I doubt this is going to work with the current workflow since you
still need to capture/convert the HDV footage outside of Vegas
for the moment. But as always, test this workflow yourself to see
if it works or not.

Personally I don't think you need much tweaks these days
anymore, XP with current hardware is operating damn good.

Some thoughts:

- make sure your harddrives are running in (U)DMA mode
- do not put other devices on the same IDE channel with your harddisks
- it is better to have seperate partitions/drives (drives = even better) for your video footage (=data/content) etc.
- make sure resource hungry programs (typically anti-virus software!) is temporarly disabled when working on your (video) projects
- regularly defragment your drives to make sure information can be retrieved/written efficiently
- make sure your partitions are formatted in the NTFS filesystem to make sure no data is easily lost and you can support the large drives out there today
- make sure all of your drivers are up to date etc.
- try to keep extra stuff of this installation/PC to make sure you don't get virusses/spyware/performance issues or other not enough diskspace etc.

I'd say that's about it <g>

As always there is no one correct way and people generally use
different formats:

- QuickTime (.MOV)
- Windows Media
- MPEG1 (not used often these days anymore)

The whole idea behind putting video up on the web is to make
some balanced sacrifices to get it acceptable both in quality,
size (and thus downloading speed/times etc.).

Most people do the following:

1. output at 1.0 square pixel aspect ratio. DV (NTSC) per default is 0.9091 (see your project properties)

2. output at 50% resolution. For 720 x 480 (DV @ 0.9091 PA) this would yield 320 x 240 @ 1.0 PA

3. keep in mind that if your footage is widescreen or you have added a letterbox (black bars on the top and bottom) you should really crop (remove) these (unneeded information) so you can
use the valuable bits and bytes for something important (your actualy content)

4. output at a lower framerate (usually this is 15.0 frames per second which is also "progressiev")

5. expirement with filetypes and codecs

Some people like to put up both QuickTime and Windows Media
versions to make sure most people can see it. There is a third
standard which is Real(video), which a lot of people seem to
dislike (the player that needs to be installed, not the file format).

Now if you are going with Windows Media (8 or 9) you are using
the Windows Media codecs usually as well and those should
provide a good enough quality (experiment with both video and
audio bitrates).

With QuickTime a lot of people seem to be using Sorenson (3) or
the MPEG-4 codec. Here you need to expirement with bitrates as
well (these decide how compressed the file will be and thus the
resulting size).

In the end it usually takes a while for you to master this new
technology (for you). The best things you can do is experiment
to see how everything comes out (both in quality and filesize).

Good luck!

It's shaky playing it back on a regular monitor. The problem is new. It didn't exist, then bam one day it did. Not sure why. Was hoping somone else had experienced it and then found a solution.

You are going to have to give us tons of extra information, like:

1. which operating system

2. what are you using to play this file with

3. if you are playing it on something else than Vegas in what exact format did you export

4. what is a shaky .avi? can you elaborate on what you are seeing?

Newbie Vegas Movie Studio Question
 

I'm sure this is easy, but I'm not getting it to happen:

In the timeline I have a video track, an audio track and a video overlay track.

I want to add a short intro (Title card with music under) to the very start of the project and move everything that's already there to the right.

I'm trying to ripple edit but I'm only getting the added material to move the video track, not the audio and overlay tracks.

I'm using Movie Studio+DVD. Can someone point me in the right direction?

I found a ripple edit 'tutorial' a couple of weeks ago, but, of course I didn't bookmark it and now can't find the hard copy I printed.

Thanks in advance and sorry for the elementary question.

Tommy

Since you're wanting to add it to the very beginning of the track, just press CTRL-A to select all (I'm assuming that works in Movie Studio) and then simply move it to the right as needed.

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : Since you're wanting to add it to the very beginning of the track, just press CTRL-A to select all (I'm assuming that works in Movie Studio) and then simply move it to the right as needed. -->>>

Well..it doesn't get any simpler than that. Thanks. That does indeed work in MS+DVD.

Tommy

What's the best way to recreate the look of graduated filters from within Vegas?

I have had no luck achieving this look with the standard fx tools.

Brian

You need to make a graduated mask in a paint program. However,
keep in mind that our little DV camera's have a not so great dynamic
range (difference between black & white) so skies might blow out
if you properly expose a car. No post graduated mask will help in
that case. Ofcourse if you can get everything within the dynamic
range you can certainly do effects that way.

But you might want to look into a graduated ND (grad ND) filter
for your camera to help it sample the sky and the rest of the scene
within the dynamic range.

p.s. the thread I linked to has a screenshot which clearly shows
some graduated masks being used.

Rob,

Thanks for the tip.

At this point, my footage is in the can. For some reason, I thought achieving this look was as simple as throwing on a Magic Bullet type plugin.

