Some questions about Sony Vegas 7
 

I am using a trial version of Sony Vegas 7 right now. I was working with Adobe Production Studio but I am not very happy with the pefromance of Adobe Premiere Pro. Lots of crashes and irritations.

I have a Canon XL-H1 (PAL) and was wondering if I can work with Canon 25F in Sony Vegas? Also, can I export it back to tape?

Another thing I cannot find out is how to move the timeline from the top to the bottom. I read about it in a review but cannot find the place where I can change this. Finally, how good does Vegas 7 work for you?

I hope you can provide me with some feedback.

Options - Preferences - Display tab. Check the box that reads "Dock windows at top of main window."

You may also want to check "Position tabs at top of docked windows".

Thanks for your help. Do you know if there are any good training books available for Sony Vegas 7? My problem with Sony Vegas is that the program is fundamentally different compared with Final Cut Pro (where I am coming from) as well as Adobe Premiere Pro (which I am using now).

This might be a silly question, but did you download the pdf manual rather than just using the help file version? It is very straight forward and should help you understand Vegas fairly quickly. They both contain the same information but you'll probably find the pdf easier to move through and read.

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/dow...p2.asp?DID=696

The best book available is for Vegas 6 and it's called Vegas 6 Editing Workshop by Douglas Spotted Eagle. The PDF manual with Vegas 7 and help file can instruct on the differences between Vegas 6 and 7. Most of the differences are with HD. The book is excellent and an invaluable reference.

There's also many excellent training DVDs for Vegas, including Vegas 7. Check out the materials on www.VASST.com.

Can anyone tell me if Vegas supports Canon 24F/25F and also export back to tape for those two modes?

Also, the VASST training DVDs for Vegas... are they region 0? Or in other words, can I play them on my PAL DVD player?

I would assume that Vegas 7 supports Canon 24F/25F since version 6 apparently does. See this thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=58881

Yes, 24f is supported in Vegas 7.
VASST DVDs are not region encoded. They are NTSC, but no regions specified.

Thanks DSE. I already thought they would be, but just wanted to make sure. I am diving into the program at this moment and although it is completely different then any other NLE I used... it looks and feels solid. The only thing I care about now is stability... and it looks like it is there. But I need to start working with it to make a good judgement. The problem is that things are not really easy to figure out so I am reading the manual right now. One other question I have about the DVDs... are they really advanced or also a good place to start (i.e. see a Vegas workflow in action?)

One thing I would like to ask here is about a good Vegas workflow. The capturing panel looks simple but maybe there are more advanced features. I am shooting a theatre production right now and therefore I have 2x 63 minutes of tape without any scenes. What is the best way to deal with the footage? I suppose that if I capture everything I will end up with a 13GB .m2t file which willl not be appreciated by my computer. So I have to split it up. Is there something like logging with batch capture in Vegas?

As always: thanks to everyone for their help. I really appreciate it.

Anyone about the best way to capture one tape with 63 minutes non-stop footage without any scenes? I am eager to find out.

Capture Preferences/disable scene detection.

Ok... but then I will have one 15/20 GB .m2t file? Can I work with files this big without hurting my sytem too much? What I would like to do is to set in and out points and then batch capture? Is this possible in Vegas? I have tried to find an option like this but have not succeeded so far.

Sorry to ask all these questions but I have bought the Adobe studio for $1600 and had nothing but trouble with it. Before I spend more $ on software I want to make sure that it will work for me.

I am seriously considering moving back to Apple again at this moment.

what is 24F? i've heard of i and p, just wondering what f could possibly mean.

Floris,

Open the capture window, click the advance capture tab, this is where you can log your in and out points to set up batch capture. Go to help > contents and index, enter "advance capture" and click "list topics" and then in the topics listed double click "Logging clips for batch capture" and follow the instructions.

I hope this is what you are looking for.

Cheers,
Duane

I feel really stupid but I cannot find the advanced capture button. The timecode in & out and flag icons are all greyed out. The manual mentions an advanced capture button in the transport stream but I cannot find that button anywhere in vegas. What do I do wrong? I am looking in both the search and the Vegas 7 manual they do not explain this further.

Update:

I am not sure if this advanced capture is supposed to show in Vegas as well or only in Sony Video Capture 6.0. Anyway, I get the following message:

Microsoft AV/C Tape Subunit Device could not be opened

Why do I get this message?

I can connect to my Canon XL-H1 within Sony Vegas but not with the external capture application. Can someone tell me what it is going on here?

Someone correct if I'm wrong but I seem to recall reading that you can't do advanced capture with the HDV format.

I am still not sure what is the best way to capture 63-minutes of footage without scenes. Is there a penalty if I have 20GB of .m2t footage and I am going to use that for editing? The reason why I use log and capture in Premiere Pro 2.0 is because I will then end up with around 20 smaller files instead of one gigantic 20GB file which (I suppose) hurts my system badly.

