Vegas Video discussions from 2004 (Q3Q4)

[Aaron Koolen]

Thanks Edward. I've got the newsletter and have looked at that Faq.

I was hoping to get an indepth book or something on Vegas scripting with tutorials.

Thanks anyway
Aaron

[Lance Spratt]

Greetings,

I am looking to purchase a new external DVD burner very soon, however I would like to hear from some of you as to what you use successfully with DVDA 1.0 and 2.0. I have a leaning to the Sony DRX-530UL or the DRX-700UL. The 700UL has the advantage of being able to burn daul layer, but does not record to DVD-R where the DRX-530UL will. The other unit that is interesting is the BenQ DW822A. I also understand that DVDA 1 and 2 does not support dual layer burning. Will DVDA still recognize and control a dual layer burner?

What format of DVD (DVD+r/-r) have you found seems to be most compatable with consumer level DVD players? I am in the midst of producing an hour long documentary which I need to distribute soon, and will need to find the most logical solution to distribution on DVD.

Thanks in advance for your help!

[Rob Lohman]

1) yes that is normal. Those formats do not take a different pixel aspect ratio into consideration.

2) this is definitely possible, so something must be going wrong.

I think something like this should work:

- start a 4:3 project
- import the 16:9 footage (you should see it with black bars)
- now crop 60 pixels from the top and bottom
- change the project settings to a resolution of 720x360
- export to a resolution of 654x360 at 1.0 pixel aspect ratio

How does that look? Could you otherwise put up a 1 second
of DV on a webserver somewhere so we can try ourselves?

I don't have any NTSC footage since I'm in PAL land. Nor do I
have any 16:9 footage myself.

[Edward Troxel]

I've debated writing one but that crazy little thing called TIME keeps getting in the way. It may be time to start again, though.

[Aaron Koolen]

I think one is definately needed as there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of stuff out there.

Right now I'm stuck with scripting something to make a copy of an event in one track into another track. Looks like I have to actually duplicate all the properties and build it by hand. Must be an easier way.

Aaron

[Simon Wyndham]

Hi,

I know I'm going to get shot down for even suggesting the use of such things but here goes anyway...

First of all, has anyone used WindowsBlinds with Vegas 5? For some reason the scroll bars on the timeline on mine just go completely black no matter what settings I have. Secondly, is there a performance hit with WindowsBlinds? I heard that in actual fact it uses less resources than the default XP interface. Is this true?

Has anyone here used ObjectDock with Vegas too? I did have it set up without the XP taskbar but found it had a problem when minimising and enlarging the Vegas window. However now I have it set to the top of the screen with autohide on and the normal windows task bar at the bottom of the screen and it seems fine. Thing is, has anyone here noticed any huge performance hit when using Vegas with this software?

I know people will chastise me for installing what might seem at first to be eye candy on an editing system. But to me Object Dock seems like an essential piece of software and stops me having ugly icons all over the desktop. I also believe that a nice looking interface can influence the mood of the person using it somewhat.

[Edward Troxel]

Yes, there's an easier way. Send me an e-mail with what you're trying to do. But the answer is to use the COPY command to make a copy of the event - even to the new track.

Assuming "MyEvent" is the event you want copied, Mtrack is the TARGET track, and MyTC is the beginning timecode for the clip, you can create a new event "mynewEvent" like this:


mynewEvent = MyEvent.Copy(Mtrack, MyTC);

[Rob Lohman]

I doubt this will work for you. These are addons and hacks that
usually have problems with such applications.

I have turned off ALL XP theming since I don't like it and, yes, it uses more resources. So these WindowsBlinds use more resources than no theming at all. Whether it will use less than the default I do not know.

I can understand why you would like to do such things. But if it
gives you so much trouble I would just not use it for my editing
work!

[Aaron Koolen]

Thanks Edward. I must have missed that in the docs somewhere - then again it is 2:40 am here at the moment.

Cheers
Aaron

[Michael Estepp]

I was using the first version of DVD architect, and all of my DVDs from that era have eroded and become useless. My associates tell me there is an option in most DVD burning programs to add an end cap of some sort. Does DVD Architect 2 have this feature? If you know anything about what I’m talking about, please comment.

Michael J. Estepp

[John Cline]

What exactly do you mean by "eroded?" What are the symptoms? If the DVD's played initially and now they won't, that sounds like a media problem. What brand of media have you been using?

John

[Edward Troxel]

DVDA (both 1 and 2) automatically close the DVD. That is not your problem. I agree that it sounds like a problem with the DVD media itself. I've seen this when using some cheap media - plays initially but slowly gets to the point where it can no longer be read.

[David Jasany]

Michael,

Have you tried playing these corrupt DVDs on different players? How are the DVDs being stored? And as John asked, what kind of media was used? Did they use different brands of media? Was the media -R, +R, -RW, or +RW? What kind of DVD burner are you using?

[David Jasany]

Lance,

I've used a Pioneer A05 with complete success for burning -R and -RW DVDs. I haven't tried it with +R or +RW. The A05 is about 6 months old so it's only a single layer burner.

I believe -R continues to be the predominant DVD. I've checked multiple brand DVD players and most always support -R, but I don't think Phillips did.

Check out http://www.videohelp.com/ for DVD players and the formats supported.

[Michael Estepp]

I was using Maxell DVD-R , and now I have Legacy DVD-R. My burner is a pioneer DVD-RW DVR-105