Any thoughts on existing graduated png files and masks which may be freely floating around?

Might be something we can add to the shared effects category on JetDV.

Brian

Adding vignette in post?
 

I would like to add an artificial vignette to my wide shots using vegas but am completely clueless how to go about it. I heard that the magic bullet plugin for vegas had this feature but after downloading the demo i can see the "misfire" plugins aren't included in the Vegas package.

Any ideas?

Vignette, as in encircling the image with a soft-edged darkened area?

Apply the cookie cutter FX with a feathered edge.

Gary

Thanks, so simple yet so been annoying me all night :) I can now get on to more important things.

Thanks again!

If you post up some stills, I can play around with them and see what's possible.

Anyways...
1- Shooting skies:
You likely want to use a polarizer filter. In the right orientation, they will darken skies and bring out the saturation in them. Skies will not overexpose into a big white blob this way.

You can use graduated ND filters... but you can get better results in post.

If you do get a big white blob, you can try the following (Vegas):
Duplicate your video onto itself.

Top:
Use the secondary color corrector to isolate whites. Set limit luminance/high to 255, and luminance/low to something close to that and adjust smoothness. Set alpha/transparency to 0 or something close to it.

Mask out non-sky areas.

Bottom:
Delete the video and apply the gradient generator. Go from blue to white gradually. You may wish to do multitone coloring. Have three colors in the gradient:
white
a dark, saturated blue
a lighter, less saturated blue that is cooler/warmer (shift the hue)

Haven't tried this but it should work. An alternate method is to superimpose a gradient generator on your footage. Do the multitone coloring if you like. Use a mask (or cookie cutter) on the generator to knock off everything except the top edge/portion.

2- If your video is not a big white blob:
Superimpose a gradient generator and use the masking tools to shape the gradient's limits. You might want to do an upside down U to get close to the Top Gear look. You may need multiple masks in the masking tool to do this.

Or...

Isolate the sky with secondary color correction. Eyedropper the sky, drawing a rectangle around the part you wish to isolate.

Use the (secondary) color corrector to mess around with gamma, hue, and saturation. You can have three or more tones where you vary hue and saturation. Varying these things adds a lot more depth to the image.

3- Top gear also uses a lot of vignetting. Use the cookie cutter to add vignetting.

If you superimpose a black generator, you can use the masking tool or cookie cutter on the generator. This is necessary if other color corrections require layers.

Track Motion buttons
 

A big Thank You to Douglas Spotted Eagle for pointing me in the right direction in finding the location of two button in the Track Motion dialog.

Thanks again Spot and best wishes for the Holidays. Nick

Ok i have some more info. When I render avi's i don't have any options for size, or quality. Only widescreen and for 2:3 etc. options. Additionally when playing back avi's from other people Windows Media Player tries to download codecs to play them, ending in an error...

So would this be a problem with the windows avi codecs?

p.s. If you have specific knowledge to this problem please post, if not. Well don't waste your time.

p.p.s.s sounds snotty, just low on patience. sorry.

Reversing a shot
 

Is there a way to reverse a shot in Vegas? When I say reverse I don't mean reverse play, I mean literally reversing the entire direction/composition of the shot (ie., if a character enters from the right, can the shot be reversed so that he enters from the left instead?) Thanks.

Open up "pan/crop" on the event, then right-click on the media area. There's an option to "flip horizontally".

Experimenting with effects in Vegas *clip attached*
 

With this piece I tried creating a black diffusion, and blown out highlights. I wanted a more gritty feel.

I got the idea when "Glenn Chan" (I believe) described something similar in another post. What I did is:

1) Duplicate the track
2) Added Color Channels and set it to "Distribute Red Channel"
3) With that track on top I changed the blend mode to "Darken"
4) I then tweaked the highlights and color saturation of the clip below (lowering the saturation and boosting the highlights via "Levels"

I was pretty happy with the look but didn't understand why I couldn't tone down the black diffusion by lowering the opacity. Anytime I tried to lower the opacity of the top track it would fade to black. As if there was no track underneath it. I'm sure it's related to the fact the top track has it's blend mode set to "darken". I'm assuming this is normal? Any ways around it?

Anyway here it is...

https://home.comcast.net/~g.elliott3/GroomCredits.wmv

It sounds like you're describing something similar to what I call alternative bleach bypass effect. From what you describe, you need to apply gaussian blur somewhere to achieve black diffusion.

I haven't quite yet figured out how to do black diffusion in Vegas. Magic Bullet Editors is likely the easiest.

2- As far as your problem goes, it seems that with certain compositing modes you will get your problem. If you use overlay instead (I forget which), you won't get that problem. Overlay will not be the same as darken however... read the manual a little. It's like screen and multiply combined, so it just increases contrast without overall brightening or darkening.

