Thanks very much! I'll try both methods. The video is 16:9 already -- I didn't realize the DVD player would letterbox for me. If it doesn't, I'll letterbox in Vegas and use the mask.

You set the system to extend your desktop across both monitors and then any element of Vegas can be dragged to the other monitor. You can also save the various layouts (up to 10) in Vegas 5.

Your preview framerate will vary to keep up with real time. In complex areas, the framerate will drop but the effect will continue to be shown in real time. Another factor is the preview quality.

To increase the framerate, use a combination of ram renders, pre-renders, render to new track, and/or full renders.

All DVDs created by DVD Architect are region free. The only reason you would need to make a separate version for PAL users is if you wanted to truly create a PAL DVD. Odds are high that the NTSC DVD will play fine for them.

The GL2 and XL1 has served us well. As for your system, look at possibly upgrading to 1Gig of RAM and a LOT more hard drive.

You might also want to look at the Zenote letterbox tool or, possibly, the WAX plugin by Satish.

http://www.zenote.com
http://www.debugmode.com

Ok thanks for clearing that up. It takes a while to convert NTSC into PAL using cleaner. Glad I don't have to do that with this program.

hey all, just wondering who will be attending this??

Im presenting a little demo of Vegas to the masses on behalf of the Australian distributor, My supply company and my own Production company.

It should be fun, but as im targetting a certain mentality, im tryin to keep it informative, but not overly detailed, as some people jsut wont understand the usefulness of certain things such as scripting and multiple envelope tools and external control surfaces.

So what do you think i should include in this??

at the moment my list is

-Setting up Dolby Digital and using surround panning within a project
-Dolby Digital output compression standards based on Dolby Labs TSA
-Multiple Envelope tools, effect automation, timeshifting, pitch shifting, beatmatching, beatmixing, effect panning
err... oh yeah and Dolby surround configuration LOL

for video, im including elements which are found in after effects (to show Vegas all in onenes) compositing, displacement mapping, chromakeying, some parent child compositing (which i really dont want to do) and scripting.
Theres also the velocity tools, as well as transitional velocity, but am i missing something??

I mean im including all teh new HDV options for vegas, but im yet to get any material on that from the distributor here.

any ideas as to how i can add to this??

I am doing a short nightly news spoof and need to know if I can do titles like the anchors names are. Just titles with boxes around them and just a little something extra. Not just the words.
Thanks

Mitch

Sure. Just use multiple tracks with generated media to get you the background colors. You can use Track Motion to resize or any other method you prefer. You could also make the background in your paint program using an alpha channel so the video will show through. Then add the text over that background.

Edward & Glenn,

Thanks for the info. It's been very helpful. I'm about 99% certain that I'll be picking up Vegas 5 + DVD in January.

Edward. Great site you have (your personal one for Vegas). Lots of good info too.

Glenn. I noticed you're only an hour west of me. Any recommendations regarding businesses when it comes to picking up a decent minidv camera in the $1500-$3000 range?

BTW. What about the Bella EZ Keyboards? Is it better to have a separate shuttle/jog with programmable buttons as opposed to the integral shuttle/jog of the Bella keyboards? Or is it simply a matter of personal preference.

Once again.

Thanks for the valuable information.

sincerely,


ian

BTW. What about the Bella EZ Keyboards? Is it better to have a separate shuttle/jog with programmable buttons as opposed to the integral shuttle/jog of the Bella keyboards? Or is it simply a matter of personal preference.

Pretty much a matter of personal preference.

Almost all PAL dvd players will playback NTSC material, as long as the dvd is burnt regionfree. Converting NTSC to PAL is not so easy, so leave it NTSC. If it won't play at a PAL dvd player it will be an exotic strange dvd player not coming from the normal brands. I often see on commercial movie dvd's that part of the dvd content is in NTSC format and my Sony dvd player tells me that by showing a small 'ntsc' signal on the display.

I was told if vegas 5 is to much for what i need i might try vegas studio. I've seen this availible in local software stores. What is the Difference? What do i Give up for Cost? I want to do biographies now but want the capibilities for more later. Photo montages are a must.

Try this to see the main differences:

http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=932&FeatureID=7790

Consider Movie Studio a stripped down version of Vegas that is limited to 3 video and 3 audio tracks with many other limitations as well but is less than $100.

