Of course you can downconvert. Just open an SD 23.976 timeline, import your m2t or better yet, Cineform file to the timeline, and edit away. Just use "BEST" when rendering to DVD format or m2t for tape print.

DSE comes through again!

Thanks! you guys at VAAST are a big part of the reason I'm using Vegas.

I better go buy something from you.

Ken

MXF Files
 

Its says in the Vegas help to just drag them into the timelime but it doesn't work for me :(

What could i be doing wrong?

do i need a codec?



grrrr... Sorry was supposed to be in Vegas section... can someone move it? i need sleep.....

In what format did you receive the HD footage you're having trouble with? How did you get it onto your hard drive?

As for the HD tape you mention, I'm assuming it's HDV. No, it won't play back on a mini-DV camcorder, because HDV uses MPEG-2 compression. It's an entirely different format that just happens to use the same type of tapes to store its 1's and 0's.

'Special Effect'
 

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone had made a video that does the 'flashbulb' effect we often see in TV programs like CSI Miami.

It is often used to link shots -the luminosity of the scene rises sharply and quickly and when its at a peak the scene jumps to another. I'm not sure if the 2nd scene then ramps the luminosity down. All this seems to happen in a split second -maybe 1/4 sec or about 3 or 4 frames...

My questions is -how do they achieve it? Can you apply a 'luminosity' envelope over the two scenes? Thanks.


Nick.

Use the "flash" transition. You can overlap your footage like a regular dissolve, then go into the transitions pool and drag the flash transition onto the dissolve. You'll then be able to make adjustments to the color, brightness, etc. of the transition.

you can also use generated media, and even shift from a dull yellow to a bright white or vice-versa. Double-click the crossfade to create a selection, right click in the empty selection area above the Xfade, and "insert generated media" to create the effect. Keyframe generated media as desired. Fade in/out as desired.

Average frame rate after capture?
 

Hey all,

I was capturing some video using V6 and an external HDD with my laptop and noted that the average frame rate was listed as something like, 28.9 fps, during the capture.

I thought the standard is 29.97 or something similar.

Is that going to cause a problem with sync or speed or anything like that?

Just wondering.

sincerely,

ian

I already responded in the other thread, but the short version is that I have no real idea what's up with that, but also that I've never had any problems with the footage.

Depends on a few things. One thing is using an external HD are you capturing on FW or USB? Whats the speed of the drive, what else is going on in the MS background and does it playback OK?
Although I've myself have never had a problem with capture framerate it could be any number of things.

Don

VST Plugins
 

Hey all,

Vegas 5 user here - have been playing around with the Vegas 6 demo.

I use a handful of audio plugins and virtual instruments to record with in Vegas. In Vegas 5 some of these work, some don't and a few I have to run cables out unused outputs of my A/D box and back into my mixer to be able to record with them.

In the Vegas 6 demo I find I've been able to open all my virtual instruments and audio plugins except M-Audio virtual keyboard programs. Does anyone know if it's possible to use M-Audio KeyRig or the M-Tron as a VST plugins in the audio chain of Vegas 6? According to the documentation they will both work this way with most standard DAWs but it doesn't actually mention Vegas.

thanks,

Dan B

there are many different kinds of MFX files ..from what camera ? or what capture system ?

No problem..headed for the Vegas forum.

-gb-

High contrast cause interlace problems?
 

Still editing my first wedding video!!!!

EDITED - I've now managed to upload the clip in question - it's here

I'm creating the highlight piece to Van Morrison's Moondance. You'll see 6 clips appearing in rapid succession. On the computer screen it looks great but when I play back on TV the first set of rectangles play OK but as they are replaced by the second set the screen becomes unstable with the rectangles jitterimng vertically - completely spoils the effect. The clip was created using event pan/crop to adjust the picture width, event fx to add the border and track motion to place the picture.

I've tried reducing the size of the rectangles so they're further into the screen but this doesn't help. The only way I can get it to remain steady is to change the rectangle border from white to grey or to change the background from black to a dark grey.

Is this problem caused by the black and white contrast, the speed of change or is there something else I'm missing. I've tried 'reduce flicker', 'force resample' and render at best quality. I use the DVD Architect template and then use DVDA to make the DVD. This is PAL by the way.

Thanx

Ian

I'm not totally sure what kind they are, i've only downloaded 2 different ones.
Its just we supposedly gonna be shooting on XDCam and as it says in the Vegas Help that it can use the .MXF files straight from the disc i thought it would be best to grab them rather than having it transfered to miniDV.

Can anyone point me to more information on .MXF files and what kind Vegas will like?
Anyone used .MXF files in Vegas? can you email or send me link to download one to try.

Thanks

Oh , guess i should mention that no i haven;t got access to the XDCam to try the files from there, i'm not sure its even happening yet.
so thats why i downloading whatever .MXF files i can find to try it out first.. so when or if it comes i'll have things sorted..... hopefully :)

Without seeing exactly what you're talking about, I'd say that this is probably just one of those things that interlaced video can't handle very well. You may just have to try that grey border.

One more thing you might try is a small amount of gaussian blur; you might try as much as 0.003 on both settings (though go with 0.001 or 0.002 if you can). That will make for a less abrupt transition between white and black.

Phillip,
there are .mxf files from both XDCAM and from Panasonic (and Grass Valley) on the VASST site. Free downloads. Other sites have at least HVX footage to download for experimenting.
XDCAM will load straight to the Vegas timeline. Panasonic's flavor requires conversion using either CineForm or Raylight.

Jarrod

Thanx for the tip - I'll try that - note I have now editied my original post and managed to upload the clip.

