Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q1Q2)

[Andre De Clercq]

If you have high contrast scenes where the highlights are near to washed out (compressed) and you need to keep the details in these areas, then you probably need local adaptive processing. Almost in all other situations gamma correction is the way to go for brighten up the dark parts while keeping the whites.

[Kevin Kimmell]

My questions must be getting boring... :)

I've done a little test - I burned a master using DVDA 2 and then I burned one by dragging the VIDEO_TS folder that DVDA created into a Nero DVD_Video compilation.

They both play in my DVD player but the writing on the DVDA disc looks different. The Nero burned DVD looks like a solid color change throughout the whole burn while the DVDA disc seems to have a couple of different gradients of color change.

Can anyone chime in on whether or not this is a good indicator that the DVDA2 disc will be in one of the DDP or CMF formats?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Jeff Bradt]

Thanks guys. I'll try this tonight. - Jeff

[Don Bloom]

The only problem with that is that although you will lower the opacity of the background you will also lower the opacity of the actual image as well.

You could make you bug in whatever format you desire and use the chromakey to pull out the background - it's an extra step but it will work.

Don

[Edward Troxel]

I'm thinking that the standard burned (and playable) disc will be in a format they can use.

[Brian Kennedy]

Like Don, I found the easiest way is to save as PNG in Photoshop. Make your logo on a new layer and delete the background layer (so it becomes transparent). Then save as PNG.

[Bennis Hahn]

So I have had Vegas 5 for a couple weeks now (love the program) and have been converting 60i to 24p. Looks great to me (could be a little sharper though) but the workflow is killing me. I read the 24p article on the VASST site and it seems I should be able to replace the 60i files in the project with the rendered 24p ones, but I don't really understand how this is done. So far I have been rendering out clips in one big file (I have been doing short <1 min flicks) and cutting it up again in a 24p timeline. Obviously this will not work on anything much longer then 2/3 minutes.

If you ask, "Why don't you just edit the whole thing the way you want and not cut it up at all?", I will tell you that I like to have a little leeway (+/- 2 seconds) on either side of my clips for music syncing purposes, and for just being able to play with the feel once I get everything added in and done.

So, what is the best way to work around this?

[Charley Gallagher]

Any luck with your problem? I wonder if you are having a problem similar to mine. My processor tops out at 100% when rendering also but that is not the problem. As I start to render I watch my "available Physical Memory" disappear.

I have 1.5 Gig of memory and it usually shows 1110000 k free initially. If I render a 6-7 minute clip I can watch that number drop to 4500! The PC struggles along.

Lately as I work on wedding ceremony with 7 soundtracks and 4 camera tracks it just starts to choke quickly. Just tonight I noticed if I have the Video Preview setting at "draft auto" I can get throug without losing all that available memory but if I just click it to "draft full" I can just watch the memory disappear or at least dwindle down even if I am not actively doing work on the timeline.

Anyway I wonder if you looked in Tast Manager to see any anomalies. I see my Page File is 1.74 GIG, that seems huge but I don't understand what is happening.

Let me know if your pc is acting similarly in Task Manager?

[Jerry Norman]

Here's a tip that might help for situations where your music has a consistent beat throughout. First, use the "M" key to place five or so markers at consecutive beats anywhere in the music track. Estimate the time between the beats you will transition on. Using Ultimate S, lay down your photos using the estimated time as the length for each photo, and an appropriate transition time. It will help if you add a couple extra photos so the line of photos extends beyond the endpoints of the audio. Now, group all the photos, and use ctrl/drag to shrink or grow the entire clip until your photo transition centers align perfectly with the beat marks you made. Now ungroup and adjust the photos on either end to concide with the start/end of the audio.

Originally Posted by Jim Montgomery

Oh poop.

I was hoping that Photo Montage would adjust my video clips to start and stop on the beat of the music.

I knew it was to good to be true. Are there any solutions out there to mark an audio timeline/sample/clip with beats, for those of us musically handicapped?

