Anyone gotten good 60i to 24p results in Vegas 4?
 

I tried this experient once, shooting in 60i and converting to 24p. That was before Edward Troxel was onboard, and Vegas became as widely used as it is now.

When I tried it, most shots looked okay, but on ones with fast motion, during the fast motion frames, the moving parts of the image would become a pixelly mess. I noticed this on other shots as well, where there was little or no movement, and was never able to figure it out. I followed the 24p conversion steps I found on here, or perhaps somewhere else, and it still came out this way, so I justed to know if this is just how it is, if you don't either shoot 24p to begin with, or use Magic Bullet, or someone's done a sucessful conversion.

I've not tried to create 24p from a 60i (59.97i) source but I've had beautiful results going to 30p. I use a multi-step process:

1. Load up the 60i source on the timeline.
2. Open Vegas Options (Alt+Enter) and choose "Interpolate" from the deinterlace option.
3. Export to a 30p uncompressed DI (digital intermediate) file.
4. Load the 30p DI onto timeline above the original 60i.
5. While comparing the 30p to the 60i (by muting/unmuting the 30p track) add a Sony Sharpen filter to the 30p footage and adjust to taste. I've typically started with a setting of 0.5.
6. Export the sharpened 30p footage to the format of your choice.

For an example of such treatment, check out a short film I shot on a JVC GY-DV500 and deinterlaced to 30p in Vegas, here:

http://michael-morlan.net/pages/production/prod_try.htm

I'm happy to post some full-rez stills if there is interest.

Michael

This is a new one. . .anyone else tried this? I always heard 30p was the WORST thing to try to convert to 24p, and that 60i (29.97 fps, interlaced) was better.

Why exactly do you want to go 24p? Is it for "dramatic effect?" You don't gain any spatial resolution and you lose more than half of the temporal resolution. It sounds like you have some high motion scenes in your video, going from 60 individual images per second to 24 images per second sure isn't going to make the motion look smoother!

John

There was a slight typo in my original post. "30i" should read "30p". I've corrected it now.

Josh, re-read my post. I'm writing of going from 60i to 30p, not 30p to 24p. As you note, that way lies madness. :)

As John Cline notes, why go to 24p from 60i? Just because it's the buzzword of the day? 30p provides the same aesthetic but with a bit more temporal resolution.

Michael

Well, I have 30p (30 psedo p) with my XL1s, but I can still tell the difference between that 24p, and I just want to see if anyone's had good luck with using Vegas to do the 60i to 24p. Just to see. I don't really want to get into the 24p v 30p debate.

One thing to do before a re-install is to delete the appropriate folder under Program files/Sonic Foundry Setup (or probably Sony something setup on newer versions). Otherwise, the re-install might just renew the faults from the previous installation.

extreme image processing looks bad... what to do?
 

i have two shots, which were taken on two different occasions at the same location. one shot is slightly under exposed, the other is significantly over exposed. in editing i need to cut from one to the other and somehow maintain continuity.

i worked mostly on the under exposed shot and tried to match it with the over exposed one. using color curves and color correction plug-ins, i managed to come close enough. but in order to achieve this, i had to cranck the RGB color curves way up so that the handle went clear off the chart and adjusted the Blue color curves as well.
i rendered the sequence to see how it looks. as far as continuity, it looks great. you couldn't tell they weren't shot one right after the other. but the quality of the dark shot i had to brighten up looked really bad. it was blurry, there were pixels noticably moving around and bright blue lining along certain conteurs in the picture. definately not something i want in the movie.

is there some better way to match the two shots without deforming the image quality that much? any tips? reshooting the shot is not an option, unfortunately.

thanks!

thanks. i'll reinstall today.

adi

That's a very tough one. There is very limited information in an
8-bit compressed file and you have run into the limits. If the
second shot is overly bright (in general) you could lower the
brightness a bit so you don't have the crank the first one as
much. Other then that I'm not sure what options you would have.

Hey Michael, went to your site, looks great. BTW, I too lived in Yalova Turkey (and Karamursel too) as a young boy (11 to 13). Those two years had a profound impact on my outlook on life.

Albert,
In case you didn't see it in the other forum where you asked this:

Select the track you wish to shift.
press the hypen [-] key to shift the pitch down by semitones, and press the equal key [=] to shift audio up by semitones. You'll find you have 2 octaves up and 2 octaves down
Hold down the CTRL key for shifting in cents vs semitones.

