Vegas Video discussions from 2004 (Q3Q4)

[Elton Wishart]

Is there a way to split the screen into four, with a different clip playing in each? I was going to try using the pan/crop tool in four different video tracks, would that work? Is there an easier way to accomplish this?

[Tor Salomonsen]

Use track motion.

[Elton Wishart]

Can you elaborate as to how I would go about doing this?

[Edward Troxel]

I agree that Track Motion is the easiest way. You need FOUR tracks, one for each video. Then you use track motion on each track to position the clips in the proper size and position.

Now if you want one button and you're done, take a look at Tsunami (link under my name). Specifically, take a look at the Video Wall tool.

[Elton Wishart]

thanks edward- looks like i'll be purchasing tsunami

[Russell Newquist]

Now, add the color bars to the timeline. At this point all you need to do is Tools - Print Video to DV Tape. This will give you the exact same pristene color bars you are seeing in preview.

This is basically what I finally did, as I stated in my initial post:

Now, I hit upon a few workarounds. For one, I can "preview it on an external monitor", ie, run it through my camera and record it to tape from the preview. Works flawlessly. My XL1's hardware compresses it beautifully. There are still a few compression artifacts, but they're only there if you're really looking for them.

However, in the long term, this is entirely untenable. I can't use this for any project that requires heavy rendering of effects, because I don't have nearly a fast enough CPU for it (and upgrading my computer isn't an option at this point in time).

What format am I really rendering? I rendered to AVI and selected the DV codec. I've also rendered to various other formats (WMV, MPEG 2) and had results that looked fine. Maybe this means that I'm actually using the Microsoft codec, which is the one you lambast so much (and I've heard others say much the same about). I don't know.

As I said in my previous post, I haven't done any serious kind of video editing in almost five years. The DV codec basically didn't exist then - at least, it wasn't common. Everything I did at that job was M-JPEG based using an outdated (even then) Intergraph VE-100 workstation.

I am most definitely NOT trying to start up a flame war regarding Vegas vs. Premiere here. I'm quite certain that there's a way to do exactly what I want do do, which is to render this to a video file that's already compressed with a DV format codec so that I can transfer videos around in raw digital form. I'm equally certain that it's my own newness to the software that's preventing me from doing this correctly, which is why I'm asking for help. I desperately want Vegas to have one of the best codecs around, because as of right now it's the one I'm stuck with regardless. I simply don't have $600 to shell out on another video editing package.

I will go get my exact settings off my other computer and post them momentarily (yes, I know - I should have done that in the original post). I will also try and post a couple of frame grabs this afternoon to demonstrate how bad the problem is.

[Edward Troxel]

At this point I would recommend this:

1) Hold down the CTRL & Shift keys and start Vegas. This will reset all setting back to factory default. Yes, you will probably want to change some back but this will get you back to standard. Make sure you do NOT change: "Ignore 3rd party codecs" and "Use Microsoft DV codec".

2) Add the color bar to the timeline

3) Go to File - Render As, pick AVI as the format and NTSC-DV as the type.

That should give you a good render.

[Russell Newquist]

I have tried this, and ended up with pretty much the same results. However, I have done some further testing and expanded my knowledge a little bit.

First of all, I was mistaken with the quality I was getting off of my camcorder. It appeared to do better in the viewfinder, but after recapturing the video, it seems to be an almost identical compression.

Second, after I used Vegas to render a 3D logo I've been working on into DV-AVI, it looked fine. Very nice on my monitor, the viewfinder, and my television.

My conclusion is that this is a limitation of the DV format itself. I had known that DV (much like MPEG and most all discrete cosine transformation compression schemes) didn't handle high contrast solid edges very well. Also, I'd known that DV's 4:1:1 sampling would have an effect on this. It appears that this is simply far worse than I thought it would be.

However, this isn't the end of the world that I thought it was because my other computer generated footage (which doesn't have lots of high contrast straight lines) compresses just fine.

