I believe it is generally true that PAL DVD players will play NTSC material. However, I am not a DVD expert by any means of the word.

Vegas and Matrox RT-X100
 

Hi all.

I'm a Premiere user. (I can see already the suspicious looks around me...) :)

Well, Premiere 6.5 works very well with my Matrox RT-X100 and its been enough for my present needs, but I'v seen dozens of posts saying wonders of Vegas. As I like to keep an open mind, here are my questions:

1 - Has anyone had experience with Vegas and the Matrox RT-X100?

2 - Does Vegas + Matrox RT-X100 give you real time export?

3 - Does Vegas work with the Matrox DV codec?

Best regards
Arnaldo

Vegas does not use any external hardware to speed up rendering. So, your Matrox card would be of no assistance there. If the Matrox can be seen as a simple OHCI card, it should work with Vegas for capturing, PTT, and external preview. As for the Matrox DV codec, I'd probably stick with Vegas' codec when using Vegas UNLESS you need to transfer back and forth to Premiere. As long as the Matrox is installed, I believe Vegas should be able to read the files.

The beauty of Vegas is that it works with ANY OHCI card. No hardware assistance is needed for the real-time preview.

Glen,

Maybe not 100% but a fair majority of TVs, VCRs and DVDs sold in Australia and Europe will play both PAL and NTSC content. The DVDs may be region locked but they still play NTSC content, even my $80 Korean special plays both.

Computers don't care if it's PAL or NTSC unless you have hardware that is limited to one format, which is usually the case with US capture hardware from Canopus, Matrox, Pinnacle etc. However, the quality loss with using MPEG1 would be great than your PAL to NTSC conversion.

Premiere user- heyyy don't worry most have been there once. I, for one, got interested in Vegas soley because of these boards. So many people were so passionate about this program- I couldn't resist the temptation to check it out. Besides it seemed like the most common NLE Vegas users had came from was Premiere.

As I see it I spent 2 years working with Premiere- thats 2 years too many. I just wish I had got involved with Vegas sooner. I'm now playing catchup and trying to re-learn my workflow. Though I must say every minute spent making the switch is well worth it.

Now I think I can sum up the answers to all your questions. The Matrox RT-X100 is made specifically to work with Premiere. It's hardware was designed to be integrated with the Premiere software- so no it will not work with Vegas. That's the only gripe Vegas people have had for a long while- no hardware support. On a lighter note Vegas does offer real-time previews of effects and transitions. In that it means you can view your transitions and effects (albiet a lower frame-rate) immediatly after you add them. If you set a loop region just around, say, a transition and keep looping the playback you'll see your frame-rate will continually improve until it's running at full 29.97 (biding your using NTSC) or 25 fps PAL. You can also do a ram render which will more quickly render the new frames to ram or a pre-render which will actually create a new AVI to be placed in the timeline during that section of new frames, thus running at full frame rate all the time.

As far as Vegas handling the Matrox DV codec- don't quote me on this- but I think it can. I base my answer on this on the fact it can handle my clips captured via my Pinnacle DV500 with the Pinnacle DV AVI codec. I think I heard word about it having problems with files over 2 gigs with 3rd party codecs...maybe Trox can elaborate on that.

Speaking of codecs I have a question as well- does Vegas have it's own codec? For example what's the difference between a clip captured in Premiere (used without hw support) and one in Vegas Capture. Do they both have their own proprietary codecs? I see the setting in Vegas preferences to "ignore 3rd party codecs"...which I have selected- shouldn't this have made my footage captured from my DV500 card unviewable?!

Oh absolutly it would just be an alternative way to distribute the videos. It would be much easier in regards to format discrepencies at the expense of video quality. If the mpg route were chosen we wouldn't even go the route of making VCDs. Probably simply CDs with mpg files.

Hi Edward and Glen.

Thank you for your quick answers.

That's a shame Vegas cannot take advantage of the RT-X100 hardware. With it and Premiere I get complex 3D transitions, DV and MPEG-2 export, all this in real time.

Anyway, I will install the demo version of Vegas 4 and if it suits me I'll make it part of my work flow, meaning, editing in Vegas and MPEG-2 compression in Premiere+Rt-X100.

Best regards
Arnaldo

Don't get discouraged when you first start using it. It's quite different from Premiere's workflow, so much that I felt like I had to completly re-learn how to edit from the ground up. The good news is once you learn the new workflow you won't want to go back to Premiere.

If your having trouble with the new workflow of Vegas check out:
www.vegastrainingandtools.com
www.classondemand.net

and Edward's newsletter @
http://www.jetdv.com/tts/

Also if you have any specific questions you know where to come ask.

Arnaldo, why would you import your work into Premiere for MPEG2 encoding?

Probably because of the speed via hw assisted MPG encoding.

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Probably because of the speed via hw assisted MPG encoding. -->>>

doing my best Johnny Carson impersonation

"I did not know that!"



