Cookie Cutter Adjustment
 

Is it possible to make shapes for Cookie Cutter except those shapes in Vegas 6, for example to make "Heart shape" or some different shapes.
Regards.

Is this the first time you've tried using the camera?
I'm assuming it is because you got the "The device 'Microsoft AV/C Tape Subunit Device' ..." notice.

My other thought is that, even though you've only shot DV and not HDV, this is still an HDV camcorder and therefore you have to use the internal capture app.

Here are two responses from Sony folks on their Vegas forum. HTH.

The camera should be listed as Sony D-VHS Device or something simliar. Bring up Device Manager, right click on the Microsoft AV/C Tape Subunit, choose Update Driver. Choose to the Advanced option, to manually pick the driver. On the next screen uncheck the option "Show only compatible hardware". Scroll down the manufacturer list to Sony, then on the right you should see the Sony D-VHS option. Choose that and then try it again. Those instructions are from memory so they may not be exact.

The new capture window is the one that supports HDV capture and you must first enable it in the Video tab of Vegas' application preferences... Uncheck the box that reads "Use external capture application". Then, when you launch video capture from within Vegas, the new capture window will appear. You can then select the HDV camera from its preferences dialog or device menu.

If none of this helps, go to the Sony Knowledgebase at http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/so...er/std_alp.php and do a search using Microsoft AV/C Tape Subunit Device as the search criteria. Several suggestions came up.

No. But you can do things like that via other methods - just takes more work.

Vegas Quake Script
 

I just found this script. When I try to use it more than once on a clip I get this error "Class already exists". Anyone know how to fix this?

what is your favorite cbr setting for sports type wvms?
say a bitrate of 1mbps.

Restart Vegas. This was a problem that began in Vegas 6 - the script DLL would have to be modified to eliminate that issue.

Microsoft DV codec
 

The Preferences > General tab has a check box for "Use Microsoft DV codec". Should I have this checked or not? Any reason it should be? or not be?

I'm new to this NLE program so you will probably see more questions from me :)

Thanks,
Duane

Thanks, you were on the money!

Update:

Well, good call, Seth. It was couple of bad bits in my RAM. The behavior was so constant through all combinations of reinstalls and alternative work flows that I figured it must be hardware too.

I went to download.com looking for a memory tester and found Tufftest Pro for $29, which I recommend. It quickly diagnosed the RAM problem. The addressing was good, which is probably why it wasn't being picked up the the computer's POST routine, but it failed all data read and write tests due to those bits.

Just goes to remind us that billions of things have to happen correctly for all this stuff to work--it's a wonder that it works at all. Anyway a new 1GB DDR card and I'm back in the saddle.

Thanks for the replys, guys.

Compositing Help
 

Hi there, I'm sure there is probably a really simple answer for this but buggered if I can figure it out.

I am working on a clip were I have two video tracks and I have a mask between them. It all looks mint at this point but I have reduced the size of the top track and shifted it using the Event Pan/Crop. Now that I have done that I have the exact size I want but on play back everything that is not within the perimeter of the top clip since it's been fettled with is black. Any ideas?

Generally speaking, you should NOT have change that setting and it should remain unchecked.

Error When Importing .m2t file
 

When I try to import a group of .m2t files from my Sony HVR-A1U camera (HDV 1080i) that I captured using HDV Split 0.75, I run into this problem.

Because HDV Split splits scenes, I ended up with three scenes. They are 4gb, 1gb, and 7mb (last scene is very small), respectively. The 4gb file imports fine, but the 1gb file and 7mb files have problems.

The problem files play fine when I use players like Media Player Classic on my PC, but when I try to import them into Vegas 7, I get a message saying, "An error occured during the current operation. Error 0x8004e70b (message missing)."

The files still import and it appears I can do some editing with them, but the audio peaks do not build at all. They simply say "peaks unavailable," yet I still hear the audio fine for the files.

What is this error message, and how can I solve it?

Well, I don't do sports. 1 megabit is kind of tough, slightly too large for most internet viewers, slightly too small for hard-drive playback of high-motion at full screen resolutions. For hard-drive playback I'd be testing more in the range of 1.8Mbps, or maybe even more.

If I were going to test/optimize for 1Mbps, I'd mark a region of about 20 seconds of representative program, and first try outputs of 320x240 pixels, 30fps, quality 70, and 640x480 pixels, q70. I'd expect the smaller size to look stunning, and the larger to need work (it's 4 times as many pixels as 320x240).

From there, it's testing other settings and sizes to see how they work for your program.

Couple notes:
Default audio bitrate settings are typically higher than needed for pc playback. Start your testing at 20kbps/44KHz mono and see how that sounds.

If you do a more testing on other clips, you can set up your benchmark renders by saving custom presets, then run the batch render script to do massive testing runs.

Do play back all your tests at full screen - Windows Media Player's rescaling engine is excellent, and lower bitrate can frequently look better encoded at less than full screen, even if the target is full screen playback.

Finally, if you have standard def footage, after your last tests you should run one more test if your encode is less than 640x480 - try the "best" setting for the render. For hi def footage, you probably should always test this.

Thanks for the help, I did what you said and I think the audio may have been set too high. I was a bit surprised to find the file sizes exactly the same. So the
larger size just spreads the pixels out. They look very similar at full screen. The video is of surfing mostly so there is a constant motion. Thanks again I'm going back to do more tests.

motion lines
 

I am working on a scene where the talent is walking up an alleyway. Behind him are cars going by pretty quickly. I am getting very pronounced lines across the cars. I am attaching a screen cap, so you can see what I mean. I Cineformed on capture and the original file does NOT have these lines.

What setting in Vegas am I missing?

Thanks