I don't bother with the media manager, so I turn it off to improve performance and take paper notes. I also put down markers into the Vegas clips. It works well enough for me.

For pure editing, FCP has some nice shortcuts like being able to type numbers into the keypad. Vegas has like half of those shortcuts- try holding the crtl, alt, and shift modifiers when you are over clips.
FCP is better for pure editing, cuts and dissolves.

As far as the other tools go, I find that Vegas is a lot better.

2- Vegas has multicam tools from third parties. I haven't compared it to FCP's, but I don't expect things to be all that much different.

Nattress Film Effects. They're the best value in filters around (other than buying Vegas :D ).

They don't behave exactly like the color curves in Vegas however.

You can get Magic Bullet or Color Finesse, but I wouldn't bother.

Glen - I agree regarding the media manager - can you refresh our minds on how to be sure that this is in fact turned off/disabled? tks

I actually just go done selling my G5. I tried FCP to see if it would interest me enough to switch...here's my take...

FCP Pros:
- TRUE nestable timelines unlike the often unstable nestable VEG files offered in Vegas.
- Trimmer window trumps Vegas's half-hearted "trimmer" plus I love the ability to drag it into the track view window and choose what kind of drop in edit to choose!
- It has a way of visually telling you if levels are outside of broadcast range (a'la zebra patern) not a big deal to many but I thought it was slick!
- Better use of space; the layout is more effient for fitting more on the screen however at the price of some text sizes no larger than grains of Philly Pretzel salt!


FCP Cons:
- Transitions require more keystrokes and pre-planing. While in Vegas you overlap two clips and your done. Your video transitions are set ALONG with your audio. In FCP you have to butt two clips together and then add your video transitions, and THEN go down and add your audio transitions. Not to mention you have to make SURE you have enough footage on either side of each clip to MAKE a transition. I understand you can "insert with transition" when dragging media out of the viewer but what about when you have all your money shots ont he timeline...in order to use that function you have to drag it up into the viewer, move the cursor the the edit point, then drag it over into the timeline viewer and choose insert with transition.
- No way of restoring audio. You delete the audio- poof it's gone. However gotta thank Excalibur for that in regards to this function in Vegas.
- Slower when drawing waveforms. Anytime I zoom into the timeline or make the tracks larger it pauses to redraw the waveform. Vegas does this without redraw making it smoother and lag free.
- More difficult to scoot around zooming in and out. The scroll wheel utilized as zoom in and out on Vegas works wonders for efficiency in this regard.
- No way to turn off rippling. I like that Vegas give you several options of how a ripple occurs.
- Speed controls FCP has 3. Dial in the % or use something that looks similar to a Vegas Velocity envelope but does so through wrestling with what I felt was an ackward interface outside of the timeline. When you change the percentage of a clip it'll ripple everything in your timeline as it stretches to it's new length. The third is fit to fill (if I have that named correctly) where you have to add 4 points and it stretches the video to fill a specified gap in the timeline- something that can be done with a single mouse stroke in Vegas. Nothing beats the ease and efficiency of 1) Velocity Envelopes and 2) Ctrl+Drag method of changing the speed of a clip and quickly and easily filling a gap in the timeline.

Under Options Preferences uncheck the box.

The MainConcept MPEG-2 template in Vegas for rendering HDV back to tape is HDV 1080-60i.

There are lots of choices that work. If you want to preserve the 16:9 aspect and 60i cadence of the original footage you would use the DVD Architect PAL Widescreen video stream followed by an AC3 Stereo render for the audio. (assuming you shot PAL in Australia).

~jr

817. That sounds right. Thank you!

Thanks for you help guys !

Cheers

Just remember that you are in a PAL zone...

So; the 60i frame rate mentioned by the above responders becomes 50i. (Unless you bought a NTSC 30p/60i camera off-shore, as all Aussie sold HD/HDV cams must be PAL 25p/50i)

Not that it'll really kill any DVD or project in Vegas if you wrote 60i, because pretty well every TV and DVD player here in Oz, can handle multi-synch/multi format.

These forums are excellent resources - just be aware that there are regional differences even in HD, and the appropriate frame rate for the region one lives in, is one thing that should be tatooed onto the consciousness of any person getting into this stuff.

You might be the sort of person who gets a kick out of seeing strange things happening with your video though...

what about DV?

Hello all,

Thanks for the input Ed & Matt.

Doug, here's what I was hoping to do.

I wanted the menu selector to be like a cursor, only appearing beside the selection you want to activate.

I am using PSP 8 and the images I'm utilizing are .png with transparencies.

I've tried various combinations of thumbnail and masks along with custom highlights but it was all for naught.

I can manipulate the fill colour, anti-alias & the outline but they're monochromatic.

I was hoping for a nice, vibrant, colourful toy soldier to appear beside whichever menu option you want (like the above mentioned cursor) but after fiddling with various settings and checking out various forums it would appear that this option isn't yet available. If that's the case, OK. I'll make do but it seems like such a simple thing I'm not sure why it couldn't be done.

Am I missing something?

*ian waits for the large, stinky salmon to strike him in the head*

sincerely,


ian

PS. I followed the directions in Ed's newsletter he recommended Vol 2 #6 and it's nice to have some clarification on masks but it still doesn't give me the "cursor" look I was seeking.

ah ok
yeah, I investigated that thoroughly and there's just no way to do it in dvd architect.
sorry

Thanks, I got it working already!!

Vegas 6c breaks plugins - any fix?
 

The Vegas 6.0c update has caused many plugins such as Noise Reduction to revert to demo mode when it was installed over older versions. Any fixes available yet?

Beyond trying to reinstall Noise Reduction from the original source, I would contact Sony Tech Support.

Another option might be to totally uninstall everything Sony, delete the folders, and then reinstall everything.

Thanks for the feedback.. It sounds like theres positives and negatives in making the switch.. One thing im really curious of, will FCP edit both PAL and NTSC on the same timeline ? I use this feature a fair bit with Vegas and id rather not loose that or find myself switching back to Vegas all the time.. Also whats the stability of FCP like ? Does it crash at all ? Im not sure about everyone else but Vegas is so rock solid for me..