Vegas is the full blown NLE but, with DVD capabilities, is much closer to the $700 range unless you can find a deal somewhere or are qualified for academic software.

Hi all,

I'm back from pulling lots of video and shuffling files to make room for the 5 camera shoot I'm editing. This has made me start thinking about storage solutions...

If I were to throw together a machine that can handle a whole lot of hard drive space separate from my actual editing machine, would I have issues when editing via the network?

I'd be assuming that the network would be 100Mb/s and not GigaNet but if that's necessary then it could be accomplished as well.

Does anyone keep their files centrally located?

Thanks,
Kevin

Your speed of accessing these files will be limited by the speed of the network. Assuming you can live with the speed, it should work fine. I don't think I'd try capturing or printing over the network, though.

Instead, you would be much better off having a large amount of drive space connected directly to that computer (maybe a couple of large firewire drives).

Glenn. I noticed you're only an hour west of me. Any recommendations regarding businesses when it comes to picking up a decent minidv camera in the $1500-$3000 range?

Sorry can't help you much there. Of the camera shops I know in Toronto (with websites showing which cams they have in stock):
dvshop.ca
Vistek.ca (list prices are overpriced; I think you can hit em down)
Henry's (henrys.ca)

I've only visited Henry's for still photography stuff. They have some 3CCD video cameras on display.
I don't think DV Shop stocks any cameras in store to play with.

I'd probably try to figure out which cameras you are looking at, then find some shops that stock the camera so you can play with them if you like.

The biggest differences you'll face is the lack of Direct X plugs, scripting, and compositing tools. However, I just cut together a show using Movie Studio, took almost an hour to do, but it cut together great! I used Chromakey, etc from it, plus a voiceover, lots of motion pictures, etc.

I don't know the exact link, but the client's website is www.encoreattractions.com, look at the "Joyful Noise" gospel thing. It was done in Movie Studio

Right... I'd do the capturing on the editing machine as is the normal proceedure but I'm working with such a large amount of data for this project that I need more space than I can handle on that machine.

I've got 320 Gigs internal and 360 gigs external and belive it or not it's not enough space. It's an entire weekend music festival with multiple (5 for the most part) cameras on the bands and then interviews and other random activities.

Rather than pulling segments I'd rather spend a weekend or so pulling it all and copy the stuff to a network source over night each night.

So really, I guess I'm looking to see if anyone else edits over a 100Mbit network. I imagine that the initial loading of the files and the subsequent loading of the project will take a bit longer than when it's local but I'm hoping that the actual edits and playback wont be effected.

-Kevin

It can be done over a 100Mbit net, but Giganet is better. You can really tell the difference between our B and C rooms vs our A and B rooms. Of course it goes without saying you'll need a switch and not a hub to do this with..

thank you guys
i looked at the joyfull noise clip
looks good
don't know if i would ever get that in depth with effects
but i loved the photo montages.

The amazing thing is, remember that was done in a very short period of time, using a 99.00 software package.
Movie Studio is GREAT!

Thanks. What setting would do this effect in magic bullet?

If your footage is 16:9 then KEEP it 16:9 THROUGHOUT the ENTIRE
workflow (ie, editing, MPEG2 compression and DVD authoring).

A DVD player (that has been setup correctly!!) will auto letterbox
16:9 footage on a 4:3 TV (the DVD player must have been told
a 4:3 device is connected!), on a 16:9 widescreen TV (the DVD
player has been set to a 16:9 widescreen device) the signal will
be send as is.

It's not a question if this will work, it WILL work as long as:

1. the DVD player is setup correctly

2. you've kept everything 16:9

Might be a silly question, does Vegas "offline" at a lower rez? Can you capture all at say, 15:1. Do your edit then recapture at full rez?

To add a note, make SURE your project settings MATCH the
resolution etc. of your footage (unless you want to conver it),
otherwise preview will be slower (as the program needs to
interpolate the "incorrect" content). This includes things like
interlaced/progressive, resolution, framerate etc.

Richard: no, that is not supported. However, it is possible to
(batch) render all the footage in lower proxy files.

DV is 3.6 MB/s for a single stream, which is roughly around
36 - 40 mbit/s. UTP is usually 100 mbit so it should work fine.