Ian

Ian,

It's more likely that your black and white values are out of legal bounds. Is there a Broadcast Safe filter you can use?

Josh

Yes, Vegas has a Broadcast Safe filter. It may be just as easy to simply make sure the colors fall within the 16-235 range instead. (i.e. instead of 255,255,255 use 235,235,235 which will still look white but won't be "pure" white which can cause problems)

You can also put a 16 16 16 RGB black background underneath... the Vegas default is 0 0 0 RGB, which is not a legal black.

I don’t have M-Audio KeyRig but I do have M-Tron and it does not plug in. I’m not sure it really is an audio plug-in. What would it process? (it’s just a sample player) I have use Native Instruments B4 in Vegas as a Leslie effect and it works great.

~jr

Lost Keyframe
 

One of my favorite tools is keyframing special effects...for example making the lens flare effect move across a picture/video clip.

Unfortunately, the keyframe feature is gone from all video effects work areas.

I can still keyframe in Pan/Scan, but in nothing else. I suspect I accidentally removed it somehow, I have a vague memory of having had no sleep for three days and messing something up a while ago, but I'm not sure what is going on!

Appreciate any help...

Jeff Harper
Cincinnati, OH

Open up the window missing the timeline at the bottom of the effect screen. Move the mouse SLOWLY to the bottom of the screen. As soon as it turns into an up/down arrow, click and drag upwards.

The timeline at the bottom of the effects windows is resizable. You've apparently resized yours to nothing.

All

Thanx for the great advice. I've reduced the black and the white slightly - and as you've suggested - it still looks black and white - but jitters gone and I can still keep the rectangles a decent size.

Ian

Nice
 

I just love this stuff -thanks!

Who's the man?
 

E T...that's who...thanks Edward...that was it...Jeff Harper

Put that tiny section in a LOOP and keep playing it WHILE adjusting the transition. It helps me get that kinda *BANG* urgency.

Grazie

5.1 Surround and LFE
 

So I'm working on a project with 5.1 surround sound and the only way I could direct anything to the LFE channel was to make copies of the appropriate audio tracks and mark them for LFE. Is this the "right way" to utilize LFE, or am I missing a way to configure an audio track for both (example) front L/R and LFE (using cutoff frequency).

Thanks,

Ron

Themes - Buttons - Background Tabs are all empty? I went to make a DVD and those 3 folder were all empty so I couldn't have any menu's. When I look at the directory that DVD arcitect is in there two themes folders. One is "_Themes" the other is "themes". Why do I have 2 ? Why does the program not show any in the tab themes, and why no buttons or backgrounds? I don't even see a folder in the directory label buttons or backgrounds. Are they located somewhere else? Thanks - PK

Vegas .sfk files-Saving to specific location?
 

Is there a way to direct where Vegas saves it's .sfk files?

They get kind of cumbersome and clog viewing of folders.

Thanks in advance.

They will always be saved in the exact same folder as the file they are created from. There's no way to change that behaviour. Besides, what if you had two files with the same name in two different folders? One would overwrite the other if you were able to direct them somewhere else.

When I delete an AVI or WAV file (or any other for that matter), I always try to also get the associated SFK files too.

Plus, they're safe to delete as well. They'll simply be recreated as needed when those files are next accessed.

There's supposed to be two (_Themes and Themes). These should automatically have files in them upon the installation of DVD A. If those two folders are empty, I'd reinstall DVD A.

Thanks Edward. That is what I did, and after reinstall - all is good again, but it is strange; Where, or why they weren't there all of a sudden?

VOB to MPG conversion -re-editing already produced material
 

Hi,

I am looking for a professional (no loss of quality) solution to read back alrady produced DVD-material (VOB) files. I am using Sony Vegas and Sony DVD production software but they do not support reading VOB files.

A VOB file is acually MPG video and audio, with some additional info added, as subtitles...

I have noticed that you CAN convert a VOB file to MPG just by renaming it accordingly!!! I found this idea in the Wikipedia. The file then plays and imports into most applications that reads the MPG format.

However, this works only if the project is a single VOB file. Since VOB files have a size limitation (about 1GB) a longer than 15 minute project is split in multiple VOB files on a DVD.

Converting the remaining VOB files (those that do not start at timecode 00000) does not work. They come out just as short unusable clips.

So - I am looking for a application or method that could simply convert the VOBs to MPEG without loss in quality. No re-encoding is necessary since the video is already MPG within the VOBs.

Please anyone - please enlight me in this matter. Any help is more than appreciated. Additionally, I think that this question is of bigger general interest. I cannot be the only one that needs to re-edit material that I have produced into a DVD earlier.


Sincerely,

Christian

For editing purposes, you are probably better off converting to AVI files. If you Google "Convert VOB files" you will find a pethora of commercial and freeware VOB convertors out there.

Hallo,

there ist always the possibilty to join the 1 GB - VOBs to one big VOB - File. Some VOB - Rip Tools offer the possibilty just to do that. Check the preferences in Your Rip - Tool.

Richard

If you're using Vegas 6, this feature was added in the 6.0c update and it works great. I've had to use it a few times for the same reasons you do. There is a quality drop when you do another DVD though because Vegas has to re-encode everthing. Apparently this can be avoided with software such as Video Redo and Womble MPEG2VCR as they don't change anything if all you want to do is cuts.

Mike

vst plugins
 

Thanks for the reply. That makes sense about the Mtron - though it leaves me with questions as the documentation lists under the requirements needing a 'VST 2.0 or RTAS compatible host application for plug-in operation.' I don't quite understand all this stuff yet.