1. Yes, the DVD Architect version that comes with VMS would work with files created by Vegas 6 but I would still get the Vegas+DVD version simply for the additional features in the full version of DVDA (i.e. the AC3 encoder for one)

2. Yes it will.

I know the Mackie unit is compatible. You might have to manually set that one up. Look in Options - Preferences at the "External Controls & Automation" tab and in the help file or manual for that feature.

Thanks Edward, I'm always learning something from this forum!

I just skipped ahead in DSE's Vegas 6 book and that answered my question. Evidently, Vegas can work with any midi controller. I just hope I can use the faders for mixing. We'll see.

How do you Delete Time Selection range/bar?
 

I seem to accidentally double click on a clip in the timeline on Vegas 6.0c and then I get a bar just above the timeline. The manual refers to these as "time selection range/bars." These are great for loop playback, etc, but you can't do much trimming on cuts that fall within them.

IS THERE A WAY TO DELETE, OR GET RID OF THEM?

Thanks, PK

See if
Options - Preferences - Editing - select "Collapse loop region when no time selection is present"
works for you.

Mike

Camera Tag - any ideas
 

I noticed while watching an outtakes reel on a commercial DVD that the bottom of the screen had several lines of text running along the bottom. Some was indecipherable but I quickly figured out that one of the lines was a text indicator of which camera the shot came from. As the scene progressed and the shots changed the text kept changing - I'm guessing the other items were scene, take etc.

This gave me the idea to try to incorporate this information into my projects; here's the concept:

I normally shoot with three cameras, oftentimes shooting the same event over several days. I then edit from the "best" single day and then pull from other days to cover the casts mistakes from the "best" days.

My Vegas projects normally have three video tracks. I'd like to add text over the very bottom of each video track showing which camera is on that track. I normally use track automation to fade from camera to camera - not cut and assemble. The net result would be that my review copies would have a constantly changing text field on the bottom indicating which camera the shot came from.

I know that I could get there by adding text to the original AVI files, rendering then and then using the "texted" AVI files to edit. The final render would require removing the camera tags and re-rendering - ugly!

It seems like the Vegas compositing tools/parent child track stuff should get me there - but I can't make it work. BTW - I'm using Vegas 5.

Any clever ideas?

to make it work, you'd need three tracks.
1. Parent with generated media mask
2. Child with text
3. Child with Media.

You'd do your fades on the Parent track. It would control the child tracks.

I understand using the compositing tool to create multi-cam, that's how we used to do it too. But I think you'd find Ultimate S, infinitiCAM, or Excalibur to be significantly faster, no? All three offer indicators of what camera is "live" during multicam editing.

Gotta love this forum - three minutes from question to answer - thanks Doug!

I'll try your compositing suggestions - regarding your question above (why are you driving nails with a pair of pliers? <g>), I tried Excalibur and didn't like the assemble edit method it used, too hard to go back and make changes. This may have been a function of the user (me) not being familiar enough with the tool to make it do what I wanted. I felt like I wound up editing the the markers and not the video.

Has the state of the art of multi-cam editing moved on? - by that I mean how tough is it to re-edit a project without having to start all the way over?

At the risk of sounding like a shill for VASST, let me say that Ultimate is great. You drop a command marker on the timeline for each camera change. To change the timing of the cut, move the marker. It's that easy. Occasionally you have to re-run part of the script to update the results, but all you care about is what camera to cut to and when.

I'm a complete beginner, and I was able to go through a three-camera shoot pretty easily. I'd say a twelve-minute set from a concert took me an hour to cut -- that's starting with the cameras sync'd, making a rough cut in multi-camera view, a second pass to refine the timing of the cuts, and a third pass full-screen to refine it a bit more.

One thing I found that amazed me was that multiple takes on the source media were kept in the individual cuts Ultimate generated. Most of the footage I was working with had been shot hand-held, so I ran everything through deshake. The raw footage and the deshaked footage were on the time line as takes; in the final cut, I could switch between the two just by changing takes. INCREDIBLE time saver!

John,
Ultimate S does work differently than Excalibur. That may or may not be the difference you're looking for. Updating is a one-button operation if you're not happy with edits. And your original tracks are never touched, so if you want to just get back to your pre-edit state, just delete the master track and you're finished. Multi-Cam is just one of over 200 features. There is a free 14 day demo on the website.

Thanks both of you - sounds like it may be time to add another tool to the toolbox...

Tweaking with the Virtual Memory?
 

In optimizing my XP Pro PC for digital video editing w/ Vegas and the other Sony software, I came across this suggestion: Fixed Swap File (Virtual memory): changing the virtual memory. It states "that for custom size, set it to 1.5 to 2 times the amount of your total RAM for both initial and maximum size."

Has anyone else done this? If so, what settings would you suggest for my machine (2.00 GB RAM)? I don't want to mess up the settings unless it's warranted and beneficial.

Fx1 to 24pSD - What am I doing wrong?
 

