In Vol 4 #3 of my newsletters I describe how to set up a VS2003 project with GUI and code completion and include the sample project for downloading. You might want to check it out.

Help with Capture "SMRT" problem
 

Not sure what happened. I went to connect my xl1s via firewire to my sony viao and it won't let me capture my video. It say's it can't open the smrt capture card and to make sure it's on and not being used by another source.
It also says nothing is connected. My computer displays my xl1s is connected and window movie maker takes my video but vegas is not.

Did I hit a button by mistake. I have looked online and have found this happened to other people but they didn't know how to fix it.

What do I do?

Thanks,

Matt

Well I was going to ask how you got code completion to work in jscript but I thought I must have just missed something over the last year or two and didn't want to look too dumb. I'm using Vegas 5 and from your newsletter I see that starting with Vegas 6 you can run C# code without compiling. That's how... :-) Oh well. I'll have to get Vegas 7 when it comes out in a month or two I guess. I wish MS Office would have C# as an alternative to VBA, I like it so much better....

Specific help for Vegas preview
 

I hate it when I can find so many threads on a subject but no definitive answer...anyway...

I went out and bought an inexpensive Emerson television with Svideo on the back and am trying to use it for an external preview with Vegas 6. I am getting NOTHING. I first used my old Canon ZR45; connected Svid from the TV to the cam, then connected the firewire from the pc to the cam in VCR mode with AV passthrough enabled. Nothing in the Vegas preview pane, the camera, or the TV after clicking on the ext. preview in the Vegas window.

Next, I reluctantly took my PD170 out, made sure passthrough was enabled and went through the same routine after restarting Vegas. This time when I click on the external preview, it shows recompressed "Preview On External Monitor - (Frame Recompressed)" in the Vegas window but nothing in the cam LCD or the TV.

I also switched over to regular comp. cables thinking the Svideo may be the problem - still nothing. Can anyone help?

Technically, c# scripts compiled to .dll files can be run in Vegas 5 and you can still get code completion. However, you'll need some .js helper files. The "Custom DLL FAQ" section on my site has more info. The basics of how to do that can be found here as well:
http://www.peachrock.com/software/tu...tml#VegasHello

Some cameras require a menu setting to change the firewire connection from out to in.

Thanks Edward but I don't see anything like that on either my Canon, PD170, or VX2100. Any other ideas?

Surely someone has used a one of the 170's or the 2100's for this and I'm just missing something obvious.

You should be able to use the PD170 as a pass thru without changing anything in the menu BUT just for the sake of saying it (just in case) Brandon switch the camera on into VTR mode-THEN go into the menu then goto the 2nd icon VCR SET or 'V' then goto A/V-DV Out and press the scroll wheel -then roll the scroll wheel to that selection and change it to ON-that MIGHT make a difference for preview but honestly I've never had to do that. Of course I rarle use the 150 as a passthru either but for the odd times I do I've not had to change anything.

Don

Thanks Don. I finally figured it out and your suggestion helped indirectly. I never realized I had to turn the AV to DV out "OFF" to get it to work! I tried this first in my 170 and bingo, it popped on the screen. Switched back to my Canon and after turning off the AV to DV out it worked fine also. Unless I totally misunderstood, everything I've read points to this being "ON".

Also had to make sure I turned the "recompress frames" on in the Vegas monitor properties menu.

Thanks again - hopefully this will help someone else too.

is there a way to "glue" parts together?
 

Like in Cubase/Neundo? That way effects will be applied accross multiple "events" but not the whole track.

Audio editing in Vegas
 

I am in the process of editing old footage taken from an analogue camcorder. The recorded sound isn't the best quality. I am using Sony Vegas 5, which I recently acquired. I don't have much experience of using the audio effects in Vegas and I must admit I'm finding it a bit of a mindfield.

I know it depends on what you are aiming to achieve but could anyone give some general advise on what audio effects and there settings to use in Vegas to give the audio quality of dialogue a bit of a lift. Just general settings one might consistently apply to improve the tone. I've tried playing around with EQ and compressors etc but I'm stuggling to do it in a methodical fashion. In my case the dialogue is sounding flat and lifeless and at times there is a noticeable amount of background hiss/noise.

