What about deleting the file and recapturing? Sometimes I'll open a Vegas project just to have an error pop up telling me that Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to shut down. All I can figure is there's a corrupt file in there, because if I delete them and recapture it goes away.

I don't know; might not be at all related to your dilemma.

making a slide show
 

i'm using vegas 4..don't laugh..vegas 6 is still out of stock on bhphotovideo.com
i usually scan my pictures. but i have pictures that was shot on a digital camera. loaded into hard drive, open it in vegas and plot them on the time line. when i go to preview them it looks fine. but when its rendered to avi and play it on wmp 9 it looks like crap. can someone tell me what i am doing wrong?

thanks

Vol 1 #8 of my newsletter has an article on doing slide shows. The basics are:

1) Set Match Aspect
2) Reduce Interlace Flicker
3) Render at BEST

holly smack...a vegas guru. sorry but i'm still a newbie. i'll bookmark your forum. thanks a million!!!

Someone throw me a freakin bone. Am I does it not come with a cineform codec

GL2 Audio Problem In Vegas Video
 

Ok here's my problem! I just got a brand new GL2 last week, I was previously using GL1. I took it out of the box, and was ready to rock I went and did the job a two day shoot I got home, and was prepared to start capturing video hooked the cam up, I'm using Vegas 6 I went to capture video, and could only see the video I got no audio so, I unplugged the firewire left the cam on VCR, and hit play I can see the video, and hear it. I then hooked up the GL1 went to capture I can see the video, and hear it I unplugged the GL1, and hooked up a VX2000 I can see the video, and hear it so I'm stumped. I did what I thought would be the next best move I called Canon, alot of good that did me! No answers. I now have the GL2 back in the box, and am getting ready to send it back, but I'm not a 100% sure if there is something wrong with it. Somebody please help me! I am in GL confusion...

Thank You,
Bob Bowers

Vegas Capturing Question(s)
 

Hi all

I have three questions relating to capturing within Vegas, all SD DV.

1. I have some footage from an XL2 recording with 4 channel sound. I haven't found a way yet to capture this using vegas and present all 4 channels. Any ideas ? (Currently I use scenalyzer).

2. Is there a 'vegas' way to fast index tapes (in a similar way to scenalyzer) .

3. Are all capture programs equal when capturing DV AVI files ? In other words, is there an advantage to using Vegas to capture from a Codec point of view ?

Many thanks
Declan

Thankyou for the suggestions.
I'll have to wait until next week before I can try (it's on my work computer).

3. As far as I'm aware, it's just a transfer of information if you are caturing as dv avi so which program you use should not matter, unless you capture using somthing like canopus dvstorm which will make it a reference avi

I think you render to avi and select the relevant HDV intermediate template (can't quite remember though - also I don't use HDV so I haven't actually used it, just played with it) you can check the description box or customise dialog as it'll say it uses the cineform codec.

I'm not sure, but I think it's a cut down version or something as it doesn't give you the options to set quality vs size.

David? (maybe this should be in the Cineform area?)

1. I have some footage from an XL2 recording with 4 channel sound. I haven't found a way yet to capture this using vegas and present all 4 channels. Any ideas ? (Currently I use scenalyzer).

((Ive never used it, so id be lying if i tried to work through it.. personally if i need to record more than 2 channels, id be using a mp3 or minidisc recorder.. better quality, and none of this 12bit 32k garbage.. sorry but it sucks... ))

2. Is there a 'vegas' way to fast index tapes (in a similar way to scenalyzer) .
((Batch capture in advanced capture tools within vidcap.. why youd want to index a capture before the capture is beyond me.. but its there.. i usualy just hit capture tape and let Vidcap do the work.
I then save the capture file (not the media) to a different drive for safekeeping.. if a HDD fails, at least i can recapture as a batch capture and everything is as it was.. i also do this with the actual project in question.. Vegas also has a media offline option of recpaturing (using vegas references or by using the vidcap references.. but once in an edit, u wont need the vidcap references.. im babbling.. ))


3. Are all capture programs equal when capturing DV AVI files ?
In other words, is there an advantage to using Vegas to capture from a Codec point of view ?
((well vegas captures DV AVI and stills from tape.. thats about it..
codecs.. well for avi2, theres really not all that much difference when it comes to software based codecs, however for those codecs within a canopus system or a matrox system, codec utilisation is paramount for the realtime stuff..
I havent noticed much of a difference between matrox and canopus dv codecs <MPG codecs are a huge difference.. but thats another issue), but i have noticed SW based codecs can be slightly "cleaner" than HW based one.. it could just be me though...

