Ahhh... now I see:

Use the techniques talked about in Vol 3 #1 of my newsletters (Ways to Split Screen which is, essentially, what you are doing) and Vol 2 #5 (Text Compositing Reprised which is the same basic idea - white logo on transparent background instead of a text generated media)

It is quite possible that you might have to right-click the title event, choose Properties, go to the second tab, and change the alpha mode. It's been a while since I've done it.

The technique for getting text inside the text is described in Vol 2 #5 of my newsletters. Quickly, you can just put the text on track 1, the video to appear inside the letters on track 2, and then change the mode of Track 1 to "Multiply (Mask)". If you put more video on a track below, that will appear outside the letters.

Vegas6.0c to DVDA quality loss
 

I rendered a 15 min. montage in Vegas6. Playback in Vegas is fine. Playback of MPEG2 through Windows Media Player is fine. Load the file into DVDA and the images in the montage are slightly out of focus. Just enough to become unacceptable. Any suggestions?

Ultimate S photo montage
 

Anyone know where to find the DSE downloadable video tutorial that shows how to place markers in the Vegas timeline to time photo transitions using the spacebar and hitting it to the beat of the music?

Please disregard this careless post...I figured out how to place markers....thank you

one channel stereo in VEgas or Sound Forge
 

This sounds stupid to me, but here's what I wanna do--

I wanna take a stereo audio file, and kill one of the channels. I don't want it to be mono, I still want it to be stereo, but with either the left or right channel blank. For some reason, I can't figure out how to do this in Vegas or Sound Forge.

I have been requested to do this for voice over purposes, so if it sounds inane, that's why I'm trying to do this. Trust me, this is the way the guy wants it, so that's set in stone.

Sean/Edward,

I am also working on putting together a clip that features text burning. However, the flames need to "emit" from the surface of the text and then grow wider and larger than the text characters. I would like to use stock footage of fire from Artbeats or the like as most of the generated stuff looks fairly poor, but I am having difficulty in determining how to composite the source footage with the text. In reality, Vegas may not be the right tool. If not, what is?


Lance Spratt

Blufftitler has an option which isnt really wat I'm looking for but u sound like u r attempting to just that. Check it out :)

How about if you right-click the audio, choose "Combine" for the type, and then pan it left or right? This would give you BOTH channels on either the left or the right with the other channel blank.

Problem Solved, I think.
 

Project burned out of DVDA just fine. Still don't quit understand why, when viewing/editing projects in DVDA mainframe, image quality appears less than that of Vegas quality? Being a Newbee, it's probably something silly that I have overlooked.

Problem Solved, I think.
 

Project burned out of DVDA just fine. Still don't quit understand why, when viewing/editing projects in DVDA mainframe, image quality appears less than that of Vegas quality? Being a Newbee, it's probably something silly that I have overlooked.

Ok, gotcha.

And render it back out as stereo. Brilliant! Thanks.

Previews in both Vegas 5 or 6 and DVDA 2 and 3 do leave something to be desired. I have found the best way to preview is thru an EXTERNAL monitor either NTSC or even a small TV. Pass thru FW to the monitor or TV and use the PREVIEW ON EXTERNAL MONITOR button. Part of it is framerate and part is just the look of MPEG on a computer screen. Once you've rendered to MPEG 99 times out of 100 the project will look just fine once burned to DVD.
Don

Editing via an external drive...
 

Here's a question for "da pros"

I'll be purchasing a laptop for on-the-go editing during free time at work, etc.

I figured I'd place captured files on an external FW hdd.

If I'm editing on the laptop and then get home and do more editing, or adding effects, on the desktop can I simply transfer the veg files over to the desktop and continue editing as long as the external hdd has the same drive name on both machines? (ie: drive E: video work)

Thanks for your input.

sincerely,


ian

Hi Ian

I use Adobe Premiere Pro and load all my projects onto external hard drives, usually on my laptop... as long as all the project files are on the external drive it shouldn't be a problem.

I often do what you're suggesting.. simply plugging in the hard drive via the USB ports. It's a simple job to link media in Prem and edit on the desk top...

Regards
Gareth

Thanks Gareth,

Any Vegas users like to chime in on this one? :-D

sincerely,


ian

Yes you can. It's definitely easier if the drive has the same letter on both machines but even that isn't a requirement. Just keep everything for that project on the external drive and all should be fine (but you might want to backup the important files to the local drive(s) too.)

Dvd-ram
 

Just wondering if anyone uses these RAM burners to save projects for later editing. The only thing I found is their 4x speed is a big down fall. I really haven't used mine since harddrives got so cheep. Thanks!!!

After Effects vs Vegas
 

May not be a loss!! I was wanting to post a ? on this subject of montageing anyway. Does Vegas give you the ability to do slideshows like Adobe After Effects??? Hopefully it's a little easier. Thanks

Ken, are you saying Vegas needs some help in rendering or are you like me using a fairly high-low end video card in hopes of faster rendering... Just wondering :)

Depends on what you mean by "slideshows".
Like a lot of folks here, I've done several photo montages and Vegas makes it very easy. In addition, there are numerous add-on programs that help to automate a lot of it.

Take a look at vol 1 #8 and vol 3 #3 of my newsletters. They show how to add variety to slideshows in Vegas.

