Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q3Q4)

[Emre Safak]

Talk about withholding features... (What is the marketing term for that?) I bet it will be conveniently available in the next version!

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by Emre Safak

I bet it will be conveniently available in the next version!

It hasn't become available over the past several versions. Not a bet I would make. The reasoning behind this has been explained in the past.

Here's a huge discussion on this topic:
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/for...ssageID=398476

Here's the official answer:
Sync to timeline is grayed out for generated media because the media might be used in muliple events, which might use time stretching or velocity envelopes. It's not always a one-to-one mapping, so sync is always grayed out.

The answer is found in this thread:
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/for...ssageID=132772

[Troy Haines]

Hi all,

I currently loading my *.m2t files in Sony Vegas 6c and happily editing. My questions are; What choice do I need to choose to output to the same format (*.m2t) So I can send the footage back to tape? Secondly what choices do i choose to render to a format to make a dvd ??

Cheers for the input

[Ian Slessor]

Hello all,

Here's my question regarding button pics in DVDA2.

On my main menu screen I have two options. One to simply play the DVD and the other to choose a chapter.

I would like to have the button graphic (a toy soldier) appear only beside one menu button at a time. For instance the user can move through the main menu screen's options and the button graphic only appears beside the button that is currently selected.

I've been playing around with DVDA2 and visited the manual...yeesh, and I'm having some difficulty making it work.

Any assistance is appreciated.

sincerely,

ian

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Ian,
Are you trying to accomplish this with separate masks, or using a Photoshop PSD file?

[Matt Brabender]

I tackled this same problem a while ago and found the answer.
I hope this helps:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...ight=architect

Hi All

What do you guys think is better FCP or Vegas ? So far ive only used Vegas and Premiere and for me Vegas wins out of those 2, hands down.

Im only going by what i saw when Premiere was on version 6 but things like mixing PAL and NTSC in Vegas and also the ability to edit VOB files off a DVD and the ease of the interface just blows Premiere out of the water i think.. Not to mention the audio benefits of Vegas!! Which are phenominal.

Ive mixed many 24 to 32 track audio projects and run my cpu up with plugins to literally 100% capacity and i cant recall ever having a crash or a real failure.. It might stutter a bit when your cpu chokes but never looses responsivness or crashes, its a total pleasure..

For audio i dont see myself leaving Vegas at all.. But for video im curious about FCP.. I like the multicam editing feature that ive read about on the web page.. Also its a lot more standard than Vegas but ive found many examples where what is standard isnt necessarily the best or most intuitive to use..

One of the things that makes a good program i think is quick access to options.. In Vegas you locate the spot where you want to split a clip and hit S and its done.. To fade betwen clips you just drag them together etc.. I find that really easy..

In Premiere to split a clip you had to change your tool to the cut tool, then line it up and click, then go back and change to your original tool... Its not that its hard but its a few steps more than vegas and when you do it often it slows you down etc..

Anyhow im thinking about shifting to FCP but its gotta be worth my while to spend the $$'s.. Appreciate any feedback..

you can set your project properties to either PAL or NTSC it will only affect your preview, it wont truncate your clip.. If you right click on the clip and change its individual propeties then you will affect your clip..

Just load up a project at the same settings as your original footage and then render to NTSC.. easy.. You can even load the VOB files off your PAL DVD and render off those if you have already edited a sequence etc.. Your best bet for that though would be extract the DVD as one large VOB file with something like DVD Decrypter and import it as 1 file, the VOB files on the DVD will be 1gig chunks..

Bare in mind using the VOB files will be re encoding already compressed footage and not the best idea quality wise.

[Sean Seah]

Yeah thanks.I work on that.Lucily my footage is in PAL.avi No problems with the quality.Only thing is it is taking 20mins longer to render as compared to PAL. I suppose this is due to the extra 5fps...

[Aaron Koolen]

Hi Randy. I've made the switch recently from Vegas to FCP and have done a couple of smallish projects, so I'll offer what advice and opinions I can.