I believe that scenalyzer is the only way to capture all 4 channels. Vegas still doesn't offer this feature.

Nope. Once again, stick with scenalyzer.

Capturing is really a misnomer. It should be called transferring as all you're doing is transferring digital data from one medium (tape) to another (hard drive). Codecs don't come into the picture until you do a render with effects. Emphasis on "with effects" because, if the clips are assembled as straight cuts on the timeline, no rendering is done, just transferring once again.

Mike

I agree on all counts. Scenalyzer is the way to go for 4-channel audio. Vegas Vidcap also doesn't have anything similar to the fast index. As for capturing, it doesn't even use a codec. The codec comes into play when you play back the footage and change the footage (i.e. add an effect and render) so you'll get the same quality whether you use Scenalzyer or Vegas Vidcap.

Hard to say exactly but it could be a bad firewire port on the camera. You seem to have ruled out the wire by testing on two other cameras. Did you try the GL2 again AFTER testing the other two?

A couple of questions re: Vegas 5
 

Hello all,

Here are my questions.

#1 - Is there an option to determine how often autosave...autosaves?

#2 - I have my .veg files saved by name and number... ie: show001.veg
Is there a "shortcut" so that I can just hit, say, F12, and it will automatically save the .veg file as the next in the series?

#3...oops. OK, THREE questions. Is there an option to set the "fade offset" to a specific fade (angled, straight line) AND duration (say, 10 frames) at each cut?

Thanks for the assist.

sincerely,


ian

Thanks for all those comments.

in response to:

Just to clarify, I used 4 ch sound on a wedding (front stereo mic for atmos & general) and a radio mic on Ch3). 12 bit 32Khz is perfectly fine for this. Let's face it, 32Khz sampling will easily reproduce 15Khz signals (nyquist), and with 4095 discrete volume sampling points, only the purist would be able to tell, especially when played back through a tele! Yes it's not as good as 48Khz 16-bit, but it depends on what you are capturing. For dialogue 32Khz is more than enough in most situations (in my opinion), obviously not for everyone.

As for indexing the tapes, I find it essential. Each tape is labelled with only a number reference. The indexing not only means I have a graphical list of clips, but also in-out points, whether it is 16:9, interlaced or progressive etc etc. My workflow is, take tape out of camera, lock it & index it. When I then come to edit I can glance through the index file, pick the clips that I need (or candidate clips) and only capture those onto the harddisk without having to capture & store all unwanted clips. Also for stock footage I can search a database of tapes and pick out the exact clip * timecodes etc. Most handy. I got fed up of continually playing tapes looking for a particular clip that I wanted. I just spent a day indexing the whole lot once (only takes 5 mins per tape). Job done, no more searching. Big time saver.

At least I know now the limitations of Vegas for both Audio & indexing and as the "capturing" doesn't introduce re-running through a codec, I will stick to Scenalyzer. (unless there's a better way!!)

Thanks all for your input.

#1 - Is there an option to determine how often autosave...autosaves?

Every 5 minutes


#2 - I have my .veg files saved by name and number... ie: show001.veg
Is there a "shortcut" so that I can just hit, say, F12, and it will automatically save the .veg file as the next in the series?

Excalibur has the "Save Emergency VEG" tool which will save the project in multiple locations appending the date/time at the push of a button (just push that button instead of the standard save button). I believe the new version of Ultimate S may have a similar feature.


#3...oops. OK, THREE questions. Is there an option to set the "fade offset" to a specific fade (angled, straight line) AND duration (say, 10 frames) at each cut?

First of all, go to Options - Preferences - Editing tab and set the options there however you desire. You can also using scripting to adjust the lengths of fades and the types of fades.

Sorenson for NTSC-PAL Conversion
 

Gents, living in PAL land, I need to make up DVD's for some folks in NTSC land.

Would Sorenson be a tool which can be used for this?

These are training DVD's and are meant for 4:3 viewing mostly.

Any other suggestions welcome.