Michael, even if the cam was the XL2, it's not going to look just like the DVX. 24p is the cadence, and that's easy to achieve in Vegas. Achieving the 'look' is entirely different. I guess that's why some folks like Sony cams, some like Pannies, some like Philips, some like Ikegami, JVC, Canon, etc.
For straight DV, I love the Sony PD 170, it's got great DOF options, but for 24P, I like the new Canon XL2. Course', I've only had a few hours with one so far.

Doug, can you tell me more about achieving that in Vegas.
Your words are priceless, meaning, what if I spent $20k
on stuff and could have achieved the same in my NLE??

You're probably better off trying to make the XL1 footage look better, as opposed to making it look like the DVX100 (that look may actually be worse for your project). Look at your (artistic) goals and see how you can light and color correct your footage to make things better for your project.

Making video look better:

Lighting: Get a good DOP and give him/her the lights he/she needs. This will make a *huge* difference.

Keep in mind you cannot change lighting in post. Spending money on the right lights can be money well spent.

In post: (I asumme you are using Vegas)

Saturation:
Use the HSL filter and boost saturation that way. You might like the looks you get below better.

Use the saturation adjust filter in Vegas to boost saturation. You might like the look when you make the filter look like a hump with the main portion close to the left side.

Another approach is to use the secondary color corrector. Adjust saturation up in the top controls. In the bottom controls, select the limit luminance box.
Set the minimum something low- maybe from 0 to 8.
Set the maximum to 255.
Set smoothness very high.
This boosts saturation in the dark areas and leaves highlights alone.

You can also do the opposite so that highlights have no or little color in them.

There are many great ideas at http://www.freewebs.com/vegas4/vegas4.htm. I highly recommend you check it out.

"Power windows":
Use the masking tools in Vegas 5 to apply color correction to specific portions of an image. You might want to make faces brighter and not mess with the colors too much so that you get natural flesh tones.

Something else you can do is to add drama to skies. Isolate the sky with a mask and/or the secondary CC. Use curves or a second CC filter so that the sky is a blend of three or more tones. Take a look at the globe at
http://www.mac.com/WebObjects/Welcome
Notice how there are a few different tones in the image:
the hue and saturation changes as it goes from light --> dark.

You can also add a gradient to your skies to get similar results.

Wow, thanks for the info Glenn!

what kind of probs are you having???

my veg5 quit rendering mpegs a little while ago...i posted on it a few weeks back...i tried repair/uninstall but still nogo...so im stuck with letting DVDarch2 do all the work.

when i was rendering my mpeg2s it would start and just stick (on single pass) sometimes only getting a few seconds into the render...other times it would go further but eventially stick

when i did the two pass, it always hung at 50% (when it started the second pass)

im curious to see if your issues are somehow related to mine and maybe I can get mine working...

short of a full uninstall/reinstall im at a loss for now...so DVDarch2 is my fallback.

Pixel this
 

This makes me nuts: When I burn a CD or VCD, obviously, I have to make an MPG1 file. When I do, the resolution takes a big hit. Okay, I can live with that. But if there's even a moderate pan or any fast moving action, I get stuttering and pixelation.

But I don't when I make a WMV9 file. I get the resolution hit, but things stay nice and even.

One would think the obvious solution is to just make WMV9 files. But unlike MPG1 files, they can't be played on lots of different players.

Any suggestions?

Re: Pixel this
 

<<<-- Originally posted by Charles Newcomb : This makes me nuts: When I burn a CD or VCD, obviously, I have to make an MPG1 file. When I do, the resolution takes a big hit. Okay, I can live with that. But if there's even a moderate pan or any fast moving action, I get stuttering and pixelation.

But I don't when I make a WMV9 file. I get the resolution hit, but things stay nice and even.

One would think the obvious solution is to just make WMV9 files. But unlike MPG1 files, they can't be played on lots of different players.

Any suggestions? -->>>

Why not try Render as > MPEG2 > SVCD.
Most newer DVD stand-alones will play them and the quality is HEAPS better (very close to DVD) on a standard 80min CD.

It all boils down to three things (in regards to VCD/MPEG1):

1. low resolution (it is HALF of DV/DVD!!)
2. bandwidth (rate you encoded at)
3. quality of your encoder

The first you have to live with. The last two you can change
up to a certain amount. But in the end VCD will look worser,
especially compared to DV or a high quality DVD.

Which encoder are you using with what settings?

