film effects in Vegas Video
 

I have the Vegas plugin which lets you use film grain effects. Is there a plugin for VEgas which gives you the simulated dust particles and scratches on old film? Of what software would I need for such a plugin.

I also have Premiere 6 but no After Effects, so does this rule out the CINELOOK option, if that has such a feature. Also got PINNACLE STUDIO 7, but no plugins.

My copy of Vegas Video has "Sonic Foundry Film effects." You can tint the film, select how much of the "particles" you want, and the type of particle (hair, scratches, grain, dust, etc.). If you wanted both grain and scratches, you can just add the effect to your clip(s) twice.

I'm with Josh. My film plugin has all those abilities and more

Agreed, all of the effects are there - just not necessarily apparent at first. Play around with the control and you will find the additional options. Also, read the help file concerning that control. The options you want are there. You just have to find them.

Track Motion DOES affect the entire track. However, you can fine tune sections by using keyframes. Track Motion is a very powerful feature but you MUST use keyframes to get that power. If all you wanted was a pip in a small area, you could get by without keyframes. Otherwise, you need keyframes to reach the full power of Track Motion. BUT, You DO have to be careful when you have multiple clips on a single track when you use Track Motion.

Yeah, I tried it right after my last post. I'll tweak it when it's time to output. Thanks for the advice.

effects
 

Yes I have found the film effects plugin now. It was well concealed! Very good feature indeed. Many thanks, just what I wanted. Looks quite convincing as well....

Also might want to play with color balance/color curves, as well as brightness and contrast.

AVI2 and Vegas Video and Virtual Dub
 

I don't really know about this stuff, so bear with me. In Vegas Video 3, under the general preferences, there is an option to "strictly adhere to AVI2 specifications." On, I believe, all of my projects, this box is not checked. What does that mean, exactly. If I go into one of these projects and check the box, will anything change, or do I have to do this before I start capturing footage?

The reason I ask is because there is a program called virtual dub that de-interlaces, among other things, but it won't work with AVI files, only AVI2 (several others, but AVI2 is what I'm concerned with).

I'd like to try it out, and I want to know if I need to recapature footage with that AVI2 preference activated, or what.

I believe that setting ONLY affects RENDERED avi's - not captured. Do the captured avi's work with VirtualDub? I have never used VirtualDub as Vegas does everything I need - including de-interlacing.

i know that the VV v 2h capture utility allows you the choice to capture as type 1 or 2. i still have it on my computer for that reason ... the captured files do work with VV3

Vegas video 3 effect question
 

I have already made several short creations with vv3 and it is great. But a very simple effect eludes me. I am trying to place text over video, like placing someones name below them as they speak. I have been all through text and media but can't seem to get a transparent background. I get the effect in the video but I can't get text only no background, any help would be appreciated.
thanks

Very easy .......just put the title in a new video track over the track where video is..... If you don't know how create a new video track, just need make a right click over the timeline....

Blue

How do you set it to capture type 2. . .? Also, it SEEMS that on Virtual Dub, there is a way to change the framerate of incoming footage. Maybe I'm reading the program wrong. Under Video/Frame rate, there's an option to change the frame rate of source video. Does this mean you could bring 60i video in at 24fps, or am I retarded? If it did bring it in at 24fps, would it slow it down to that frame rate, or actually remove six frames per second?

Simple problem that I made hard. I didn't understand that the checkerboard background was transparent.
Thanks for the help.
Don

Video Vegas 3.0 Question
 

I am seeing alot of positive responses regarding Video Vegas 3.0. It sounds like an excellent program. I was wondering if it is possible to import music from a CD in your CD ROM Drive onto your footage from the Canon XLS-1?

