Hello,

Is there a Title Safe type overlay available when viewing the video preview within Vegas 5 ? I realize that when you go into the add some text using the text generator from withing Vegas, it does show the title safe area.. But I am looking for something to turn on and off on the Preview.. for Text or graphics that i import into Vegas. (If this is not an available option, then it may be a good suggestion for V6)

Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving !!
Mike m.

In your preview window, there's an icon that looks like a blue grid sitting right next to your preview quality drop-down menu. That's the overlay on/off switch. Click on the down arrow to bring up your overlay options and select "safe areas". When you turn on your overlays, the inner box is the "title safe" area. Oh, btw, the overlays don't appear if you're outputting to an external monitor through firewire, but only show up on your computer monitor.

Happy T-day to you, too!

It's the one that looks kind of like "#" - but it has several different modes. Make sure you have "Safe Areas" chosen.

Setup: I've removed an unwanted section of video that transitioned to the next section with a window flying / zooming in from the top right of the screen.

Attempted Solution: i used the pan / crop option to track that incoming clip, frame by frame for 19 frames to crop out the outgoing clip.

Problem: In Vegas 4 slow mo, frame by frame playback; full speed playback; and post rendering playback on the computer from file, excellent results. But when played back from DVD or SVCD, each keyframe has severe fluttering as if not panned properly. Each of the 19 frames seem to start off cropped adequately, but panned incorrectly (mis-positioned), then jumps to the corrected, edited position 19 times. I'm at a loss why it's doing this, and why it doesn't show either while editing or on playback (with Windows Media 10) from rendered file, but only on playback from burned disc.

In case it matters, a new 3d blinds transition is used going into this clip.
Any suggestions appreciated.
Thanks,
Sam

There are no easy answers to your question. It is far to broad.

High quality for what? It all depends on your input signal, your
ability to work with Vegas' tools and your output format (and
encoder you will use).

Also the PD150 does not offer 24 fps progressive recording, so
it does not make much sense to export out of Vegas at 24p. Have
you tried to export with one of the 24p templates to see what
happens and how it looks like?

The best judge of high quality is you and the easiest (and usually
the best way to learn/remember stuff) way to learn it is to go out
and play with the equipment, try the workflow, fiddle and see
which does what.

Well, you are working with two different encodings (I believe). I
assume the disc you are talking about is a DVD disc and thus it
has MPEG2. So you are looking at a WM10 encode versus an
MPEG2 encoder. That's not good.

But first things first, which EXACT version of Vegas 4 do you have?
Are you running the latest version from the Sony site?

What I would do to try and pin down where the problem occurs
is to do the following:

1. output your timeline to a DV AVI file (like the ones you capture). Play this in windows media player to make sure the problem is not in the file.

2. start a new project in Vegas and load up the DV AVI file and compress that to MPEG2

== OR ==

2. start a new project in your DVD authoring application (I assume DVD Architect?) and load the DV AVI file in that and have it transcode it to mpeg2 for you

MAKE SURE that withing Vegas and your authoring applications
ALL THE SETTINGS are correct, especially on interlaced versus.
progressive and such!!!!

Make sure you try both ways (from above) if one still produces
this problem. If the problem is in the AVI file as well then something
else is going wrong. Otherwise it must be either the MPEG2
encoding or the playback on your player.

Whats the difference between vegas 4 and 5 i own 4 and tryed 5 and the only thing that was different was the interface. am i missing somthing.

Thanks guys ! I learned something new !!

Happy Turkey Day !!
Mike m.

When i go do export my footage out of vegas in 24p and play it back the audio and video skips. is this normal. is this what 24p is? if so i don't know why everyone likes it. it f***s up for video. plese help if im doing somthing wrong!!!

Click the newsletter link below my name and look at the April 2004 newsletter. There are LOTS of differences including:

1) Bezier Masking tools
2) 3D Track Motion
3) Saving and recalling up to 10 different layouts
4) Automation Envelopes
5) Keyboard remapping

and many other things.

Yes, you are missing a lot. A small look around the Sony Vegas
site had pointed you to the new features PDF (I found it in under
30 seconds):

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/Vegas5NewFeatures.pdf

Among the many many changes are:

- Enhanced track motion tools
- 3D motion and compositing
- Video track nesting
- Keyframable bezier masks
- Improved MPEG2 support
- Subtitle export to DVD Architect
- Automation
- ACID loop support
- Film-style 5.1 surround panning
- External surface control
- Oh yeah, and network rendering

Mike: I'm going to say this again, do not start multiple threads
on topics. This thread already had a discussion on 24p and
rendering, so I've merged your new thread here.


