It might be that your Font cache is corrupt. Try to find a Microsoft
Utility called TweakUI. With this you can fix font caches. Not sure
if this is the case, but you might give it a try...

Thanks.

no mate, its more prominant on flat colours and its actually throughout...
theres no discrimination to where it is visible...

i dont ave a facility right now to upload, but its not restricted to any colour...

strange...

if i get some time, ill upload 2 pics...

aspect ratio
 

Can someone point to a good URL on aspect ratio?

I am trying to get down the 3 selections and how they apply in Vegas.

It is a fairly simple production too.

Basically, I am using pretty much all still images (scanned). Then adding things in the productions like text etc...

Then outputing to mpeg2 for DVD.

Where I think the confusion comes in is that I can set aspect ratio in 3 different places.

Project properties. Then the source media in the production. Lastly when I render.

This will be viewed on widescreen and 4:3 SD TVs. Therefore, we want to create in widescreen and then the people with 4:3 will just have letterboxing.

Just as an example of what happens. If we start with project properties of NTSC DV Widescreen. Then drop scanned pictures in and change aspect ratio to 16:9, then set any generated media (i.e. a color bar with text in it) to widescreen and finally render in NTSC DVD changing display to 16:9 it will work fine. However, if we render to say an AVI file all the text will be "off" the color bar.

What is the most efficient way to do such a production? Set properties to NTSC DV .9091 then set aspect ratio on pictures and generated media to 16:9 and then render to 16:9?

I am just trying to keep from having to adjust the whole production every time we render to something other than NTSC DVD with 16:9 display (i.e. an avi for streaming).

In addition, I want to make sure I do it properly since these are mainly just still images, generated media and viewed on either 16:9 or 4:3 TVs.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for anyone who can help.

slow motion question
 

Okay, I slowed down some regular speed footage, shot in the XL1s' frame mode, to about 65% or so for the purpose of making it fit some audio. Now, the footage doesn't look slower than it should, but there are these sort of ghost trails when movement occurs, very slight, but I can see them, and I'm sure a few other people could too. I don't think you could tell watching it on a computer monitor, but on my NTSC monitor you can. I was wondering if there was any way to lessen or eliminate these trails. As I said, the slowed down footage still looks like it's moving at the correct speed, it's the trails that are bothering me. Thanks.

reduce interlace flicker
 

I am not sure if your problem is the same as what bothered me with slow motions. However, I found a solution to make my footage look better after I did a slow motion on it or some other kind of manipulations.
Click on properties of the desired piece if video that you have in slow motion...now mark the box that says: reduce interlace flicker.
Furthermore also select the box : Force resample.

I am not expert on this, but it works for me. By the way...if you used the velocity envelope correctly it really should be slower..maybe it is a shot in where you do not really notice a big difference (just a wild guess)

Hope to have helped you out.

I haven't tried this with your software or camera, but suspect you'll get better slow motion results if you shoot at normal 60i instead of frame mode. You want as much temporal data as possible for slow motion, and shooting frame mode (as I understand it) only gives you 30 samples per second vs 60 separate fields per second. At least that's what I find with my Sony cameras when comparing slo mo footage originally shot at 1/30 sec vs 1/60 sec.

What you are seeing is probably where Vegas is creating the "extra" frames necessary to slow down motion. Frame mode will not slow down as well as the regular mode. Slowing it down just exaggerates the effect but Vegas tries to compensate. Try right-clicking the clip and turning OFF resample and see if that makes a difference.

Tsunami updated for Vegas 4.0e
 

The update for Tsunami compatible with both 4.0d and 4.0e is now available. Just log into http://zenote.com/check_serial.asp and click download to get the new version.

If you can't re-shoot in regular mode (which would be best) you could try to rightclick the event, select properties and adjust undersample rate. That way you control the degree to which Vegas creates frames between frames. If you have slowed down much, the result will look jumpy, but without ghosting.

.....
 

Could you please post the script here, or give us a link.

I find it crazy that a .wmv file won't work in a MS product, and it requires a .mov file. Not saying that you are wrong, I just find it strange.

I'm on FP 2003 at home and I'm not seeing this issue, but I'm at work where we have FP 2000.

Thanks. I never intended to slow it down, it was just how it turned out.

I need help with Flix Pro in Vegas
 

I downloaded the Flix Pro demo to convert video into vector animation. Pretty handy tool. Unfortunately, the file is saved as a SWF file and I need a file I can import into vegas. Anyone have any idea how to do this?

Thanks

SWF...isnt that a flash format? I thought Vegas *might* read it- did you try?

You know I thought it would too, but Vegas didn't recognize it.

If there's no way to use SWF files in Vegas does anyone know of a program available to make avi or mpg files with vector animation?

If yoru using flash I think it has enough output formats that you might be able to import to Vegas. I thought it had an AVI option but I could be wrong.

Vegas won't read flash files. Use some other software to convert it to an AVI file and you'll be fine.

Sorry Edward that I said to turn resample on :) Guess I need to learn a lot hehe. At leats for me it worked but that is probably because I shoot in normal mode.

Can someone explain how the undersample rate affects the "ghosting". . .e.g. the higher the number the _____ ?

I'm not absolutely sure it does, but I thought it was worth a try. If Edwards assumption was right (about the "extra" frames) I thought undersample would be a way to get rid of them without re-adjusting the speed.

Anyway, here's what the manual says:
"The Undersample rate box allows you to simulate a lower frame rate. For example, an undersample rate of 0.5 plays the event at half its original frame rate. Each frame plays twice as long as in the original media file, creating a strobe effect."

