Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q3Q4)

[Sean Seah]

I'm trying to mask some number plates. Only way I know is to use masking key frames. They dun look good as I only know how to use a solid colour. I would like to use pixallation instead.Can someone advise if I can make use of masking/beziers to achieve the effect?Or do I use a cookie cutter on a seperate track?

[Mike Kujbida]

Edward Troxel discusses a blurring technique (Blurring Faces a la “Cops”) in Vol. #1 Issue #12 of his newsletters.
http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20 to download it.

Masking/beziers can also be used for this purpose. Once again, go to Edward's newsletters, this time Vo.l #3 Issue #3 (Beginner’s Corner - Bezier Masks) at http://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/viewtopic.php?t=630

Mike

[Mike Kujbida]

If I re-render a file that's already been rendered, does it lose ANY quality in definition?

As long as you don't change anything (such as doing a dissolve), there won't be any difference.

What if I re-render it several times?

Nope. The Vegas DV codec is very good :-)

[Bogdan Vaglarov]

Well because I've decided to do same thing (NTSC footage to PAL DVD) this is what I want to add for the discussion.

I agree with most that was said but actually many of the players sold might actually to be set up to play back the NTSC on PAL only TV (at least the set up for output signal to be PAL should be done). It's other thing that many of the TVs in Europe are Multi system so you don't have to worry about that issue either.

And the second thing I want to point out is that we are talking about AUTHORING to PAL from NTSC raw footage I guess (not recompressing MPEG2 NTSC to PAL)

As I said I'm determined to use change in project and render the original NTSC project to both NTSC and PAL (once at a time). What do you think the results would be in such case?

[Edward Troxel]

I agree with Mike DEPENDING on what you are rendering from and to. If you have a DV-AVI file and render that to a DV-AVI file with no changes made on the timeline, the resulting file will be identical to the original file. If you render an MPEG2 file to an MPEG2 file, you will lose quality as each frame will be decompressed and recompressed.

SO... it depends on your source and destination formats. If you stick with DV-AVI, all will be fine.

[Steven Davis]

Is it possible, and I've tried, to save credit rolls to the library, while creating the library from a current project? I've read the manual and maybe I'm missing something.

My project includes credits and lead in credits that I want to save to a library and reuse over and over for each additional project.

[Edward Troxel]

You could copy all of these events to a "Library" project. Then you could just open the other project to copy them into an existing project.

If Vegas 6, you can make the credit roll its OWN project and then just save the VEG file. When you want that credit roll, just pop the VEG file onto the timeline.

[Ruben Pla]

So let me make sure I got this right, if I re-render an .avi file to another .avi file, it remains the same as long as no changes are made on the timeline. Does that include even just editing certain clips without adding any FX?

Also, when I render my .avi's into DVD Architect, they require me to do it as .mpeg2's. Does that mean that I'm losing resolution then?

Thank you.

[Dan Euritt]

you need to clarify "re-render".

if you change a transition on the timeline 20 times before you get it right, there will be no quality loss, because in the end, it's only getting changed once... despite being re-rendered many times.

if you were to lay a small graphic over a clip in the timeline, export it as a dv avi, then bring it back into the project, put another graphic on it, and export it yet again as a dv avi, you will take a quality hit... if you use the dv codec, you'll be hitting it with 5:1 compression both times, so in that case, you might want to consider using a lossless codec instead of the dv codec.

the market i serve would be able to handle the dv render/export/import/re-render scenario, but ymmv.

yes, you are losing resolution exporting to dvd mpeg2, but since that is the final destination, you don't have any choice.

[Edward Troxel]

Ruben, from DV-AVI to DV-AVI will simply COPY the unchanged sections so there will be zero quality loss on unchanged sections. If you add a DV-AVI to the timeline, cut out some pieces, and leave everything as cuts, there will be NO quality loss. If you create a crossfade, there will be 1 generation of quality loss but would not be visually noticable. If you then add that rendered clip to a new timeline with no changes, there would be no additional loss.

[Ruben Pla]

Thank you all for your help.

And thank you, Ed. As always, you made it crystal clear for me. (How's that cape of yours?)

Ruben

[Steven Davis]

That's true, I'll look into that idea. I do have Vegas 6. I did end up opening my old project and copying the credits. I guess when I think of a project library, I figured everything should be included.

[Matt Howell]

Gregory, I have only used a DSR-11 a few times but I don't think it can handle 24p DV directly. Here are a few things you can try to get export to tape working with your 24p project.

1. save your 24p project, then change the project properties to NTSC 29.97i and save as to a new project name for safety. Now try exporting to tape.

2. alternatively, open your original 24p project then "render as" the entire timeline to a new NTSC 29.97i DV-AVI. create a new 29.97 project and import the 29.97 DV-AVI you created and export that to tape.

3. some DV devices do not like 16:9 DV. So if your project is 16:9 you may need to change properties to/or render it as letterboxed 4:3 29.97i before you can export it to some tape/AV converter devices.

[John Rofrano]

Did you try saving the Credit Roll as a preset? (i.e., give it a name and press the diskette icon to save it) This will make it available in all your projects under the Preset dropdown.

~jr

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by John Rofrano

Did you try saving the Credit Roll as a preset?

For some reason, and I don't know why, I was assuming multiple keyframes. If it's a single keyframe, absolutely use a preset! Thanks, John, for bringing the forest into view instead of all those trees getting in the way.