How can I know for sure if advance capture does not work with HDV footage? DSE ?! Thanks in advance.

As mentioned, disable scene detection.
MikeK is correct, there is no advanced capture for HDV.

I have one final question regarding Vegas. How different is the Vegas workflow from that of other NLE editors? Also, when you get to learn the program... how does it influence your productivity? Can you work faster with Vegas then with other editors or is it more or less the same? The interface differences is something I believe I would just need to get used to. So how does Vegas compare when you look at advanced features?

Floris, your questions are all subjective, so bear in mind that these are opinions, not fact.
Vegas is faster than any editor you'll find out there, I believe. Part of that is my familiarity with Vegas, part of that is how fast I picked up Vegas after a few years of Premiere, Avid, and Ulead use. Part of that statement is rooted in the faster, more visible workflow that Vegas has.
It used to influence my creativity. Now it's just an extension of my thought process. "Perfect speed is being there." I know Vegas well enough to "be there."
The workflow isn't tremendously different than other NLE's, just that it's not exactly the same. Once you get past the concept of separate source and preview, it rolls pretty fast. Controlling events at event, track, project, or bin levels is pretty powerful and useful. Being able to save chains of FX is very useful. Any kind of media regardless of resolution or framerate, in most every codec is very useful.
It's a good compositor, not a great compositor. No NLE has the same compositing tools *built in* but for example, AE interfaces exceptionally nicely with Premiere. So AE is a better compositor, but it's not built into the Premiere application. It's also another interface to learn. So, YMMV.
The bottom line is that all the NLE's out there (OK, not all, there still is AIST and a few others) are pretty darn good. It's mostly a selection of which one interfaces best with you after you've worked with all of them a bit. Once you get familiar with Vegas, you may find yourself struggling with it. If you are, it's probably not the NLE for you if you've got a different NLE that "speaks" to you.

been following this thread since it has some great info.

I've been using Avid for years,(have also used Ulead) but have been intrigued by the many fervent fans of Vegas.

I do have a couple questions.

From what I can see here, Vegas sees editing as a "subtractive process" rather than "additive?" My workflow in Avid and Ulead was to open a clip, set in and out points and then add to the timeline. I downloaded the trial version of Vegas Movie Studio, is there no way to set in and out points on the clip? no 3 or 4 point editing? or do I just need to "think differently"

Just color me curious ;-)

Thanks Douglas! It's just that if you look at Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere or Avid Express they all look pretty much the same. I have been working with Final Cut and switched to Adobe Premiere lately but that just did not turn out as well as I expected. Although they look the same, the stability of Adobe Premiere has not been very good for me so that's why I am now looking at Sony Vegas as an option. The other option is going back to Mac. I have the trial version installed but it it just like someone slaps you in the face. Its a bit harder to get started with because I think old style (i.e. source & project monitor). Vegas also looks a bit dirtier (i.e. less finished). But on the other hand, it feels and looks rock solid so that's why I am interested. Since I switched to PC I started with what I thought were hardware problems that turned out to be Panda Antivirus that was causing havoc. When that was finally solved and I finally got start working with Premiere (in combination with Cineform) it hangs on many ocassions so again I am not productive. So the only thing I want now is a solid application so I can focus on training myself and developing my skills without being plagued by crashes. If I am not editing, my PC runs very smoothly and no other programs crash. Vegas is also very affordable and I think it will get better and better each version.

As it looks now, it will either be Vegas or back to Final Cut Pro on a Mac. I chose for a PC because it was cheaper but as long as I cannot be productive, it is not cheaper at all. I will have to see.

You can set in points and out points in the trimmer.

Or you can throw clips into the timeline, and trim there by dragging on the right and left edges of clips. The numpad keys I believe work like Avid.

The crtl and alt modifiers let you get into slip and roll edits (not sure what the Avid terminology is).
Check out the sticky at the top of the vegas forum: the list of shortcuts is pretty useful!

There is a reason for that...
Avid invented the interface.
Premiere (previous to Adobe acquiring it) copied the Avid interface. So did virtually everyone else.
The people that initially created Premiere created Final Cut.

Vegas came along and began as an audio app in a burgeoning field of how audio apps would look/act/feel. Sound Forge was one of the very first DAW tools out there, and many of the terms that we use today are the result of SF. Vegas grew out of Sound Forge. The NLE paradigm grew from the audio paradigm, and for some of us, it just makes more sense. For others, it makes no sense. I'll go so far as to say that creative folks seem to find Vegas easier to adopt than math-minded/engineering folks.
The primary benefit in the early days and still today, is found in Vegas' stability. It just works. Rarely crashes, works with virtually anything you throw at it. It's the proverbial tank in the industry.
It's not the prettiest NLE out there, I think in the low-cost NLE's that Avid Liquid probably wins that battle. But it is the most stable and system-friendly in that it will run on Pentium II, old systems, but takes advantage of multi-core systems as well.
there's more, but no point in preaching to the choir. ;-)
Welcome to Vegas, Floris!

