<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : How does that look? -->>>

This looks excellent. Thank you. I think I'll have to play with the resolution sizes a bit, because there are small thin black lines on the sides when I followed your exact measurements -- but this was exactly what I was looking for.

Pretty cool effect. Looks great to me. What effects did you use to create this?

For my WMVs, I just set the pixel sizes in the Custom tab of the WMV 9 template. Save the modified template after you make changes so you can use it again. For 1/2 Widescreen, I set 436X240. For full widescreen, set 872X480. I haven't tried this with MOVs but it should work pretty much the same way.

Certainly, just render the video to HuffYUV and import into VirtualDub and let loose xvid / divx on it. Obviously, all these codecs need to be installed first. I usually render and compress the audio track separately.

I assume you merely mean MPEG-4 video, not the MP4 container.

<<<-- Originally posted by David Jasany : Pretty cool effect. Looks great to me. What effects did you use to create this? -->>>

In order I used:
Cookie Cutter (Oval Side Cut away all but section)
Brightness and Contrast
Color Corrector
Glow
Light Rays

I mainly just fiddled with the Brightness and Light Rays settings to get what I wanted. I also used the feather setting in the cookie cutter without a border to try and give the cutout that seamless look.

-Kevin

Vegas 5 Magic Bullet Looks render times
 

Can anyone here tell me how quickly a video clip with some of the Magic Bullet looks renders on a 3ghz P4 800fsb HT? What kind of performance is there on previews etc? For reference I'm using an old 1.33ghz Athlon!

As some of you may have read from other threads I am still deciding on final components for my new editing system build. I just want to know what I can realistically expect from such a CPU.

I haven't tested it yet, but I've always heard about MB in general
that it is REALLY SLOW. But it delivers great results. To me
rendering time is NOT important since I'll let it do overnight for
the final render or longer if it has to.

I doubt you will find the MB in Vegas speedy... Such things take time!

Thanks.

It's not so much actual render time that I am worried about exclusively, but what it is like to edit with. At the moment with a 1.33ghz machine it is pretty painful just to scroll along the timeline to make sure shots that use such picture adjustments retain clarity.

With the cpu that i mentioned could I expect anywhere near RT performance in the preview window at even a reduced size?

Simon, I'm running Vegas 5 on a 3.0ghz 800mhz FSB, w/ 1032mgs of PC3200 ram and 320 gigs of Serial ATA hard-disc space. Even with all this Magic Bullet is sssslllllowwwww. Sorry to disappoint you. I can say, however, that typical performance is excellent- I can run footage with a single Color Corrector filter run on its in "Best-FULL" mode at full frame rate (w/o prerendering).

There was another user (not sure if it was from DVinfo or the Sony boards) that was recreating all the Magic Bullet effects using the built in video filters in Vegas 5. You can then save them as an effects set and apply them whenever you please...with MUCH better performance. He even posted his results comparing HIS renditions of MB effects created in Vegas- and I'd be darned if I could tell the difference between the two!

Creating a 16:9 mpg1 or WMV
 

I was wondering if I took my native 4:3 footage and added the 16:9 Pan/Crop preset to it how would I go about rendering out a 16:9 MPG1 or WMV. Not a 4:3 clip with black bars but a clip that actually has the dimensions of 16:9. I'm not sure that the MPG1 template has any presets for 16:9, I believe only the MPG2 template does.

I asked a similar question in this thread: 16:9 and Vegas. Both replies given work well.

You may also want to look at the tools available at http://www.zenote.com. These tools are MUCH faster and can be used to simulate the same looks found in Magic Bullet.

Thanks for the advice guys.

Yeah, I've often recreated similar effects to MB for my own projects in Vegas and used some of the alternatives (before Vegas I used to use Film FX in AE). None of them offer the subtleties the MB (at least the full version) have.

Such a shame that Digital FIlm Tools don't want to make their plugin for Vegas. The email I had back off them when I enquired was, to say the least, not much in favour of the Vegas system!

It's not essential that I use the Magic Bullet looks. It's just nice to have some of the presets there without having to try and recreate them.

Here are a few shots from a community video I did recently with my own combinations of filters (ie no MB done in Vegas 4)

http://www.freewebs.com/fallenangelstest/snap1.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/fallenangelstest/snap2.jpg
http://www.freewebs.com/fallenangelstest/snap3.jpg

Is Vegas slow on your 1.3 *with* MB applied or without? I had
it running fast enough without on a 433 mhz celeron and a 900
mhz pentium 2. Again I don't know about MB.

Do you have Vegas or not? Otherwise you might try out the demo
on this 3 GHz machine? Or are you just asking what you can
expect when this machine arrives?

Sorry I can't be of any more help.

You can do this easily from within Vegas if you have DiVX (MPEG4)
installed for example:

- Save as type: Video for Windows (*.avi)
- click Custom
- Video tab
- Video format = DiVX / XviD etc.
- click Configure

Hi Rob. Just want to know what to realistically expect from a 3ghz machine.