Something has gone terribly wrong. I am simply trying to use video shot with FX1 in HD mode for a SD 24p widescreen DVD. However, my final SD looks horrible (relatively) much worse than my VX2000. I know I have to have made a critical error somewhere, can someone please help?

I shot video with FX1 in HD.
I set Vegas Properties to NTSC Widescreen 24p.
Captured HD to hard drive with Vegas 6 as mt2 files.
Used Gear Shift to convert those files to widescreen 24p SD proxies.
Edited the proxies.
Rendered to mpg2 using the NTSC Widescreen 24p template.

The video looks bad. Blocky around the edges of things (sorry don't know correct terminology) and maybe a little blurred. Just to make sure, I looked at the native mt2 files and they look great. I then compared the video to some shot on my vx2000 and it was significantly worse than the SD camera. What have I done wrong?

And then to add insult to injury I was going to use Gear Shift to replace the proxies with the original mt2's and it just put a bunch of solid red files in place of the video. Something I'll need to fix since I'd like to preserve the ability to do a HD render in the future.

Anyway, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

it doesn't make much change really but you cant also call it messing up. Windows normally changes the size of the virtual memory according to its needs and this change in the size causes some slowing down. by setting up limits to 1.5 and 2 times of physical memory you simply define an optimum size so that it is supposed to increase performance.

i always use virtual memory with these settings.

for you comp the min size is 3 gb and the max is 4 gb.

Can you post some stills?

FWIW, GearShift can't create red frames. This would indicate a problem with your system. Red frames mean corrupted frames. Since GearShift uses the Vegas rendering engine, this would suggest computer problems of some sort, ie; fragged drives, corrupt sectors.

Thanks; I'm assuming the four digit number that's listed on my current default setup is in MB, so just so I have my math correct:

One gigabyte equals 1,000MB (to be specific, I've discovered it's 1,024 megabytes). Would that mean 3GB equals 3072MB? Here all this time I thought a gig was 1000.

Yes, 3Gig = 3072Meg. Here's why 1024 instead of 1000:

2 * 2 = 4
4 * 2 = 8
8 * 2 = 16
16 * 2 = 32
32 * 2 = 64
64 * 2 = 128
128 * 2 = 256
256 * 2 = 512
512 * 2 = 1024

Computers work with binary numbers. 2^10 = 1024

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately it seems I do not have priviledges to post attachements. I'll look into changing that.

I was hoping the red frames were just because I had moved the original mt2's from my hard drive to an external drive and Gear Shift couldn't find them (never was prompted to redirect to a new location like Vegas does). But I guess I need to do some trouble shooting.

i believe V6 creates the red frames when it sees errors/corrupted data ..

maybe they were corrupted when you moved them to external hard drive ?
i've had that happen more then a few times over a bad 1394 cable/connection

I've never had corrupted files before. Is there a way to fix them or am I stuck recapturing and then re-editing?

Deinterlace option
 

Dan,

Thanks for the comments. Sorry about not stating the capture format. I am using the Z1, it captures interlaced (1080-60i 1440x1080).

Regarding the deinterlace option of the encoding: as I stated in my post, I do in fact select the de-interlace option from encoder options, so it does perform the deinterlace (if you download and install the codec from the first post, you will see the options available, also the documentation describes how the deinterlace works).

My basic question was, does anyone have any experience with the workflow and have they encountered any problems? So far my tests appear to be very successful. But, I am wondering if I am overlooking anything.

HDV to Web
 

I have been using WMV 720-30p to web. Any suggestions on how to make the file size smaller would be great.

Jon

Text is "lossy" on still frames and solid colors
 

Text against still frames or solid colors has the JPEG "lossy" or "blocky" look after rendering. Is is possible to correct this?

A couple of things to look at;
First---where are you developing the text? In other words are you using Vegas Media to generate the text or another program

Second---what font are you using? (some lend themselves better than others to this problem)

Thirdly---when are you seeing this? In other words, when you render to AVI,MPEG (1 or 2) or on preview?

Fourth---If on preview how is your preview set? (draft,good,best)

Let us know and we'll try to help you out.

Don

And then when it does change the size, chances are it will be fragmented.

I always set up a static pagefile...and do it before anything else is on the drive. Get a nice contiguous block that way. :-)

Vegas Media.
Arial.
WMV (9).
Best, 1280x720.

It's most noticable with red background or red text. Maybe use a different codec? It appears to be a compression problem.

Hmmmm,
I use Arial all the time in the generated media and for WMV it works very well but I'm rendering to either 720X480 or smaller for the web.
Also I never render at BEST Good has served me well. Perhaps it has more to do with the size you're rendering too, 1280X720. Let me think somemore about this.

