Vegas Video discussions from 2004 (Q1Q2)

[Edward Troxel]

<<<-- Originally posted by Richard Alvarez : AVID has a "Find flash frame" feature, that searches your timeline for a single stray frame. Anything like that in Vegas? -->>>


Not built-in. But it COULD be scripted!

[Gavin Stokes]

Hi all.

I was ready to make Vegas 4 my main editor, but was disappointed at a couple of basic features that were missing. Can anyone tell me if the following items have been resolved in version 5?

First, there was no way to export frames. I found it hard to believe that you couldn't export a region of your timeline as a series of full-resolution still frames. I don't think I've ever seen a real editing app that didn't allow this.

Second, Vegas failed to display material on an external monitor when playing back material on a system with a high-quality capture board in it. I have Matrox M-JPEG material on a system containing a DigiSuite LE. Gadzooks, even the lowly (and free) Media Player automatically plays back properly on the monitor, without any fussing. My guess is that the codec handles this and the developer gets it free, which makes the Vegas situation all the more baffling. The problem led me to believe that Vegas is inadequate for anything better than DV footage, since you can't preview it.

Are users of higher-than-DV-quality hardware out of luck with Vegas?

On a positive note, I did some tests that indicated Vegas does not recompress intraframe-compressed material (like M-JPEG). Has anyone else tested this?

Also, Vegas 4's preview playback is much smoother and better than Premiere Pro's. Premiere Pro appears to be just as Scotch-taped together as ever, frequently failing to update the on-screen images at all.

Thanks!

Gavin

[Rob Lohman]

1) vegas did support exporting still frames, although you would
need a script to do it (which Vegas delivered with the package).
It is a slow option though. To the best of my knowledge Vegas 5
still has no frame export under file export.

2) windows media player isn't doing anything at all. The MJPEG
codec of your board is doing all the hard work. This codec is the
one that is outputting the footage through your board, not
mediaplayer or any other application.

Vegas is indeed primarely a (H)DV application. It will work with
a lot of other files but to the best of my knowledge will only
preview over firewire since this is the most common available
board.

I don't think Vegas 5 will solve your issues although you can use
a frame export script for your first point. Anyway, the best thing
you can probably do is simply check out the demo.

[Federico Dib]

Hi,
I´ve been editing a lot on Vegas without much real problems (if any at all)...
For my PC specs.. Vegas flies... it´s what made me decide fot it.

BUt today I opened a project I was working on a few days ago and the Playback preview looks all stuttery like if I was watching a movie on a 56k modem... even if I put Draft mode...

Actually I just noticed that most of my captured (from vegas) video stutters on WMPlayer... but not on old already rendered and exported videos from Vegas.

Is this just a defrag issue? (it says 30% fragmented)..

I have plenty of space on the Hard Drives so that´s not an issue.

I´m doing the defrag tonite to see if this is it.. but If anyone has any other advice...

[Shane Schmidt]

I spoke with a tech support guy at Smartsound to ask if there are any plans for making a version that works in Vegas. He had not yet heard whether or not this would happen (you would think...).

He did say that in the pro version there is a plug-in that exports to Vegas.

Does anyone here have any experience with this?

Thanks in advance.


Oh yeah, I have a 30 sec commercial running on our local TV channels and am currently working an a 70 minute big game hunt video for a prominent booking agent, big thanks to the group here for all your technical support!

Shane

[Philippe Gosselin]

Thx Michael , I found it :)

[Philippe Gosselin]

Hi all,




I am doing a sequence that looks like a really old film , back then when they had to put text on a black screen (between shots) they usually put beautiful pattern above and below the text.

Anybody knows a way to do that

thx a million.

[Gavin Stokes]

Thanks for the info, Rob. I guess I'll keep Premiere installed for frame export. They really should add this to Vegas, though. You can't ask for a much simpler feature.

>2) windows media player isn't doing anything at all. The MJPEG
codec of your board is doing all the hard work.

Exactly. Thus my comment about Vegas's inability to play it back to the monitor, and my assumption that Vegas must be putting everything in the timeline into some intermediate format or cache for playback.

It's too bad that so many editing apps these days are setting their sights so low in terms of quality. Downgrading everything to DV is anything but "pro". That's fine for home movies, but there are lots of Matrox and Targa boards out there that do better.

Regards,
Gavin

[Shane Schmidt]

Just recieved my upgrade to V5, installed Boris G LTD and then attempted to install the Movie Looks for Vegas program and got this error;

LoadLibrary("C:\Program Files\Movie Looks for Vegas\MovieLooks.dll") failed - The specified module could not be found.

I uninstalled it and tried again but with the same results.

Anyone else have this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Shane

[Federico Dib]

Defragmentation didn´t do it... Still choppy playback.

Summarizing... anything I´ve captured with Vegas is playing choppy either on the Preview or in any other MEdia Player...

But stuff rendered with vegas plays ok in Vegas and in WMPlayer..

Any idea?

[John Hudson]

I think I know what you are talking about...

Kind of a 'calligraphy' looking 'fountain pen' squirl? (That is my technical speak)

My best guess is to do it Photoshop and then import it.

[Andy Shrimpton]

Hello All!

I purchased Vegas 4.0 during the timeframe where you get the free update to 5.0.

The fine print read that this upgrade offer was only available to residents of the U.S.A.

After contacting Sony, and emailing a scanned copy of my invoice, Sony have decided to honour the offer to me, (possibly after I pointed out that the downloaded version was all I required - saving postage).

So

THANK YOU & WELL DONE SONY!

Excellent customer service, in keeping with what I'd heard!

So, I'm off tonight to enjoys the dial up load down of Vegas 5!

Thanks also to Edward for the usual quick and helpful reponses.

Andy

[Andy Shrimpton]

Hi All!

I'm about to update to Vegas 5 from Vers 4.

Anything I need to know or do before hand to ensure this goes smoothly?

If it is relevent:

Win XP Pro
Celeron 2.8 Mhz
1 Gb of RAM
1 x 160 Gb HD
1 x 80 Gb HD

Any tips much appreciated.

Andy

[Philippe Gosselin]

Well John , you read my mind.

Don't have photoshop (don't tell me i have to leanr ANOTHER program hihihihi)

Guess i got my first reason to get

thx

Phil

[Shane Schmidt]

Nevermind, I found the fix for this, there is a new installer available.

Let me know if anyone needs the link.