Floris...

I had the same issues as you a few years ago, with Premiere. Sounds like nothing's changed with Premiere...it's still balky and unreliable....totally unacceptable for me. To make matters worse, Adobe has NO NO NO suitable customer support. Buy their product, buy their customer support. Sony Media/Vegas has one of the best customer support organizations I've found. Vegas may not have all of premiere's bells and whistles, but, at least IT WORKS!

Bill, that is exactly what I would like to hear. First I thought Premiere looked nice but nice is nothing as it does not work and is not reliable. So what I want is a rock-solid application, a tank to say it in Douglas words.

Thanks Glen, I will check that out.

For what it's worth...

a couple of years ago I had the experience of working on a movie trailer with an ex-editor from The Sopranos. She won an emmy for the work she did on that series and used Avid, exclusively. At first, she was quite dubious of what I could do with vegas 5. In fact, she was specifically concerned that Vegas wouldn't do 3 or 4 point editting. In fact, it can, in the trimmer as Glenn said...they just don't call it 4 point editting. She was also concerned about doing l and J edits...which vegas doesn't automate, but they can be manually done. There are plugins available to automate the L, J cut process. When we started working together, her reticence evaporated and we got a nice product out in short order. Vegas stood up to her Avid expectations without hesitancy.

It's the Canon HL-1's approximation of progressive frame capture.

Normal film cameras and most newer high end video cameras use progressive (that is to say, one frame shot or captured at a time in rapid succession) frame capture (ie - "24fps").

Canon's use of this approximation has brought much angst from would-be buyers and users as it isn't quite 24p. Some like the look, others don't. Either, if it's used, you lose resolution.

john
evilgeniusentertainment.com

Douglas, I have just placed a purchase for the Sony Vegas Training DVDs Volume 1-7 on the Vasst site. My initial experience with Vegas are favorable and when I see the dedication in these forums I think this is the right way to go. So I guess I will be looking at you in a week or two!

On a side-note: are you capturing .m2t clips with Vegas or are you using another format? I would like to find out which is the best format to use. I also read something about conversion within Vegas to other formats (YUV)?

I don't want to hijack the thread, but what is a 3 or 4 point edit? or alternatively, what does Vegas call it?

Cheers,
Kyle

Floris, you'll want to capture what the camera outputs; .m2t.
I hope you'll find the DVDs useful in your learning.

Kyle, Sony don't call a 3/4 point edit anything specifically, it's odd that the term is left out of their manual.

Thanks Spot,
Can you tell me exactly what it is?

Thanks.

As described by "Digital Movie Making."
"In digital video editing, three-point editing is an editing method used to insert a clip from the source media into a destination track, which is done by setting three edit points. The first two set points define the in and out points of the clip, or the in and out points in the timeline that the clip will fit into. The third point indicates either the In or Out point for the clip (if the other tow points are in the timeline), or the in and out points in the timeline (if the other two points are in the clip). " (I was too lazy to come up with my own description, and happened to have this PDF).

Four point is the same, but determining both in and out, rather than either In or Out.

Vegas is capable of either one, along with rolling edits, slip edits, slip n' slide edits, and with a script add-on (free), insert edits.

Ahh I see - thanks. I've always done those manually. How would *you* go about doing, say, a three point edit in Vegas?

Thanks,
Kyle

1. have a hole somewhere on your timeline, or create a selection on an empty track (if you have the hole, double click inside the hole to create a selection).

2. Open a clip in the trimmer. Place your cursor on the frame in the trimmer, that you wish to be the In point of the clip.

3. Hit the A key (for Add) and the media will auto set it's Out Point to coincide with the Out point set on the timeline.

You'll see the media from the Trimmer added to the timeline, filling your hole or selection.

Thanks, that clears up a lot!

Thanks heaps!! That's a great tip.

Cheers,
Kyle

I have started working with Vegas and I must say I really like the program. It really IS a tank as whatever I throw at it does not disturb it at all. I also received the VASST total training DVD's. I have only checked the first bit of the Volume 1 DVD and I must compliment Douglas and John with it. The training is easy to follow and everything you need to know is explained.

After all the trouble with Premiere... this really feels like a fresh start.

I have one questions for Douglas though... with PAL footage, what is the correct timeline ruler format setting? Do I use the SMTPE EBU setting or the regular 29,97fps setting?

Hi Floris,
If you are editing PAL and outputting PAL, use the 25fps ruler.

Cheers,
Kyle