Back to your question. As you can see from my original response
your camera has no 24p mode so what you are doing is converting
from 60i (interlaced) to 24p. I'm not at all suprised the video is
choppy. You are throwing away 6 (!) frames per second which
results in a choppy video. There might be better tools out there
to do the conversion, but it will never be as true captured 24p
(like the DVX or the XL2 cameras can do).

I recently downloaded the trial version of Vegas 5 and having considerable hard time with it. I was able to capture videos from my camcorder and also able to bring in other video (AV) files from my HD into Vegas 5. What I don't know is how to trim and create (render) the trimmed video. That's all. I just want to get the feel of using this software before I buy it.

Any quick and dirty manual out there I can buy before my trial date expires? Thanks.

Danny

Danny, click on the newsletter link beneath my name and read through the "Beginner's Corner" articles beginning in issue #4.

To futher help you along, there is a thread here on DVi with a
quick reference PDF and some other goodies:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20830

Just to give you a real quick start, the 's' key (on your keyboard)
splits a clip on the timeline (you can then delete a part to get
a trim), ofcourse there is also a full blown trimmer.

Output is done through File -> Render As

Enjoy!

I see that my Vegas tryout version has many audio plugins. Will any of those, or any other scripts out there diminish the echo that's inevitable when recording a live performance indoors?

Fred, echo<>reverb is one of the most difficult items to "flatten" . . . I'd suggest you get over to the Vegas or Sound Forge forum and do some searching . . seeyah there Pal!

Grazie

Search for "acoustic mirror" on these forums and the Sony forums. Acoustic mirror and similar reverb plug-ins lets you model reverb in a room based on a recording of an impulse (i.e. clapping your hands). From this the plug-in can kinda work backwards and remove reverb.

That would be the best way of reducing reverb. Next worse is noise gate or noise reduction. Next best is ADR (does that count?). Similarly, does layering music on top count???

I tried making my camcorders work to preview vegas on my tv but it never seemed to work.

SO ,,,, I bought the canopus advc-100 to solve the problem.

I have a firewire connection from the pc (6pin) to the advc-100 (4 pin) connection on the front of the unit.

I have the composite out of the rear of advc-100 going to the tv.

The advc is switched on and in digital-in mode.

I play a clip in vegas 4 and push the "preview on external monitor" button in the video preview window and ... nothing.

Windows xp sees the canopus advc-100 as "AVC compliant DV tape recorder/player"

What have I done wrong?

Thanks,

KIM

I was looking at this one:

http://www.contourdesign.com/shuttlepro/

Anyone using one, have any input on good and bad models?

The Contour Shuttle Pro is well known and used by many Vegas users including myself. Well worth the investment.

The version 2 (black) unit is also very handy for programming macros into the buttons.

Gary

I agree with Gary. It can be very useful. In fact, with Excalibur 3 I can use it to do a full multi-camera edit without even touching the computer with buttons programmed to start and stop playback and place camera markers on the timeline. The jog/shuttle is also very useful.

Sounds like you have it connected correctly. In Vegas, make sure you have the proper device selected in the preferences and then simply click on the external preview button. That should be all that's required.

Might have to "recycle' the canopus. Turn it off and on before booting Vegas... then try the same after booting Vegas. Sometimes the order that you boot the device in will affect how the program sees it. Make sure it is set to Digital IN (The blue light is hard to read by in a dark room)

Aha. The key is within vegas ...

options
preferences
video devices
then select the canopus thingy

*poof* video appears on tv woo hoo (thank you EDWARD)

Now some of the color video is in color and other parts are sort of black and white and still other parts flicker.

Not good yet but ... getting better.

And if Connect HD gives you trouble, try the shareware DVHSTool, which is available here:
http://www.kgbird.com/DVHSTool/DVHSTool_22b1_Setup.exe

I can confirm that Connect HD will allow you to export edited 1080i M2T footage to D-VHS.

I have a bunch of 720x480 video in 30P mode that I want to edit in Vegas 5.0 and put on DVD with DVDA 2.0 to display on a "normal" 4:3 television. I am trying to get a handle on the various settings I should use in Vegas to get the best quality letterboxed video.

For example, in "Project Properties" (ALT-ENTER), should the pixel aspect ratio be 0.9091 (NTSC DV)? Or 1.0000 (square pixels)? Both letterbox the frame, but the square pixels seem to look correct while 0.9091 looks a little squished. Meanwhile, 1.2121 (NTSC DV Widescreen) fills the frame with no letterboxing, but the video is clearly stretched in the preview, so I assume that's incorrect -- but I am not sure about this, see below for another question about Vegas's letterbox bars.

