Some parts of its business are doing worse than others. With a portfolio as broad as Sony's that shouldn't come as a surprise. Looks like the pain is in the consumer products division though.

To play an INTRODUCTORY clip, go to File - Properties and set the Introductory Media for that project. This media will play BEFORE the first menu appears.

Thanx for the reply, ill check it out ;)

how about the clip after the menu and before the main event???

any ideas??

Can't do that. Currently "End Actions" are not supported. The button must go directly to the video clip you want played.

As a workaround if each segment is to be totally separate, the intermediate video could be added to the beginning of the clip. However, this would remove the ability to go from clip 1 to clip 2 without seeing the intermediate video as well.

hmm.. interesting...
thanks again, at least now i have some idea...

basically i wanted to throw in a Dolby Digital clip... damn... :(

Does anyone know of any app that OPENS or extracts an AC3 file from a VOB file? and does anyone know how or if i can MIX these 2?

I come from an audio background, but ive never tried... im gona do some testing but i dont like my chances...

<<<-- Originally posted by Nigel Moore : Some parts of its business are doing worse than others. With a portfolio as broad as Sony's that shouldn't come as a surprise. Looks like the pain is in the consumer products division though. -->>>

There's some Dilbertian in there somewhere.... "The consumers need to be replaced"...

Capturing in Vegas *possibly newbie questions*
 

Just started my first full project in the Vegas workflow *wish me luck* I figured it's the only way I'm going to learn, and besides once I get my feet wet I can better formulate questions as I'll run into problems and/or questions only as I actually use the product.

Started capturing footage from my most recent wedding tonight. Couple of questions regarding Vegas Capture:

1. Is it ok (if I'm choosing not to capture the entire tape) when I view the footage to simply hit "record" when I see the spot I want to start recording? I ask because the manual says to cue up the tape and hit either stop or pause before hitting capture tape.
I found myself treating it like Premiere and simply hitting the record button as it's playing through in the middle of a clip.

2. I noticed two oddites when I start and stop recording clips. First I notice the picture color shifts as soon as I hit record. Is this normal? It becomes much brighter and a bit blurrier looking. It's nice and sharp with rich colors while playing back footage from the camer in Vegas Capture but it shifts as soon as I hit record.
The second odditie is audio. I notice my audio skips really fast when I hit play after the camera has been stopped. Almost like a machine gun it skips so fast....only lasts for the first few seconds. It maybe the IEEE trying to catch up to the data stream after hitting play again- I just figured I'd ask.
Another audio odditie I noticed is crackling and poping in my audio playback while capturing. Oddly enough when I play it back on the timeline after capturing the pops aren't there but the audio sound horrible while capturing. Is this normal as well?

3 Do I have to change any presets prior to capturing. I didn't I just made sure sceen detection was turned on and started capturing. I didn't know if I should have tweaked any settings by way of capture codec or anything. I'm assuming it defaults to the one I should use- vegas codec...right?

4. Lastly, when I add a long clip to the timeline I noticed small downward white triangles at the bottom of the clip in the timeline, spaced evenly throught the clip. Does anyone know what these tiny white triangle markers are and what they designate? They aren't keyframes because I didn't add any effects to the clips, and the ones I'm talking about are much smaller. I can post a screen capture if no one knows what I'm talking about.

Thanks in advance- and I appologize if some of these are idiotic questions.

#1: Yes, it is OK. I normally scan the tape to find the sections I want via timecode and use Advanced Capture to batch capture only those sections. However, your method should work fine.

#2: I believe that is normal. This would be caused by capture shifting it's "job" to capturing instead of displaying. In other words, sacrifice some display quality in order to capture correctly.

#3: About the only preset that needs to be changed is the capture location. Personally, I leave scene detection turned off using batch capture instead.

#4: Not sure what the triangles are unless you are sizing the clip larger than it actually is???

What benefit is there to batch capturing? What'st the principal behind that- watching the footage and marking in and out points of the footage you want- and then automating the capture after going thru? Wouldn't that take longer? I figured I could get the stuff I want the first pass through?

I also noticed this morning while going back to get this screen capture for you that the clips that I had at stop first prior to hitting record glitch a bit for the first second or so. Glitch meaning have visual blips- I can post a screen capture of this as well if need be. It seemed the ones I captured while already playing didn't have this. I'm only assuming it may be because of the latency between the camera and capturing. The camera can roll fast enough once the capture starts. Though I don't know why that would cause visual artifacts at the beginning of the clip?

Anyway here's a screen capture of the downward white traingles on my video clip....
http://www.mazdamp3.com/members/Laze...%20capture.jpg

As Don points out, Sony is still paying the bills, including the cash money to Sonic for its software assets.

I figure Sony sees some upside to these products and I'm sure it won't hesitate to invest in anything that will produce a profit, regardless of what's happening in the rest of the company.

