I believe it is generally true that PAL DVD players will play NTSC material. However, I am not a DVD expert by any means of the word.

Vegas and Matrox RT-X100
 

Hi all.

I'm a Premiere user. (I can see already the suspicious looks around me...) :)

Well, Premiere 6.5 works very well with my Matrox RT-X100 and its been enough for my present needs, but I'v seen dozens of posts saying wonders of Vegas. As I like to keep an open mind, here are my questions:

1 - Has anyone had experience with Vegas and the Matrox RT-X100?

2 - Does Vegas + Matrox RT-X100 give you real time export?

3 - Does Vegas work with the Matrox DV codec?

Best regards
Arnaldo

Vegas does not use any external hardware to speed up rendering. So, your Matrox card would be of no assistance there. If the Matrox can be seen as a simple OHCI card, it should work with Vegas for capturing, PTT, and external preview. As for the Matrox DV codec, I'd probably stick with Vegas' codec when using Vegas UNLESS you need to transfer back and forth to Premiere. As long as the Matrox is installed, I believe Vegas should be able to read the files.

The beauty of Vegas is that it works with ANY OHCI card. No hardware assistance is needed for the real-time preview.

Glen,

Maybe not 100% but a fair majority of TVs, VCRs and DVDs sold in Australia and Europe will play both PAL and NTSC content. The DVDs may be region locked but they still play NTSC content, even my $80 Korean special plays both.

Computers don't care if it's PAL or NTSC unless you have hardware that is limited to one format, which is usually the case with US capture hardware from Canopus, Matrox, Pinnacle etc. However, the quality loss with using MPEG1 would be great than your PAL to NTSC conversion.

Premiere user- heyyy don't worry most have been there once. I, for one, got interested in Vegas soley because of these boards. So many people were so passionate about this program- I couldn't resist the temptation to check it out. Besides it seemed like the most common NLE Vegas users had came from was Premiere.

As I see it I spent 2 years working with Premiere- thats 2 years too many. I just wish I had got involved with Vegas sooner. I'm now playing catchup and trying to re-learn my workflow. Though I must say every minute spent making the switch is well worth it.

Now I think I can sum up the answers to all your questions. The Matrox RT-X100 is made specifically to work with Premiere. It's hardware was designed to be integrated with the Premiere software- so no it will not work with Vegas. That's the only gripe Vegas people have had for a long while- no hardware support. On a lighter note Vegas does offer real-time previews of effects and transitions. In that it means you can view your transitions and effects (albiet a lower frame-rate) immediatly after you add them. If you set a loop region just around, say, a transition and keep looping the playback you'll see your frame-rate will continually improve until it's running at full 29.97 (biding your using NTSC) or 25 fps PAL. You can also do a ram render which will more quickly render the new frames to ram or a pre-render which will actually create a new AVI to be placed in the timeline during that section of new frames, thus running at full frame rate all the time.

As far as Vegas handling the Matrox DV codec- don't quote me on this- but I think it can. I base my answer on this on the fact it can handle my clips captured via my Pinnacle DV500 with the Pinnacle DV AVI codec. I think I heard word about it having problems with files over 2 gigs with 3rd party codecs...maybe Trox can elaborate on that.

Speaking of codecs I have a question as well- does Vegas have it's own codec? For example what's the difference between a clip captured in Premiere (used without hw support) and one in Vegas Capture. Do they both have their own proprietary codecs? I see the setting in Vegas preferences to "ignore 3rd party codecs"...which I have selected- shouldn't this have made my footage captured from my DV500 card unviewable?!

Oh absolutly it would just be an alternative way to distribute the videos. It would be much easier in regards to format discrepencies at the expense of video quality. If the mpg route were chosen we wouldn't even go the route of making VCDs. Probably simply CDs with mpg files.

Hi Edward and Glen.

Thank you for your quick answers.

That's a shame Vegas cannot take advantage of the RT-X100 hardware. With it and Premiere I get complex 3D transitions, DV and MPEG-2 export, all this in real time.

Anyway, I will install the demo version of Vegas 4 and if it suits me I'll make it part of my work flow, meaning, editing in Vegas and MPEG-2 compression in Premiere+Rt-X100.

Best regards
Arnaldo

Don't get discouraged when you first start using it. It's quite different from Premiere's workflow, so much that I felt like I had to completly re-learn how to edit from the ground up. The good news is once you learn the new workflow you won't want to go back to Premiere.

If your having trouble with the new workflow of Vegas check out:
www.vegastrainingandtools.com
www.classondemand.net

and Edward's newsletter @
http://www.jetdv.com/tts/

Also if you have any specific questions you know where to come ask.

Arnaldo, why would you import your work into Premiere for MPEG2 encoding?

Probably because of the speed via hw assisted MPG encoding.

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Probably because of the speed via hw assisted MPG encoding. -->>>

doing my best Johnny Carson impersonation

"I did not know that!"



I'll keep that in mind, since I have the Matrox card. :)

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Speaking of codecs I have a question as well- does Vegas have it's own codec? For example what's the difference between a clip captured in Premiere (used without hw support) and one in Vegas Capture. Do they both have their own proprietary codecs? I see the setting in Vegas preferences to "ignore 3rd party codecs"...which I have selected- shouldn't this have made my footage captured from my DV500 card unviewable?! -->>>


Yes, Vegas has it's own codec.

The only difference between captured clips would be header information. The rest is a straight copy from the camera. The codec comes into play when rendering sections that have CHANGED.

Question about Gap Wizard in Excalibur...
 

Just saw the video demo for excalibur- I, also, didn't know it was on the page. Is it new...or did I just miss it before?

Anyway loved the video- though he moves quite fast. I'll have to assume he's going at that pace to give a quick overview- I hope the training DVDs aren't paced like that!
Ok about the gap wizard. I saw Gary position a marker above the timeline which designated where the fragmented clips would begin after the gap wizard was run. What is that marker?! Granted I'm a Vegas newb but in the 5 or so hours working in Vegas I've never seen such a thing. To top it off it had the text "URL" next to it. Any insight?

Lastly, I'm looking to order asap. Do you guys just accept internet orders or is there a # to call. Also is there a delay, I read some posts a little while back with a few people growing concerned regarding the turn-around time. Is he caught up- in other words if I place my order tomorrow will I be able to recieve it within 4 days or so.

What you saw was a COMMAND Marker (created by pressing "C"). It doesn't matter which command you choose just press "C" and then ENTER.

If I remember correctly, there is a "buy now" button on the page. You can order Excalibur as a download version. The orders are processed manually but you should have a response fairly quickly.

What is the "command marker" and what does it do?