Combined audio and video cature in Vegas
 

As audio requirements in live situations are getting more advanced, and since Vegas has IMHO some of the best PC based audio/ video editing ability, I wonder if anyone else sees a need for the following


Currently Vegas will support any of the multi channel audio cards for instance using adat etc, you can arm the tracks and then start record and capture all the tracks etc.

Problem is Vegas does not let you do this for video at the same time, We have batch capture which get the video and the audio via the firewire, but the two aps are pretty independant

I tend to do more live work, captureing as we go, currently either going to DV rack or Vegas capture. What would be a big help is to be able to not only arm audio tracks but also add video and the tracks via the firewire, and be able to bring in the audio and the video all at the same time, locked together

Granted in the past pc's probably were not up to the task, but todays machines should be able to do this pretty comfortably. There are a few standalone hd video recorders that can record the video and at the same time bring in the 8 tracks of audio via an adat lightpipe connection.

I know DSE is pretty wired into the VEGAS group so wondered if he saw any interest in this

Sharyn


.

You'll have to apply the effect to both events or to a track. Remember you can have as many tracks as you want so it's not impossible to go ahead and use another track for those events. Otherwise you'll need to apply the same effect to all the events. If they're all getting the exact same settings, you can set up the first one, copy it, select the rest, and then "Paste Event Attributes".

I have a similar set of tools and sometimes have call for multitrack recording of music. I've been working mostly on post-capture, post-sync of multitrack and video. It's been pretty good.

What makes it work for me is the Alesis HD24 recorder with its (accessory) firewire interface. 24 analog input channels at 24/48, hard-drive transfers... it has been a very acceptable workflow. Then sync on the timeline with video.

I guess I've been pretty conservative about depending on a computer as a recording device, though I have HDVRack I tend to use it more for monitoring. If I could ingest multitrack and video on the fly that would be pretty interesting, although there is still more capture to do if it is an unswitched multicamera shoot.

the only problem is after doing lots of things to a track then I decide I want to change one section I have to pull all the parts out to their own track and change it because they might all have small different things on them... in hindsight it could be clean but sometimes once you are deep in it's not always so pretty ;)

Not ideal but maybe a work around for now... what if you ran two instances of Vegas one for audio and one for the capture app (really you don't need Vegas to be running for the cap app I don't think).

I would advice capturing audio to a seperate Hd than your video though just for fragmentation sake.

External Monitor Preview - Problem or Normal
 

I am very new to Vegas. I spent a bit of time doing a graphic for an opening at 720x480. Several elements involved, but all static from static graphics. My setup is 720x480 NTSC DV in Vegas 6.0d. The imported bitmaps were produced at 720x480 in a graphics editor. It all looks great in Vegas preview window or if I use my second computer LCD monitor for external preview.

However, if I view the same image using a Canopus 110 connected to a 21" 4:3 JVC CRT monitor, a good bit of the top, bottom, and left & right edges are gone. Is the edge clipping normal or is there a setting I am overlooking?

BTW - I tried the external preview on one of the kinetic avi backgrounds that came with Vegas and it seemed to clip off a good portion of the edges there also.

If this is normal, is there a standard allowance in order to avoid clipping printed words, etc? If not normal, what's happening?

thanks,
--rick

Yes it's normal it's called "Overscan"... that is why they have the safe zones you can turn on in your preview window... they will tell you were the "safe" edges are. Look in the tool bar of your preview pane and I think it's a grid... the inner box is considered "safe title" so you should place your titles in there... some tv's are that bad ;)

Capture Problem
 

Please I need some help and can't find a solution anywhere. The other day when I went to capture video a video window came on the screen and said my Smrt capture was turned off or something was using it. I clicked onto a button that said use a Microsoft dv or vcr and it captured my video. But I never had to do that before.

I just shot more video today and now the durration time moves but the capture time stays at 0 and no video shows up in the preview window.
I have no idea what may of caused this? I have never had a problem before and all of a sudden everything seems to going south. The computer controls the camera so the connections are fine.

Any suggestion? I need to put something together by Friday!

Matthew

Oooh - my head hurts now!!!!

Firstly - I'm in PAL land.