Cheers

http://www.dvfilm.com/atlantis/

I have used this going from NTSC to PAL and was pleased. It's a small standalone program that can process batches in the background, works on Macs and PC's

http://www.nattress.com/standardsConversion.htm

People say good things about Graeme's package also (he's a member here), but it only works on the Mac with FCP.

To RAID or not to RAID
 

Ok from my previous thread I learned that multi drives are possible and not a problum. Step 1. Now I have done some research about RAID setups from other threads but I am still left with the lingering question.

Which is preferable:

1 400gb hard drive

or

2 hard drives (possible 200/250) hooked up in a RAID 0.

My motherboard is an asus p4p800-e and has:

Promise 20378 raid controller for raid 1/0.

It seems cost wise I can get either 1 400 or 2 200s for about the same.

Also, when Im pricing hardives I see Ultra ATA and serial ATA which should I be looking for? Thanks!

Two drives or more. One for programs, (C drive) and one for video and Audio files. If you have three, then seperate for programs, video, and audio. No raid 0, unless you are very brave. Two 200 drives better than one. It is faster.

Mike

Thanks for the respoce. Sorry for stating this first. I have a drive im using for my c: now and want to add more space for video. were dumping documentary footage on and it is way way more then my 150 gb im using for vid now can handle.

So your saying that you would use two 200gb over one 400, and that you would NOT Raid 0 them? I will only be storing video on them and will have the logs and project files backed up, so worse comes to worse I could always online them again.

thanks!

if you are on a pc, be sure and evaluate procoder.

The 1 400GB hard drive is preferable. However, you may also want to consider rebate deals on hard drives. Some of them are pretty good. See hot deals sites for your country. You may not necessarily be able to grab a 400GB drive in a deal like that (although it would be preferable).

2- To make life simple for yourself, I wouldn't mess around with RAID 0. It's marginally faster at best (in some cases can be slower), and it does use your time setting it up. And it doubles your data loss. You're probably more productive not RAIDing.

3- Whichever you have hard drive controllers left for. The P4P800-e should have 3-4 PATA channels (so that's 6-8 PATA devices, including optical/CD/DVD drives) and 2 or more SATA controllers. Check the manual or website though.

SATA may need a specific power cable, which your PSU may not have. You may need an adapter.
a SATA drive also needs SATA cables- your motherboard should have come with one.

How do I render back to an m2t file in Vegas?
 

How do I render back to an m2t file in Vegas?


HDV file format?


thanks

I am curious as to why you would say one 400 over two 200s. If he is obviously looking for a speed improvement as well as capacity, (asking about raid 0), then it would seem one for video and one for audio would be best, and what is reccommended by software manufactures.

Would like to know why you say one big drive? Is it just for more video room?

Thanks ahead of time----Mike

1. File > Render As...
2. Save as type: MainConcept MPEG-2 (*.mpg)
3. Template: HDV 1080-60i (for NTSC or 50i if you are PAL).

Ignore the fact that the filename has .mpg in the name. When it renders the filename will be changed to .m2t.

~jr

The DVD specification requires that you render to MPEG-2. Most DVD players also have a compatibility mode for MPEG-1 but the quality is much lower. (In fact it may even be part of the spec but you wouldn’t want to use it) WMV9 is not part of the DVD specification. (caveat: although some newer DVD players are beginning to support WMV, you would be hard pressed to find one so unless you own one, and you only make DVD’s for yourself that no one else can use, don’t even consider WMV)

In Vegas your should:

1. File > Render As...
2. Save as type: MainConcept MPEG-2 (*.mpg)
3. Template: DVD Architect NTSC video stream (for NTSC or PAL video stream if you are working in PAL).

That will render your video only. Then to render the audio choose:

1. File > Render As...
2. Save as type: Dolby Digital AC-3 (*.ac3)
3. Template: Stereo DVD (or 5.1 Surround DVD if your project has surround sound)

The reason you want to process these separately is to avoid your audio being compressed twice, once to MPEG and then to AC3.

You can automate this process by using the Batch Render script. Go into Tools > Scripting > Batch Render and select the same two options as above for video and audio. It will process one after the other.

Note: Keep you filenames the same e.g., MyProject.mpg and MyProject.ac3. Then when you drop them in DVD Architect, it will know that the AC3 file is for the MPG file and load them both. Otherwise you will have to manually assign the video and audio.

~jr

Working With Uncompressed?
 

