registering scenalyzer
 

Edward, I purchased the reg. version of scenalyzer and have received the key. Had to download to a cd from email, and upload to pc I use for editing. Under help the registration just says to copy the key and paste it in the clipboard. Again I am having no luck. It won't let me copy anywhere onto slive. I see nothing under view about a clipboard, do they just mean the track where the video is? It won't let me paste here or at the film strip at the bottom, or anywhere else. No ph # for slive, but have sent email. Any Ideas?
Thanks
Lisa

You need to copy the text from the e-mail to a text file and also take that to the editing computer. On the editing computer, open the text file and copy the the serial number to the clipboard (i.e. press CTRL-C)

Now open Scenalyzer, go to the registration screen, and paste from the clipboard (i.e. press CTRL-V)

You should be done.

I wouldn't call it a limitation. It's that way by design. Sony owns a lot of content. If Vegas had an AC3 decoder it would be almost trivial to rip DVDs and pirate them. Sony wouldn't want to do that. Hence the AC3 decoder isn't in Vegas.

Good luck.

Dennis

Instant Vegas is also a good book for beginners.

Good luck.

Dennis

Thanks for letting us know, Edward.

Good luck.

Dennis

Thanks Edward! As always, another great newsletter. And thanks for explaining the "Kids in the Picture" effect.

DVDA 3.0b Available Now
 

Notable fixes mentioned on the release notes are:

The Extras folder file size limit has been changed from 1GB to 2GB.

A bug has been fixed that could prevent chapter markers from working with multiangle video titles.

A bug has been fixed that could cause subtitles to be displayed for the duration of a video event.

Dave

Lisa,

If you ever need to just edit audio, Vegas is very capable. Add in the Sony noise reduction plugin, and it's a very effective solution for archiving an old record collection. We're presently archiving several hundred albums from the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. In addition, we've been able to clean up old-time radio programs. We are working on over 260 Gb of such programs.

I'm a fan of most things old (particularly things in public domain), and Vegas is a great way to save these collections.

Brad

Vegas 6 Audio Monitoring
 

Going to Vegas 6 from my Liquid and Avid environments. I was wondering how the external audio monitoring is handled. If I preview out to and external CRT, will the audio be in sync or is there a delay. My Avid setup has issues with this and was just wondering how Vegas handles audio synching with an external monitor. Thanks.

The audio should be in sync. For standard preview, video is sent via firewire while audio goes through the computer's speakers. If they are off, you can always fine-tune it in Options - Preferences. However, I've never had a need to do so. The default settings have worked on all machines I've seen.

Thanks Ed. Appreciate the quick reply.

How to do a transparent background in photoshop
 

Hi.

If I'm in photoshop, and I want an object to have no background, how do I accomplish this?

I want to bring something from photoshop into Vegas, without any background around the object.

I thought it was something simple like selecting transparent background, then saving as a .png or something, but I've tried this without success. Thanks.

In photoshop, use the magic wand or the magnetic lasso tool to cut out the stuff around the object. Read the help if necessary.
You may want to feather the edge of the stuff you cut out. Right-click the selection and feather it before deleting stuff. This can smooth out the edges.

Flatten everything (merge layers or something) and save a copy as a photoshop (.psd) file. You may want to scale things down, because Vegas can be really slow with large images.

A png file is nice beacause it is small and supports the alpha channel, allowing many non Adobe apps to allow the graphics layer to appear with no background. I'm not sure how Vegas handles this but as Glen said, save your artwork as a psd file. BUT! Don't flatten everything. If you do, you will include the background or white layer and you'll be back to your logo with an all white background. Import the psd and if the option exists to select the layer to import, do so.

The other way is to have no filled background in your PSD file ... just "layer 1" for example with just your art.

Then key out the alpha channel in Vegas if you can.

If the alpha channel does not appear to be working after you bring the image into Vegas, right-click the image and choose properties - now pick the proper alpha-channel option.