I'll keep that in mind, since I have the Matrox card. :)

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Speaking of codecs I have a question as well- does Vegas have it's own codec? For example what's the difference between a clip captured in Premiere (used without hw support) and one in Vegas Capture. Do they both have their own proprietary codecs? I see the setting in Vegas preferences to "ignore 3rd party codecs"...which I have selected- shouldn't this have made my footage captured from my DV500 card unviewable?! -->>>


Yes, Vegas has it's own codec.

The only difference between captured clips would be header information. The rest is a straight copy from the camera. The codec comes into play when rendering sections that have CHANGED.

Question about Gap Wizard in Excalibur...
 

Just saw the video demo for excalibur- I, also, didn't know it was on the page. Is it new...or did I just miss it before?

Anyway loved the video- though he moves quite fast. I'll have to assume he's going at that pace to give a quick overview- I hope the training DVDs aren't paced like that!
Ok about the gap wizard. I saw Gary position a marker above the timeline which designated where the fragmented clips would begin after the gap wizard was run. What is that marker?! Granted I'm a Vegas newb but in the 5 or so hours working in Vegas I've never seen such a thing. To top it off it had the text "URL" next to it. Any insight?

Lastly, I'm looking to order asap. Do you guys just accept internet orders or is there a # to call. Also is there a delay, I read some posts a little while back with a few people growing concerned regarding the turn-around time. Is he caught up- in other words if I place my order tomorrow will I be able to recieve it within 4 days or so.

What you saw was a COMMAND Marker (created by pressing "C"). It doesn't matter which command you choose just press "C" and then ENTER.

If I remember correctly, there is a "buy now" button on the page. You can order Excalibur as a download version. The orders are processed manually but you should have a response fairly quickly.

What is the "command marker" and what does it do?

In this case, it is being used to indicate where to move the first clip when removing gaps.

However, the Command Marker is used to add commands that get processed when playing a WMV in Media Player.

Hi all.

Thank you again for your help.

"Arnaldo, why would you import your work into Premiere for MPEG2 encoding?" --> Glen is right. One of the goodies you get with the Matrox RT-X100 is real time MPEG-2 encoding (one hour video - one hour encoding), and that I'll definitely want to keep.

Take care
Arnaldo

Real-time encoding is nice, especially if your working on many projects and/or in a pinch for time. However 2:1 aint bad. For a 1 hour project Vegas takes about 2 hours, at least judging by my peliminary measurements. As I have yet to actually encode a full hour to MP2.

I do like being able to keep the workflow within Vegas. Less possible problems to worry about than when you frame-serve a timeline to another program.

Though, like I mentioned in another post, if Vegas ever decided to go the way of HW support I'd be all over it! For now it just seems limited to Premiere.

Man you learn something new everyday don't ya (referring to me!).

So how did you realize you could write a script to use this maker to designate the start of clips that are fragmented? I'm still puzzled and your knowledge of all this scripting stuff. How did you originally learn this?

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Man you learn something new everyday don't ya (referring to me!).

So how did you realize you could write a script to use this maker to designate the start of clips that are fragmented? I'm still puzzled and your knowledge of all this scripting stuff. How did you originally learn this? -->>>

In this case, it stemmed from the Sync Wizard. In the Sync Wizard, you can also specify a starting point by using a Command Marker. We used the Command Marker because the regular Marker was already being used to indicate the sync point. Therefore, I just carried over the concept to the Gap Wizard.

As far as scripting is concerned, there are several different types of markers/regions and the script can reference any of them. So, it's just a matter of telling the script to look for Command Markers instead of regular Markers.

As for learning how to script, I'm a computer programmer as my day job. It's been a little challenging trying to wade through SoFo's scripting API but, so far, I've managed to do quite a bit with the aid of samples created by others, questions answered by SoFo or the SoFo Scripting forum, and reading the API and JScript information pages. There ARE still some things that cannot be done via scripting. I believe scripting will become more powerful with each new release.

Encode times are strictly machine dependent. I just rendered a 1 hour 12 minute program. It took over 6 hours to render to MPEG2 (of course, I started it and went to bed so it had plenty of time anyway). This is about 5:1 on a PIII 750MHz machine.

I'm running an Athlon 2200+, I don't know if you like AMD but a 2200+ can be purchased for under $90 now! It's sick how fast prices come down- I bought it when it first hit the market and paid close to $300- oh well, what are you going to do..ya know. No matter what you buy it's always outdated and cheaper within 3 months in the PC world.

I'm suprised your not running some monster machine Ed. It's pretty conservative considering how serious you are- but hey it's a testamament to Vegas's compatability with older hard-ware. If it performes well enough for you I'm sure it's good enough for anyone else here. My problem is I'm into gaming as well (not that I've had the time to play any the last 4 months!) I find I'm always having to upgrade to keep up with the newest games and 3d engines. Im through with shelling out unecissary cash for mods on my car and idiotic stuff like that. Next time I come across some money I'm going to put it into something I know I use every single day- my PC.