On closer inspection though, it seems lowering the undersample rate does the same as disabling resample, only with greater control, because you can fine-tune it.

<<<-- Originally posted by Joris Beverloo : Sorry Edward that I said to turn resample on -->>>

Normally you WOULD want it on.

Any suggestions on a program to convert the SWF to AVI? I don't even know where to begin looking for something like that.

I checked to see if Flix Pro could render as avi, but from what I can tell it can't.

Surprisingly with google I found a couple of programs that say they can convert swf to avi. I'll list them here for anyone who may be interested in the future.

One is winmpg and the other is called magicSwf2Avi

http://david.egbert.name/work/newmedia/quicktime/quicktime_in_frontpage/

I'm still having the problem with all movie file formats coming out of vegas. this is driving me nuts! Nobody else has this problem. Maybe i'll just go back to an earlier version. arggggghhh >:-(

The cheap little Screenblast (vegas's little bro) will imprt flash files from what I have heard. That alone might be woth getting a copy. Hopefully they will add that in Vegas 5.

Screenblast Movie Studio:
Increased format support — Support for import, editing, transcoding, and export of Windows Media® 9 video format, AVI's, Macromedia® Flash™ file format (.SWF), MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and other popular formats.

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.co...ct.asp?PID=856

external monitor preview
 

I'm using the external monitor preview function via my camera (firewire to camera to monitor). My project was recorded using a regular 4x3 camera, but I shot protected for 16x9. I set my project properties to NTSC DV Widescreen, and used 'match output aspect ratio' in the clips' pan & crop settings, and placed the 16x9 window where I wanted it for each clip.

When I view the footage on the external monitor, I see the anamorphic 4x3 view of the footage, not the letterboxed 16x9. Is there anyway to view the footage letterboxed 16x9 using external monitor preview?

Thanks
[bac]

Use the motion/cropping controls and apply letterboxing. Use that as a guide for taping some black stuff to your monitor. No rendering...!

I restarted Vegas, and now the external monitor shows the letterboxed 16x9. Maybe it was a glitch?

Need bitrates for 2 hour mpeg2 dvd
 

Ok, so im trying to encode a mpeg 2 to burn to dvd. It is 2 hours and 5 minutes long. After trying a few different bitrates i have gotten the file down to 3.7 gb and it still will not fit on a 4.7 gb dvd what is the deal with that?? Does anyone have some suggestions for settings to get 2 hours on a dvd. Im using the regular Vegas 4 without dvd architect.

Check out my newsletter at http://www.jetdv.com/tts. One of the issues has a bitrate chart.

consider that a constant bitrate of 6000kbps is 1hour and ten minutes flat which fits directly to a DVDr.

then u can calcualte from there...

i also use this bitrate calculator, however nothign is trully accurate when you consider that you also have the file system config to fit, as well as motion menu, audio etc etc...

for optimal video at this long duration, i would suggest u use ac3 stereo at 384bps, one hour and 10 mins will be less than 300mb

oh and here is the calculator


http://www.dvd2dvdr.com/Files/bitrate/BitrateCalc/BitrateCalc2.html

"for optimal video at this long duration, i would suggest u use ac3 stereo at 384bps, one hour and 10 mins will be less than 300mb"

AC3 is just the audio right? Do you encode ac3 seperatly from the video and put them together later or is it all done at once. I havent had a chance to play with it since i only have the regular version of vegas.

Thanks for the links guys i have a better idea now of what i need to do.

You render TWICE in Vegas: Once for the video (to MPEG2) and once for the audio (to AC-3). The DVD authoring program will then use both of those files.


As an alternative, you can render to a standard DV-AVI file and import that into the authoring program. Then it would be up to the program to render the video to MPEG2 format and the audio to AC-3 format.

2 hours 5 minutes with AC-3 audio and reasonably simple menus would need an average bitrate of about 4,600,000 to fit.

Thanks for the help!

Take a look at Issue #7 of my newsletter http://www.jetdv.com/tts for the full bitrate chart and more info on using Vegas and DVD Architect to create DVDs.

Yah i found that after a little googling but the reason i was asking here was i dont have dvd architect or ac3 encoding(without plugin upgrade). But i just ordered dvd architect so no worries. thanks again.

Blur & Censorship Box?
 

I'm looking for a quick way to create a blur / censorship box to overlay a video track (in this case used to blur a licence plate). I need to be able to pan the box around with keyframes as the subject moves in the frame.

I'm getting pretty good at basic editing in vegas, but haven't tried any effects / masks / parent-child frames or any of that yet.

There's got to be a tutorial out there for this as it's a pretty common effect - just haven't had any luck finding one.

oh, it's Vegas 4 if it makes any difference.

Thanks.

Oooh oooh. . .I know this one! Okay. . .I'm a little rusty, so hopefully my comrades here will fill in the wrong or missing info, but:


Whichever clips you want to do this effect on, copy the video layer, and paste it on another track above itself, so that you have two identical clips one above the other. This is where I get a little hazy--

You'll now want to apply the cookie cutter effect to one of the two duplicate clips, and a blur (or pixellate or whatever you're using to censor) to the other--I can't remember which goes on the top and which goes on the bottom. The way it works is that the cookie cutter allows the blur to "peek" through, and by moving the cookie cutter shape around, you move the censor blur. Make sense? I've done it before---not for a while though.

I'm sure there's other ways, but that's how I would (and have) done it.

Josh is right. Put the blur on the top track.