I even captured over a 100 mbit UTP network without any
problems, however if you seriously need to work with multiple
layers and such I would definitely go with a gigabit network
instead of UTP! This gets you to a 1000 mbits/s (make SURE you
get GOOD cards) network which should give you much more
breathing space and definitely enough bandwidth to capture
over the network as well!

I would definitely use a switch instead of a hub or directly
connect the two computers through a "null-modem/cross-over"
UTP cable (not sure if you can do that with gigabit).

Black Diffusion.

Increase the grade setting and play around with the other settings.

my daughter is a student and i can get the academic version which sony discontinued nov 1. Is there a difference in acedemic vs. full commercial. i hear its the exact same except having to qualify. is this software the same except a serial number you type in? could it be converted later if needed? What are any other considerations i need to take?

> Is there a difference in acedemic vs. full commercial.<

No.

However....with wavelet compression coming for everything in the future, let's hope that Vegas can eventually take advantage of this, at the least for HDV, so you could dial a wavelet compressor down to say....100:1, and do an offline, then dial it up for final output. Would really be sweet, eh?

We've got m2t files on our site for free download, if you'd like to play with raw HDV, straight from the camera.
Check em' out http://www.vasst.com/HDV/FX-1_images.htm

Anybody check out the absolutely wonderful new plugin for VASST's Ultimate-S tool for Vegas?

http://www.vasst.com/celluloid/celluloid-demolooks.htm

I picked it up but haven't tried it out yet. I can't believe the pricing on it. It really shows the strengths of Vegas, in my opinion, that you can built a tool that capitalizes on Vegas's built in functionality in such a way that it's faster and cheaper than anything else out there.

Great job VASST!

I just bought vegas + DVD an i was wondering if anyone had any Sugestions about where i could learn helpfull info on diong A&E type biographies. I want to start a Buisness doing this type of thing but im in my learning phase. i love the photo montages with pan and zoom. I guess i would need basic shooting tecniques and Lighting to spice things up as well as can be done. I want to tell peoples life story. I have some computer editing experince as a hobby. But I want to learn more so I get that professional look. Also I see People incorperate Shapes and Titles Into there projects wich seem to just slide around as they want them to. What type of program does this? Example: A pink background with a heart in the middle. Underneath the heart is the word love. The heart fades and the letters Break away from each other and slide off screen in different directions. I guess this would be graphic design? point me in the right direction if you can?

Chris,

Your questions encompass several different aspects of filmmaking. In fact, they actually encompass several different career paths! Having said that, the only way to be a "one man band" like most of us, is to break off a little piece at a time.

Since you want to make biographies... study biographies. Tape everything you get on AE and the History Channel. Watch them with the sound off. Listen to them with the video off. Observe how the story is structured. Ask yourself if you see a pattern emerge.

Do a google search for filmakking books. Better yet, check this forum for past discussions on favorite books on filmmaking and editing. Stop by your local bookstore and buy what interests you.

The "Pan and Zoom" approach to documentaries... often referred to as the "Ken Burns effect" - since he made it so widely poplular with the Civil War series - can be achieved natively in various editing programs, and by purchasing different plug-ins, Stage Tools is one that comes to mind.

Graphics composition is accomplished to a certain extent natively in each NLE, and their are third party programs like After Effects and Boris (to name two) that can be used with your main editing application. Each of these can be very deep, very feature rich, and take a long time to "master". While simple effects can often be achieved with templates supplied by the program.

In short, if you don't want to sign up with a pre-designed film school or film course, you are going to have to wade in and teach yourself. Of course, posting questions on this forum are a great help. But a specific, pointed question will often yield faster, better answers than "How do I get good at doing this?"

To learn specific things about Vegas, there are several good resources. For example, my newsletters (http://www.jetdv.com/vegas), Instructional DVDs by Gary Kleiner (http://www.vegastrainingandtools.com) and Spot (http://www.vasst.com). Spots site also includes info on some of the other aspects as well.

what are the correct settings under Video?

I am trying to use TMPGe instead of MainConcept and want the cleanest possible start, is this not uncompressed AVI? when I try this my picture has black bars on the sides andstutters, I am using Cineforms Aspect HD and I think it puts video to 1280 x720x24 and in the uncompressed render menu the video is saying 1280x720x32 is this my problem?

Hi all,

This is my first post so be gentle if I ask a dump question.