[Russell Newquist]

I have found a solution to my problem. I have created my own set of color bars using Photoshop. My new image uses the same colors and the same patterns as Vegas' SMTPE Bars test, but I've precisely placed them to defeat the shortcomings of the DV compression algorithm. My new color bars compress beautifully and look great, and are now completely useable. In fact, after compression they now look almost but not quite like the Vegas bars look before compression. To elaborate, Vegas adds a very thin (one pixel wide) "blend line" (my own term) between each of the color bars. I took out the blend line, but the DV codec adds it back in for me as a compression artifact, so it ends up looking quite good.

Basically, my logic was to place the borders on precise multiples of four pixels, since DV only samples the color values every four pixels. The Vegas supplied bars were spaced somewhat irregularly, and this resulted in the bad color blending artifacts that I was seeing. By replacing them, the color change now occurs on a pixel that is actually being color sampled, so there is very minimal blending as a result, and the final version looks fantastic on my television set. Very, very slight compression artifacts are still visible, but I haven't seen a codec yet that I couldn't spot the artifacts on, so I'm happy now.

I'd post my "RussBars" for all to use, but since they're based pretty heavily on the SMTPE Bars, I'm not at all sure of the legality of that.

Edward, thanks for your help. I really appreciate you taking your time on it.

[Trey Perrone]

i think you need to talk to the local station you will be playinbg the spot....they should have the answers to majority of these questions. other people have asked similar stuff before and the answer is usually talk to the locals and find out what they need/want. it varies quite a bit from station to station.

[Glenn Chan]

2. Currently I have my main audio to peak at -6 db using a soft limiter? Is this a good setting for tv?

If your master is on mini-DV, then yes. You will need to set bars and tone appropriately. The station should have guidelines for this but generally the tone should be at -12dB.

3. I have my background music peaking around -10 db, is this good? Is there a general rule for the ratio of main to background music?

You should listen with your ears on accurate monitors/speakers in as good a room as possible when mixing. You can start with numbers as a guideline, but you need to use your ears as meters do not approximate human hearing too well.

Also make sure the music isn't over 12dB on average as you will get a little distortion.

4. The director of the play like the film-look. Should I apply the Magic Bullet film-look to the master track? At what setting (if any) is standard?

DSE's film look article is a good starting place.
http://www.digitalproducer.com/artic...e.jsp?id=22424
*It does not guarantee your video will look like Hollywood.

Magic Bullet takes longer to render, but has some advantages. The main ones are black/white diffusion (this takes lots of button pushing to do in Vegas) and a library of preset looks so you can pick and choose a look if you want something stylized.

5. Also, I want to make sure all my colors are legal. I plan to use the broadcast clamp on the master track. Should I this be the first in the chain of Track Fx followed by the film fx?

It should be last. I would use curves instead and look at your histogram (everything should be between 16 and 235). You'll also need to check that colors aren't too saturated.

[Voytek Stitko]

I am willing to pay for someone to show me how to edit
PAL footage on Vegas (on my laptop).

I live in NYC (CHelsea).

I dont know simple stuff as SETTINGS and how to put to shots together etc...

Voytek

[Michael Best]

Anyone know how to remove an old 'split' on a clip. It was
accidentally included and done awhile ago.

[Glenn Chan]

6. To go with the theme of this production, I used a white text with a red outline on top pf a black background. (Text appear in blakc bands created at top and bottom of screen). Will I have problems with this since red can be a tricky color? Should I apply a broadcast clamp to these tracks?

A lot of reds can be illegal colors depending on which red you pick. You can check the vectorscopes and/or apply the broadcast clamp to your title to see what it looks like when you are using legal colors.

7. How risky is it to have a portion of the text between the safe area lines (overlay)?

Some/most people will not see material at the very edges of a DV frame.

8. What is the font size (using ARIAL) that can be easily viewed by most tv's?

I highly recommend you hook up any TV to your editing system. If you camera/deck supports analog-digital passthrough, set it to convert in the right direction. In Vegas, click on the TV icon. On your TV, set the right input. If you use a S-video connection from camera/deck to TV, also check your footage on the composite connection.

This way you can solve two of your problems and spot other problems before they happen. Play around with text size on your TV to check for flicker, chroma crawl (the moire crap on edges of white text on black backgrounds), and readability. You will also have an idea of what happens to text outside the title safe area.

[Edward Troxel]

Glad to hear you found a workable solution!