3- I played around the footage and my preference for this video is:

Add film grain (which looks entirely different than video noise) to make your footage look a little grittier. Chromacity 0, amount toned down to make the effect subtler.

Alternative bleach bypass effect:
Dupe the footage onto itself. Add Channel blend distribute red to the top track FX. Set the top track to "overlay" compositing mode.

The bottom track can be left alone. You could desaturate away the trees and everything else in the background if you like via the secondary color corrector.

Add a sepia tone to the bottom track. Apply the color corrector filter. Drag the shadow color wheel knob towards red/orange. The midtone know towards orange, with an amount more so than the shadows knob. Highlights doesn't really matter... drag it towards orange/yellow with a low amount. You can fiddle around with the settings or use curves instead. Color curves gives more control but takes more time... use the color corrector first to get an idea of which colors/color casts/tones you want.

It looks like there's diffusion of some sort in the original video. Leaving it in or out is artistic preference... I think I prefer no diffusion as that would be grittier. On the other hand, the diffusion gives it more style / the dream/surreal look.

Are you talking about reverseing the footage or the image? If you mean the way it plays in V5 right click and in the menu goto REVERSE or you can set a velocity envelope and set it to -100%.

Don B

<<<-- Originally posted by Don Bloom : Are you talking about reverseing the footage or the image? If you mean the way it plays in V5 right click and in the menu goto REVERSE or you can set a velocity envelope and set it to -100%.

Don B -->>>

The "flip horizontally" option works for me. Thanks.

Rotoscoping
 

I was wondering if it is possible to rotoscope an object to create a lightsaber effect with Vegas 5? Any help would be great.

Mitch

I know some people who added lightsabers to footage with Photoshop. Export a quicktime image sequence and manually edit each frame in Photoshop. Photoshop styles should let you create a lightsaber without that many clicks.

A real rotoscoping program may be faster than Photoshop.

But I do not have the ability to use or obtain Photoshop anytime soon. Is there any way to do something similar in Vegas? Thanks again.

Mitch

Try the Bezier masking in Pan/Crop. It will take a LOT of keyframes, though.

why not just use Alam DV???

What is Alam DV?

AlamDV: http://www.fxhome.com/

OK tool, at least in version 2. If version 3 (due Any Day Now) lives up to their previews, it will be a very good tool.

I use alamdv. it's pretty good. version 3 any day? That's a stretch no?

DVD ARch2 ?
 

anyone familiar with using images for buttons in DVDarch2 ?

i have never made anything real fancy with it before, but i was assuming it would work similar to a webpage where, i could make my normal text button, then make the overlay button for when it is selected.

The text options in DVDarch seem week, plus i need this to be on a slant so it looks like the text is laying on a menu.

any help? tried googling and some sights out there for VEgas, but doesnt seem to be a wealth of info for DVDarch...

Check out the Vegas forum at

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.co...ms/default.asp

There is an entire forum dedicated to DVDA. If your question can't be answered on that forum (or the video forum which is much more active) I will be surprised.

I wouldn't think there should be much of a difference. I remember reading somewhere that doing the same kind of compression cycle twice (in the example, it was jpeg compression, but the principle should hold) made almost no difference, since the same kind of information would be thrown away in each instance.

One of the first things I noticed upon coming over to Vegas a few years ago was its utter stability. It doesn't crash. Period.

Incidentally, I notice that Vegas has a little brother--the Sony Movie Studio. It looks and behaves much like Vegas, but with somewhat less flexibility. You might find it to be an excellent first step.

I've used Nero for years, but one day came across the simplified-interface version called "Nero Express." Now all I use is Express--it does exactly what I need, and does it simply.

Serial Number for AC 3????
 

I made a photo montage of my brother who is overseas but is in for christmas. I edited in vegas 5 which i am now starting to pick up on very well. I rendered as Mpeg 2 then went to render the audio as AC 3. I was prompted to enter a serial number. Which I could not locate. I did try the serial numbers for DVDA 2 And vegas 5. It gave me the option to buy it but its supposed to come with the software purchase isn't it? I will try to call sony today but my brother leaves tommorow. Can anyone help?


Also DVDA Has acted like its registered online. But then tells me it has only 13,12,11 days left.

AC3 is automatically registered when DVDA is registered. If DVDA is having problems registering, that is your problem. Contact Tech Support and they can help you.

You might want to take a look at vol 2 #6 of my newsletter as well. It gives an interesting technique for indicating the actual selection. While I used words, it can also be used with other shapes as well.

Thanks Edward. I found on another forum that DVDA Ships with version 2.0a and this same problem occured with that user. But was fixed by downloading and installing 2.0b.