Drag your video file from the explorer onto the menu. You can rename the button "Play" if you like.

Preview the disc with Ctrl/F9 to see if it's how you want it.

Gary

Take a look at Vol 3 #1 of my newsletters. In that issue I show multiple ways to split screen.

You can find several methods of accomplishing this at:
http://www.vasst.com/search.aspx?text=split%20screen

Edward
 

Edward can you please direct me to the appropriate tutorial? I can't seem to find the pertinent information in the link you supplied.

Making movie on Z1 (HDV), editing w/Vegas
 

My brother and I are shooting a feature movie with a Z1 (HDV) , and editing with Vegas. Our immediate goal is winding up with the highest resolution movie possible on DVD.

Should we shoot in 60i, 50i or what to wind up with the highest resolution DVD possible?

Anybody have the experience to answer this question?

Thanks

If you shoot 50i/CF25, you'll get the closest-to-film cadence and blur that the Z1 offers. If you know how to shoot with the slower shutter, I'd do that if you're after that sort of a look. Otherwise, shoot at 60i, and you'll have the highest temporal and spatial resolution available to your DVD. Shooting at 50i/CF25 reduces temporal resolution, but again...lotsa people like that look. For many projects, I prefer to do it in post if I'm going to a framerate output different than my acquisition framerate.

Thanks, Spot
 

Thanks, Spot, for your prompte reply. We're taking the 60i option. After we finish the DVD version of the movie, we'll show it around and if it is well-received, the next step would be to transfer to 35mm film.

We'll have editing questions for this forum, when we start editing (probably in June.

Thanks again.

Smooth on my old P4 2.66GHz 1 gig of ram ATI 9500/9700 Sony VAIO.

In the Newsletter Archive section, load Vol 3 #1. Then look at the article "Ways to Split Screen".

To make life easier, you can download most of the newsletters at once via:
http://www.jetdv.com/tts/tts.zip

60i is not the best mode if you intend a film transfer. As the 60Hz motion conversion to 24p is tricker than 50Hz to 24p (or 25Hz to 24p is better still.) Also a 60i DVD and 24p film have completely different motion characteristics, normally you would select one look for all your outputs, but I don't know if you project would benefit for the 60Hz motion (sports and reality TV looks do, drama doesn't normally.)

Most film transfer facilities prefer 60i or 50i because they've all invested considerable research and effort into making 60i/50i transfer well. DFG (Digital Film Group), one of the leaders (and who many major production companies use) have a great white paper on how they prefer media come in. They prefer 60i over 50i, because it's a more common need, but we've done two projects that have been acquired in 50i, and they looked stunning when transferred.

All that said, film transfers for most of us will be a thing of the past very, very soon. More than 50% of the films here at Sundance this year are digital projection, and at the producers summit day before yesterday, aside from the Cinemark dedication to be all-digital over the next 24 months, so are many major chains going to be. They're enthusiastic about it for numerous reasons, but bottom line is...this is where it's all heading. Listening to the discussions, it was almost comical and certainly serious deja vu, as I clearly recall the debates of CD vs vinyl back when the Sony 1630 became so common for master output. It's almost verbatim the same discourse. "44.1 vs 48k=24p vs 60i. Analog has sweet harmonic distortion and pushed dynamics=film has greater latitude and depth of color.

Ok, supposing I`m interested ALSO in getting a final product in 24p NTSC (besides the 24p filmout), and I opt for shooting 50i and use Vegas (5 in my case), what should be the workflow (with Vegas) to deinterlace the footage edit it and obtain the NTSC 24p printing it to tape?
Thank you
Ron

m2t to cineform
 

Do you guys convert both the video and the audio on vegas time line into cineformavi thats supplied with vegas6? I was thinking of just doing video since it will render less data.

Wow these are great, thank you sir.

Also it actually wasnt that hard to find the newsletters, I was just a bit not in my right mind last night ;) , so sorry about that.

What To Upgrade?
 

Heya's

I'm a new HC1E owner from Perth, Australia. I have Vegas Studio+DVD platinum. Used to get between 15-25 fps for previews dependent on how many streams are going for SD DV. With HDV the max I'm getting is 5fps on just one stream. I figured my PC might only just make the mark before getting into HDV, and while I'm sure you can edit with 5 fps previews, it will be hard.

