Need vegas editing advice
 

I am pretty new at this and working on making my first actual movie. I am taping certain shots for the movie out of sequence and want to begin editing the scenes I have completed and then add things to the project as they are finished. Because of advice from this site I am able to add time to my timeline and so I can insert scenes without trouble, but I don't know if there's a way to delete time from the timeline to eliminate gaps. Is there a way to do that?

Also, how do you prerender a scene so that you can see it the way it will really look (my preview usually adds some blur which is fine in most situations, but when trying to perfect a certain effect I'd like to be able to see the scene the way it will look when rendered). The manual shows how to prerender a whole track, but I want to prerender a time sequence spanning several tracks.

Thanks

Just hold down the CTRL key and resize to the new desired length.

Vegas can easily read files > 4GB. However, certain TYPES of AVI files are limited in size. If these files were not captured in Vegas, you may need to recapture

Here is the way I do it:

1. Edit a scene and get it like I want it.
2. Render to an AVI file
3. Repeat 1 and 2 for other clips
4. Create a new final project using all of the previously rendered clips

"have u configured vegas to be able to create files alrger than 4gig? Also are u running NTFS or Fat32?"

How is that done?

Yes obviously I am running NTFS, otherwise I wouldn't be able to create >4 GB files to begin with! :) XP pro is what I'm using. Certain files it's fine with, others it's not. I created these particular clips in Premier, and then am trying to manipulate them in Vegas. Vegas won't read any content beyond 4 GB.

Dan, if I'm understanding you correctly you should just be able to select a time range on the timeline, then select Tools->Selectively Prerender Video, or you can go Tools->Render to New Track which will render the selected timeline range and place that in a new track.

Make sure when you do this, that you have all the tracks enabled that you want to render.


To delete time, select the time range in the timeline, hit Crtl-L which will turn on Post Edit Ripple, then hit Delete. This will delete the selected area, and the Post Edit Ripple will move everything to the left to close the gap. PER has a couple of settings allowing you to select which tracks it affects, so make sure it's set correctly. You can also access it from the Edit->Post Edit Ripple menu, or the tool bar.

Cheers
Aaron

Thanks for all the great feedback.

Edward, I had considered doing what you mentioned but was afraid I would get generation loss when creating an avi and then importing it back into a new project? I assume since you are doing it that way that it is a negligible loss in quality.

Wow, that was easy. Thanks!

<<<-- Originally posted by Dan Measel : Thanks for all the great feedback.

Edward, I had considered doing what you mentioned but was afraid I would get generation loss when creating an avi and then importing it back into a new project? I assume since you are doing it that way that it is a negligible loss in quality. -->>>

With the Microsoft DV codec (that premiere and others use), maybe after about 10 re-encodes, but with the Sonic Foundry DV codec (that Vegas uses) you can re-encode as many times as you want without any quality loss. I know this because of a test in a review a while back of Vegas 3.0.

Vegas now Sony's- a good thing?
 

Heard about the recent buy out of several Sonic Foundry's programs by Sony, including Vegas. Does this mean anything bad for us up and comming Vegas users. I just bought the program and the training discs- I hope Sony won't ruin the direction Vegas was going...it seemed so far ahead of the competition supporting HD and 24p ect. I hope they have some of the same programers, etc working on future upgrades/versions of Vegas. I'd hate for it to fall to the wayside after the Sony buy-out. Anyone have any input on this?

Let's hope that they don't take away HD support in the next version and release Vegas HD at 10x the cost!

As long as you are not making additional changes (transitions, effects, ...) you are simply COPYING the file with absolutely NO generational loss. If you place a dissolve between two clips, you will gain another generation. However, in that case I'm usually working with straight clips before the dissolve making the dissolve the FIRST generation.

Unless and until I see something to indicate otherwise, I'm going to assume the best. The Vegas engineers are saying this is a GOOD thing.

Would it surprise you to learn that this has been gone into very much at the Sonic Foundry Vegas forum? Or that no one has been able to come up with anything certain about the future of Vegas (and the other excellent SoFo desktop applications)?

Edward is right about Vegas engineers saying it's a good thing. And apart from the occasional paranoia the users seem to be calm about it, too. I think one piece of good advise is to look out for bargains from SoFo. They may be wanting to sell off some items before whatever it is that will happen, happens. Make sure you're on their maillist for news and promotional stuff.

Wont that change the "lenght" that the audio plays. Can't you change the pitch without altering the length of the clip's audio?