I agree with John. I just scan images at whatever size they are. Vegas will handle everything nicely. I DO make sure I apply a "Match Aspect" to each of the images. Add some nice zooms and pans and you'll be done!

Thanks a lot fellas, It was the split screen indeed.
Regards,
Bernard

Arggggh!
 

Has anyone had problems with Vegas crashing when rendering an m2t file?

I have a project that's about 20 mins long, and it crashes every time I try to render it, sometimes it locks up the whole system, sometimes I just get the 'your program has crashed' prompt, sometimes the whole system reboots.

I rendered a previous project off the same m2t files that was 15 mins long and had no problems.

It's not consistant at all, sometimes it crashes right away, sometimes 14% through, one time 56%, so it doesn't seem to be a certain point in the footage.

Nothing fancy, cuts and crossfades, I'm rendering Mainconcept HDV 1080 60i setting.

When it crashed with the message prompt the details said the mpgvout module was to blame but it didn't give much more info.

For Edward: upgrade excalibur from 3.0?
 

Hi Edward --

Can I upgrade from ver 3.0 and recieve the plugin via emal? If so how and where can I purchase this and how long will it take to recieve the new version?

Thanks -- love the plugin...

Just go to www.jetdv.com/excalibur where you can download the demo (just unlock with the registration key and it's also the full version) and start using it immediately unlimited for two weeks. There's also a "buy" button there which will lead to a page that shows the upgrade pricing from 3.0 to 4.5.

It is preferred that you use www.jetdv.com for these types of questions as it was set up to handle any issues related to Excalibur.

Bad news. Thanks, Edward. Maybe in Vegas 7. :-(

I'm trying to just get a good render right now - since the .AVI wouldn't play without the images jumpy (on another PC).

So I rendered to MPEG2 (which I think is required for DVD creation anyway??) - and it played without jumping on the other PC. But it did crash windows media player with a memory error (on the other PC!). So I think that the virus software and other suggestions you have made might help that.

What is the best format to render to (.AVI vs MPEG2)?

It depends on what you are doing. If you're going to DVD, rendering to MPEG2 is fine. If you want to keep a higher quality file, render to AVI. Now, you didn't specify what format of AVI you were using. Common is DV-AVI which should play quite well. However, if you go to "Uncompressed" AVI, it could certainly stutter and takes a LOT more disk space.

I could not find DV-AVI as an option when I render.

Is that just using NTSC DV as the template?

Why would using MPEG-2, which goes on a DVD, be lesser quality? I'm confused - wouldn't DVD want a better quality?

Yes, pick "AVI" as the file type and then NTSC DV as the preset. That is DV-AVI.

MPEG2 is much more highly compressed than DV. For example, if you put 2 hours on a DVD, you're taking 26Gig of source and compressing that to just over 4 Gig. And, yes, that will reduce the quality - especially if you're wanting to do future editing.

Ok - I'm starting to understand - I think.

So, I created each "chapter" as a different Vegas project. I thought I would render each of these to .AVI (since they are made up of .AVI and JPG anyway). I didn't think I would be losing any quality with this.

Each of these .AVI segments would then be put into a new project that put the whole thing together.

That's when I realized that the .AVI wasn't working well. Should a NTSC DV .AVI play on another PC with WINDOWS MEDIA player? Or is that NTSC DV only going to play in Vegas?

How can I make sure that a file I render is good quality? Will rendering be affected by virus software, or will it simply slow down while something like that runs?

Yes, a DV-AVI file should play fine on another PC with WMP. Virus software would simply slow things down.

Are you using Vegas 6b by chance. 6c clears up a bug that crashes Vegas during memory intensive renders.

Frame Accuracy???
 

Occasionally when I render a timeline in Vegas (24p), I find that it is inserting a duplicate frame at some point in the timeline. When I then overlay the new rendered footage over the old region, it is not frame accurate! It is off by one frame! It only seems to happen with codecs other than DV.

And the duplicate frame happens in exactly the same spot each time!

Any ideas??

Thanks Edward --

Will do. Wasn't sure where to find you as I've only known you from these boards.

Will redirect all matters excalibur to there in the future!

Thanks Laurence, I am using B, I hadn't checked for an update in a while. I did get it to finally render though. I have an ASUS motherboard that has automatic overclocking and I didn't notice that because I haven't had this many crashes before, but I set it to STANDARD and it rendered fine. It must have been overheating. But I will definately check out 6c. Thanks again.

As an aside I'd like to mention that the Gearshift plugin rocks on multiple levels. It made editing all that HDV footage a breeze. Those VASST fellas make some nice stuff.

