at the end of a clip, the fade tool is just not available at the edge of the clip, even when I zoom in and pull the 2 clips apart. Most of the time it is available, just occasionally it isn't no matter what I do.

Any clues?

Thanks.

In this case, I would say the two clips are "just slightly" overlapped. Resize the clip to the left (i.e. make it smaller and then bring it back to the clip on the right). It should fade properly then.

As for the insert time, I've not seen that happen but, then again, I almost never use that function.

Difference Masking in Vegas 5
 

I found a tutorial for media pro showing a way to mask using a difference composite though for the life of me I can't figure out a way to do the same thing in Vegas. Here is the link to the tutorial

http://www.hiddenphantom.com/Tutoria...SPDiffMatt.htm

Anyone know how to do this in Vegas?

or you could try Chrominator which does all this and more such as garbage mattes and rotoscoping..

masks like this only work with static backgrounds, so any moving camera work wont work with this.


chrominator works in a similar manner, however instead of using one particular colour as a key, you can set it to read a series of colours which are the keys. It also allows fo variable gamma settings so you can literally hrow on a green cloth and it will make sure that any green elements (irrespective of their luminance)are considered keys..

i dont know why more compositing tools dont use this method, but there u have it..

That can be done to an extent in vegas already using its chroma key functions. Theoretically this could be done on an extremely complex background (a non studio situation for example) so long as lighting conditions do not change at all (I think that's part of my problem right now).

The problem I am getting right now is after doing a difference composite I'm not left with an abosolutely solid difference between the subject and the background (resulting from the subject having some of the colors of the background). I tried to render the difference footage, then black and white, and then threshold....but the threshold function seems to generate a ton of noise. I can't seem to find a way to get good contrast between the subject and background....is this perhaps not a problem that can be solved in post?

EDIT: Actually reading over my last post I realize I answered my own question. It is possible, but you still need to prepare in advance with a background that contrasts the subject eliminating the need to threshold too far (though testing in photoshop, photoshop managed to do it on a still without so many errors). It's easier to just chroma key in that case (though perhaps this may yield better quality for dv).

Click on the track headers. One of the compositing modes is DIFFERENCE. Check it out.