On my 1.33ghz Ahtlon the Vegas interface itself is fine. But apply even a simple filter and previews can become a pain. I do a lot of community funded videos which involve a lot of very fast shooting with kids in schools and half term workshops in mostly unprepared locations with no lighting setups etc. Because of the wide variety of situations I find myself shooting in with varying lighting conditions I often find myself doing a lot of colour correction due to mixed lighting sources, or just generally having no decent light to begin with.

It's pretty much a case of people expecting miracles from nothing! So my 1.33 is pretty stretched a lot of the time. That coupled with often having many jobs to do, I'm sure you can understand that I want to vastly reduce the rendering times and make running a second version of Vegas at the same time feasible.

Forgot to say in answer to your question that yes, I had Vegas 4 and have recently upgraded to Vegas 5 and DVDA 2. I also realise that some might think that the effects I want to do with regard to community videos is overkill. But I prefer to give all my videos a decent look rather than making them look flat and 'standard'.

Further I will also be working on my second DV feature in the coming months.

I don't have DivX or any other codecs installed, where do I get it from and how do I install it?

Thanks

Vegas rules.

http://www.doom9.org/software.htm#codecs

xvid is a good MPEG-4 codec if your source is clean, but it degrades with noise and shake.

Get DiVX here

I would not go with XviD since it is less distributed than DiVX.

How does MB compare to the median filter? ;)

2- Not sure how a 1.33ghz Athlon (FSB?) compares to a Pentium, but the Pentium should be at least two times faster. A Pentium 3.0C is fairly good bang for the buck considering you can't get much faster with Vegas. You could go with a multiprocessor (a tad faster) or with another NLE or a render farm.

That is no reason not to use it. They both conform to the MPEG-4 standard, and can decode each other's streams.

Beta 2 Now Available
 

Thanks for all of the feedback on Beta 1 of the Veggie Toolkit!

Beta 2 is now available at: http://www.peachrock.com/software/veggie-toolkit.html

I have incorporated many of the suggestions and fixed a few bugs in this release. I am planning a Beta 3 release that will focus on enhancements to Capture Cutter and MultiRender. If you have any suggestions for making these tools better, please let me know.

Thanks,

Randall

SERIOUS video capture problems with Vegas 5!
 

I have just loaded up Vegas 5 to try and capture some video. But I got a message saying that video capture wasn't shut down properly the last time I used is, and a question asking me if I wished to load the project. I have tried answering both yes and no, and each time video capture tries to load and then crashes out.

I have just uninstalled Vegas 5, and then reinstalled it. I still cannot get video capture to load up! It still gives me the same message! Anyone any ideas? I'm desperate!

Try starting just the VidCap program. Using Windows Explorer, go to the Vegas 5 folder and double click on vidcap50.exe. Make sure all background programs are stopped...including virus checkers. CTRL-ALT-DEL to get to task manager, then click the applications tab and make sure nothing is running in the background. If something other than vidcap is running, stop it.

Nope still doesn't work.

The fact that it still does this after I reinstalled Vegas leads me to believe that there must be some kind of info file or somethng that is left behind that could possibly be deleted or reset. Though I have no clue what that could be.

This is a pretty serious situation as I need the program to do paid work with.

You might have a good point there, Emre. I typically use what is
used to encode it. Keep in mind that AVI do carry an identifier
to let the playback computer choose the codec. So if you encode
with XviD and you don't have it installed it won't play. There are
tools to change this to DiVX for example so it might play. The
problem is in the AVI file, not in the MPEG4 data indeed.

What operating system etc. are you running. If you have ANY
other NLE lying around you could quickly install that just to get
your capturing done since you seem to need it NOW. Just a tip.

Here is a link to an elegant and free DV capture program, it's called WinDV and will also print back to tape.

http://windv.mourek.cz/

John

. . . been reading this thread .. intriguing . .. When you start Vegas, is it also attempting to start the "same" Vegas project? If it isn't, then don't read any further. BUT if it is try this one.

Create a new "dummy" Vegas project, call it . .. er .. dummy.veg - get to your preferences for the new project set the way you want it to be, get things all the way you want it. No imported media at all. Nothing captured yet. Save this "empty" project. Close Vegas. Reboot. Open Vegas again. Open from wherever this Dummy.veg is. Make sure it open well. Close it and close down Vegas. Open Vegas and hopefully the new Dummy.veg will spring up. . . Now, cross fingers and try and do a Capture . .. see if this works. No? . .. oh well . .

REASON: Look, I to have run into some issues with Vegas getting hold of everything with a project I have crashed out of a project - for whatever reason - but when I've renamed, re-made a project, that which wasn't working, everything comes back.

