I use a program called "VideoReDo" to losslessly cut MPEG2 files, it works great.

www.videoredo.com

John

Thx for that link, John, I was unaware of this particular app.

VideoReDo will also cheerfully edit HD transport streams and Z1 .M2t files.

Creating a Master for a Replication Facility
 

Hey everyone! When I create a master for a replication facility should I just use the master output in DVD arch 3? And if so do I just copy the files onto a DVD-r? I do not have a DLT tape setup here.

John, I've done this a few times and I just supply them a DVD that I've burned with DVDA. Make sure to use high quality media and don't burn at maximum speed to avoid potential errors.

Mike

Shortening Clips
 

I was wondering what is the best way to shorten imported clips without deleting them and recapturing them. I am in the middle of a big project and have double captured a lot of footage and want to get rid of the extra without deleting the entire file and recapturing. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Do a "Save as..." and check of the option to "copy and trim media with project"... it will save what you have and trim it with head and tail that you specify after clicking ok.

Hope this is what you were after... good luck!

That works but I was wondering if there is a way to do that per individual clips. Also, I'm editing a live concert and am running out of hard drive space. I have about half of it edited and want to render it and then delete the source clips to free up space for the second half of the show. What is the best way to render that and still maintain image quality?

Just the demo of VV6, I wish I could use it in VV5 though...
Also, what do I render out HD as?

If I want to go with Magic Bullet - is it after Vegas or before?
 

I am thinking of getting Magic Bullet for deinterlacing and 24fps - but I don't know if it something I do to the footage before or after Vegas?

Render as DV-AVI that will keep quality high.
Don

Celluloid with Reel Paks
 

Hopefully someone can answer this...

I am using Vegas 6.0d and am wondering if Celluloid will work with the Reel Paks in this version (the VASST website only says for Vegas 4 and 5) - or can the Reel Paks just be used as standalone FX within the FX folder in Vegas 6 (as I am not wanting to purchase Ultimate S right now).

Thanks!

Reelpaks may be used with any professional version of Vegas post Vegas 4.e.
The Celluloid tool is a free host for the Reelpaks,

Thanks Spot.

Just wanted to make sure that I didn't have to have Ultimate S 2.0 to host them since the VASST site only says they work with Celluloid in Vegas 4 and 5.

Vegas and HVX200
 

Just curious if anyone is using this camera with Vegas and how its going. can Vegas handle different frame rates etc
thanks

effect help - looney toons fade?
 

I'm trying to do an effect where it's sort of like a fade in, but it starts in the very center of the screen,
and grows out from a small circle into 100% opacity, then goes back to the small centre while it fades out. Sort of
think loony toons. I want it to sync to the sound of a heart beat if that might help some people visualize.

Any ideas?

much thanks in advance.

If you use either CineForm or Raylight as your intermediaries, Vegas handles it just fine, regardless of what you're doing.
http://www.vasst.com/search.aspx?text=raylight might help you

Use the "Iris" transition, set to start dead center (default).

I'm using it more than one year since the times it was in beta versions.
Very good software and support but basically good for straight cuts only.

I think I've heard (but never tried) that Vegas can 'smart render' - eg. render only the transitions parts or am I mistaken?

I'm sure this is possible with TMPEG MPEG editor, or Womble suite.

Vegas does not "smart render" MPEG2 files, it will recompress everything whether or not it has been modified.

John

Clearing capture "Tape Names" drop down box
 

In setting up for Capture I have about sixty tape names in the Tape Name selection drop down box. How do you clear that thing? Can't find it in preferences or Help, but I must have done it before or I'd have a hundred more in there.

I start a new project and then save the vidcap file with the project name (i.e. NewProject.sfvidcap). That does it for me.

Firewire hd problem
 

Thanks for looking.
I'm new to the HC3 so I apologize if this question has been answered before. My problem is capturing hd. For starters I have 2 PCs, one is a laptop and one is a tabletop. I run vegas 6 on both.
When capturing high def and normal dv on my laptop all goes at it should without any problems.
when I capture normal DV on my tabletop that also works fine. My problem is when caturing high def on my tabletop, windows xp SP2 fails to recognize my camera when in high def mode, as soon I switch back to DV mode on my hc3 windows recognizes it.

My laptop, with built in firewire uses a texas instruments chipset. My tabletop just uses a regular no name firewire card.
I am assuming that my problem has to do with my firewire card. If anyone can confirm this or suggest something else to check that would great, and any card recommendations would be great too.

Thanks
Lou

You need to select the Internal capture app in Vegas for HDV, and the External capture app for DV.
You also need to be sure the camera is correctly set for output of one or the other.

Thanks for the quick reply, I do actually have the internal capture selected. I'm not sure which output your refferring to.
When using my laptop in HD (working connection) I can shut down the camera, move it to the table top pc still in hd mode and plug it into that firewire cable of my tabletop and windows will not recognize the camera. As soon as switch the camera to DV mode ,bang up pops windows recognizing the camera.

