You can always keyframe track motion to only affect that area. Or you can use Pan/Crop to create the PIP.

It may be that the DVD encoder wants to see computerRGB color space instead of studioRGB. If that is the case, feeding it studioRGB will make the image look washed out / lacking in saturation (blacks too grey, white too grey).

You might want to see what the setting is on the encoder side. Maybe it's thinking the footage is upper field first?

Just a shot in the dark there.

How are you viewing the burned DVDs? How was the monitor calibrated? (If it was calibrated.)
Sometimes DVD players will have incorrect levels.
Their video levels can also differ from your DV camera/device... so if you calibrated the monitor to your DV camera, the DVD player images may look wrong.

Maybe, but I've watched my stuff on multiple plain old TVs, and it's always those same issues.

Another small update (now at version 5.0.1) has just been released. It fixes a couple of minor issues that were recently discovered. You can get the update from http://www.jetdv.com/excalibur and clicking on the "Download" button. 5.0.1 can be safely installed over 5.0.0.

The only thing that I can see would be the capture to an internal drive that is also running your Windows OS. I capture everything directly to an external 160 Gig 7200 rpm firewire drive and the only time I am have a dropped frame issue is when other programs are running. Be sure that only the capture utility is running and everything else is closed.

Vegas quirks
 

Hello all,

I've been a long time Premiere user (over 5 years) and I've recently switched to Vegas 6.0d. There are many little things about the software that I'm having trouble finding in the manual and help files that I can EASILY do it Premiere and other quirks that Vegas does that makes no sense...here goes:

Trimming and playback:
When I playback my video on the trimmer or my timeline, I'm accustomed to the playback marker to stop at the same spot I hit STOP. For example, I'm playing back 2 minutes of a 10 minute video. Once I've seen enough and I hit the spacebar to stop the playback at 2 minutes, the marker goes back to where I started playback, it doesn't jump to the moment I stoped it in!

WHY?! It's annoying. Is there a setting I can change to adjust that?

I also wish there was a RAZOR tool. That's a very handy tool and makes cutting SO much easier.

I also dislike how a lot of the easily accesible tools such as audio fading and video fading are a little more hidden than they need to be.

My biggest gripe is the the playback thing.

Other than these minor issues, the program is AWESOME. I don't regret the switch. It's definately going to take some time to get use to, but it's a great prog. Overall, I'm very happy with it.

First of all, welcome to the great world of Vegas.
Now to deal with your minor issues.

Options - Preferences - General
Make Spacebar and F12 Play/Pause instead of Play/Stop

There is. It's the 'S' key (for Split).

What could be easier than moving the cursor up to the top left or right corner of the clip (till it changes to a 1/4 circle shape) and dragging it?

BTW, I highly recommend downloading Edward Troxel's excellent series of newsletters (pdf format) at http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/vie...623c02dabff541

Mike

***edit: HAH! Mike K. types faster...***

Use the "enter" key instead of the space bar for that behaviour. Not sure if you can flip the space bar to "pause" instead of "stop", but I seem to remember a pref for this?

Position the cursor appropriately and hit the "s" key (for "split"). I do a lot of timeline editing, it's very handy and largely equivalent to a razor tool. There are various interactions having to do with which tracks or events/clips have focus (are highlighted).

I also wish there was a RAZOR tool. That's a very handy tool and makes cutting SO much easier.

In addition to opacity and volume envelopes, which I assume you're using, there are *very* handy tools available for fadeups and fadedowns of audio and video. Access them by hovering over the upper-right corner of a clip on the timeline. Look for your cursor to display a little quarter-circle, when it does, click and drag to the left. Voila, a fadeout of audio or video. Same same for a fade-in at the other end of the event. Look closely at the teeny yellow window that appears while you click and drag, it will display the frames and seconds of your fade.

Me too! Enjoy...

I found the shortcuts sticky in this forum very helpful.

In particular:
CRTL + ALT over a fade/transition will do roll editing.
ALT over stuff does slip editing.

Thanks guys!

It's funny 'cause I looked over that option so many times and never bothered to check it.

This is great! It's definately better than a Razor tool. Saves the trouble of having to activate it first then cut with your mouse. Just position and S!

As for the opacity and volume controls, I was talking about Automation, rather than just clicking and dragging the edge of an event. Yes, the click and drag tool is VERY useful for fade in/outs, but NOT for fades in between the even (without having to split). Took me a while to figure out I had to select "Show Automation Controls" in order to do fades in between the beginning and end of the same event.

Thanks again for the clarification guys, this definately makes the experience a WHOLE lot funner AND easier.

::thumbs up to vegas::

basic vegas questions
 

I'm interested in vegas for use with an HD100.

1) which version works? 5.0?

2) can hdv be edited natively in vegas with success? (I don't do a lot of fx)

3) which intermediary codecs work in vegas? What's the advantage to an intermediary codec?

4) why do they call it vegas anyway?

Network rendering problem...
 

Ok, I've searched the forum and read all the network rendering threads so as not to be redundant, but I can't seem to figure out my little problem. I've used the NRS before, and successfully, but after reinstalling Win XP and Vegas on my second machine, I can't seem to get it working again. I've set up file mappings, machine number two is listed as ready in the renderer tab window, I start the render (to wmv, btw), it says it's starting, the project file appears in my final output folder, machine two's hdd light starts flickering, NRS on machine two says it's starting, machine one says it's queued and ready, but it doesn't go past that point. No error messages or anything.
Any ideas?
Vin

It may be that WMV can't be network rendered? Have you tried rendering to something else (i.e. DV, Sony YUV) and then rendering a WMV out of that?

yeah, Glenn, simplified it down to a 20 sec avi clip, no fx, directly in one of the shared folders, not even in a subfolder, NRS on both pc's state ready, then starting....but it doesn't go from there. I'm stymied. I'm not even trying to do distributed networking, just to have machine 2 render while I continue to edit. Not too much to ask, right?

hmm..it could be due to other applications. Anyway I tried HDV spilt & it worked perfectly.