So I was editing a short a few weeks ago and it was my first time really pushing for the highest quality I could go for. I am curious, however, as to the improvement of working with uncompressed SD footage after it has been dumped to the hard drive. Here is what I did:

Tape (DV) > Hard Drive (DV) > 60i to 24p (DV) > edited at 24p (DV) and rendered as 24p uncompressed avi > CC and grading (uncompressed) > compressed back to DV for audio work.

Now, to my eye, the uncompressed CC and grading doesn't add any sort of "blocks" (assuming this is compression?) to the footage when doing the same with DV footage. The only thing is, how can this be if the footage originated as DV?

Can anyone tell me if I am just seeing things, or if this really makes a difference? The only drawback I see is the large file size, which is significant for me as I don't have unlimited storage.

Harlow, take a look at Vol 1 #7 of my newsletter where I discuss the entire DVD process including a bitrate chart so your rendered video can be the proper size to fit on the disc.

That's an awful lot of renders if you're wanting to keep the highest quality. Let's skip a few of those renders. How about if you start with your standard DV, edit in DV, and do the final render in DV? You're not gaining any quality by going to uncompressed since you're starting with DV.

I don't think it I was very clear there.

As far as reliability goes, I believe a single drive would be a little more reliable.
With 2 drives, you'll have more heat and that will slightly increase the chance of the upper drive failing (since heat rises).

As well, it could be that the contents of one drive is useless without the other (which would be implicit in RAID 0). So if one drive fails, all your data becomes useless. In this way you kind of double your risk of losing your data.

You could make an argument for 2 drives- cost and/or performance can be better (in most but not all cases).

2- I wouldn't split audio and video between drives. I would find that harder to manage, since your whole project isn't just in one folder.

3- I'm a fan of bigger hard drives because they are more future-proof. You can use them in your next system. If you have a bunch of small hard drives, that can be more expensive because each drive need room, power, cooling, and hard drive controllers.

4- Your best option may be to look for a rebate deal on a hard drive or two. This is the cheapest option, and will probably still be the cheapest even when you consider what I wrote for 3. 400GB rebate deals may not be that common. You should be able to find a deal on a 250/300GB drive.

In the US, some hot deals sites are:
gotapex.com
bensbargains.net
fatwallet.com
I would check out what people say in the forums, as you can usually get some good info there (i.e. what to do to make sure you get the rebate).
*I live in Canada, so I don't know how good those US sites are.

5- Performance isn't a big deal with DV. It could matter if you render intermediary files a lot (or render out files for 3rd party programs and you can't use Satish' frame server).

Simple keyboard shortcut binding question
 

Hi all,


Looked through the keyboard preference window but couldn't find what I was looking for which is (if it exist of course) the shortcut to toggle between compositing mode . Having to drop down the list each and every time is WAY too time-consuming, my current project requires a lot of trial and error and such a shorcut would ease the pain .....so to speak :)

I am still running ver.5 by the way


Thanks

"Pop Up Video" Tv Show effect in Vegas
 

I am trying to do an educational video which employs the VH1 tv show "Pop Up Video" technique. For those of you who haven't seen the show, it basically was music videos that have "pop ups" that appear usually at the bottom of the screen giving more information/insight on the video. I have Vegas 5.0, and i have been trying to use the available text options to achieve some similar effects but it looks rather cheesy. Basically it just text overlay and not at all like well pop ups. Is there any possible hints on how i can achieve a more polished , natural pop up look. Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

I don't know of a way to do what you are wanting. You *can* go through them with a script in Vegas 6.

Create the "popup" in your graphics program with an alpha channel. Then add that image to the project where needed and put text over the graphic.

Track 1: Text
Track 2: Graphic with Alpha channel
Track 3: Video

Hi Ed ,


Do you have that script on Jetdv forum , I looked but couldn't find it.

Thanks


Phil

PS: btw I meant "compositing" and not "composition" .... just wanted to clear things out . I edited it to avoid any misconception

Cropping to 2.35:1 aspect ratio?
 

Anyone know of the most accurate way to do this with 16x9 HDV footage in Vegas? Is there a plugin I can download?

This simple script should go through all the different modes and let you see each one. Find the one you like and switch it to that one. Assumptions:

1) the cursor is placed somewhere so you can see a proper frame
2) Track ONE is the parent track
3) We are adjusting the Parent Compositing mode

Just put a mask on the top track.