I am an amatuer at vegas video and I was able to do that the first day ( I have had it for 9 days now). The screen view is a timeline up top with windows you can open in the bottom (you can also drag top and bottom around to make one bigger than the other). I keep the master volume, the preview screen, the text generator and the media pool open. The media pool is an area to bring in pieces that you may drag to the timeline to create the audio and video track. On top of the media pool window are icons for CD, camera, and computer, etc., which let you download from those areas into the media pool. I scanned the front of the vegas video book on my flatbed scanner and put it in easily. When you open up cd it recognizes how many tracks are on the cd, you highlight which ones you want, and it downloads it into the media pool. This program is very easy and is loaded with features ( and unlike pinnacle studio they all actually work). I have a very short piece where I made an opening with music and credits, I really didn't have anything for content so I did a TV out of the nascar 2002 game and used it. Scrolling credits were to fast and I finally found the velocity envelopes to slow it down, made credits at the end and everything, fades, wipes, fade music, so easy that it allows your creative side to come alive rather than tasking your technical side.

Tom, Vegas has complete multitrack recording and editing features for Audio. It has built in CD ripping tools (really fast too). This in addition to great effects tools. Supports up to 24/96 audio, but doesn't yet support surround mixing (Acid Pro 4 does).
If you have SoundForge, you can use it as a audio editing/recording plugin for Vegas too. Sofo products all seem to work together well, with a simialr look and feel. If you know one, you know most of the rest of them.

Todd: I've about 5 years using Premiere, and in my opinion Vegas 3.0 is far better than Premiere; it's a very powerfull and stable NLE. I have about 5 months using Vegas 3 (6 hours per day) and never got a crash.

The only area where Premiere has advantage over Vegas is in the number of plug-ins available. For me that is a minor advantage 'cause I use AE or similar composers for compositing and FX.....

To "slow down" scrolling credits, you do NOT need to use the velocity envelope. What you need to do is specify how long you want the credits to run. In the upper right hand corner of the editing box, there is a time display that will show something like 00:00:10;00 - This would specify the roll is to last for 10 seconds. If you want it to last one minute instead, change it to 00:01:00;00.

Once you have changed the time in the box, you now need to extend the event to that length. Once you have reached that length, there is a small triangle indicating that point and it will snap to that location. Now, the scroll will last for the new specified length of time.

Everyone has been very helpful on this subject. Thank you all so much for your time. You have made my decision very easy in choosing a NLE program.

I may be wrong, but I think AVI type 2 are avi files that can exceed the 4gb file size of the original avi spec. I know there may be more to it, but thats at least one of the differences.
avi2 is the default uner win2k and xp when capturing (assuming you are using ntfs, not fat32). Surprisingly, from what I've heard, AE still doesn't support avi type 2 files. Has that changed recently? does Quicktime still have a 4gig limit?

I'm a caveman, and I still use Win 98. Can I work with AVI2 under this OS?

Quicktime has a 2gig limit on FAT32 systems.

Jeff

Video Vegas 3.0 question
 

I was wondering if it is possible to eliminate background noise with Video Vegas? I taped some footage with my Canon XLS-1 and I notice there was some background noise during a speaking part. Can the background noise be eliminated?

Sonic Foundry makes a DirectX plug-in called noise reduction that is rated quite excellent. But it does cost.
You might want to go to
http://www.directxfiles.com
to find links to less expensive ones if you are on a budget. Most people I know swear by the sonicfoundry plug-in, but at 279.00 it's not a trivial purchase.

Thank you so much for help with this question.
I appreciate the link as well to find other prices!

You can also play with the built-in equilization tools to try to reduce the frequencies where the noise occurs. This has helped me many times.

Edward you wrote:

You can also play with the built-in equilization tools to try to reduce the frequencies where the noise occurs.

Are these built-in equilization tools in Video Vegas? Is that what you are referring to?

thanks

To get answers for Vegas Video 3.0, I strongly suggest you visit:
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowTopics.asp?ForumID=4

This is their user support forum. Excellent support from techs as well as other, expert users of Vegas Video.

Yes, the equilization tool that are built-in to Vegas can help you bring out certain frequencies while reducing others. There are two main equilization tools: Track EQ and Graphic EQ.

Graphic EQ equates to a typical equalizer.

Track EQ is different in that you can specify 4 frequencies, set whether to amplify or decrease, and pick the bandwidth to effect. It is an interesting control that takes experimentation. Fortunately, you can make changes in real time and listen to the results.

AC 5.1 Encoding and DVD Burning possibly in Vegas Video 4.0. A heads up!
 

Just wanted to let you guys know that Sonic Foundry (makers of Vegas Video) have announced AC5.1 and DVD encoding plugins for Acid Pro 4.0.

