You tried resetting Vegas? If you hold down CTRL+SHIFT when you start Vegas, that should reset everything back INCLUDING the screen positions for the windows.

I need some direction from you wonderful Pros.
 

Hello everyone,

I am in the latter part of week #2 spending approxiamtely 16 to 18 hours a day trying to get my fishing show created in HD. For those of you who don't remember me, my name is Captain Ben Chancey and I host a fishing show out of Florida called "Chew On This." I have been filming and producing shows in DV for a couple of years now. I have three complete shows filmed in HD. Up until a few weeks ago there never was any reason to do anything HD wise because there wasn't any channels in my field that aired HD programming. Fortunately now there is. Unfortunately though, everything I have ever created has to be created from scratch accept for the three shows I did in HD. Over the past week with the help of some great patrons (Ed Troxel for leading me to BT, and Heroglyph) of this forum and others, I was able to get past several sticking points. Last night I actually rendered and printed the meat of my first HD show ever. There has not been any half stepping. I have had to do things I never even new existed as far as editing and capturing. The footage is spectacular and true to life. The biggest problem I have with HD is "Boy does it make me look UGLY." I mean to tell you if there is a flaw or a hair out of place, it will be picked up by the camera. It also really will make you look quite a bit heavier. I am on a diet right now because I've got to do better.

Now to the point. I need to put the most professional touch I possibly can on the show. In my previous shows graphics, titling, and text have all been mediocre at best. One thing I really, really need is the ability to create the cool captions or whatever you call them that goes under a person to name them. I have had fishing shows on everyday for nearly 2 weeks now attempting to figure out how to create just that simple titling. Some of the ones I have seen make sounds and scroll on the screen quick. They look great. I know I can make them but I just have not been able to find the groove yet. I have Bluff Titler but it seems to be jaggy and when I chroma key it, there is a wierd tint that darkens the picture. I am not very happy with chroma keying yet. I have downloaded Heroglyph but so far I have yet to find anything in there that has that polished TV look. As of right now I kind of feel myself stressing. I really needed to have the show done and overnighted by tomorrow but I am not comfortable with what I have created so far with the glitter and glaze portion of the show. I am confident and very happy with the meat of the show. I just want to be able to send the network the highest quality complete package that I can.

Sorry for the long post. I like to read DV Info and hear what others are doing out there with their video knowledge and abilities. I hope you all don't mind reading what I am doing. Any advice or help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Capt Ben Chancey

Hey Captain Ben!
You might find this tool to be useful:
http://www.vasst.com/product.aspx?id...1-13ca5d685527

There are the freebies for it, plus there are purchaseable packages for it.
what you're looking for is "lower thirds" which are sometimes called "name boards."

They're easy to make in Vegas, but there are myriad packages on the web, too.
If you really wanted fancy, one of our designers could make a "fishing" themed lower third package set for you.

Douglas you are great. For whatever reason I was not able to figure out what they were called. I am typically fairly creative but I just didn't know where to start. Your help and advice is greatly appreciated. Now I can get to work for another 24 to 36 hours and maybe get it done.

Regards,
Capt Ben

using blue screens
 

How do make a background transparent in Vegas.

I have captured a clip, on a blue background, and want to make the blue background go away, and then lay the remainder on top of another clip.

I can't figure out how to make Vegas 6.0 do that.. Any help

Keith Kolbo's article "Chroma Keying DV in Sony's Vegas " at http://www.digitalpostproduction.com...e.jsp?id=31596 does a good job of walking you through the entire process.

you can also find Keith's article, along with several others on the subject of keying/masking/compositing at http://www.vasst.com/search.aspx?text=Chromakey

Preview device without the deck
 

Like most people, I use a camcorder as a digital/analog converter between my computer and video monitor. Is there a cheap solution that would let me replace my camcorder and still be compatible with Vegas.

I know Pinnacle has some external video cards with s-video output (which is what I connect my camcorder to my monitor with). Is anyone out there using this or a similar video card successfully with Vegas?

Even better would be a PCI card with an S-Video output. I just need one that's known to work (selectable in video preferences) with Vegas.

Best file type to import into VEGAS 6.0c?
 

Hello. I am relatively new to digital editing and as such have so much to learn.
I have an old 1 inch tape (35mm footage/4 minutes in length) that I want to have converted to a file so that I can re-edit it in Vegas 6.0c for output to DVD in 24p format. I found a nearby production house here in Phoenix that still has a one-inch machine and they can convert it to just about any file type. My question is what would be the best file format to have it converted to for use in Vegas 6.0c that would result in the highest retained image?
They mentioned using MPEG4 of which I only know that there are two types; (MPEG-4 part 2 …a.k.a. MPEG-4 simple profile. And MPEG-4 part 10…a.k.a. H.264 which is for HD although my 1-inch is not HD of course).
..Or, would an MPEG2 or AVI file type suffice? Note that this is for a reel which I am putting together and timeline footage will be mixed with HD24P footage coming off of a JVC HD100U in case that has any bearing on it.
Thanks in advance!

Hi all-
Messed around with DVD3 for a day.....and now I am proud to say that I have my project completed with menus/menu selection, great background, the works. Even has music loop on menu. It was fairly easy to learn. DVD3 is great just like vegas. (Now that I have my computer stable to edit, lol)

One question I do have is in DVD3. Is there like a safe zone for titling that I can turn on? or you kinda just hmmm. looks good. hahaha.

Thank you all especially Edward for all the help you have extended to us newbies.

After Effects & Vegas
 

What resolution should the compostition be in After Effects when the clips are later brought into Vegas for final output?

I was using 720 x 480 but the video was stretched. I find 654 X 480 gives me better results.

Is this the proper way for best results?

The odd thing is the AE template is 654 x 480 0.9 pixel size but when I bring the clip into Vegas the pixel is 1. If I change it to 0.9 it looks stretched again so I leave it 1 even though it was rendered in AE at 0.9 654 x 480. There must be something wrong but it works.

Sure is. View - Workspace Overlays - Show Title Safe Area & Show Action Safe Area.

Thanks for the info Mike.

Get a convertor similar to a Canopus ADVC-100. There are several different models and several different companies make them. This will replace your camera and work well with Vegas.

I recommend capturing into standard DV-AVI. This will allow editing without the additional quality loss that rendering from MPEG to MPEG will give.