So I'm trying to figure out what to upgrade. I currently have:

AMD Athlon 64 2800+ (yes a 2800+ ath 64 did exist)
512mb RAM (Hynix)
128mb Geforce FX5900
1x 80gig, 1x 200gig HDDs (both non SATA)

I've read 3D video cards make no difference with vid editing, so I figure mine should be fine. Hard drives should be fine, though I guess SATA drives might help a little bit.

The cheap way out I thought would be buying another 1gig of RAM. Though I've heard conflicting reports on wether RAM actually makes much diff with native HDV editing. Would getting another gig of memory make the difference I need?

I've read HDV is mainly processor dependent (with all the compression going on), which would mean hefty upgrading if I was to do that (i guess a dual core ath 64, new mainboard...and therefore a new vid card seeing my current card is AGP no PCI-E, and new memory). Almost a whole new computer.

Does this sound like the only option to get usable performance? Am I being unreleastic about editing native HDV without using the best of everything computer wise? Is there any websites with lots of info on real minimum requirements of native HDV editing and what hardware it relies on most?

I really don't want to have to buy and use one of those Cineform plugins as I'd rather use that money towards hardware which would be useful for audio production as well and other applications (while the Cineform plugin just helps HDV editing).

Also...could doing a offline/online situation work. Capture the HDV footage as SD DV, edit it, then recapture the final product as HDV? Would this work in Vegas studio?

Thanks

Interleave the audio in CineForm, or you'll be recompressing MPEG audio, which isn't the best thing to be doing. Plus, Vegas is optimized for dealing with PCM audio. The space saving isn't worth the hassle.
Aside from that, (not directed to any one person here, but for benefit of future readers) if you're doing HD of any kind, get past this silliness of worrying about HDD space. Either stay in SD, or realize that you need approximately 40 GB per hour of storage for intermediary codecs, perhaps more if you're not using an efficient codec like CineForm. It's simply silly to believe that shortcuts can be taken without compromising either end product quality or workflow. Hard drives are cheap, and very necessary for HD of any flavor.

Long post, and it's late. Maybe I'll answer more deeply later...
1. Don't edit native HDV. Read the HDV book that came with your software.
2. RAM makes no difference, it's all processor and HDD speed.
3. No, you cannot offline/online with HDV in VMS Platinum. There is a tool for the professional version of Vegas which allows you to do this, but not for the Studio Platinum product.

Even if you WERE to edit native HDV on your current computer, you'd be in significant pain. Use the Cineform codec that came with VMS Platinum, and even that will be very slow. Your best bet is to upgrade proc and mobo

Thanks for the response Mr Eagle. I got no responses on another forum, so even a quick one is good!

I did read your book (great book by the way, learnt a lot). Seeing it seemed to be about 1 - 1.5 yrs old, I thought that some of the information regarding what was possible editing wise with HDV may have changed. I guess it's still not overly realistic to edit native HDV. Rendering the m2t audio to WAVE has upped my frame rate from 3-5fps upto a bit 6-7fps! Better than nothing.

Thanks for confirming that RAM makes no diff. Saves trying out that avenue.

So even upgrading upto a dual core ath 64...i'd still need Connect HD or Gearshift to edit comfortably?

At first I thought there was loss of quality thru using these codecs, but I keep hearing people mentioning native HDV suffers generation loss during the editing process, while Connect HD and Gearshift don't. Is this true? Guess I'll have to research these two codecs a bit.

Tiz a shame about no offline/online feature in VMS Plat, but I guess that's to be expected with a application costing 1/4 the price of the full version. You said "there is a tool for the pro version of vegas"...is this a seperate plugin or something you have to buy, or is it a tool within the pro version of Vegas?

Sorry if I'm repeating questions others have asked before. I do try and search for these answers through the forums.

You don't need to worry about loss in the conversion, no. GearShift is the tool I mentioned that will allow you to edit offline and then shift to online with the larger media.
Yes, the book is just about exactly 1 year old, we shipped it on Feb 4 of 2005. The second edition is much larger and more in-depth on all sides now that there is more information available. It will ship shortly.

So Gearshift is only useable with the pro version of vegas and not VMS plat?

Just been reading the manual of gearshift and was getting quite excited about it. In which case I guess that only leaves Connect HD? Or is that not compat with VMS plat either?

Gearshift does not work with Platinum, only the professional version of Vegas.
CineForm is a standalone tool that is indeed, compatible with Platinum.

