hmmmm..... for me sonicfoundry.com still gives me the screenblast page.

Try this - they seem to have changed address!

http://www.mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/forums/ShowTopics.asp?ForumID=4

can vegas export as the original m2t files?

ok. got it. thanks peter.

Vegas seems to just love being used, irrespective of the resolution.

Personally, I like as much space as possible, so on my desktop I use 1280 x 1024, and on the laptop 1600 x 1200.

Dynamic RAM Preview Max in Vegas 4
 

Hi,
Under OPTIONS/PREFERENCES/VIDEO there is a box to set the amount of RAM "to dedicate for video previews".
I really don't understand how this affects how Vegas operates.
I've always left it at the default of 16MB. Next to this box, Vegas says the max available with my system is 639MB.
Could anyone give me some clarification/guidance regarding
selecting an optimal value?
Thanks.

yeah basically when u wanna run a full preview of your project which is frame accurate, you can use teh "create dynamic ram preview" which will render the file to ram and play directly from there.

good for testing effects

Go ahead and change it to the max available. It won't be used unless you tell it to. But the more you allow the longer the amount of time you can "ram render". For example, with 16 meg, you can ram render a few frames. With 600 meg, you can ram render a few seconds! Do a search in help for "Ram Render"

Laptop: 1600x1200
Desktop: 2560x1024 (dual lcd monitors)

There's no resolution that Vegas runs at best as it's a desktop application and unlike games it's performance isn't affected by resolution. However much screen real-estate you prefer at the expense of smaller text and dialog boxes.
Personally I like high resolutions as my eyes are still young and I can handle the tiny icons and text.

What happens when you run out of ram- say you create a selection for 5 minutes and try to ram render that? Will it just stop when it runs out of ram?....Won't using *all* your ram possibly create instability?
Lastly will the dynamic ram preview go to the swap file for space after physical memory is exhausted?

How does the Preview Window display video; overlay?
 

I know Premiere uses video overlay to display the preview window. You can actually open up your graphic card's video overlay settings while in Premiere and adjust the display of the preview window.
How does Vegas display video in the preview window? Primary Surface, not overlay?

I ask because I recently have been having problems with video shearing/tearing in games and during pans in the preview window in Vegas. I enable V-sync in my direct 3d options which solved the problem in all my games. However I still get the video tearing during lots of movement and pans in my preview window when viewing it at full size (both in Preview, and Full-Quality modes). That is the reason which leads me to believe Vegas doesn't utilize video overlay- if it had the video shearing/tearing should have ceased. Anyone have any input regarding this issue?

Vegas does NOT use video overlay.

For previewing on an external monitor, it's best to go out the firewire port.

Lisa,
I ordered Vegas+DVD on Sunday after downloading the demo version and playing with it on SD clips over the weekend. I almost purchased the software directly from Sonic Foundry (Sony now) but prior to pressing submit on web order form for I checked a few prices from 3rd party software vendors. I was pleasantly surprised when I found I could purchase the +DVD version for less than the price of the download Vegas only version. The demo version allows you to do most anything except load and edit HD Streams so considering thats what I was after that was kind of a downer. There seems to be some confusion in regards to if any conversions must be performed on the file prior to editing so until I have the software in hand I will not be able to answer any of your questions. The software should be in later today so hopefully I will be able to answer some of your questions first hand.

I have never worked with NLE software prior do trying out the demo with the exception of the very lame software that came with the camera and a brief trial of Adobe Premiere. I was very impressed with what you can do with very little training. I could actually be at a slight advantage on training with the program because my lack experiencing made it easy because I had no predetermined ideas on the way that tasks are performed.

Performance using demo version on SD is outstanding hopefully the same will be true with the HD stream files. Every task with out exception except final rendering were performed with out delay effortlessly. The PC I am using is a fairly powerful unit with a 3.0 Ghz P4, 800 Mhz FSB, 1 Gb of dual channel 400 Mhz DDR ram and a 7200 rpm SATA hard drive. I am looking forward to the using the software and will report back on my efforts.

Mike

It will only render for the amount of RAM you have. It should not use the swap file. It will release the RAM if other apps need it.

I know it's just that I don't always like having my camera out with all the wires. I only connect the camera for external monitor view for color correction.

Vegas instance editing.
 

Say I have a laptop with enough power and room to do editing but I lack the pyshical Hard Drive space to hold all the clips. Is there a way to create low rez copies of every clip within the project so I could work on editing. Then later just copy the scene file to my desktop computer and replace all the clips with another folder and have it auto update. I know you can do this in After Effects but am unsure how to do this in Vegas.

Rob

That's why I use a deck. You could also use a convertor such as the Canopus ADVC-100 to do the same thing. The deck or convertor can be left connected to the computer all the time - NO messing with wires!