If you downloaded yesterday, you may want to check back today and get the new 4.6 version. Click on the What's new in version 4.6? button for details on some of the changes in this version.

Gearshift is really cool, but IMO Cineform's ConnectHD is the way to go for HD.

I can get in today. And Excalibur 4.6 is out? Thanks Edward!

Yep. Just made it visible this morning. Click on the "What's New" link to see the major changes. Pay particular attention to the new Quick Label tool!

The Cineform stuff is good. But, I like the speed at which I can work with the proxies, and the space they take up on the harddrive is the same as the raw m2t files. An hour of footage is about 12 gigs. I don't have a blazing fast system, but it's pretty good, Hyperthreaded P4 3.2Ghz with 2 gigs of ram. It handles the Cineform stuff ok, but it handles DV stuff really fast, so I make all my edits, switch gears, color correct and render out. Maybe when I get a dual core system I'll edit in full HDV res. But when I'm used to editing at a certain speed, it's hard to change those habits.

Well I have what used to be cool: a 3.06 P4 (533 bus) with 2 gig of ram. Anyway, it's a little less horsepower than you have. Gearshift is definately cool, I have it as well. I still like Cineform with the ConnectHD capture utility better.

The Cinneform ConnectHD capture utility converts clips as you capture them and the size is not much bigger than the M2T and proxy files added together. Some of the Cineform features like scene separation and smartrendering are really important to me. I've noticed some pretty bad errors rendering from M2T to M2T and quite frankly, I just don't trust it.

This is the sort of discussion that shows that HDV is maturing as a format...

It's good to see this sort of informed appraisal of the benefits of HDV editing tools coming from the rapidly growing band of HDV camera owners.

Similar problem
 

I had a similar problem downconverting 1440 x 1080 and 1280 x 720 to SD - Pal. On a few points an "irregular" frame instead of the "right" one apeared. So far it happened not when I stayed in the same format.

Richard

Usually the playback of NTSC - DVDs is no Problem - actually quite a few music - DVDs in the NTSC - Format are sold in Europe. With decent hardware there is no problem. But especially in some cheap DVD players NTSC can result in very bad picture quality. But it will be watcheable. From my experience (TV an DVDs) convertet material from NTSC to Pal usually looks terrible (framerate conversion, brownisch, soft, muddy picture). So as a Custoner I would always prefer a "real" NTSC - DVD over a coverted product.

Richard from Pal Country

Did it actually repeat a frame and throw off the entire sequence? That's what's happening here. And in my case it IS staying in the same format, which makes it even more bizarre.

The following is my reply to a message about repeating frames in Vegas. While it was about 29.97 fps vs. 29.97002997, it may be applicable to 24 fps vs 23.976.

----------------------------------------

Is this footage that you have captured with the Vegas capture utility or is this footage from another source? Unlike every other video program, Vegas uses a frame rate of 29.970029970 (30000/1001), whereas everyone else uses 29.970 (2997/100).

Curiously, the Vegas frame rate it is absolutely correct and everyone else is doing it wrong. (Well, not wrong exactly, just less precise.)

I have noticed that when I bring in footage which was created or processed outside of Vegas, the frames on the timeline may not match up to the "ticks." One more annoying and very noticable effect is that if if you use footage that has been created outside Vegas and place it on the timeline, at 2 seconds 28 frames from the beginning of the clip, it will repeat a frame regardless of where you put it in the timeline. Usually, this isn't noticeable but its guaranteed to happen. Once I had a logo animation and at 2 seconds 28 frames into the animation, there was a really quick move and the animation would stutter at that point. It drove me NUTS until I figured out what was going on. I raised a stink about it here on the forums a year or more ago, but the reply I got from Sony ( then Sonic Foundry) was that they couldn't help it if they were doing the frame rate correctly and everyone else was doing it wrong.

The workaround turned out to be re-writing the header of the AVI file and change it from 2997/100 to 30000/1001 and that fixed it.

A Sony Vegas forum member named "Brazilian" came to the rescue and wrote a command-line program called "Speedmangler" which changes the header in a 29.97 fps AVI to 29.97002997 for use within Vegas. (It will also do the reverse.) I use it ALL the time and it has been a lifesaver. You can download it from my web site here:

http://www.johncline.com/speedmangler.zip

Here is the ReadMe file from the Speedmangler program:

-----------------------
SpeedMangler
-----------------------

SpeedMangler attempts to mangle the framerate of an AVI file to the exact framerate of NTSC video, which is actually (30000/1001)fps, or to any framerate you want.