Sorry if this is confusing.

Lou

It sounds as though you might not have the DVHS drivers enabled. Are you using XP? SP2?

I'm not at the pc right now, but I'm pretty sure that it is sp2. How does one enable the DVHS drivers?

Thanks for you help

Lou

definately sp2, it would appear that the dvhs driver is the problem. in my device manager the hc3 is showing up as a AV/C tape device. I don't think this is correct is it?

thanks
Lou

Vegas with 3 monitors
 

Hello.
I have 3 Dell 24" monitors.
I am thinking how to set up the PC in order to work with the 3 of them as you usually do with 2 of them. I want them at native resolution of 1920x1200.

But i cant find a good solution.
Matrox has a 3 port adapter, but it is VGA and seems like resolution will be low.

I have heard of people using 2 video cards. that could work. But how do you do it and what do you buy? PCI? PCIe?

I have a XFX GF7900 GT Extreme Edition 1500 but shouldn´t be a problem to upgrade.

I edit a segment in 30i first and convert to 24p when I'm done. It would be a nightmare to 24P every clip prior. By nightmare I'm talking about loooong render times for footage that wont see use. Plus the file size would eat up a HD quick.

16:9 to 4:3 crop in Vegas
 

I searched the forum but couldn't find reference to this issue. Lots of talk about going the other way.

I want to shoot HDV so I need to shoot 16:9, but the final view dimensions will be 4:3. (15 and 30 second spots on TV listings channel, they have the TV listings and a 4:3 box, so it will definitely be 4:3).

I know I can find this out through trial and error, but I'm pressed for time so I thought I'd see if anyone knows. If a crop is easy, I'm assuming I'll just lose it on the sides?

I could shoot SD 4:3 and save some grief (and for easy workflow), but I thought I'd check and see if any has done it as if it's a simple step because I'd prefer HDV masters for future consideration.

Thanks.

Change project settings to 4:3/standard NTSC, and then pan/crop using a script or pan/crop one, and copy/paste attributes to all pieces of media

Thanks Spot,

BTW, I did buy your Vegas training DVD's and HDV book. great stuff. Just thought I'd post the Q to try to save some time.

Adding to it...
 

To add to Doug's comment, keyframe the transition to control when it starts and reverses on itself.

jason

no need to upgrade, just grab urself a PCI VGA card.. any card will do... Vegas doesnt use the HW of the GFX card anyway..
if uve already got Nvidia, stick to it..

Too Much Information?
 

specs:

p4 3.2 ghz
xp pro sp2
4 gigs dual-channel 667mhz ddr2 ram
not sure about video or sound processor

My projects involve taking many small clips (wmv format, 640x480, about 14 megs per minute of footage, typical file size about 30 megs), editing and batch processing them all at once with green screen, logo overlay, and various other colour-correction, colour level effects. I read in previous posts that sometimes large picture files can make the system crash, but mine are small png and jpgs, and there are only 3 of them (although they're multiplied on the timeline a whole lot).

Anyway. Vegas has started crashing on me. No pop-up, error, anything, just quickly shuts down. Usually happens just from navigating through the videos. I can watch it happen when I zoom out and it tries to load all the previews for all the clips. It hasn't done this to me before, but this latest project is much bigger than my previous ones (130 30 meg approx. clips with above effects). I've changed my video ram in options to 16mb, 64mb, 300mb, 1024mb, with the same problem every time. I've monitored what it does to my system with task manager, but the memory usage never gets above 900 mb. I've re-installed Vegas, but that didn't work.

So far I've been able to get around this somewhat by disabling the waveform and frame previews in the view menu, but this is extremely inconvenient as I need to monitor these things constantly.

I'm thinking maybe Vegas isn't designed to do this type of processing? Does everyone else just have one huge avi file that they split up into all their clips in vegas afterwards instead of importing lots of smaller files? I could do this, but it would mean re-recording all of my footage (4 hours worth...)

Any suggestions would be appreciated :) Thanks!

Scratch the better with disabling waveform/event frame display point. :( Doesn't seem to make a difference, even after cutting the project size down to 60 clips. I hope this doesn't get worse, hah.

Just a hunch, but maybe it's because you're editing with .wmv's. Any particular reason why you're not capturing to .avi?

Just found them to be good quality and decent compression. Plus can be easily distributed among computers that might not have all the right codecs and stuff. And they don't lag when I play them back (probably a video/sound card problem though i'd imagine). What do you think the disadvantages of wmv's are over other formats?

If quality isn't an issue, and for web delivery-only, there is nothing to take issue with.
wmv is highly compressed, can't be used for compositing, and severely degrades after processing any aspect of the image. It can't be scaled well, and is intended (currently) as a delivery format only.
But if it works for you....none of the above matters.