If I just render this as AVI PAL DV Widescreen - will Vegas just scale the 1080i footage to 720x576?

But I notice that when I put a 1080i file on the timeline the preview window shown a small black border left and right. Is this because 1440x1080 doesn't evenly scale to 720x576 - or is this to do with the 704 number (the relevance of which eludes me right now).

If I use PAN/CROP and change the width to 720 Vegas sets the height to 540 - whcih is less than the 576 for DV. It also maintains the side borders - surely if the vertical resolution is lower than the project size there should be horizontal borders.

Is it also true that SD 16:9 isn;t actually 16:9? Take 720 multiply by the PAR of 1.4568 gives 1048 which = 16:8.8 - whereas HD - 1440x1.333 = 1920 - does give 16:9.

Now you know why my head hurts!

Ian

I need to edit in Divx
 

I was given a file from a TV show, captured in Divx. It didn't work in Medial Player or in Vegas. A friend sent me a DivX Installer program and it is working correctly. Previously I had no video.

So I took the files home to put it on my home PC and work with it. Here it does not work. I ran the same installer program that I ran at work on my laptop but I still only get audio, no video. I need to be able to edit this footage and I don't know where to turn.

I suppose I just need the Codec installed in Windows for it to work in Vegas and Media Player? Can anyone help with this?

thanks

Peter,

I have been trying to run my standard p4 with dual monitors to run my adobe pp and have a third crt to use as a color correction device.
My understanding is that invida cards you have all three ports but you can only run two at a time. I have been trying to find a work around on this but so far have failed.
At this point I am thinking of putting a 6600 in my second computer and using networking to do the color correction on the other computer.

I sure would like to hear possibilities on this one.

I usually record audio from the PA system at a location to my laptop using small app called Total Recorder making a wav file.

The camcorder just collects the video and its (usually poor quality) audio onto miniDV.

Then I capture the camcorder output later, then meld the captured v/a and the wav file into Vegas. By using the audio from cam and PA, you can get the sync of wav audio correct with the camcorder take. If necessary, you mute out the camcorder audio in Vegas for the final output.

I have been wanting to attempt vid cap and wav record in real-time to the laptop, but have not yet done so. Usually disk space limitations!

Thanks Edward. Turning on snapping seems to cure the problem.

Vegas doesn't seem to handle some of the more bizarre/obscure formats properly. You can use something like RAD Video Tools to convert from divX to something else that is editable... i.e. sonyYUV, or sony vegas DV codec.

2- There may be better ways of doing things, but that should at least work.

Matthew,

I've never had your problem. But I often just plug in my camera and capture using the Windows capture program without starting Vegas, then edit in Vegas.

I believe that Vegas uses the Windows capture program as the default. You can choose a different capture program inside of Vegas, in the "Preferences", "Video" tab.

Hope this at least provides you with a work-a-round until you solve your problem.

List of "Interal" preferences and explanations
 

I was wondering if they had a list with explanations of what all the "hidden" options are.

We have and hd24 also, and have the fireport that allows you to transfer the files over firewire, and it does work. BUT I still think it is a bit of a kluge. You are right the video capture is not full vegas just the capture program so it woud seem that this could make it easier. I guess where I am coming from is that we are moving to a situation where recording in 5.1 is becoming more likely, SONY on their low end units actually has this 5.1 mic system which is totally useless, BUT the concept still makes sense. It of course would be great ot see a camcorder with the option for an multi channel external audio in, but that is not all that likely.

I agree there are work arounds, but it still think the ability to better link the audio and the video capture side would be a step forward, especially since Vegas has sort of positioned itself as the more audio friendly of the video nle's
Sharyn

Thanks for your reply. I turned off my computer for about an hour and then it worked fine. Who knows?

Matt

I believe the general rule of thumb is "Don't Touch These". There have been a few documented but changing some incorrectly could make Vegas not work.

Thanks for the information, Kevin. Very helpful.

--rick

But some look so tasty ;)

You don't do enough for the community, you should flip them all and document what the do :p

J/K of course (about how much you do, not about flipping them all :) )

As little as a month ago I would have disagreed with this - but a recent project changed my mind. Another DVInfo forum member and I edited some environmental sound effects for 4.1 playback at an event. We did a bunch of stuff with Vegas and stock stereo effects, using echo/verb, moving things around the sound field, stock film sound mix techniques that sounded good and were a lot of fun.