DSE: Boy, I'm talking with you in two threads. Its great to have someone with your knowledge to learn this stuff, I only hope your patience holds out.

So I don't seem to have the Cineform Codec in my current version VMS Platinum. I previously had installed the HD Connect trial, and then uninstalled it when the trial expired. Is it possible I removed the codec at that time? I had the impression that HD Connect is what gave you access to the Cineform Codec in Vegas, and that otherwise that intermediate is not available in Vegas.

Chris Barcellos

24f, 30f, 60i modes of XL-H1 all work fine in Sony Vegas 6.0c (build 153)
 

Read all about it here...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=58881

- ShannonRawls.com

field order settings
 

from capturing to printing back to tape should the field order be kept upper fields for fx1/z1?

Fred, I STRONGLY recommend you use the templates to render to, instead of playing with the settings. You'll more likely than not mess up the render. If you're rendering for HDV, HDV is upper field first, but the template will set this up for you. There is a lot that can go wrong, hence the value of the templates which are tried and true, and assure no problems with printing to tape. Otherwise, you'll end up reencoding your video and it will suffer quality loss, not to mention the time loss.

Using Super-8 film in Vegas/Z1 movie project
 

Regarding a movie my brother and I are making using a Sony Z1 and editing in Vegas:

1. We have three minutes of Super-8 film (35-years old) that we want to transfer to video that will be included in an HDV movie. Besides that, we want the highest resolution video copy possible of the Super-8 footage for posterity.

2. Anyone know of any transfer shops in the San Francisco Bay area that transfers Super-8 film to Sony Z1 HDV 60i tape? The film is priceless and we don't want to risk losing it in the mail.

I've never used them, but this place looks pretty good.
They don't seem to list HDV explicitly, but maybe they let you mount your own HDV camera to their optical rig?

Might be worth asking.
Good luck.

http://www.super8mm.org/

Louis,

I live in the SF bay area, you might check with Monaco in the city. They do 35,and 16mm telecine... I'm not sure if they do S8, but you can ask.

Beyond that, there's Super 8 sound in Burbank, and "moviestuff' down in Houston. Good people, good processes.

You have to decied if you want rank cintel, wetgate, or 'projection' transfers.

(I just checked Monaco, they don't appear to transfer s8. So your best bet is Pro 8mm in Burbank. http://www.pro8mm.com/main.php )

Just my luck, Gearshift looked like the goer, seeing it's a 1/4 of the price of Connect. There's no plans to make Gearshift compatabile with VMS Plat? Seems like scripting isn't available in the menus, so I guess that's why.

EDL almost there!
 

I cleaned up my timeline and was able to export this edl. I sent it to my online guy and he could open it but the system doesn't recognize the timecode. I have attached the 1st page of my edl. He says the time code should be in the format of xx:xx:xx:xx. These #'s on my list are unrecognizable. Could it be these #'s are the location on my TIMELINE vs. the captured timecode?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Jeff

PS I see I can't post an attachment. Here's what my edl looks like:

003 KW V C 32,558.526 32,565.174 145.940 152.588
from clip KW Pedestal - Clip 001

One thing you can do is flatten your computer (do a format and reinstall windows fresh) it's a bit of a pain but if you've had your computer for a while (1-2years) the registry file is probably bloated with tons of junk and other stuff installed by progams that you don't use anymore. Doing a full reinstall can really add some lost zip to your computer and you would have the bonus of being able to try that demo again(I'm pretty sure). It's way too much work just to get 30 days of vegas, but the benefits are significant.. Mark

Vegas & BorisFX?
 

Bear with me... coming from Premiere Pro and trying to adapt.

I'm trying to use BorisFX in Vegas. Having to jump out of the timeline and use the Boris keyframer is driving me nuts.

I know I must "manually" change the duration of the vegas clip within the keyframer but I can't get the keyframer's preview to show more than the 1st frame after I've applied an effect.

How do I "keyframe" the effect when I don't know where I'm at?

Boris forums aren't much help. (Not much here either).

The Dynamic Ram setting is "0".

