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.