Then I bought some sfx that were recorded in 5.1 :0 ...what a difference, those sfx really surpassed all we'd done with post techniques. It's really made me rethink the possible benefits of collecting 5.1 in the field.

I'm very impressed that we can personally afford to own tools that rival the functions that used to take remote mobile recorder trucks... and that even with at best flakey timecode or none at all we have affordable post tools that are easier to use than the multimillion dollar edit suites that ruled the video world as few as 20 years ago. So, I wouldn't have used the term "work around" but instead said "wow, it works!"

However, it would be great if Sony took your advice!

(begin rant)
I'm pessimistic, though... the fact that Sony and apparently all the other NLE manufacturers have not seen fit to fix the timecode mess that Sony and the other HDV camcorder manufactures have created **(see below) makes me assume that they think that we who would use Vegas, HDV, double-system sound and multitrack all together are such a small minority that they're not going to bother fixing broken timecode functionality. Never mind that DV-standard def. was much friendlier to timecode through the edit process...
(end rant)

**(from above)
SMPTE-like timecode was apparently part of the DV25 spec. This enabled use of time-of-day timecode to rough-sync double system sound, multiple cameras, to get all these video sources and audio tracks close enough on the Vegas timeline that you could fine-sync with V's excellent slip & slide tools. All the NLEs and DVRack see DV25 camera timecode through firewire.

Enter HDV - hidef is more pro, no? Apparently camcorder manufacturers are at liberty to put timecode wherever they like in the HDV-firewire datastream, there is no standard. Vegas doesn't see it, HDVRack doesn't capture it, every captured HDV clip starts at 0:00, and our rough-sync method is gone, and the workflow becomes more lengthy and painful. Post/capture vendors challenged on forums plead that there is no timecode, or it's hard to find, when IMO what they really mean is they couldn't be bothered to bring HDV editing up to DV functionality, they think too small a minority of users work with double system sound and multicamera. Too many software engineers and not enough film/video people making decisions for us.

Oops, I guess that's more ranting. I really love Vegas, have been using it since it was an audio-only product, and use it all the time. HDV timecode has really pissed me off... they've really let us down on this one.

i'm pretty sure you can't edit divx in Vegas. The only NLE i know of that offers divx editing is Avid Liquid.

Gary

It *can* be done because there are many people doing it. However, you do have to get the right codecs installed. If you do a search in this forum for DivX and/or XVid, you should get many hits related to this topic.

Capture problem in Vegas with XLH1 !!
 

I finally got my XLH1 today, so I capture some footage and when I tried to capture it onto Vegas 6.0a I received this message:

The device 'Microsoft AV/C Tape Subunit Device' could not be opened.
please make sure that it is turned on and is not being used by another
application or user.

I have the XL1s and I have no problem capturing to Vegas.
I did change the internal capture for HDV but still have the problem. My computer is recognizing the H1 but not Vegas. Any Idea what am I missing ?

Thanks

Actually searches mostly turn up more post saying "do searches" ...I have never really found a good answer... I've tried some of the suggestions but never got it working 100%

Not sure if this has ANYTHING to do with your problem but why not get 6.0d?

Synching in Vegas (or is that sinking)
 

I hope I have more luck with this question than I did with my previous one (still no replies)

I am new to Sony Vegas 5. If I have a project with multiple tracks and I trim or lengthen a video event within the project, the related audio portion trims or lengthens with it, thereby remaining in synch. However, the other tracks do not move with this re-edit. This means that any music/sound effects/titles on other tracks will no longer be in their intended positions.

How do you ensure that the other tracks remain in synch following a simple edit. I would have thought that this was standard but it's not obvious to me how to go about it other than continually adjusting the tracks. This would become unfeasible with a large number of tracks.

RIPPLE EDIT
there is an icon on the toolbar that will allow you to determine how you want this feature to work.
Just be careful with ripple as it will ripple or move everything over every time and there might be time you don't want to move it so make sure to turn it off.

Don