The problem with Vegas' MPEG-2 templates is that they are VBR single pass. After choosing a template (DVDA NTSC etc.) click on 'Custom...', go to Video tab and check the 'Two-pass' box. You can also try CBR.

After finding what settings suit you best, you can save your own templates.

Masking out the background
 

I have a subject with the green screen behind them but some of the green i cannot remove is it possible just to mask out that part of the background and leave the subject in? if you have any info that goes through this step by step please let me know

Thanks for your help

dropped frames on capture...
 

I capture from my JVC SR-VS20 deck via firewire to my pc using Vegas. All was working perfectly until yesterday--now I get audio crackling and dropped frames. I am able to capture perfectly using Premiere. The only thing I've done recently, which I greatly regret, was upgrading Nero 7 from the 6.6 version I had previously. It's total bloatware (I foolishly installed the full package, which includes Vision and some other video applets) and I've uninstalled it and gone back to 6.6. Since I'm able to capture with other software I know it's not that big of a deal, but I'd like to get the Vegas capture working the way it's supposed to anyway. I've reinstalled Vegas 6.0d. Soundcard and video drivers are all updated and I'm not sure which way to go with this other than a complete reinstallation of windows xp pro, which I'd love to avoid if possible.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Vin

Jim, try this suggestion I grabbed from one of the many Sony Vegas forums.

Insert the following tools in this order:

Chroma Blur set to Medium or Heavy blur depending on the edge.

Chroma Key effect.

Secondary Color Corrector (This is for spill supression)

The Secondary Color Corrector is used for the spill suppresion. The key is to leave it turned off until you have a solid key. Now that may leave a little green cast on the edges if your subject was too close to the background or if there was a bunch of bounce. DV also introduces some of this just by its color sample nature.

Go back and turn off the check box on the Chroma Key effect. Move over to your secondary color corrector. Under FX range, use the eyedropper to select the same general green area that you selected for the chroma key effect. Now slide all of the smooth sliders to the right. Most of the time you can slide the highs and lows for the Luma and the Saturation controls wide open and then just adjust the hue width to taste. Now go to the top section of the control and desaturate or rotate the hue to taste. Watch the offending edges only. Don't worry about the green sections that are going to be removed by the chroma key. The filter you are adjusting is after the chroma keyer, so they won't be there anyway.


Keith Kolbo also has a good tutorial at http://www.dmnforums.com/cgi-bin/vie...e.cgi?id=31596

Have you tried a system restore point prior to the Nero 7 installation? But I doubt if it will work with all the installations you have done since...

figured it out...
 

Although I had been capturing to my SATA Maxtor 300gb 7200 secondary drive without a problem before, by switching the capture destination to my Raid 0 pair of drives, the dropped frames problem vanished. I assume my secondary drive needs a good defragging. Am I right to assume that I'd rather capture to my secondary drive since all of my editing apps are on my raid array? I also keep my fixed swap file on my secondary drive. Does this seem like a good disk arrangement for vid editing?
Thanks for the quick response, Dion...

Getting there! I finally figured out the interleave issues and was in "Lower filed first". Changed it to Upper Field and it got a whole lot better. I also changed to "constant bitrate at 10mbps". I will try the "two pass" box as well. Thanks for your help. I spent most of my life in audio engineering with Avid and this video stuff is a bit different..

Just a thought but check to see if, during all these uninstall-reinstalls, your SATA drive didn't get switched to PIO mode instead of DMA/UDMA mode somehow. This would definitely cause drop frames.

Adding Filter Packages/Chain/Presets
 

I'm working with some of the filter presets that I downloaded from the VASST site -- cool ones like Another World. However, when I try to add an FX filter chain to a clip, it completely erases all the other FX I've already applied. Is there a way to add a set of FX filter presets (chain or packages or whatever they're called), without erasing the others?

For instance, I have a clip with a chroma key. I then click and add an FX chain. This FX chain is added, but the chroma key FX is erased off (because it's not part of the chain). I'd like to keep the chroma key FX without having to redo it, but add the chain after the chroma key. Is there a way to do this?

(Hopefully, my question made sense. I'm working in HDV, but I think this is a more general question that can apply to DV as well.)

Sorry Mike, but I don't understand what you are trying to do in selecting green in the SCC after the Chroma Key. That green will be keyed out when you re-enable the Chroma Keyer. What's the point?

While it's not a solution to the actual problem, here's a workaround:

Add a dummy event to the timeline (picture, text event, anything). Add the filter chain to that dummy event. Copy the dummy event. Paste Event Attributes to the original event. Delete the dummy event.

Oh yeah I have that actually! Thaz not a bad idea.. I could give it a try... someone else told me I could use AE to get it done as well. Thanks!

There's also a tutorial on this page showing how it can be done.

http://www.debugmode.com/wax/

you're good...
 

Mike, you're damned good, 'cause when I went to defrag my sata drive, Perfect Disk analyzed it as not needing to do it, so I hopped on over to my device manager and, sure enough, my sata disk was in PIO mode...
I guess it's understandable that the bios on my moboard can get confused since I'm running raid ide, udma sata, and udma ide all at the same time. I may be a bit behind the times, but I love my Asus P4P800, very stable and very flexible.
Thanks Mike! If I hadn't checked on it myself first you would have saved the day!
Vin

Color correction
 

I have just purchased and watched the new disk 4 on color correction from Vasst, Spot and Glenn. It answered a lot of questions. I don't want to make color correction simplified but the video showed me a lot of the tools offered in Vegas to color.

I have posted several issues that I have been having with my first professional project and I am going through the learning curve. Thanks for the help from this sight.

My project is a songwriter showcase of studio performance and interviews. It was done in HDCam with 3 cameras. I used Ultimate S to do my sd edit and I wanted to tackle some minor color correction to save me money from subbing it out. Is it good logic to say I could correct say 3 3 minute avi's and then perfor the say 20 cuts per song. There is not much if any change on each camera. One was a stationary pedestal, one was a hand held moving about the room and one was on a dolly with vertical movement.

My concern only is the change from cut to cut. Would it make sense to match each cut or try to balance the three tracks before cutting?

Jeff