Jim

[Edward Troxel]

The Excalibur 4.2 update can be found at:
http://www.vegastrainingandtools.com...as_plugin.html

http://www.vegastrainingandtools.com...calibur4_2.exe

If you are using 4.0, it is recommended that you uninstall 4.0 before installing 4.2. If you are using 4.1, it should be fine to simply install 4.2 over 4.1.

The following changes were made in this version:

Version 4.2
1. Added Alpha Channel options to the Video Properties tool.
2. Storyboard Wizard can now save snapshots as JPG or PNG.
3. Storyboard Wizard can now use the marker labels as the base file name.
4. Storyboard Wizard can now append the timecode to the file name.
5. PBS Wizard can now apply Match Aspect instead of needing a separate step.
6. PBS Wizard can now automatically pan the images.
7. PBS Wizard can now turn on Reduce Interlace Flicker.
8. Velocity Wizard can now apply the specified velocity or freeze frame on all selected events under the cursor at the cursor location.
9. Fixed Multi-Cam dissolves to not cause out of sync events on the Master track in Vegas 6.0a.
10. The Excalibur.dll file can now be executed directly in Vegas 6.

#1. The alpha channel can now be specified for one or more selected events. This will allow quickly changing a bunch of events to the proper alpha channel.

#2-4. With these changes, you can now save as PNG or JPG and have much more flexibility in the naming of the resultant images. You can optionally use whatever label was entered for the marker and append the timeline timecode.

#5-7. PBS Wizard has seen some great improvements. Now you just drop the images on the timeline, select them, and run PBS Wizard. It will automatically "Match Aspect" and "Reduce Interlace Flicker" if desired. However, the biggest change is the ability to PAN the images. This is especially noticable on tall/narrow images. To see these differences, look at these illustrative clips. There were NO changes made after running PBS Wizard to any of these.

I ran a quick example using about 15 images from a montage. Here's how Excalibur 4.0 works to automate motion:

http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/PMExcalibur4-0.wmv

With the new additions to PBS Wizard, here's how it now works in version 4.2 to automate motion:

http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/PMExcalibur4-2.wmv


#8. This will allow you to set a specific velocity on the selected event(s) at the cursor location. So if you want to freeze the current event at the cursor location, just run Excalibur, choose "Freeze Frame" and specify to "Change at Cursor Location" and the velocity will drop to 0% at the cursor.

#9. Sony changed how one of the script functions works which causes the dissolves in Multi-Cam to create a Master track that is out of sync in Vegas 6. This update works around their change. Each event will be in sync after being added to the master track.

#10. The DLL can now be run directly from Vegas 6. This is especially important to those whose toolbar icon keeps getting switched from the .js file to the .dll file. Now in Vegas 6, either will work interchangably to start the Excalibur GUI.

[Brandon Wood]

Hey everyone,

I just started using the Magic Bullet plug in with vegas 5 and it is taking about 8 to 9 hours to render a 7 minute clip with one filter on it.

I currently have a 1.4 Ghz PIII processor with 1 gig of ram and vegas is taking a pretty long time to render clips also - no where near the time of magic bullet though...does this sound normal?

[Alessandro Calza]

Hello, I am currently using Vegas to capture dv.

I would like to know if it makes sense to use another app that offers more options (if there is any). And if it does..what application?

I'm not looking for something to edit video with but just capture dv.

I tried scenalyzer but I didn't like the unusual interface.

Thanks in advance

[Glenn Chan]

I have a Pentium 2.6C and the rendering ratio for me is about 30:1 with magic bullet editors (depends on settings though). Extrapolating... your render should take about 6.5 hours.

That sounds kind of normal to me.

[Bennis Hahn]

just FYI:

my p4 2.8HT w/ 1G ram took 1h40min yesterday for a 5 minute clip.

[Brandon Wood]

Hmmmm,

Thanks Glenn.

I guess I need to start saving for a faster processor or just leave my computer be for a few days while it does its thing.