I'm assuming this means that Vegas Video 4.0 will also have this ability when it comes out.

Also, I heard that the price tag for VV4.0 might shoot up, as it gains market share, so you might want to get 3.0 now, if you're thinking about it.

Also, for people with VV3.0, check this out:
http://www.debugmode.com/winmorph/

apparently it's some kind of new video plugin that allows you to do Michael Jackson style morphing.. remember at the end of Black Or White? that kinda stuff. Its in beta, but it could be cool to check out.

If VV4.0 has DVD burning abilities, as well as 5.1 encoding, and the already excellent Noise Reduction plugins... this might be *the* premier NLE for PC.

-Eric

this is pure speculation on my part... What will most probably happen is SoFo will make it easy to move from Vegas to Acid for final output. It would made sense for Acid to be able to read .veg files, let you make further audio adjustments then render verything out without having to go back to Vegas. Or they will come out with a seperate professional DVD authoring app the will take the projects from both. Or...

you could be absolutely right.

here is my rationale for thinking the plugs will be available in VV4.0

when people found out that acid4.0 would support 5.1 mixing, the vegas community @ the sonic foundry forums freaked out, and said they wanted it for VV4.0. An official person @ Sonic Foundry hinted at the fact that this support would also be in VV4.0

Then once the 5.1 dvd burning plugs were announced, in the vegas forums we saw this post:

The burning utility will let you burn your surround mixes to DVD, but that is all it does- this is not a full blown authoring tool. The 5.1 encoder is where the value is-this thing will sell for less than half of any other 5.1 AC-3 encoder currently on the market. The encoder works with ACID 4 only at of right now, so be aware of that.

Note the usage of 'as of right now', I assume this means that once 4.0 comes out, Vegas will be able to use those plugs as well.

We can only hope :)

-Eric

VV has alawys been a pretty good package. The only thing I would like to see Sonic Foundry add is support for Canon 4-track.

I am a Cinestream user, who is very disappointed with the owners Discreet. I think CS is a great package and works well, but no one can tell whether Discreet is going to can it or not. Considering how well it works, I can stick with it for years.

Among the CS user groups, VV is held in high regard. Most people think VV is worth purchasing for its video compressors alone. If they add a DVD system, I think they will have a winning product. However, if they want a significant part of the market, they will have to keep the pricing attactive or they will drive potential customers to the Adobe Suite.

Most of the time when someone mentions extra firewire features like 4-track, the recommendation comes out to use Scenalizer Live. It's a standalone firewire capture tool with alot of really nice features, and only costs $40. http://www.scenalyzer.com

Can't comment on it personally since I don't use it, but it's got a free demo to try...

Nathan, as a former FreeDV/EditDV user, I was totally disappointed how discreet handled things. I always felt VV3 was what EditDV could have been under the right leadership. Discreet only wants to stay involved in the high end. There was a great on line community of FreeDV users, learning how to edit...using the software.... Discreet simply shut it down.
It would be great if SoFo offered some sort of low cost cross-grade pricing for Cinestream users.

You would enjoy the VV comunity much better than the Cinestream one, not just because of the users(who are a great bunch), but because SoFo is listening to their customers.

The way Discreet has handled the whole EditDV/Cinestream issue is appalling.

Good Luck.

I agree about Discreet. Still Discreet supports a CS users group which they allow to run unimpeded. Great bunch of people there too.

VV is excellent package which I have tried. CS 3.1, however, performs extremely well and with the tutorial CDs from Claire Watson and Ron Bridegroom makes it a rocking system.

The simple truth about CS, is even with it faults (audio mostly) it is quite powerful.

Like you say I would be very happy with VV, and if they make another rock bottom offer again on their system I might well purchase one.

Nathan, this is pure speculation on my part....

Maybe if you got enough CS users together and aproached SoFo for low cost cross- grade they might listen. Ask them if they would give you the full version at a Student Price, or at least around the $200.00 mark. All they can do is say no.

actually, if you buy VideoFactory2.0 from Sofo for $59.99 I think it is, you can then buy the upgrade to VV3.0 for $199.99

$260 isn't that bad as opposed to the $420 list price