Wow thats one area I feel I'll never get my feet wet in- talk about intimidating. Programing, I have felt, has always been out of my league. I'm just glad we have a programer who's a Vegas fan as well. Benefits all of us.
Better yet, SoFo should take heed and hire you as a programer for future builds of 4 and/or Vegas 5!
Obviously you thought of plenty of things that passed through the gaps with the SoFo programers/engineers of Vegas.

Rendering and MPEG2 encoding (especially the later one) take
up much time. If you calculate that in you won't encounter a
problem. If rendering takes long I let it do that overnight and
watch it the next day. Then I can do MPEG2 rendering overnight
again or on another machine.

1. just stick PAL & NTSC footage in your Vegas timeline and render
out to either format. Vegas will do the conversion for you

2. YES, DVD players will output PAL & NTSC. Heck, even NTSC
players will probably do it. The problem is with DISPLAYING that
signal, which is up to a TV set!! A lot of TV's here in Europe can
display NTSC, but not all!

I'm jealous!

I am using my old Compaq presario, Athlon 900mz, 512 mb ram, 1 80gb Western Digital with OS, 1 120gb Western Digital for editing, Nvidia Geforce Ti 4200 64mb, Vegas 4 + DVD.

A Wedding, 1 to 2 hrs after editing. . . last one cooked for 22 hours. Think it's time to upgrade?

Using dual monitors in Vegas
 

Those of you who are using dual monitors, I would appreciate a rundown on how you have it set up with Vegas.

ok it really depends on the TYPE of montirs your referring to...

firstly, most good GFX cards have a dual head output... this is basically all you need (and maybe an adapter)
the monitors im referring to here are your standard CRT/LCD PC monitors, not actual fied monitors...
Usually, the GFX cards SW allows configs re: resolution, refresh, master screen etc etc ec...

okies, now theres the other one, which is a lil tricky... well not really but you have you either have a monitor which has a 1394 connection (which i doubt... i dont htink they exist but i might be wrong...) or you could keep your cam conected then route the AV in/out of the cam into your monitor or TV's av input... you will only get sound out of your PC speakers thou..... thought id throw that in...

thats all there is to it

Harry,
I run dual's with Vegas. Everything is on 1 (media pool, time line, etc.) and the PREVIEW screen is on the other. BIG, so I can see it without my glasses.
I also have an old SOny monitor that I can run to thru my deck . Of course I lose the Vegas preview but thats OK.
Don

You can move any of the winows to the second screen. So, if you wanted the explorer, media bin, transitions, and effects always visible, you could move them to the second window. Just think of your workflow and what you want to see. Move those to the second window.

Architect and VOB files
 

heres a wierd one...
okies, i would like to run a 10second Production House clip then
run a Dolby Digital clip (TSA on the way) before the main feature, But the only way i know how to do this at the moment is to resample the Dolby VOB's audio then rebuild the 5.1 (which i DONT want to do as the accuracy is questionable) then put both of these clips in teh begining of my actual project... now i dont want to have to do this all the time as its a waste of rendering tim eand resources...
Basically i want to play 1 VOB file (dolby) then play the Studio Intro MPG2+AC3 BEFORE the main feature...

so does anyone know of a way where i can have something like this playing BEFORE chapter 1 begins?
As soon as they hit "start movie" it rolls to the clips, then continues thru to the opening...

has anyone been able to achieve this with Architect??
Ive searched high and low on a solution but to no avail...

any help is GREATLY appreciated :)

Thanks guys! Edward, you will see my post on a couple of other sites that you monitor also. This is exactly the information I was looking for. Except for the details, I'll start working on this right away. I am getting tired of resizing everything all the time to see what it is I am editing.

Shouldn't PAL footage be converted to 25P?

I saw it in the other places. This one was the easiest for me to answer on as I'm out of town at the moment. It's really not that difficult to do. Just make sure you drag the vertical line to the left of the box you want to move.

Can you stretch the timeline to span across two monitors?

yes, but make sure you dont have your screen maximised....
if its maximised it will defualt to the main screen.. basically reshape teh box to your liking...

Sony's profits
 

Of slight interest to Vegas users:

Check out the article

"Sony profits plunge 98%"

And you know why? Because they can't compete with Pana's MX and GS consumer line. :)

someones gotta know how to do this....???

Take into account all of the business lines that Sony has bought in the last 12 months, that money comes from the profits, (at least on paper)also take into account that every major players PROFITS have taken a hit this last quarter (at least).
It really doesn't mean anything, Sony still has plenty of cash and the checks aren't bouncing and they haven't fired 60,000 employees while the honchos get a 4 million dollar bonus...
Years ago when I played the market I might have been worried, but as long as my Sony equipment keeps working, thats all I care about.
I don't think Sony is going anywhere for a very long time.