FCP has a razor command like Premiere, but it also has an Add Edit command (Control-V by default) so you can work both ways. Actually, if you're chopping up some footage in numerous places, the razor tool is actuallt very quick. Just hit 'b' to switch to it and then point and click at the cut points.

I haven't yet found an auto-transition mode/method that works when you drag a clip in the timeline over another one but there is a way to insert new clips from the Viewer (Trimmer in Vegas) and add the default transition.

The audio envelope tweaking in FCP is more fiddly and less friendly than Vegas, but FCP does have the advantage that you generally don't have to do the old "Apply non-realtime FX" that you have to in Vegas for some things.

FCP is more anal about having video and audio that matches your Sequence (.veg). While it can take some differing file formats it works best if they are all the same as your sequence. A little annoying (Especially if I'm given something like an MPG file, but not impossible to work around - I just render it out)

FCP's multicam editing is pretty nice. It took a while to get my head around it at first, but once I did I liked it. It's more integrated than the Vegas options. Clips themselves can be multicamera and are used just like normal clips.

Throwing basic text over your edit in FCP seems to be quite slow when playing back (Dropped frames on render) and I haven't found a simply way to make this faster.

Project based media management in FCP is a little better. Bin handling, information etc is a little less flaky than what I've experienced in Vegas.

I personally hated how vegas auto selects when you drag on the timeline ruler. FCP is a simple scrub playhead like Premiere.

Logging of clips to capture allows you to specify more information to keep track of your clips (Angle, Shot etc)

General interface responsiveness in FCP is worse than Vegas by quite a bit. It's not unusable, but you do notice it.

I have yet (Please someone tell me there is one) find a colour curves tool in FCP. There are correctors and tonnes of filters, but I can't find one like the Vegas curves.

One thing, and it's a small but nice thing, that I like in FCP is that if you've cut (split) a clip at some point and then later want to join that point again, FCP has a command for that. In Vegas you have to use a script.

Also in FCP, I've noticed that there millions of keyboard short cuts for just about everything, and if I got to know them all, I'd imagine that my editing would be lightning fast. A simple thing like nudging a clip to the left 20 frames (where using arrow keys would be tedious) only requires you to start typing numbers and then hit enter.

Compositing modes are not built into the tracks in FCP, you need to apply an arithmetic filter. Likewise, I have not found a way to apply audio filters to a track as a whole (Like a Bus or some such)

Basically, Vegas is great. Really good audio tools, responsive interface lots of stuff packed into one unit. FCP is also great, lots of professional features, and a little more 'AVID' like in it's interface, if you're looking for some sort of standard. If you were doing midrange projects (Corporate vids etc) where you weren't going out to/in from film, I think it'd be a toss up although I'd probably go FCP, just because it does offer a little more and it can do everything that I needed from Vegas.

For the me the choice was basically that I wanted to move to the Mac platform, I HATE my past experiences with Avid, and felt that for the price Vegas 6 upgrade was a let down and that Sony missed the boat a bit on it re it's media management.

Anyone want to buy Vegas 6 from me? :)

[Richard Firnges]

Hallo Troy,

for printig HDV back to tape you should chose "save as mpg". And than You will find the right template. The template will be labeled as "creating a m2t- file..."
For making a DVD I would first downconvert to SD und then use one of DVD -templates which meets Your demands.

Greetings Richard

yes the format conversion will add to your render time

[Mike Kujbida]

Originally Posted by Sean Seah

Only thing is it is taking 20mins longer to render as compared to PAL. I suppose this is due to the extra 5fps...

Be thankful you're not going the other way. I did a 2 hr. project recently that took about 3 hr. to render (NTSC). The same file took around 30 hr. to render to PAL :-(
I know that I could have sent them an NTSC DVD but I wasn't taking any chances that their player would handle it.

Mike

[Edward Troxel]

Take a look at Vol 2 #6 of my newsletters. It explains masked menus in DVDA.

[Reid Bailey]

Thanks,

I'll give it a shot!