Some other apps mark their NTSC AVIs as 29.97 even, which causes a speed mismatch in other apps that use the more precise framerate calculation and can cause frames to drop or repeat. For example, Adobe's After Effects writes it's movies as 2997/100, whereas Sonic Foundry's Vegas captures and operates at 30000/1001.

SpeedMangler needs to be run from a command prompt (Start Menu -> Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt, or use the keyboard Windows Key+R and type "cmd")

Usage: SpeedMangler.exe [filename] [rate] [scale]

[rate] and [scale] are optional arguments to set the rate and scale arbitrarily; If not specified, they default to 30000 and 1001 respectively.

NOTE: Altering the framerate with SpeedMangler does not actually resample the video frames; Drastically changing the framerate will cause audio in the AVI file to no longer be in sync.
---------------------------------

You can use the SpeedReader.exe utility to see what frame rate is actually written into the header of the file and use SpeedMangler.exe to change it. I haven't looked at a 24 fps file, but perhaps external video programs are using 2397/100 instead of 24000/1001 which would be 23.97 fps vs 23.976023976 fps (which is, no doubt, the rate which Vegas uses.)

John

The Mike Crash deinterlace plugin was updated recently. Anyone who has been using it a while should make sure they've downloaded the latest version.

Copy audio/video from one project to another?
 

Can I copy an audio and video track from one Vegas project and paste into another (preserving envelops and edits)?

I need to save/copy (then import/paste) a short section of combined video and audio -- not import the original files into the different project...

Whadayathink?

Thanks --

Yes, just open 2 instances of Vegas and copy and paste from one to the other. This is for Vegas 5. I think in Vegas 6 you can nest one project within another.

Thanks Tony --

Didn't realize that I could open two instances of Vegas...

How about copying effects? Two of my audio tracks have 3 plugs each in the track FX section. Sure would be nice to copy efects rather than having to load each and reset all over again.

The copy/paste went fine -- volume envelopes and all, but no effects copied to new...

Thanks for the help...

Running Vegas 5 btw

There are proably other ways to copy the effects (maybe in Excalibur or even Vegas itself?) but what I currently do is save the effects as a chain using Ultimate S2 and then re-open the chain in the 2nd Vegas instance.

TRACK level effects cannot be copied between projects. You have to manually save and load them. Creating chains is a good alternative - either in Vegas itself or with Ultimate S. Excalibur can add the effects but doesn't save chains.

Yeah -- I created chains... would be nice to have a copy FX function... no?

Thanks again...

Does re-rendering lose quality in image?
 

Hi, guys. I've heard differing views on this, so I'd like to hear your take.

If I re-render a file that's already been rendered, does it lose ANY quality in definition? What if I re-render it several times?

Thank you,

Ruben

Can Vegas pixallate a specific area?
 

I'm trying to mask some number plates. Only way I know is to use masking key frames. They dun look good as I only know how to use a solid colour. I would like to use pixallation instead.Can someone advise if I can make use of masking/beziers to achieve the effect?Or do I use a cookie cutter on a seperate track?

Edward Troxel discusses a blurring technique (Blurring Faces a la “Cops”) in Vol. #1 Issue #12 of his newsletters.
http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20 to download it.

Masking/beziers can also be used for this purpose. Once again, go to Edward's newsletters, this time Vo.l #3 Issue #3 (Beginner’s Corner - Bezier Masks) at http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/viewtopic.php?t=630

Mike

As long as you don't change anything (such as doing a dissolve), there won't be any difference.

Nope. The Vegas DV codec is very good :-)

Well because I've decided to do same thing (NTSC footage to PAL DVD) this is what I want to add for the discussion.

I agree with most that was said but actually many of the players sold might actually to be set up to play back the NTSC on PAL only TV (at least the set up for output signal to be PAL should be done). It's other thing that many of the TVs in Europe are Multi system so you don't have to worry about that issue either.

And the second thing I want to point out is that we are talking about AUTHORING to PAL from NTSC raw footage I guess (not recompressing MPEG2 NTSC to PAL)

As I said I'm determined to use change in project and render the original NTSC project to both NTSC and PAL (once at a time). What do you think the results would be in such case?

I agree with Mike DEPENDING on what you are rendering from and to. If you have a DV-AVI file and render that to a DV-AVI file with no changes made on the timeline, the resulting file will be identical to the original file. If you render an MPEG2 file to an MPEG2 file, you will lose quality as each frame will be decompressed and recompressed.

SO... it depends on your source and destination formats. If you stick with DV-AVI, all will be fine.