Let's not turn this into a Vegas vs Premiere thread. Both programs can edit video well. Keith likes Premiere. I like Vegas. This is a tool that simply makes Vegas better at several tasks.

It is like anything else. If it works for you - great. I had stability issues with Premiere through several versions and several machines. Just too damn buggy, at least on my computers.

If Premiere works for you and you like it, that is just fine.

I'm real happy with Vegas, well everything except the name. (I'm thinking of calling mine, Avid. No, I guess that name has been taken.) The Excalibur plugin looks very very interesting.

Ed---I ordered one---I am just wondering how long shipping is going to take----(I read to fast and didn't take the email version). Also, I never received any kind of confirmation that you received my order-----By the way, it's so simple yet so cool---real neat tool kit.

Edward, does this add-on make the velocity stuff easier to use? You mentioned something about the velocity... Hopefully you know what I am talking about, Vegas gets screwy when you change the speed and try to slice it and stuff...

David, Gary is taking care of all the shipping. I don't know what the turn-around time is. I'm sure it won't take too long.

Alex, The velocity wizard allows you to enter a percentage, just like in the velocity envelope. However, when you add a velocity of 50%, the clip will become twice as long. When you add a velocity of 300%, the clip will become three times as long. When you add a velocity of -75%, it will go backwards and be a quarter longer. It also allows a checkbox for freeze frame which will NOT change the length (actually, +/- 5% will not change length)

Edward, that sounds like something Sonic Foundry needed to add from the start, their velocity stuff with the bars is good, but it always screws up if you split the clip when its speed is changed, and reversing with vegas, hah, dream on.

Reversing is still the same. BUT it is easier than everyone makes it out to be. The key is to START AT THE END. Find the end if the clip (going forward) where you want the reversed beginning to be. Then SPLIT at that point. Now, add the revers to the clip to the RIGHT of the split and all should be well. Delete the clip to the left of the split and reposition the clip on the right and you are done!

The DVD spec does not allow MPEG-2 marked as progressive, so I don't think that's going to work for you. I think you're going to have to render as 60i interlaced (the standard template). I don't know if there are any progressive players that will sense that it's 30p (most look for 2-3 pulldown of 24p), but there might be.
///d@
P.S. The 24p template still renders 60i with pulldown (TFF/RFF) flags. That's what DVD allows. HD can have progressive frames.

VCDEasy and Vegas 4.0b?
 

Does anyone out there use VDC Easy and Vegas 4.0b on the same machine? I've been using VCDEasy 1.1.2 for the last eight months or so with no problems burning. Yesterday, out of the blue, I started to encounter buffer underruns "almost" everytime I tried to burn to a CD-R (simulated or not). I could burn to a CD-RW, but even that became sporadic. I did a virus check and it turned up nothing. I even upgraded to 1.1.5, it did a simulated burn OK once or twice, then it crapped out. And I've tried all the different settings in VCDEasy.

I installed Vegas about 2 weeks ago and I'm wondering if the VCD burning capabilities of it has loaded a dll that would make VCDEasy fubar. I'll try uninstalling Vegas, but that doesn't always ensure dlls will revert to their old state. And it was working so well . . . how irritating!

Vegas 4.0c is out
 

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/download/step2.asp?DID=447

To get split screen with unsqueezed images in Vegas:
Track one, open track motion. Set Center values to 0 and 240 (288 for PAL). This shifts the image left.
Trach two, open track motion, set Center values to 720 and 240 (288 for PAL). This shifts the image right.
Use Pan/crop to shift the images so the action is within the narrowed frames (You only get half pictures).

thanks
 

Thanks Dennis.

I have done just that but since I have a PIII-550 working on this baby, it will be another 10 hours (18 to render) to prepare the DVD for burning.

I'll be sure to post back how it looks.

A couple of days ago I saw a DVD player in Best Buy that claims to do 2-2 pull down.

It looks to me, Tor, you are settings up the images above
eachother instead of next to eachother since you are doing
the devisions on the vertical 2 * 288 = 576 (PAL's vertical
resolution)...

So I think either your text "shifs... left ... right" is incorrect
or your calculation is.

Or am I missing something?

To the best of my knowledge you can burn progressive. Why
shouldn't you be able? The ONLY difference between progressive
and interlaced is a slight time difference between the fields.
With all digital files (including DV and MPEG) the information
is stored the same (a flag is set to indicate the difference). A
TV can play back progressive as well because it is still two fields
(only the time difference isn't there anymore). It might look a
little "off" but it will still do it.

If Vegas DVD has a progressive option then it is supported,
otherwise it would not be there. Just try it out and see what
you get!

(what it won't do is 24 fps progressive, that is being stored
with a 3:2 pulldown i think)

It works!
The reason it works is that what you are setting is the point where you want your image's centre to be. And you want one at 0 x 288, the other at 720 x 288.