If all you want to do is convert a VOB to MPG without loss of quality, MPEG2VCR will do that.

It was mpeg2

update
 

Well, I now have the system I described earlier.

My experience is the same as Magnus's. Not full framerate preview. Good enough though.
We did our first week with the kids this past week. They did a great job and the parents were blown away.

If You only want to do simple cuts and additions, You should try out Cuttermaran (Freeware) in connection with the TMPGEncoder. You can cut frame accurate, only broken GOPs are reencoded. You need to demultiplex the VOBs first. You can load fhe final elementary streams in every authoring tool. If cutting on I - Frames is sufficent, You dont need TMPGEncoder. Works with AC3 and PCM and DTS sound.

Greatings Richard

Vegas User Group Meeting - Washington DC, Baltimore, Northern VA
 

REMINDER:

The next Washington Baltimore Vegas User Group (WBVUG) meeting is next week on Thursday, June 29th.

For more information go to:

http://www.oicproductions.net/wbvugm.html

If you plan on attending, please let us know.

Thanks!

Mickey Grackin
mgrackin@oicproductions.net

Velocity
 

Hey guys, I've been using Vegas for a while now, and one thing I can't figure out is how to speed up the footage BEYOND what the Velocity envelope can do. Sometimes, the max Velocity isn't enough, as is my current situation. I need to speed up atleast another 100%, maybe 200%. Right now, the only NLE that I have that can do this is Premiere, but my footage is 24p and we all know what Premiere does to 24p!

Is there even a way to increase the speed change in Vegas (beyond the given velocity in the envelope)?

Use the Velocity Envelope for up to 3x.
Hold down the CTRL key and resize the event for up to 4x.
Do both for up to 12x.

For more than 12x, options include:
a) Rendering that section, putting it back on the timeline, and doing the above again.

b) Saving that section as a separate VEG file and putting the VEG file back on a new timeline and do the above again.

c) Using a script (Like "Time Bandit" found in the Veggie Toolkit and Excalibur) which will cut out pieces to go beyond 12x.

Awesome, thanks a lot Edward!

EDIT: I must say, I hate Vegas' velocity options. I speed up my footage well beyond 12x. This is what I did:

Original Clip, raised the velocity envelope all the way, and then held CTRL and resized event to 4x (as small as it got). Saved the it.

Got that VEG and did both again. Saved it.

I took the secondo VEG and imported it into my project, I then used CTRL to resize the event a little more, almost all the way, but not quite.

Now, it previews just fine, not much lag, and it looks nice and smooth...so what's the problem you ask?

RENDERING! It's taking me well over a minute to render 1 frame from the sped up footage. Premiere didn't have this much trouble rendering sped up footage like Vegas does, in fact, Premiere blows Vegas out of the water in this particular situation. My computer has spent the last 2 hours and 41 minutes rendering a 20 minute project. Normally, this would have finished an hour and a half ago, if not quicker.

Ron,

The .1 in 5.1 is the bass or LFE channel. When you are working with 5.1, USUALLY the audio tracks are mixed seperately with the intention to go to their respective channel. For example, if you have 10 discrete tracks and want to make the project a 5.1 project, then you can assign each channel to it's respective speaker config. Generally, what you intend to come through as bass, you send to LFE. what you want to come out to RF, you send to RF. You can also send 1 channel to a combination of speakers so when all 10 tracks are directed, you can get the sound to surround as you wish. Once you render to AC3, it will be encoded so it will play exactly to what proportions you set up to each speaker.

Hope that helps.

Jeff MAck

Don, I would love to do so, but I currently can't have that kind of set-up.

Lars, I have no idea how the bad looks good on your screen...I can't get it too look right at all.

Glenn, great tuturial, but I already have tried playing with the Levels and it did nothing. Of course in my preview monitor it looked nice and vibrant, but as soon as I rendered out, it looked even WORSE. The bird was more visible, so were the blocks, but the background texture was COMPLETELY lost.

I haven't gotten a chance to really read your tutorial, but will do so as soon as I get a chance. It looks very informative and hopefully it solves my problem.

Think about it: for every ten seconds of sped-up footage, Vegas is having to cram 129,600 images into the space normally occupied by 300 (this is assuming you've increased velocity by a factor of 432, as your workflow would seem to indicate - 3 x 4 x 3 x 4 x 3= 432). If there is a lot of detail in those frames, and a lot of movement in the footage, it shouldn't be hard to imagine the kind of computing power it would require to accomplish this.

Granted, render times have always been the chink in Vegas' otherwise very shiny armor, in my opinion. Still, I don't remember Premiere outperforming Vegas all that much when it came to rendering (or an any other area, for that matter). I jumped the Premiere ship and boarded the Vegas vessel (pardon the nautical metaphors) before PP 1.0 came out, and I imagine things have improved a decent amount since then. But this still seems like a very CPU-intensive process in any environment, to me.

Side note: I usually just start my renders late at night and then go to bed. I was looking at routine 16-hour renders on an extremely composite-heavy project I recently completed, and I don't think I'd have remained sane if I'd waited around all day waiting for the render to finish up. The long render times are just part of the price we pay for being able to do such amazing things on home computers, IMO. If you want faster renders, build a render farm or set up a huge network.

Single frame capture
 

If I'm using Cineform codec to edit HD in Vegas, if I do a frame capture (in the usual manner from the preview window) - will it be full HD resolution - 1440x1080 or would it be a lower res because of Cineform?

Thanx

Ian

Be sure to set the qualtiy settings to "Best" and You will get a 1920x1080 picture. Check if You need Deinterlacing. If You need 1440 x 1080 - I dont konow if this is possilble. Fpr tis You can use Vdub (freeware).

Greetings Richard

I learned vegas after I ran out of curse words using Premiere, (sorry PP users), and I can honestly say, this forum, the people here who have written books and tutorials will help a ton. As mentioned earlier, get a project and push it using different techniques. Don't be afraid to try something. I seem to learn something new every day about Vegas.

I thought the horizontal 'real' (ie number of pixels) is 1440 - it just looks like 1920 because of the shape of the pixel?

And just when I thought I finally understood aspect ratio....

Ian