The main way I can think of would be to capture normally and then render to a lower res version. Of course you then have to capture normally again at the end (unless you leave the originals stored on an external drive).

Instead, I edit in pieces on my laptop. Load all footage for one section, edit that section, render, and delete the original. Repeat for the next section. Once all sections have been completed, make one final project combining all of the sections.

Plus Sign Preview Click Box???
 

Okay, who knows what is going on here:

When you left click your mouse inside the preview window, you get a plus sign, which then allows you to create any size box-- inside which no effects will be created, and outside which your chosen effects will apply.
This is like a PERMANENT COOKIE CUTTER- but I can't get rid of the damn thing.

QUESTIONS:
1) How to get rid of this plus sign and the effect !!!
2) Can you REVERSE the operation of this, i.e.
effects apply INSIDE the box, rather than OUTSIDE the chosen area. Actually, I guess you can when you choose cookie cutter- but this thing is ALWAYS ON. ERGGG!!!

thanks
Neil

Above the preview window, turn OFF "Split Screen View"

There is also a drop-down arrow beside this button allowing you to view the various ways in which this feature can work.

Weird audio problem. . .HELP!
 

Okay, I'm editing these fake commercials in Vegas 4, three of them, that all have the same audio tag on the end. Today, I was rendering them into AVI files, and kept hitting a snag. Two of them rendered fine, and the third keeps having a glitch in the audio. This is on the audio tag, that is the exact same source of sound being used on each spot, same volume level, everything--I simply copied the sound file in the timeline once I'd done the first one to my satisfaction, and pasted it onto the end of the other two spots--no changes or anything.

This glitch is where the audio just cuts out for a split second. . .I cannot figure it out. It doesn't do it on the other two spots, but no matter how many times I rerender, on this one it just does it. I tried deleting it out of the timeline and pasting it again, same deal. They're all on the same audio track, no FX on the track. . .the original sound file is fine, so obviously it's fine on the original miniDV tape too.

HELP!

While I can't explain your glitch, have you considered rendering the audio and video separately, then, combining them before your final render?

I use external hard drives - a 120 Gb holds about 9 hours of full res DV.

THANKS!
 

Oh man, this was driving me crazy.
Thanks a lot---

Neil

Ah, another thing...
 

Okay-- say I want to apply processing to just a single small section of the picture-- an UNEVEN one.

Any way to do create anything but a box or circle, like the photoshop LASSO shape maker?

So far, it looks like NOT.

?

Robert,
Since you have the power and room, perhaps Peter's suggestion is the best for you.
If you do render to low-res, the trick is to create "semi-originals" with the same filenames as the real originals. Then Vegas should be able to recreate the edit when it later is given the real originals in the same folder.
Under a scheme like that you may also want to add timecode to your low-res renders. Ctrl-alt-1, click-drag and drop the Timecode FX on your preview window. That will add it to your rendered output.

I could try it. . .why not just render the audio and then render it together with the unrendered video, instead of rendering the video as well?

Mike,
In case you are unaware, you cannot import an m2t file (i.e. the JVC's raw file) into Vegas until you get the free Mainconcept codec from Sony. You get the codec by dragging any clip (e.g. jpeg, avi, wav, etc. but *not* an m2t) to the timeline and attempting to render the clip as MPEG-2. At this point Vegas will walk you through acquiring the codec.

You would need to create a mask of some sort - either in Photoshop or by finding something unique about the area to be modified.

however if the subject your trying to mask/isolate is moving and changing shapes it can be very difficult. If it is a general area like bluring out someones face, etc- it's fairly easy to keep it in the general area with simple keyframe usage.

Just so you know what is entailed in creating this effect- it's not the same as creating a selection in the preview window. Thats *only* for previewing the affect- that, in no way, designates where the effect takes place. It serves as a visual way to compare the edited footage to original.
To add an effect to only certian areas of the frame you have to first duplicate your clip and add the effect to one of the copies....then add a cookie cuter to the top layer to either obscure or show only the area masked (based on whether the effect was created on the top or bottom layer to begin with).

Yah the main reason for the question is for the reason not to haul an external HD everywhere I go. But I think your guys idea is the best. I think I will render out lower resoultion clips with timecode and then just bring them back into vegas and start editing.
Also do you guy know a good windows platform Laptop with firewire ports?

ah ha
 

this cleared up a couple of things
thanks much
Neil

Is the cut out at the beginning? If so I would zoom in real close and see if you have a gap. You might can grab the left edge on the sound track and pull it to the left or you might need to move the whole thing to the left. You might try both. You can always undo.

