Vegas will read most still image formats you can throw at it. And you can easily change format once you've captured your frame (in an image editor).
I've seen a perfectly reasonable explaination from (I think) one of SoFo's Vegas team, but it's been several months, and I can't remember what it was, nor in what context it came up.

I've checked a little: .png is the best. In the words of SonicEPM: .png will result in a high quality still, with alpha channel.

Jpg is good for some things because it has a trade-off between size and quality. Tiff may be good for archiving, but Vegas will have to use Quicktime to decode it. And it does not have alpha channel in any way practical. Targa wasn't metioned in the little search I did.

thx for the info. Yah I just don't understand why they wouldn't make it easy to export still frames and save to all the formats out there. It is my only complaint with vegas. Since most of my other apps will allow for me to do everything I want.

Rob:D

captured .jpg size in V V 3
 

Can anyone please tell me where to change the size? 320x240 seems to be the default, and i can't find my way around to change it to 640x480. Thanks!

Hey Tom, sorry i lost touch.. hope y'all are doing well.. hi to Kelly:)

Nancy

Right-click the preview screen and pick "Display at project size"

Now take the snapshot.

Cool. I'll give it a try.

Thank you so much, Edward..

I'm still having trouble getting clear frame grabs
(surfing pics.. like this one, for example)

http://www.follysurfcam.com/june03rc/redlb.jpg

even tho i use the movie mode.... I finally got a nice tripod, am using GL-2 & both Studio 7 & V V 3... must be ME!
thx
nancy

explain what you want in more detail, and I'll try and write a script to do it for you

Yes, getting GOOD snapshots is really a multi step process. It's MUCH easier in Vegas 4 as there are scripts available to do it all for you.

Here are the basics:

1. Right-click the preview to choose "Display at Project Size" will get you the full size.
2. Change "Preview" to "Best" on the preview screen.
3. Under File-Properties, change the project type to "Progressive" (or non-interlaced)

In Vegas 3, I usually simply did the first two and then de-interlaced in PhotoShop.

Look at the newsletters at http://www.jetdv.com/tts to find more information about snapshots (issue #5 to be precise).

oh. All I was questioning is why they didn't allow us to export into still frames with the option of using any format. I mainly use targa and tiff for the 3d and other video work. So I just thought it was akward for them not to offer these and other formats as options. No biggie. png should do fine. Anything is better than jpg.

Rob:D

hey thanks for the info, edward.. am reading that now..
my nephew works for sonic foundry & gave me vv3, think its time to beg for 4! it looks easy on 4...
nancy

ps. its just a good thing that surfers aren't too picky about their shots!

vegas video 4
 

this question was originally intended for bill ravens in another post, yet if anyone else know then horay!

im working in vegas video 4 to take NTSC down to PAL...I
rendered as a PAL DV template and got very interpolated
results....Is there another method in doing this? or is there a certain method i shoudl take before output?

you might try -
in your project properties ( vegas - file - properties) change the deinterlace method to BLEND .. then render out to PAL - should be little smoother

Yarrrrgh! Stupid Vegas 4 pan and crop tool!
 

Okay, let's say I want to size the video to make a box that fills half the screen. I want to keep it the entire 4:3 frame. When I use the Vegas 4 pan and crop tool to do this, for some reason, if I try to move the box around, it starts to get cut off, and disappear. I can only keep it on one side of the screen, instead of being able to move it where I want. When I try to go to the other side, it starts to crop until it disappears. What am I doing wrong? I want to be able to move it anywhere. I've tried playing with the "lock aspect ratio", "move freely", and "size about center" buttons, and still it does this. I can't use the 3d plugin pac because I recently found out that it acts on both fields of video and once, creating a "frame mode" look, and this footage is 60i and needs to remain so.

you might try setting your shutter speed to 1/500 or faster for good still photo's but it might be too much for video use ?? perhaps you can find a happy medium ( shuttter speed) somwhere that works good for video and stills