Best regards,

Grazie

Never did like Vegas Video Capture---always set my default capture to Scenalyzer---as have so many Vegas users. The miracle of Scenalyzer is that in the three years I have used it, I have never had as much as a dropped frame---By the way, it also offers scene detection etc---something that I dont think windv does---By the way, I forget how much it cost but heck its not expensive----download a demo and try it---I guarantee it will solve all your problems.

David,

You are correct, WinDV does not offer scene detection. But it is free and was only suggested as a quick way for Simon to get his captures done.

I agree with you that Scenalyzer is THE definitive DV capture program.

John

Color matching when the white balance drifts
 

I am working on a video clip in where the white balance has drifted as the camera did a pan. (It was not me using the camera. I always use manual white balance.) Is there a way that I can correct this white balance error? I tried the color correct tool but I can't view the two difference spots of video (the color before the pan and the color after the pan) at the same time to see if I am getting it close. Thanks for your replies.

I'm using Vegas 5.

Yes you can. Just go to the "before pan" image and take a snapshot to the clipboard. Now turn on split screen preview, choose "Clipboard" as the type, and move to the "after pan" position. This will allow you to compare the two different sections viewing both at the same time.

Brilliant! Edward just too brilliant! - YEah yeah it's the software .. .

Thanks .. again,

Grazie

I don't think I could have said it any better than Graham. Thank you so very very much! Now, off to Vegas to work:-)

COmpositing or masking... not sure
 

Hi all,


Well , first if you want to take a look at this image...


http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/phil2film/


This was a screenshot taken of Vegas so i expect 5 will do it.

The one part i can't make is the first track , you can clearly see that the subject was whited off and the background disappeared. This is what i am trying in Vegas right now.

I am starting to play with advance functions now and this is the kind of stufff i wanted to tackled with since i got vegas.


Any help is greatly appreciated.

thx :)

To try and make high contrast versions of video to use as a mask, apply the Mask Generator filter.

Gary

How to set dialog Normalization in Vegas 5
 

Hi.

I am doing my first 5.1-project in Vegas 5 and it is great fun. But according to a post on the AC3 forum on Doom9 the dialog Normalization should be set to the RMS sound level of the mix in order for the decoder on get the levels right.
But how do I find the RMS sound level in Vegas 5???
I can do it in Sound Forge, but only for Stereo soundfiles.

In my first tests I saved the mix as a stereo wav-file and used SF to get a RMS value, but this produced very low levels in the resulting AC3-file. I tried just to mesure the vocals (it is my wife singing on the soundtrack), but this resulted in loud vocals and very low soundlevels for the rest of the mix. This delighted the wife, but did not match what I heard on the monitors.
Now I am using just the default -27 db dialog Normalization, and it seems to work, but I wonder if I am just lucky?

Could anybody clarify?

Thanks in advance

Normalization should be set to the RMS sound level of the mix in order for the decoder on get the levels right.
But how do I find the RMS sound level in Vegas 5???

Its already set to RMS.. Vegas wont let u peak the file

another way is to set up ur normalisation routines by right clicking on the audio element of ur video and selecting properties. in here u can recalculate ur normalisation gain levels, but u can bypass all this by just right clickin the audio and selecting switches, then normalise (after its detected the peaks... dont jump ahead)

In vegas, u work in stereo or mono sound files only. It does not natively decode 5.1 to 6 channels of audio..

as for "Dialog Normalisation" within the render element, -27 is default.. but it seems to me that its not the normalisation at fault here, its the mixing. (no offense)

what i would suggest, would be to set your audio (not ur wifes vocal) to something a lil under peak.. maybe -6 to -9 db by using the audio envelopes
Now, add ur wifes vocal and adjsut accordingly until it "fits" in with the mix and she doesnt sound like shes at a Karaoke bar (ive heard some bad mixes which ruined some great performances)
Now open her audio envelope.

If using vegas5, i would suggest a Midi Controller, then prepare ur mix for live tweaking and slowly adjust her levels as the song plays (realtime MIDI control in video.. i thought id never see the day) (or u can rubber band them if u dont have a controller)

Now u do this AFTER u have normalised everything (coz there WILL be fluctuations which ur not happy with)

Thats about it in a nutshell, im obviously leaving some detals out, but this is prolly the best way to blend "seemingly" different sound sources with different acoustic values (ie, u do this "rubber band enveloping with EQ's and compressors as well)

Theres ALOT more to it.. and u can also do it a different way by setting up bus tracks and routing shit all over the place, but right now this should suffice for what u wan to do.

With Dolby Digital, there are many elements which effect the final mix, dynamic range compression, room size, phase shifting etc etc etc

all i can suggest is that you ditch everythign u know and head off to Dolby.com and skip along to the technical download section.
In here u will find all u need to know about Dolby Digital Mixes and configurations.

Personally, i find the encoding SW in vegas to be THE best SW encoders on the market which conform to Dolby Standards..

good luck