Before my other question about the letterbox bars, there also is another setting -- in "Render As." I take it I want to pick one of the MPEG2 DVDA choices, probably "DVD Architect NTSC video stream." I assume I don't want the widescreen (16:9) choice here for my 4:3 final product. For my 30P video, should I change "field order" to "progressive only" (by clicking on custom, then the video tab)? The default is Interlaced, bottom field first.

Now my other letterbox question -- I have noticed that transitions and color corrections affect the letterbox bars as well as the regular video frame. So if, for example, I rotate the frame, the black bars rotate, too. Or if I do a hard flash transition, the black bars turn white during the transition, too. I want to affect just the video -- do you have to mask to do that? That doesn't seem right. With 1.2121, I don't have those problems (at least in the video preview), since the video fills the frame, but it's stretched, so that can't be the right way to go, either.

Am I missing something? I'm sure this is a very basic question, but I am new to nonlinear editing. A good book on Vegas or DVDA that addresses rendering might help, so feel free to suggest one! I own Naked Vegas, but that's it so far. I'm getting a handle on the audio and video editing, but the rendering has me confused right now.

Hi all,


Ok so here it is just want to transition at the end of a shot that was a right-left pan .

That pan finish with a big guy filling the whole left-hand side of the screen.

So when he does I want the next shot to push it to the rightand replace it.

Tried push,swap,slide transitions effect even pan/crop but there is always a frigging black screen between the two image.

It's been awhile since i edited anything maybe I forgot :)


Thx in advance

Generally, you'll get the best looking video, when you keep all the settings, as close as possible to the original video.

If you shot 16:9 video, use the widescreen settings all the way through: (project, render, and DVDA).
If you shot 4:3 video, use the 4:3 settings all the way through.
If you are manually letterboxing 4:3 video, use 4:3 settings all the way through.
The same advice goes for interlaced and progressive video.


Pixel Aspect Ratio: Select square pixels if your video is destined to be viewed on a computer screen. Otherwise, select the pixel aspect ratio appropriate to the original video. You'll probably only change this setting when you are ready to render.

Are you overlapping the clips so that the second clip sliding in starts BEFORE the first clip ends?

Hi Ed


I tried overlapping them and leaving them side by side but it is always the same result.

Thx for your time

Perhaps if you posted a couple seconds worth of the video (maybe a second from each piece) we could come up with a veg file that does what you want.

Brian: that is true indeed. An option is to add a new track above
your other tracks and add a letterbox mask here, this stays at
the place it should and solves your problem.

See my post at the end of the following thread for a link to some
masks and the instruction on how to use them in Vegas:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33557

When I attempt to capture clips in vegas, the preview doesn't show anything. But it says that the device is detected. If I push stop it says that the device is stopped, the same for rewinding and fastforwarding. Could someone help me?

Welcome aboard DVInfo.net Justin. Could you please provide us
with a bit more information please?

1. what operating system (and which version) are you running?

2. what exact version of Vegas are you running?

3. which camera are you working with?

4. how is this camera connected?

5. does the capture work (ie, your only not seeing the preview)? or is also no file captured

6. is your preview (under the options) menu set to either "Always Preview Video" or "Smart Preview Video"? Did you try both?

Also...

7) Assuming you are connected via firewire (since you're seeing "stopped" and "fastforward"...) have you tried a different firewire cable and/or camera?

I run windows xp professional, with Sony Vegas. I am capturing from a Sony TRV38. I am connected through fireware, and have tried different cables. There isn't a file being captured either. It is set to Always Preview Video, but i have tried both. Thank you for responding.

Not ot be obnoxious, but have you read the instructions or help file? I just started using Vegas, and I did not find it intuitive to capture. The capture is a separate program from Vegas, and has its own settings. There are a few settings that you need to change in the preferences and file locations, and the mouse sequence also seeemed odd to me until I figured it out. I hitnk I have to click "capture" twice (two different windows) to make it happen. If you root around in the preferences and capture settings, you should see how they need to be changed. If not, I would need to boot up the capture program to help you further, and I have to stop everything else I am doing to capture... HTH

My wife and I are wanting to start doing video biographies using a similar type format you may see on A&E Autobiographies. We want to incorperate Photo Montages and old video(customers) into the video at times. Most of our situations will be controlable as far as lighting and such. I want to be able to get good Sound. I Received some Samples from others who do this and most of there audio was horrible. I have Played around with the demo for Vegas and like its capabilities although it may be more than what i need. I have a 2,4G Pentium 4 SYSTEM with 512 M of PC2700 DDR Ram.
40 G Hard drive(7200 RPM) Option for Serial ATA Drive ,USB2 and Firewire.
SO.... Assuming i have the right equipment so far. There are 10,000 different opinions on what camera is the best. My starting Camera Budget is around $2000 range. I have looked at the Sony trv950 And the Cannon GL2. Both have a good picture. I want to look like a Professional until I can become one. Can anyone make sense of what I really need. If I need to save more i will wait. Any help would be appreciated.