"Ken Burns"
 

Can Vegas 4 do the "Ken Burns" affect i.e. FCP and I movie

Thanks

Vince

Yes it can. Just use Pan/Crop with multiple keyframes. I have an article in one of my newsletters that discusses this technique. Just click the link under my name.

i uninstalled and reinstalled vegas 5 successfully. i rendered project to mpeg 2 and it seems to be fine. it plays on mediaplayer without a problem and i was able to author it to dvd. so it seems reinstalling somehow solved whatever it was that went wrong.

i didn't have any problem rendering, just that the rendered file would make mediaplayers freeze up and fail.

Panning reverb to the surrounds
 

Hi guys,

I'm creating a sequence in which a person opens a window and the background ambience has to sound as though this is happening. On the advice I have been given so far I have been able to convincingly recreate the sound of the ambience coming from outside of the window, and then change into a sound sounding like it is now coming through the newly opened window, all of which is in the centre dialogue channel. Hope all of that makes sense!

My problem is that I was advised to add room reverb to the sound coming through the window, since any incoming sound into the room would naturally be affected by the room characteristics (bare in mind this ambience is created from scratch and is not a location recording). I have done this and the effect is superb, except for one thing. I was also advised to pan out the reverb to the surround channels. Only problem is I do not know of any way to pan only the reverb (without the main centre channel sound) to the surrounds with Vegas 5. Does anyone here know of any way to do this?

Reverb is an automatable FX so you can change the settings over time that way.

yeah...
easy..


copy ur audio track.. now mute ur front channels..
on teh frint channels, mute ur rear surrounds..

now ur left with 2 tracks, 3/2 and waht u do in the rear channels wont affect the front.. basicaly segregating ur channels and affectin geach range.. if u wnated to go harder, u can dupicate the track and have 6 tracks of audio fo reach channel...

Thanks for the replies guys.

However I'm still not sure how to do this. For example, the scene in question has the sound of crows cawing coming through the window. With the methods described I am still not sure how to get the sound of the crow coming from the front centre and ONLY the reverb characteristics (and not the main crow sound itself) directed to the surrounds?

I've had beautiful results going to 30p with Vegas. I use a multi-step process:

1. Load up the 60i source on the timeline.
2. Open Vegas Options (Alt+Enter) and choose "Interpolate" from the deinterlace option.
3. Export to a 30p uncompressed DI (digital intermediate) file.
4. Load the 30p DI onto timeline above the original 60i.
5. While comparing the 30p to the 60i (by muting/unmuting the 30p track) add a Sony Sharpen filter to the 30p footage and adjust to taste. I've typically started with a setting of 0.5.
6. Change the deinterlace option to "None" and export the sharpened 30p footage to the format of your choice.

Instead of the Sony Sharpen, you might consider the Unsharp Mask or other method. Also, since the sharpening process adds noise, consider a pass with something like Grain Surgery.

For an example of such treatment, check out a short film I shot on a JVC GY-DV500 and deinterlaced to 30p in Vegas, here:

http://michael-morlan.net/pages/production/prod_try.htm

I'm happy to post some full-rez stills if there is interest.

Michael

3-2-1 Countdown Video Clip....
 

Anyone know where I can find a 3 2 1 video clip. Where numbers count down 3 then 2 then 1?????

Thanks,

Jon

You can make your own. There's also some on the Sundance/VASST site.

there's a clock, a little funky, but still in your WINDOWS folder...."clock.avi". You'll need to trim and reverse direction on the avi clip.

why the frame drift?
 

I posted this on the Sony forum as well but thought I'd present it here too.

I've noticed this since first using Vegas 4:

29.970fps clips placed on a 29.970fps tend to have their frames drift away from the frame tics marked on the Vegas timeline. For instance, a clip 16:16 long has its end at halfway between 00:00:16:16 and 00:00:16:17.

Even more interesting, with snapping on, markers and the cursor seem to snap at these off-frame points. So, the cursor is snapping at 00:00:16:16 + .5 of a frame.

A closer inspection reveals the timeline tics are running slightly shorter than the footage frames.

Even more interestingly, the problem seems to occur in a .veg within which I have been editing a project, but not in a newly-created .veg. If I completely clear all media from an existing .veg and drag some media onto the timeline, I observe this off-frame error as noted in the pic below:

http://michael-morlan.net/projects/v...e_error_02.gif

But, if I create a new .veg and drag the exact same media onto the timeline, it is perfectly aligned with the timeline tics as here:

http://michael-morlan.net/projects/v...e_error_01.gif

It is my considered opinion that the Vegas timeline display is actually SHRINKING!

Thoughts? Opinions? Solutions?

