Vegas Video discussions from 2006 (Q3Q4)

[John Huling]

I guess I could use some help too with Vegas 7

Could someone help and give me a simple step by step instruction of how to get my video HD 60i from my Canon XH A1 to my computer at the highest quality possible to make a viewable DVD. I know how to connect it wirh the firewire and the computer sees the video. Just the quality is not right jumpy, stutters, soft looking image.
i.e. what setting should I capture the video at on the computer?
Save as what kind of file?
I tried opening the rendered project in DVD architect and it does not see it in the browser folder. The manuals just say choose a file not which one.
For example when one renders audio in ProTools the manual let's you know for commercial release you need to render your project at 16 bit 44.1.
It would have been nice to just have a starter from Camera to Vegas to DVD Architect final DVD Burn. Is there a good primer anyone could recommend?
Thanks

[John Huling]

Sorry to repost but I don't think what I posted would be found where it was.
I could use some help with Vegas 7

Could someone help and give me a simple step by step instruction of how to get my video HD 60i from my Canon XH A1 to my computer at the highest quality possible to make a viewable DVD. I know how to connect it wirh the firewire and the computer sees the video. Just the quality is not right jumpy, stutters, soft looking image.
i.e. what setting should I capture the video at on the computer?
Save as what kind of file?
I tried opening the rendered project in DVD architect and it does not see it in the browser folder. The manuals just say choose a file not which one.
For example when one renders audio in ProTools the manual let's you know for commercial release you need to render your project at 16 bit 44.1.
It would have been nice to just have a starter from Camera to Vegas to DVD Architect final DVD Burn. Is there a good primer anyone could recommend?
Thanks

[Seth Bloombaum]

***edit***

reposted here:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=81031

[Seth Bloombaum]

Likely the capture is just fine on disk. Set your preview window to "Preview-Auto" and see what it looks like. Then, try "Preview-Best". See where you get the best combo of good playback frame rate and sharpness. This only affects what you see when you're editing.

Above assuming that you captured with Vegas. What processor and how much RAM do you have?

Douglas Spotted Eagle's "Vegas Editing Workshop" book got me started back with V4 (thanks DSE!), he has updated it with each new release, not sure if it is out for V7, check out vasst.com. There are also DVDs, if you learn better by seeing than reading.

Edward Troxel has some great free newsletters that always have a "beginners corner". jetdv.com Read all the way back to the first ones, you'll get a lot out of them.

Preparation for DVD - File | Render As | Type: MainConcept MPEG 2 | Template: DVD Architect NTSC (widescreen?) Video Stream

Then, do the same again for your audio track Type: Dolby Digital AC-3 | Template: Stereo DVD

These templates will get you started with renders that DVD Architect can recognize and use.

[John Huling]

Thanks Seth
I am using a centrino Vaio laptop 1.8. I also have a dual 2.5 mac but no editing software except imovie on it I think. 2G ram. That laptop is optimized for Protools so it should handle the video but I don't really know anything about that for sure. Will this be the best quality? I know I can save it as HD and render as SD right or am I wrong.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by John Huling

I guess I could use some help too with Vegas 7

Is there a good primer anyone could recommend?

We need more information about what version of Vegas you are using.

Ultimately, with the stutter you are describing, your system seems to be having issues, so you should give us idea what up there to, ie., give us your set up info.

[Derek Grimes]

I need help color correcting!!! I am getting the VASST DVD on color correcting for Christmas(Gift from my son) so I can not get it until then. In the mean time, what would be the best way to correct the differnce in the color of the jacket this lady is wearing...any help is appreciated. Image0 is closest to real life

[Don Bloom]

looks more like Exposure than color to my tired old eyes. I would pull a screen shot of A to the clipboard put the cursor over the area you want to fix then Split Screen the image. Use LEVELS FXs and adjust gamma first and see how that looks. You can always goto the Color Correction FX if necessary to highten up the color.
Don

[Emre Safak]

Notice how much brighter the first one is. That means you need to set your white point more aggressively in the second one. Then you need to use secondary color correction to get the reds in line. In Photoshop I found the following settings worked well:

Levels: move highlight from 255 to 190
Hue/Saturation: shift red +15, making sure to deselect the skin.

You can do the same thing in Vegas....

[Dave Stern]

Originally Posted by John Huling

...Could someone help and give me a simple step by step instruction of how to get my video HD 60i from my Canon XH A1 to my computer at the highest quality possible to make a viewable DVD. I know how to connect it wirh the firewire and the computer sees the video. Just the quality is not right jumpy, stutters, soft looking image.
i.e. what setting should I capture the video at on the computer?
Save as what kind of file?