USB Drive Problems
 

In the past, I have used my USB 2.0 drives to capture DV and edit from. I recently upgraded my computer to a Dual Core AMD 3800 board. In both Vegas and Premiere Pro 1.51, I get sudden freezes when acquiring the DV footage. I don't seem to run into that same problem when I use Pinnacle Studio 10 to capture. Anyone else having the problem. The whole system will freeze, and I have to shut down the system by switching it off.

Chris Barcellos

External firewire drives
 

I would like to edit selects onto an external 250GB hard drive or two for a project. Then send the selects on the drive to the editor. Will my 2.5Ghz P4 with 1GB of RAM be up to this task?

Any recomendations on the best portable firewire drives people have been using sucessfully lately?

Many thanks in advance.

Jim

vegas does not use teh GFX card for rendering whatsoever UNLESS your using a plugin (like the new Magic Bullet suite) which utlises the openGL grunt of the GPU to proces said material.

apart from that the questions been answered

Thanks I will do that!!! I have been messin with the demo version of Vegas and I am liking it more and more. I ment montages. Must be the Texan commin out again--->sorry ;)

Hi Chris, Good to see someone I kinda know here. I had read that if you shut one of the cores off in bios (I guess! I can't remember if there is a program that comes with the motherboard or not) it might help... Might be wrong. I have had nothing but trouble with my AMD64 locking up on burning to DVD in PPro.
(:I might have another dv cam here soon. I got a second chance on a GL2 :)

I used to use a laptop as a 2nd system. P3-650Mhz with 256 meg Ram-and a 120 meg FW HDD. It rendered slow but it worked like a champ.
Just make sure the external harddrive is firewire not USB. I've heard many many horror stories of using USB and losing the signal between the drive and the computer. (only relating what I heard)

Don

Thanks John, I'll check it out. Did you see that on DVInfo.net ?

Congrats on GL2. I will curious to see how you compare the two rigs once you are shooting both. By the way saw all that heavy equipment you work with-- wow !!! Some awesome booms there :)

Chris Barcellos

Sean, are you thinking of something like Cool 3d?Where the text itself is on fire.

Cool 3D?? Let me go check it out. The price is certainly reasonable :) Thanks!

I'm using a firewire external HDD as well.It works fines BUT I had an overheating issue n the HDD died! Luckily I managed to recover most of the date. So if u r looking for an external solution,make sure u get one from a reputable brand like maxtor (seagate now) with built in cooling. U dun wan to be caught losing yr impt videos...

Transparent Letter Problem
 

I work with BluffTitler to create 3D titling efect.I save AVI file with no compression, then put the events to Vegas timeline, right click to change alpha channel from none to premultipiled. That works, letters appears as overlay but with 50% transparency and that iritates me. How to get solid letters, I mean no transparent letters at all.Regards.

Results
 

Smooth here on my AMD x2 3800; 4gb ram

I'm curious as to what a minimal configuration might be to play this file.

PAL Wide Screen from Canon XM2?
 

Will somebody please put me out of my misery - tell me how to setup Vegas for Widescreen editing using the PAL XM2 or failing that the GL2. The XM2 can does shoot a 16:9 format - not the true 16:9 chip, but 16:9.

I'm confused between the widescreen project setups, the Previewing and the general process.

Grazie

I haven't seen that with BluffTitler avi files. In my case, the background was simply properly removed. What if you try Pre-Multiplied without the "Dirty"?

Real Media video into Vegas
 

Hi all,

I'm trying to make a DVD from some .rm videos I have, but they do not import into the Vegas timeline.

Any suggestions please?

Thanks,
Isaac

Yes, use some program that can read RM files and convert them to something Vegas can read. RM is a protected format but you should be able to find something on the web to convert them.

Thanks Ed for such a quick response :)

Anybody out there have experience with RM converters out there?

Thanks,
Isaac

A comment about the USB2 or Firewire issue:

Leaving aside any debate about whether fw is marginally faster than USB2, there is a potential concern with some setups in that certain cameras (mine included, a Canon XM2) can hog the firewire bus during capture and shaft your other fw connections - eg to an external fw hard drive! There are other posts o this subject in the GL1/2 forum.

This is why all my external drives (details below) are now USB2 (or combo USB2/fw). I learned this the hard way!

With USB I've personally never experienced any loss of connection as Don described but that's not to say it doesn't happen. My point is that you need to know that there won't be any conflict between your camera's use of fw and any other device.

FYI the external drives I use are:

1. 250Gb Western Digital External FW/USB2 Combo. I had two of these but one passed away, along with much video data! (How the hell do you back up a 250gb drive, other than to another 250gb drive?? I guess this is where 'redundancy' proves how useful it is). The drive performs OK but looks dire (fluorescent pink lights in a transparent case. Yuk). Also has no power switch, you have to turn off at the wall. Hate that.

2. 250Gb Philips SPD5110CC USB2. Only just bought this as I was in need of a quick burst of transportable storage for a specific project so no comments on reliability etc. Same problem with the lack of a power switch. It says there's a safe shut down button on the box but when you come to install you discover that this only works when you use the included backup software, which I don't want to do. That bugs me.

3. Maxtor One Touch II 300Gb USB2/FW combo. This is the best of the bunch. Small(ish) case, reasonably nicely styled, the quitest drive of the three and it has a power switch!! Having experienced three different low cost drives, this is the one I will buy again in future.

All the drives are 7200rpm and require a separate power supply.

Hope this is of some use.

Cheers.

Ian . . .