I have the little triangles, too - but mine are black. Not sure their purpose or meaning.

As for the batch capture: After recording on the tape, it is at the end. I put the tape into the deck, and note the END time and press PLAY REWIND and view the footage BACKWARDS in fast forward speed. I then note locate where sections change and note those times (I also write down events within those times).

Using a wedding as an example, maybe the first 40 minutes of the tape is the ceremony, this is followed by 15 minutes of stuff that happens after the ceremony and before the reception, and then 20 minutes of reception. During the rewind, I note those 3 sections and set up batch capture for these sections. I then end up with THREE files on the hard drive (even though the second two sections would have many different "clips").

It's just my means of organization.

So your worklow entails that you have larger more drawn out clips rather than multible smaller ones. For example, you'll capture all your footage from the actuall ceremony as 1 long clip? What do you do from there- splice it up with the trim tool or manually on the timeline? I'm just trying to get into my own groove as far as workflow is concerned- I'm still sorta a fish out of water beings I have premiere 6.0 practically engrained in me.

How about those blibs I was getting in the very beginning of some captured clips? What do you think they could be? I'm assuming (and I say assume because I can't remember exactly which clips I actually captured while the play head was at stop) that the clips with the visual blips are the ones I captured when the footage wasn't playing prior to hitting record. It could be caused from the IEEE trying to sync up with the data being sent....a latency issue perhaps? I'm wondering if visual blips/artifacts can be created from such a thing. I dont believe it's in my source footage on tape or they'd show up throught the clip...not just in the very first second or so of the capture.

Lastly how about the audio crackles? Do you get them when monitoring your audio while capturing? I'm running Vegas capture with the preview screen at 100%, can this cause any problems (like the audio pops I'm hearing) making it draw the preview screen at full size?

Thanks again for all your input, your knowledge is a great asset to me.

I break the larger clip up on the timeline. Now, I have started using the Extract Good Clips tool in my newest script in some cases. (Makes it REAL easy to pick out the good sections and discard the trash) Frequently I have the same scene from multiple cameras so I keep them close to the same location on the timeline.

Yes, my audio stutters during capture. I don't care what happens to the video display or audio while capturing as long as I get a good capture. (I usually look at the monitor and listen to the monitor connected to the deck instead of the computer anyway.)

Ok 2 down one to go- how about the blips I was seeing at the very beginning of some captured clips. Would hitting record from the playhead being in stop cause enough delay to disrupt the video in the first second of the clip while capturing?

PS I'm ordering Excalibur and the Training Vid this week. I'm hooked on traning "videos"- even though I read the manual it still helps to "see" someone go through the workflow.

Thanks again for all your help!

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Ok 2 down one to go- how about the blips I was seeing at the very beginning of some captured clips. Would hitting record from the playhead being in stop cause enough delay to disrupt the video in the first second of the clip while capturing? -->>>


YES

Thanks,I was concerned when I saw those visual anormalities in the beginnings of my clips.
Again thank you for your help and swift replies. I knew you'd be perfect for moderating this board.

Newbie Trying Out Vegas
 

I am trying out NLEs to see which one will work for me and right now I am trying out Vegas.

The first thing that I am trying to do is to edit together footage of a wedding taken from two cameras. Based on what I have read in the manual it would appear that the first thing for me to do is setup an A/B roll on the main track. The problem I have is in synchronizing the two tracks. I want to use the photographer's flash at the kiss to align the two tracks. This occurs at 00;31;15;12 on the A roll and 00;55;23;10 on the B roll. Is there any kind of function that allows you to supply a position for the different clips and then slides the clips appropriately along the timeline to synchronize them? If not, what is the easiest way to go about this?

Thanks for the help.

First of all, you DON'T need an "A/B" roll. Just use TWO tracks.

To make things simple, look at issue #9 of the Vegas Tips, Tricks, and Scripts Newsletter. It deals specifically with multicam edits.

To simplify the editing process, you may also want to look at Excalibur

Many thanks
 

Thanks for the link Edward. I took a look at it and I am a bit surprised at how involved it is. I am glad I only have two cameras to merge.

Is there any kind of tool that would jut play the tracks and let you click on the one to begin using? Something like a director standing at a panel of monitors and choosing which camera's angle to switch to during a live event? Maybe that is too simple. It just seems odd to have to go in and cut the footage out of a #1 and a #2 camera if you want to see the #3.

I will look at Excalibur, maybe it offers something along those lines.

Yes - Excalibur

You just add markers to the timeline indicate which camera to switch to. When done, you run excalibur and it will create the mix for you.

Excalibur also provides a tool to simplify syncing of the cameras as well.

Read the article carefully: It gives two methods of syncing and four methods of multi-cam editing.

It might, depending on whether you can afford it, this is the best
thing you can spend the money on and you need it [ie, you can't
live with such rendering times].

Depends on what you want to do with the footage. But normally
I would agree with you that pal needs to be 25p, not 24p.