Michael

DVX to Vegas sync question for those who write/use scripts
 

Hey all. While admittedly I'm only two days into the first assembly of this beast, the two frames out of sync DVX110 issue (which Panasonic fixed in the 100a) is already making me nuts watching hour after hour of all those mouths two frames off. Do any of you wizards of script writing have any/know of any scripts for automating the process in Vegas? I know there's one out there for FCP, which syncs the errant DVX footage in a nanosecond, so it it's obviously possible. Basically picture follows audio by two frames and has to be pulled up. I can verify it in all my early footage when we were in the city and had the time to use a slate. Not looking forward to eyeballing the around 80 hours shot run and gun in the woods, though. (sigh) I've also heard it drifts at the twenty minute mark as well, but I haven't tested that as yet.

Any feedback, as always, would be greatly appreciated.
Marcia

Try this:

1) Turn ON Ignore Event Grouping
2) Click on the audio event
3) Press "3" on the numeric keypad twice
4) Turn OFF Ignore Event Grouping

However, yes a script could be written to move the audio two frames down the track.

A coupla ways to do this...but easiest would be to have the crows sound track be set to Prefader, then turn the fader off. Insert a send to the reverb on that channel
In the reverb, balance out the level of wet vs dry sound.
Now in the reverb buss, open the surround panner. Place the sound where you'd like it to be. Turn off any speakers you don't want it to come out of.
Done

Ahh. Excellent, that was exactly what I was looking for :-)

Many thanks!

I've not worked with any drop-frame footage, but that sounds
like some form of a bug to me. Did you test this under Vegas 5
as well?

Is this footage that you have captured with the Vegas capture utility or is this footage from another source? Unlike every other video program, Vegas uses a frame rate of 29.970029970 (30000/1001), whereas everyone else uses 29.970 (2997/100).

Curiously, the Vegas frame rate it is absolutely correct and everyone else is doing it wrong. (Well, not wrong exactly, just less precise.)

I have noticed that when I bring in footage which was created or processed outside of Vegas, the frames on the timeline may not match up to the "ticks." One more annoying and very noticable effect is that if if you use footage that has been created outside Vegas and place it on the timeline, at 2 seconds 28 frames from the beginning of the clip, it will repeat a frame regardless of where you put it in the timeline. Usually, this isn't noticeable but its guaranteed to happen. Once I had a logo animation and at 2 seconds 28 frames into the animation, there was a really quick move and the animation would stutter at that point. It drove me NUTS until I figured out what was going on. I got on the Vegas forums and raised a stink about it, but the reply I got from Sony (Sonic Foundry) was that they couldn't help it if they were doing the frame rate correctly and everyone else was doing it wrong.

The workaround turned out to be re-writing the header of the AVI file and change it from 2997/100 to 30000/1001 and that fixed it. I have a command line utility that will do this. I can post it on my web site if you need it.

John

Timing
 

I have noticed as you edit a project more, the timimg/syncing
becomes much more difficult - for example - I need a mirror to
break a very precise moment - as I move on, the timing changes
and it's very frustrating. I'm thinking that maybe small segments
need to be rendered to a new file then the new file be added to the timeline? If so, once that section is rendered can you still
edit it and rerender it if need be? I mean this has to be an issue
for all users, that is, as you build your project the preview becomes much less accurate so I'm curious as to what people
are doing. Thanks.

Edition pc: Xl2 + laptop + Vegas
 

Hi Everybody..I was looking for a good conbination to start again (after 5 years) in video production in Miami. I worked on it in the 90's with betacam SP and media 100...And the best what I found for my budget and my needs is this: Laptop HP ZE 5345us .P4. 256mb ram (maybe I need more memory) 2.4 giahertz and 60 gigabites. I already have this laptop because I want to unload and edit everywhere in off line Pc platform.
In cameras I think what Canon Xl2 is a very good option..What do you think about it?..
But I lost the train in edition...Media 100 don't exist anymore and "Ifinish" ( the sucesor of media 100) is to expensive...Same to avid express pro...I was looking for Adobe premiere pro but this program looks to "crashy" for me...So..Vegas looks a very good option...I'm not thinking In " transfer to movie"...Or big production..I;m just looking for a very good DVD in 16;9 or 4:3...By the way...I'm very worried about the audio about the Xl generation...What's the best mics wireless and not, and where can I buy this Stuff (not the Canon Xl2.) I'm talking about Vegas (if you think is good to me) and Mics...and all you recomend me to prepare this combination. ( upgrading the laptop for example)... Thank you very much for your any sugestion guys...Julius...