Thanks!

monaco does not do super 8 nor HDV

www.bonolabs.com does super 8 to 10 bit 1920x1080 24p ( black magic codec) delivered on hard drive - you choose either 16x9 pillar , full 16x9 or inverse 16x9 squeezed .. for extra $40 they'll render to HDV .. your 50ft ( 2.5 min - 3min ) would fall below their 15 min charge ( 165) ...
The Super 8 frame size does not contain more information that can not be stored into 1440 x 960 frame size so pillar ( they set the 4x3 image inside 16x9 = black on left/right side) will do the trick

if your super 8 has scatches and you do not want to see them on tape then you can transfer using wet gate at www.posthouse.com to digibeta format ( delivered on hard drive for extra $50) again your 50ft falls into their min charge area aorund $90 ...

there is no wet gate for HD transfers ...

make sure you have either AE or combustion as bono uses premiere/decklink to capture the HD files and it may not playback in Vegas ( sometimes they do sometimes they don't = it's a premiere-decklink problem) but i have found they do play back in combustion and AE = you convert to windows uncompressed avi or HDV or use sony YUV codec for vegas ...

I just switched computers, still running Vegas 5. When trying to preview to an external monitor like I've always done (through my camera), it shows "preview on external monitor" in the preview window, but I don't get pass through to my camera. Then when I stop the playback, the program freezes and I have to restart. I hooked up my other camera just for the heck of it--same story.

Any ideas? Sorry if I haven't provided enough info--I'm not sure what else to add.

Still issues with edl
 

Thanks to those of you who answered my previous posts. I cleaned up my timeline to 1 layer and edl worked great. I used a JH3 deck to capture my HDCam as dv. I did a window burn of the cameras timecode so I could have backup data if I needed it. Now it appears my problem is that the timecode on the edl does not match up with my window burn. There is no consistency between the two sets of numbers. They are close but not off the same amount from cut to cut. Out of 4 sets of numbers, the first two appear to be in and out poins in timecode and the second two appear to be in and out on my timeline. I'm really out of time and think the only way to fix this is to put markers on the timeline of the online edit system and lay each of the three tracks on where the window burn corresponds to my window burn on each of the first frames.
Any other suggestions?

Jeff

the TC for window burn - you need to add the TC filter to the clip from the media pool ... if you add it as event or at output it will not be the TC on the clip ...

why are you using EDL and not AAF ?

still struggling!
 

Hi,
My friend wondered if the SoundBlaster Audigy2 on this Alienware was causing the problem so I swapped it out for the card I had in my old computer. (His thought was that the integrated firewire port on the Audigy2 might be blocking the signal to the firewire card I installed....or something like that.)

I've got sound, but still the same deal with no pass through and then Vegas freezing up on me. Even though my PC recognizes the camera, could a faulty firewire cable be a problem? Or is it this darn computer?

Pan/Crop Missing
 

I'm running Vegas 5 and I can't bring the Pan/Crop box up. It doesn't matter if I try to use the event, track or the drop down pan/crop function.

When I try to activate any one of these it seems like the pan/crop box opens and immediately goes behind Vegas (I see a flash and the pan/crop header going towards the bottom of the screen and then it disappears).

Has anyone else had this problem?

Should I just reinstall Vegas?

Matrox Parhelia APVe Video Card with Vegas?
 

Hi, there, I am upgrading my video card to support broadcast monitoring. I want to connect my HDTV directly to my PC/component out on my video card.

I am still a novice and don't have much experience. I have a sony hdv hc1 camera and the only HD monitor I have is the HDTV.

On another thread someone mentioned Matrox Parhelia APVe Video Card as a good option for dual monitoring.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=58399

this sounds like a solution. On the other hand, the reviews/specs mention some features that are specific to other NLE. From the specs:

WYSIWYG PureVideo plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro , Adobe After Effects , Photoshop , Autodesk Combustion and 3dsmax, along with NewTek Lightwave 3D , you can see your final output on an HDTV monitor without the necessity for looping your signal back through the 1394 port.

Also, I noticed that another review sheet http://dv411.com/matroxgraphics.html#nles
shows that "video output preview with Matrox graphics cards." is not supported for vegas.

Does anyone have experience using this card with Vegas 6? do you recommend it and/or recommend another? I'm making the purchasing decision today (hopefully!).

Thanks.

Sounds like you've moved it OFF the screen. Try changing the screen resolution higher, locate it the window, move it back to the main area, and then change the resolution back.

Alternately, hold down CTRL-SHIFT when you start Vegas. That will reset EVERYTHING back to the factory defaults.