The same thing happened to me, and still happens unfortunately. I deleted the track and put it back and the exact same defect was there. Then I deleted it opened it in a seperate file and rendered as a different audio only file and imported back to the original project. This worked, but then more defects showed up (maybe 2 or 3) and when I panicked and repeated the steps it only worked some of the time which drove me crazy. This was all in preview though and after I gave up and rendered it, the defects weren't present (thank God). Anyway, it sounds like your problem is on the rendered clip though. The SoFo tech assistant told me it could be a sound card issue, whatever. This is one of the few problems I have encountered while using Vegas.

Hmm.

That might make sense if it weren't for the fact that the other two rendered clips that have the EXACT SAME audio tag are fine.

If you can install the sound card properly, then you can set this up properly. There's no point in giving a step by step unless and until you buy the Audigy2. Other cards, I don't know exactly how they'll work.

After finally putting a good 100 hours or so editing in Vegas....
 

I have, indeed, found some quirks- though I don't know how to reproduce them but it has happened on 3 separate occassions. Every so often when I'm neck deep in editing and I'm working with 4 layers, and lots of many small clips I end up seeing a frame of a clip that is totaly unrelated and not even in the same area of the timeline. For example my one clip of the outside of the church kept getting a 1 frame blip from a shot of the bride walking down the isle. I roomed all the way in to take a closer look and couldn't "see" the frame on the timeline however it *was* there. As I went through the clip frame by frame I could pin point the exact frame where the odd frame appears. Oddly enough the odd frame was from another clip, albiet on the timeline, but not underneath nor even in the same vacinity of the church clip. I saved the project, shut down Vegas, reloaded Vegas and opened the project again and the problem was gone?! Any idea why this happens?!

Secondly every so often when I'm working with a montage sequence of many clips back to back with dissolves and I'm changing clip rates (via Alt+Drag)my disolves get messed up. As clip A disolves into clip B, the beginning of clip B looks dark as if it's opacity isn't at 100%. After closer inspection I notice that the actual dissolve curve is messed up and clip B isn't fading in fast enough or clip A is fading out too fast. I didn't understand how it got that way but I simply tried right clicking the disolve and re-assigning the correct curve again....which didn't work. The only way I can fix this when it happens is drag clip B to the right so that A and B aren't overlapped then back to the left again overlapping them. If I do that it resets it to the correct curve. Now this particular problem can be caused from me manipulating clip speeds and splicing though when I tried to reproduce the problem by overlapping two clips and changing clip speeds up and down I couldn't get the same result. The curve stayed intact the whole time. Does anyone know how a dissolve curve can get messed up like this?!

I've seen both happen. For the first one, usually just pressing the space bar to start playback and then pressing it again to stop playback clears up the issue for me. I have seen it VERY infrequently (i.e. maybe 2 or 3 times over the past dozen weddings).

The fade in/out problem I see more frequently. I seems to be related to a dissolve already set and then adjusting the clip via CTRL-Drag in some way. Visually, the "X" looks like half of it is extra long. I can't force a duplication of this issue. I have found that if you just slighly nudge the clip with the mouse it goes back to normal. Now, I usually do the CTRL-Drag BEFORE creating the dissolve.

Yes your right it's CTRL+Drag (not Alt+Drag)...just going from memory. Well it's nice to hear I'm not the only one this has happened to. And regarding the faulted disolve curves- I figured it had something to do with changing lengths after the dissolve was set. Oddly enough, like I said, I couldn't reproduce the problem when I actually tried to cause it...lol, itsn't that the way it always is!

Re: The one frame problem. I'm not sure if I hit the space bar to start and stop while on the clip, though I'd have to assume I did beings that's the keyboard shortcut I use the MOST.

Even with these two minor glitches it's pristeen compared to buggy Premiere 6.0. I must admit I'm a bit curious to give Premiere Pro and especially Encore a whirl. I absolutly love Photoshop and Encore's tight integration with Photoshop will prove to be very handy. I just hope it has no problems with Vegas files....then again by the time they even hit Encore they'll already be MP2s.

Edward, have you experimented with any of these programs? Oh yeah, and thanks for the input regarding the glitches- do you think I should notify Sony about them...or are they so rare that it won't be something they'll prioritize fixing?

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Edward, have you experimented with any of these programs? Oh yeah, and thanks for the input regarding the glitches- do you think I should notify Sony about them...or are they so rare that it won't be something they'll prioritize fixing? -->>>

I haven't really had an opportunity to use the Adobe suite of programs. As for these problems, go ahead and report them - can't hurt. It would be nice to find one and take a snapshot of it to show them what it looks like. It would be even nicer to have step by step reproduction.

Well, I just got it to do it. I took a clip, split it 4 times, spread things out, did some CTRL-Drag resizing and overlapping. The third clip was overlapping the second clip (both stretched) and the 4th clip (also stretched). I then did a CTRL-Drag on the 3rd clip farther into clip 4 and the dissolve between clips 2 and 3 now has the misshaped "X"