Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q3Q4)

[Don Parrish]

vv3 split screen help

I have followed sonic foundry's knowledge base for splitting the screen, create 3 tracks, upper is solid color media generator bottom 2 are video one parent one child, my problem is that I can't quite seem to get the hang of controling the pan crop effect, control of the pan crop field is difficult, any suggestions? ( I have come to the conclusion the 300 page manual is going to be worth the 35 bucks).

[Edward Troxel]

Maybe you could explain a little better what you are trying to accomplish. First, I would try this (if all you want is video 1 on the left and video 2 on the right).

1) Have TWO tracks with Video 1 on track 1 and Video 2 on track 2 and DO NOT use the Parent/Child control.

2) Use Track Motion on each track to resize and position the tracks as desired (i.e. for track 1 to be on the left half, change the center to X=0 and for track 2 to be in the right half, change the center to X=720) Note that you will ONLY see the right half of Video 1 and the left half of Video 2 at this point.

If this is not what you are wanting to accomplish, please try explaining again. Using both Event Pan/Crop and Track Motion together can give you a LOT of effects.

[Don Parrish]

I am creating a demo tape, One effect I want to show in the demo is the ability to split the screen, example, person on the left performing a task, text on right listing steps to take. Basically split screen with two tracks running simultaneously. I believe that I have discovered something during my search. You either have to distort the fields, or only display half of each track, that is not to bad since the video can be re-shot easily. but that is what I want, to show the ability to create advanced video effects. (even though that may be a simple one).

[Edward Troxel]

I would definitely reshoot and position the person on either the right or left side and only use that half of the display OR use Track Motion to move the person over to the side and the cover up the overflow into the other side by either using Pan/Crop to eliminate the extra or covering it with a solid "background" color.

The text is EASY to move. First of all, you have to type short lines anyway (they won't auto-wrap). So, make sure you enter lines that are less than 1/2 the total width of the screen. The second tab on the text editing box is Position - use this tab to move the text over to the right with NO TRACK MOTION NECESSARY. Also, remember the TV safe area. If you are viewing the preview window (as opposed to external), turn on the TV safe area display and stay inside the inner line. The Position tab on the editing box also shows the TV safe area. (the button looks like two dashed squares (one inside the other) above the preview window.

[Dave Deng]

Hi all,

Im fresh from the VASST Vegas seminar in Melbourne and have to say that it was awesome!!! Douglas Spotted Eagle done a great job.

There is one question that I forgot to ask and here it is. I hope you can shed some light:

I have captured footage of local traffic at night and have speed it up to be very rapid. What I need is an effect that will blur the headlights from the passing cars as to give an effect that a slow shutter would usually do. Unfortunately my camera does not support different shutter speeds, so an alternative editing solution is my only option. Can anyone help me???

[Edward Troxel]

One thing you could try would be to put multiple copies of the clip on top of itself offset slightly. Chang the opacity of the top one to fairly low, the next one a little higher, the next one a little higher, and the bottom one at the full level. Then the lights would really be in 4 places at the same time leaving a trail.

This process is built-into the "Ssstttutering Video" tool in Tsunami. There is also a "Time Delay" tool of some sort in the Pixelan tools.

[Peter Jefferson]

Pixelan have a plugin called Step Motion, which allows u to alocate certain gammas to be affects by the "stream" bit like setting a tracer on highs (whites) or lows (blacks)
best way to use this though is on multiple tracks (2 tracks) with the second track running 80% opacity with this effect, while the lower track is runnin normal..

i use thiw withthe DVX time lapse features to create a smoother blend

[Dave Deng]

Thanks for your help guys. Ill give the offset on the timeline a shot and if it doesnt work then I'll have to invest in the Pixelan Plugins. Thanks again!

[Lars Siden]

Hi Folk,

Anyone tried Vegas 5 on a Win 2003 server machine? I'm soon going to get a new server and I would like to run Vegas/Netrender on that machine ( I'd prefer to have a full Vegas copy on that machine as well, so I could work on any of the machines ). Main goal should be to use my current machine as editor and the new server for net-renders and format transformation using Procoder(if it runs under Win 2003 server... it's dongled so maybe not... )

// Lazze \\

[Edward Troxel]

With the most current version of Vegas 5 (5.0b) you DO install the full product on all machines for network rendering. Just remember you cannot legally have the full product open on both machines.

[Lars Siden]

Morning(at least here in sweden :-) Ed,

Luckily I have 2 licenses - more or less. One personal, and one license to the company where I'm employed ( we use Vegas to produce small commercial films for web-sites. ).

But back to my original question, can I run Vegas 5.0B on a Win 2003 server? I run it just fine on Win XP Pro SP2 both with DEP enabled and disabled. Sonys website & manual says Windows 2000 and XP as platform....

Best regards,

Lazze Z

[Edward Troxel]

I don't 100% have that answer but I *think* it is YES. Give it a try and let US know!

[Lars Siden]

I'll have the new machine within 3 weeks or so - will keep you posted with my results!

// Lazze

[Marko Xorg]

I'm using Vegas 4, and when trying to capture video from mu dv camera, all looks fine, counters running etc, but when I hit stop, new window popup "Capture complete" but it says "no video was captured".
What am I doing wrong ?
I recently instaled and registered Vegas 4.
Could it be because my HD is slow ?
Please help !

Marko

[Edward Troxel]

As a test, try this:

Go to Options - Preferences and turn OFF the "minimum clip length" option.