(deep breth - this is not quite the 1,2,3 but almost, but with some notes)

HD you're going to use the vegas capture for HD - file / capture video, and you should get a prompt of HD or SD .. pick of course based on your source; vegas will pull up the right capture program (and as a side note, unless you're using a blu ray or HD DVD burner & player, your player won't send HD to the set. if delivery is SD DVD, your going to need to downres to SD either out of the A1 or in vegas (or shoot in SD, even at widescreen).

when you capture, you'll get full quality if you don't drop any frames (vegas shows you how many if any are dropped, typically due to PC/hard drive that can't keep up). as long as no dropped frames, your file is on your pc at the requested quality.

codec note - ("save as what kind of file?"): when you capture, you are going to capture in either the mpeg2 codec which is same as is on your tape or use an 'intermediate' codec which may be more suitable for editing, and also may give better performance when previewing your source. If you're not going to edit, you can capture in the m2t format. If you are going to edit, vegas comes with a version of the cineform codec which improves performance when editing..you can capture using that codec. All of this is set in the preferences of the HD capture program (press the 'prefs' button in the capture section and you'll see it). If you feel you'll do a lot of editing, etc. you can upgrade ($200) to the more full conncect HD cineform add on. Try using their free version first and see if that removes some of the jittering / stuttering you see when you try to play your timeline in vegas on your pc. As for softness, everything you set the camera for should be there, so if it's soft, it may be just a function of your video preview window.

Originally Posted by John Huling

I tried opening the rendered project in DVD architect and it does not see it in the browser folder. The manuals just say choose a file not which one.
For example when one renders audio in ProTools the manual let's you know for commercial release you need to render your project at 16 bit 44.1.

strictly speaking, you can't open your vegas 'project' in DVDA, you'll just import your rendered files. render as per seth (is your laptop 1.8 ghz? mine's just a bit over 2ghz, so won't be terribly fast, but should be ok). If you want to render in one step for both audio and video, use the DVDA NTSC template, but on the audio tab, just check off 'include audio stream'. DVDA will use both the audio and video from this file. one note, I've noticed that the DVDA default now seems to be 48khz for the audio, which is correct for DVD (it used to default to 44.1 like on a CD and you'd have to change it all the time, but if you ever have audio problems importing a file, this is one of the first things to check). The file to open will be in the same folder in which you renderd it to in vegas - use the explorer tab in DVDA and just drag and drop your file onto a menu in DVDA and that's it. If you don't want a menu, you can do file/new, and select the movie only template, and it will just give you a dialogue box to select your mpeg file right from there! and presto, then just click 'make dvd'.

well, that's probably more than you were looking for..vegas and DVDA are great but just take a bit of learning...and this is somewhat complicated by adding HD to the mix.

throw back some questions and we'll see what we can do!!

[Mitch Buss]

Hello again. I am beginning to experiment with HD rendering in Vegas and recently rendered a clip with it, and the clip came out with the extension .m2t. What is this, and is there a way to convert it to avi or mpg? Thanks for any input.

Mitch

[Greg Boston]

It's already MPG, Mitch. M2T means MPEG-2 Transport Stream. Transport stream is one in which there is audio and video together. Elementary stream would contain video only. You can change the extension to MPG and it should still play just fine.

-gb-

[Mitch Buss]

Thanks a lot man. I appreciate it. Now one other question, you said that transport stream have the audio and video together, how is that different from a regular MPEG2 file? The audio and video are in one file, what is the difference? I know this may seem like a novice question, but I'm still learning. Thanks again.

[Glenn Chan]

The DVD explains this well, since it shows you the whole process including how to use the clipboard function. (It's the camera matching section/chapter.)

For a quick rundown, you can take a look at my .veg and look at the filter chains.
http://www.glennchan.info/Proofs/dvinfo/dgrimes.veg

Basically:
A- The unsharp mask on the wider camera tries to make the perceived sharpnesses match.
B- The exposure on the second camera was brought up. I prefer using the input start and input end over gamma, since gamma causes subtle changes in hue and saturation.
C- The secondary CC makes the coat color match. You can use another secondary CC on the wall too.
D- Color corrector to get white balance. (I was lazy here. It should be applied to both clips.)

Cheers.

[Dave Stern]

Originally Posted by Mitch Buss

Thanks a lot man. I appreciate it. Now one other question, you said that transport stream have the audio and video together, how is that different from a regular MPEG2 file? The audio and video are in one file, what is the difference? I know this may seem like a novice question, but I'm still learning. Thanks again.

hi Mitch ... actually this page has a lot of info.. there are others, but this one's ok (I haven't verified all of the facts on it):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDV

the hdv mpeg stream is a long GOP format of mpeg, where there are fewer I (full) frames than the mpeg2 which is used for SD DVD's, for example. So, the mpeg compression's the same concept, but different structure of the group of pictures (sets of full frames(I) and partial frames (B frames)).

you wouldn't want to convert an M2T format back to AVI, unless it were the original M2T file off your mini DV tape and you want to edit it. some PCs are ok performance with the M2T editing, or you can convert it to and AVI and use a codec like cineform to get good performance and get away from the M2T mpeg format.