I used to do half-size preview (auto) until I realized in Vegas 5 that slow motion plays back choppy and needs to be kicked up to "good" to smooth it out.

Where are my tapes?
 

Obviously I missing something here. Create a new project,
capture video from a tape (1), maybe some from another tape (2),
work in project, save and close project. Open a new project capture from tape (?), work in project, want to add some captured
footage from tape (1), where is it? All vegas info is in a certain file, I know the data has to be there, any help? Thanks!

Isn't that what the Build RAM Preview function is for? It builds a non-destructive rendering of the selected event area for smooth preview. I think. I don't use it though I recall DSE mentioning the usefulness in an article he wrote.

Interesting, wonder how long they take to build.

As always, how fast is your confuser, I mean computer? Its a function of how many frames and how many applied effects. Relatively fast though if I remember correctly even on my slow-poke number-cruncher.

My contooter is a P4 2.53, I'm running 512 megs of ram but have
another 512 stick in another box, I'm thinking about putting it in
to see if it makes a difference. You don't get the same 'feel' with
the smaller window, it's nice to enlarge to show someone what
you're doing.

In Vegas you can bring up the vectorscopes which show IRE. I think within Vegas you should have the values between 0 and 100IRE, as that corresponds to 16-235 in the histogram.

RAM Render speed should be close to regular render speed. However, it should NOT take very long because you are only rendering a very SMALL section (i.e. it has to fit within your memory).

Just browse to the folder in which you captured the video using Vegas' Explorer window. Then just drag it to the timeline.

Found em - THANK YOU!!!

Changing the Velocity
 

ok so i have this 46 minute video, and i speed it up, but it still stays the same length? how is that possible? i was hoping to make it so fast that the whole video would shrink down to like 5 minutes or less, i can take the velocity up to 300% anyway to make it even faster, and to as why the video isn't shrinking in length?

thanks

It should shorten by 1/3. How are you speeding it up?

Dennis Vogel

When you drop in a velocity envelope the time will remain the same until you either shorten or lengthen the clip depending on whether you've gone fast motion or slow motion.

For what you've done you will need to shorten the video to the 1st notch in the upper edge of the clip because what happens is the length of time remains the same but the movement is X times fastr so the clip repeats itself. I hope I made that clearer than it sounds. Open the project, insert your velocity envelope set it tothe speed you want (upto 300%) and then SHORTEN the clip to the first notch. You can make it even faster if you render the clip to an AVI and then bring it back in and use another velocity envelope but remember to shorten the clip to the 1st notch again.
Don B

yeah i didn't think that i would get this fast of a responses awesome, but yeah while i was waiting i was playing around and figured that out...too bad it doesn't auotmatically shorten it or lengthen it...oh well thanks for such fast responses.

You have several options:

1) Use a velocity envelope and then manually resize the clip after applying the new velocity.

2) Hold down the CTRL key and resize the event to the proper size. This will also change the speed of the clip (but you are limited to a single speed change).

3) Use Excalibur's Velocity Wizard which will automatically add a velocity envelope and resize the clip to match the new speed.

p.s. remember you can also combine the velocity envelope and CTRL-Drag technique on a single event.