Thanks Mark ,
You are my hero, seriously!

Nope, Digital video doesn't have any IRE, and IRE does not make sense for digital video as IRE is an analogue measurement.

Digital video is often measured in a percentage (like in FCP), where 0% is black and 100% is full white. These percentages would therefore correspond to 16 and 235 in the digital 8-bit levels terms.

You only have to worry about IRE, and in particular North American NTSC's nasty habit of putting black at 7.5IRE when you convert from analogue to digital or digital to analogue, and for quality purposes you should only adjust it at that point (via a proc amp, or a deck that has a correct 7.5IRE switch)

While the digital video is in your camera, or digitally played into your NLE there is no setup - wether it be DV, digiBeta or HD you're shooting.

Graeme

Preview window
 

When the preview window is enlarged it tends to slow the
picture/stutter, would this be a function of my computers ram
or is there a setting I can use? Thanks!

Full frame DV playback is very taxing- even more so when there are effects and transitions. I have a 3.0ghz P4 with 1gig of ram and still can't play back footage with effects at full res, full quality at 29.97 fps. I usually edit using Good (auto) and the bottom half of the interface low enough to shrink the video to 1/2 size. I get really good frame rate that way unless I have an abnormal amount of effects or tracks in a composite.

I usually do half size Preview (Auto). I also usually feed an external monitor.

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.

<<<-- Originally posted by Edward Troxel : 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. -->>>


and where can i find this....Excalibur's Velocity Wizard? is it some plugin?

Paul,

Excalibur and Neon are at: http://www.vegastoolsandtraining.com/

I have both and highly recommend them. Also, you might want to take advantage of the last few days of the 'Vegas 5.0 Companion' and 'Authoring with DVD Architect 2.0' training DVDs on special pre-order pricing. Gary's previous DVD set was a tremendous help in teaching me the Vegas toolset and workflow.

I'm not paid by these guys, just glad they've made such a fine set of tools and training products to help me.

<<<-- Originally posted by Paul Bisaillon : and where can i find this....Excalibur's Velocity Wizard? is it some plugin? -->>>

Just click on the link below my name for info on Excalibur, Tsunami, Neon, and other things such as the free newsletter.

Edward,

You just reminded me that I've been meaning to pick up Tsunami. I want to add a Picture-In-Picture effect in a project I'm working on and while I know I could do it myself, why bother when you've written the script to do it for me.

Thanks a ton for taking the time to create your newsletter. I faithfully print them out in full color for an immediately available deskside reference and have found them extremely helpful.

yeha... not happy dude..

basically i had some interlaced footage i was editing ran afew different speeds of slo mo..

all good in the timeline, final render looked so shit i wanted to scream.. and thats WITH supersampling on to 4..

switched to render as progressive from interlaced footage, now my slowmos are nicer than standalone slow mo apps like DynaPels slowmo and thats without supersampling... its absolutely beautiful now :)

Peter, what speeds do you slow your footage to? The timeline "should" be an issue of WYSIWYG. I've never had any issues with slow motion looking bad on output. I always render on "HIGH"- with a constant bitrate of 8 mb/s beings my programs are usually under an hour.

Peter, let me understand what you did. You captured as interlaced and rendered as progressive and that worked?

I believe this footage was shot as progressive and I rendered as each option I could find with no luck. (Couldn't figure out how to supersample) I thought I might try After Effects as they are supposed to have a great slow motion. I really haven't figured a way around the timing problem other than slow motion. (Stills are out of the question)

Possibly there are other settings I haven't tweaked?

Additionally, the clip, at the part where the bridesmaid is walking in runs at 21fps. It doesn't seem to ever get up higher when looping. If I RAM render, then it gets to 30 frames and then it is jerky. PAL runs at 25. Is there a way to make the clip run at that frame rate in NTSC?

This is killing me!

Charlie the footage from Bernard's two XL-1s's were shot in "frame mode" which is a faux progressive achieved through frame blending. It's still technically interlaced.
I'd think, if anything, progressive would provide choppier slow motion than interlaced. That's why I don't quite understand what Peter was explaining.
The doc me and Jesse shot was completly in "frame mode" and was treated as normal interlaced (60i) without a hitch.

When encoding to MPG2 try and use a DVD Architect template/preset. Make sure video quality is set to "High" and try a constant bit-rate of around 8 mb/s. Try that on a small section and see how it works out for you.

Again I wouldn't encode it as progressive- but if the above doesn't seem to help....it can't hurt to try.

Edward, have any input on this?

You activate supersampling on the video bus track.

Since you say it looks better at a lower framerate, had you track changing the "undersample" value in the event's properties?

vegas' mpeg2 encoding
 

i read an earlier post regarding rendering with vegas to mpeg4. they mentioned something about downloading a codec.

is this true also for rendering to mpeg2? do i have to download a codec?

I can import the video by USB, as a file, then import to Vegas. Or, I can capture through a composite "Video In" on a video card. That you ask, I now wonder if one of those two methods is causing the problem. I have in the past used the video from this camera without the notorious black frames. I can't recall which method I used for which. I guess that will be the next test. Thanks for asking, and I'll let you know the results.

Rendering to MPEG2 comes standard with Vegas and Vegas+DVD. All you need to do is go to File - Render As and pick MPEG2 as the format. Then you can pick any of the presets. To change the bitrate, just click on Custom.

does printing straight to tape require hard drive space?
 

when printing a project straight to tape, does this process require a significant amount of hard drive space? if so, is there a way to know how much?

It requires "some" hard drive space and the amount is totally dependent upon your project. When you do a PTT, it must render all sections of video that have been modified. So, if you've only applied a few crossfades here and there, it won't take much disk space. However, if you've color corrected (or done anything else that affects) large portions of the video, then those entire areas must also be rendered taking a significant amount of space.

Once all of the video segments have been rendered, it will then render ALL of the audio into a W64 file. If you have a 1 hour project, that would probably take around 600 meg.

ok. that's fine. i was worried a 1 hour project with many effects, color corrections and fades will take up more than 5GB or something in that range.

THANKS

Depends on the definition of "many". If "many" means every frame, it'll take about 13 Gig. If "many" means 10% of the project, it'll take abou 1.3 gig.

ok. thanks edward. that's exactly what i needed to know.

Exporting .avi to DVCAM, but how?
 

Yes yes, this is a basic one; but even in the archive search i can't pull up this answer so i must be using the wrong words.

Well my question is fairly simple (although i'll let you judge that).

I have a completed project on my brothers computer, i want to take the dv signal from the computer to my SOny PD-170, but i don't know how to export the completed project, any ideas? Once completed, going to the VCR should be easy, but i can't figure this one out.

If all you want to do is take a DV-AVI file and output it via firewire to the camera, just choost Tools - Print Video to DV Tape

ah yes, i was going to answer myself but its too late. For the record i'm embarrased, stupid question. Thanks for the help, i'm new at editing and after 4 hours of editing today, i lack the ablity to think outside the box.