Okay, some basic theory on VOB files etc.

VOB files are MPEG2 program streams. They CONTAIN multiple
ELEMENTARY streams which contain things like, audio, video,
subtitles and other special things.

That being said I think a high end authoring application will
support loading of an MPEG2 program stream (VOB) file. But,
as you've pointed out Architect among others do not. This means
the file has to be split in its elementary streams (the video and
AC3 stream in this case). This is called de-muxing. The authoring
application will then re-mux these together for final authoring.

So can you split these files WITHOUT any re-encoding or quality
loss? Yes you can.

Go to www.doom9.org site and then into the Downloads.
Then go to the end of the page into the VOB Tools section. You
will find some tools there. Try them out and tell us if it worked.

The tools should be able to get you a .M2V (video) & .AC3 (audio)
file.

Good luck!

Vegas + DVD, and Excalibur.

Vegas was already excellent, Excalibur made it way better.

How do you reverse clips in Vegas
 

I know how to reverse clips in Premire, just just enter "-100" in the speed option. But can anyone tell me how to do it in Vegas?

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...threadid=12137




Insert a VELOCITY ENVELOPE into the clip you are working on, pull it all the way down to -100%

Reversing a clip is VERY easy as long as you follow one simple rule: START at the END.

Just play the timeline and then STOP where you want the reversing to begin (i.e. at the END of the clip in forward motion). Now press "S" to split this clip at that point, add the velocity envelope t0 the RIGHT clip (you can delete the left side of the split) and change the velocity to a negative value.

Every wedding I do is a 2 camera ceremony. When I switched to Vegas life got easy, when I started using Excalibur life got great.
Now if I could just get my dog to understand the basics of editing life would be simply superb ;-)
Don

Yellow video.
 

Ok, I've made a huge misstake and shot some video on a cruise ship and I didn't whitebalance (stupid me) The video is a bit yellow.. How do you recommend me to correct it in post?

/Andy

deinterlace clips
 

I want to do the following action, previously performed in premiere, in Vegas 4:

place a clip on one track, deinterlace that clip with the Field Order on "Lower".

Then place a copy of the original clip on a superimposed track (i'm guessing it's the track above) and deinterlace that clip with the Field Order on "Upper" and set the opacity to 50%.

Any ideas? I haven't found a deinterlace setting or filter that affects the individual clips.

First off, what editing software are you using?

I'm using vegas, Although I don't think the help is software specific? I have to color correct, but are there better ways?

Cool, I was hoping it was Vegas. Well, it is kind of software specific since Vegas 4.0 has more color correction tools then some other software. There's a couple ways to do this, the easiest way would be to just use the "color correction" video effect, and mess around with them, make it more blue in the mids, or whatever looks right, or you can use the "color curves" also, and just tweak them yourself, basically take out some red and give it some more blue, etc etc....


There's some more involved techniques for stuff like this that I use sometimes in Vegas, but i'd have to write up a article for that. :D

Andreas,
It is entirely software related. How else would you color correct after it has been shot?
Listen to Alex, Vegas has 2 or 3 different ways to correct the situation.
Don

I do listen to alex, he has already proven to me he knows what he talks about. I didn't mean to offend him.. What I mean by software specific was, whatever program I use I need to color correct. I know vegas is a good program for this.. I fiddled around with the colorcorrect but didn't get it as good as I liked it to be. So I thought I'd post here to get additional ideas on how to slove my problem.

I'll try once more to go about it as alex said.. Thanks!!

/Andreas

Try this. Right click on the event, scroll down to properties then check the reduce interlace flicker box.

Once you have the CC filter loaded up, You click on the eye dropper and then you click on something that is supposed to be white. That's how it works in Final Cut Pro and that's how it seems to work in Vegas Video.

Odd default settings in Vegas?
 

I was looking through some of my settings today in Vegas and for the default NTSC DV template it has it set for non-drop frame rulers and 44.0khz sample rate audio.
Isn't standard DV drop-frame timecode and the same rate on the audio 48.0khz?!

Yes and Yes. I changed mine to drop frame and 48k. I think you are seeing Vegas' audio roots showing through.

I know having it at non-drop frame will do nothing more than give me innacurate program lengths, but what would having the sample rate set at 41 rather than 48 do? Will it adversely effect my audio? Also if it's set at 41 and you place 48hz clips in the timeline do they "play" at 41hz? ?!?!?!!

Why doesn't someone say something to Vegas about this- it should be fixed in the 4.0d patch.

Does anyone know how to make a fake fireball?
 

Does anyone know of a simple way to add an explosion fireball to a clip? Like a bomb going off behind a building and the fire shooting from the side into camera view. Is there a veggie out there that does that? An effects program? I thought about taping a small fireball against a greenscreen and then enlarging it but it seems like that probably wouldn't turn out looking right. Any suggestions? Thanks.