I'm trying out Vegas and wonder if I can flip the timeline and the dock area (dock area on top half and the timeline on the bottom half). My monitor is kind of high and hate having to look up at the time line. I got the book from Spot and he mentioned something about changing the internal reference for docking to TRUE will let me do this but I can't find it.. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

There are a couple ways to do this. First of all, there IS an internal preference that will do this - a quick search shows the one to look for is "Frame Dock at the Top".

Another way is to UNDOCK all of the lower windows, resize the main screen to the bottom half, and then move all of the previously docked windows to the top half.

<<<-- Originally posted by Mark Paschke : what are the correct settings under Video?

I am trying to use TMPGe instead of MainConcept and want the cleanest possible start, is this not uncompressed AVI? when I try this my picture has black bars on the sides andstutters, I am using Cineforms Aspect HD and I think it puts video to 1280 x720x24 and in the uncompressed render menu the video is saying 1280x720x32 is this my problem? -->>>

I'll assume you're using the FX1...........

You need to create a new project template...

Select 'New' under the 'File' menu.

In the 'New Project' dialogue box that appears, type Sony HDR-FX1 (or whatever you want to identify the template..) then set the width and height fields to 1,440 and 1,080 respectively. Next set field order to Upper field first, then pixel aspect ratio to 1.3333. Set frame rate to the rate you require, Full resolution render quality to 'Best', motion blur type to 'Gaussian' and Deinterlace method to match the frame rate - i.e. 60 to none, 30 to blend for NTSC

Finally click the floppy disk icon to save the template for future use. You can adjust as required any of the settings of the template you've just created to refine further or create variation templates with different names for special requirements.

The rest from there should be fine..... Just remember to click the 'Custom' button when you 'Render As' an 'uncompressed *.avi' to doulble check the frame rate etc in the audio field and that audio is correctly set under the audio tab. I don't always trust that the optimal settings are automatically set when you select a render template.

Hope this helps.....

hey Douglas,
would you mind if i used these for the Digital Media Festival to use within Vegas 5??
Im helping New Magic demo V5 and DVDA2 to people and im also doing showcase presentations in an auditorium (yup im nervous.. LOL) <Basically im the demo guy here in oz>

Mark from Newmagic has some footage, but id like to have a huge variety available if i may??

Pls let me know :)

go for it. As long as it's not an edited project to be broadcast...
Have a blast!

actually Im using the JVC HD10U, which will make a difference.

Thank you Edward,

I found the way to get into the internal preference. By apply your method to it, I was able to customize the screen the way I wanted.

I color corrected camera #2 to better match #1, but the corrections don't carry over when I run the MultiCam Wizard. Do I have to render camera#2's track to save the corrections before running the wizard?

Apply the effect to the EVENT instead of the TRACK. If applied to the event, it will be moved with the event to the Master Track. If applied to the track, it will remain on that track and all events moved to the Master track will NOT see it.

As an alternative, you can apply it to the MEDIA in the Media Pool. Just save a preset of the effect on the track and apply that preset to the clip in the Media Pool and you'll be done.

I was trying to apply pan-crop event on my still photo in Vegas. Everything works well, but...I have a photo mosaic image which is basically an image rendered out of many other images. When I try to zoom in on the image using pan-crop and keyframes the quality of the image degrades a lot. To test I zoomed in on the image in Photoshop and quality stays pretty much the same. So, is the problem in Vegas or my image. Also, I import image at original resolution 4000x3000px should I bring it down to 720? But then when I zoom in on the image the individual images become pixelated.

thanks,
Alex

<<<-- Originally posted by Mark Paschke : actually Im using the JVC HD10U, which will make a difference. -->>>

Then set up a new template in exactly the same fashion as I outlined above, but with the following settings:

width: 1,280 height: 720

field order: none (progressive)

Pixel aspect ration: 1.0000 (square)

Frame rate: 29.97 (NTSC)

full frame resolution quality: Best

motion blur type: Gaussian

Deinterlace method: none

Save as JVC HD10u, so you can select the template from the template type dropdown list whenever you require it...

Thanks Much Steve ( as always)

I had donethis with these settings but I am still getting weird glitchy results, maybe TMPGe will fix this when it encodes

If you are, indeed, zooming with Pan/Crop, you will be using the FULL resolution of the image.

If you, instead, are actually using Track Motion, you will be zooming in on the video frame instead resulting in a degraded image.