Chris

Ive gone through the help files a ton of times. I just can't figure out why the device is detected, but it doesn't show the video or audio. I've used Vegas to edit, but i haven't captured with it yet, becuase i just got it on my computer. Thank you for your help.

Which exact version of Vegas are you running?

Please start Vegas and go to: Help -> About Vegas Software

Mine says (for example):

Sony Vegas 5.0
Version 5.0b (Build 160)

Is it possible to difusse the black color? I mean to blur the just the black.

Bye!

Hi all,

I'm trying out the trial version of Vegas 5.0.
I have a P4 3.2 Ghz, 1 Gb RAM and a lovely and talented ATI X300 SE 128 Mb vid card. ;-P

I have two 17" monitors hooked to the x300 and I'm wondering if there's a setting to have Vegas extend across the second screen or do I simply "Restore Down" and then "pull" the edge of the program until it uses both monitors as I do now? I looked and couldn't figure out another way. *sigh*

Also, am I missing something in my presets and preferences when I play one of the sample projects (Rack Focus, for instance) and it's rather choppy in the preview screen?

My RAM usage in Vegas (I'm at work so can't recall what it's called) is set at 64 Mb. Is there a problem with my card? I've heard that rendering is done in OpenGL. Perhaps my card is lacking?

Forgive any comments or questions that are examples of gross ignorance.

Thanks for your help.

Sincerely,


ian

1- Get the latest dual monitor utility/driver for your video card (hydravision). They can be downloaded off the ATI site.

In Vegas 5, you can draw windows to the other monitor and save your settings by hitting the crtl alt D + number combinations (check the Vegas manual).

Your ATI card needs to be set to the mode where you have two independent monitors.

I have an ATI 9200SE and that's what happens.

2- If you have the money, the shareware utility Ultramon is EXCELLENT. You will love dual monitors with that utility as you get two taskbars and you can map a shortcut to swap windows between monitors (very nice when you have multiple windows and an internet browser window). I map F1 to switch monitors (works for me).

http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/

The utility kind of replaces hydravision and you'll never have to look back.

My RAM usage in Vegas (I'm at work so can't recall what it's called) is set at 64 Mb. Is there a problem with my card? I've heard that rendering is done in OpenGL. Perhaps my card is lacking?
That setting is for RAM previews. You can get RAM previews by hitting Crtl-B (instead of rendering out the video).

There's nothing wrong with your video card for Vegas.

1- Magic Bullet Editors can do this.

2- In Vegas:
You could duplicate the video onto itself. Right click the video track and select duplicate.

Use the secondary color corrector. Set the range on luminance to only midtones and highlights (i.e. low 90, high 255, smoothness 80; I made these numbers up). Slide alpha down to 0. If you solo the top layer, you see there's only dark things in there.

Apply any blur to the top. De-saturate the top layer if you like. You can also try channel blend to de-saturate instead (channel blend can turn a combination of red, blue, and green into B+W images). You could also change the composite model to something like screen or overlay.

I don't think that's the same as what Magic Bullet does.

Didn't I read something on here about DVD Architect DVDs being region free? So, do I need to make separate DVDs for PAL viewers or will NTSC DVDs work in their players?

Hi Chris,

Many Sony enthusiasts have been disappointed with the 950 which was the successor to the 900, a very respected camcorder.

Sony's Prosumer camcorders are not known for their sound capabilities. However, I use a VX2000 and get good sound by using a hot mike (Sennheiser) and keeping the VX2000's gain below 50%. This yields a sound quality that is fine for interview situations such as you want to conduct. For better sound right out of the box, the GL2 is probably a better bet than the Sony's.

Also, you should consider using double sound as you often don't get a chance for a retake. MiniDisc recorders or some of the new flash memory recorders can be had at reasonable prices, and will usually stay in sync with camcorder sound for at least 3 minutes, which gives you opportunities to resync if necessary.

Your system is more than adequate for running Vegas. You will need a large second HDD for video files and a firewire card. You may want to take a look at Vegas Studio + DVD as an entry level NLE if you think Vegas is more than you need right now.

As a shameless plug, if you get film (8 or 16mm) to be incorporated into the bios, I can provide transfer services for you. rmorris21942 at yahoo dot com

Also, have you tried capturing from another program such as Scenalyzer Live to see if the problem is more related to Vegas or more related to the system overall?