Don

It's the reds that are giving you grief. That's one of, if not the most, difficult colour for video to handle. If you saw any of the Olympics opening ceremonies (one scene almosty totally in red), you'll know what I mean.
I make sure to keep reds well below the 235 max, generally no more than 200.
BTW, there's a good article titled Great Titles with the DV Codec at http://www.creativecow.net/articles/...les/index.html

Mike

Mike,
You know I looked at the thread and didn't even see RED-thanks for reminding me. I had to get to a gig by 5AM after getting in from 1 last night at midnight so the brain is fully functional yet.

Don

Step 1 - figure out who will be watching your video online, and what their available bandwidth is. Modem, DSL/Cable, T1, OC3?

Step 2 - figure out how much buffering is acceptable before your audience decides to click away from your content. In other words, will they wait 8 seconds or 2 minutes?

Step 3 - now, size your video. File | Render As | Custom | Bitrate. You'll find that in many cases your 720x480 looks bad at lower bitrates, and you'll be back to the Video tab looking at other frame sizes ranging from 160x120 up through 640x480 (the square pixel equiv. of 720x480).

Test as needed. Frequently, something gets sacrificed because with the current state of internet access and technology it mostly isn't the same as full-screen full-motion TV. Sorry.

If you are using a true WM streaming server, you can also create a multiple bit rate file, that will have perhaps 2 or 3 bitrates included, the server negotiates the appropriate bitrate with the client. An alternative for progressive download is creating multiple versions of your WMV sized for different available bandwidths, and let the user decide which one they want.

Well after hours of carefully reviewing the video it turns out only the initial scene looks weak. One thing that stood out was the interface between black shirt and black skin was "blocky". But most of the other shots look good. Still haven't heard back concerning my priviledges to post attachments.

Thanks... I am going to encode as h.264 as well. If my potential clients don't have highspeed, I will mail them one.

Stinks that 30 secs equals about 20+mbs.

Jon

6.0d is out
 

For those of you who were waiting, it's here!!

Notable Fixes/Changes in Version 6.0d

* Support for VR-mode DVD Handycam® camcorder discs has been improved. When importing video from Sony DVD Handycam discs in VR or Video mode, each chapter is now imported as a separate file.
* The MainConcept AVC/AAC codec has been added to Vegas. You can use this plug-in to import H.264 video in your projects and to render H.264 video (including support for HD frame sizes, two-pass encoding, main and baseline profiles, export to all common frame rates— including NTSC, PAL, and 24p— and Apple iPod® video format).

Please continue to use the Sony AVC/AAC encoder to create video for the PSP™ (PlayStation®Portable).
* Video quality has been improved for the Sony AVC/AAC encoder and rendering templates have been refined.
* A problem has been fixed that could cause problems when reading AVI files with MP3-encoded audio.
* A bug has been fixed that could cause Vegas to hang in some low-memory situations.
* A bug has been fixed that could cause Vegas to crash after copying and pasting Bézier mask keyframes between events.
* A bug has been fixed that could cause Vegas to crash when pressing Alt+Shift+4 to toggle external monitor preview when the Video Preview window is not visible.
* A problem has been fixed that could cause nested projects to display the incorrect length.
* Audio/video synchronization has been improved when reading certain QuickTime files.
* High-definition Windows Media Video rendering templates now use the Windows Media Audio 9 codec for improved device compatibility.
* A problem has been fixed that could cause a hang when burning a disc-at-once CD with the Plextor 716 SATA drive.
* A display issue with Waves GTR plug-ins has been fixed.
* A problem has been fixed that could occur when editing audio event properties on systems that use decimal separators other than a period.
* A problem has been fixed that could occur when typing nondelimited timecode in the Vegas external video capture application in PAL format.
* Various improvements have been made to the Media Manager.
* A problem that could cause XFX audio effects to run in demo mode has been fixed.
* Fixed a problem that could occur when running the Batch Render script without Quick Time installed.
* Resolved an issue with recapture of media from an AAF import.
* A bug has been fixed that occurred when setting the Timecode InPoint value of a media source during AAF export.
* A bug has been fixed that could cause Vegas to crash when adding some MPEG-2 files to the timeline and converting YUV 4:2:0 color to RGB.
* Last-used render templates are now preserved for each rendering format.
* Issues with certain VST plug-ins that related to presets and settings have been fixed.
* A problem with the ripple function sometimes creating very small event overlaps has been fixed.
* Scripting: a problem has been fixed that could prevent RenderArgs flags (such as IncludeMarkers) from changing the render settings.

Perfect timing! I have to prepare DVDs this weekend for a film screening. Now I will be able to bundle a H.264 version of the video.

And they FINALLY fixed the audio plugins reverting to demo mode caused in the 6.0c release. I'll be downloading this tonight.

Thanks for the help guys! That article is just what I needed.

thanks for the heads-up!

Thanks Mike, that did the trick

Mono to Stereo
 

I have some old 8mm video which is in Mono sound. When I captured it it shows on the left track. Can I create,copy the left track to the right so I will have 2 tracks. I would like to be able to pan to the left right later on.
tks