Vegas Video discussions from 2006 (Q3Q4)

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

You've already answered your own question. The Raylight codec is the best means of working with the files. Or, you could be converting to CineForm, or to the Adobe format, but since you've got Raylight, and the file size differences are negligible between the various decoders...stick with that.

[Matt Wright]

Hi There.

I am new to this forum, so please be kind to me, anyway I have been battlieng with this setup and wondered if anyone has any advice.

I have a MacPro running Boot camp and XP64, connected to a fibre channel SAN. I recently purchased a Blackmagic MultiBridge Pro, so that I can run both Sony Vegas and Final Cut on the same system, with the same hardware. Anyway, the only XP64 drivers that I can install with the Mutltibridge Pro card are versions 5.6.1 or version 5.7.3, both drivers work fine in windows, and I am running a trial of PremPro 2.0 which also works well with the card using either drivers.

So my problem is that Vegas 7.0b or 7.0c will just not see the card at all, no matter what I try, in the release notes of Vegas 7.0c it implied that there was improved suport for the BlackMagic products.

Does anyone have any ideas, or recommendations on how to get Vegas to work with the MultiBridge Pro.

Thanks

Matt

[Mark Howells]

This will probably be a very basic question but I've searched the threads and I can't seem to find a definitive answer.

Up to now, when preparing a DVD, I have rendered the edited file in Vegas to an mpg2 ,using the DVDA template, and the audio to Stereo WAV, both for importing into DVD Architect. This has produced satisfactory results.

However, in the threads it seems more popular to convert the audio to AC3. Is there a benefit to this other than creating more space on the disc for the visuals or does DVD Architect convert the uncompressed WAV file to AC3 anyway and it's therefore just a matter of whether this is done by Vegas or Architect ? I know the WAV file is recompressed by DVD Architect but not recompressed if AC3. If the compressed WAV file on the disc is just PCM, is this better or worse than AC3 ?

[Matt Wright]

Hi Mark.

There is no real benefit to AC3 encoding apart from saving space in the disc for video.

Not that there are any rules per say, but when we author DVD's if they are music titles or heavy in music we would try to keep them PCM. If your project was a standard (thats not a good word) video project, heavy in video effects or compositing, or fine details in the video you may as well encode to ac3 to give your video encoder a bit more bitrate to play with in the complex scense of the video.

AC3 stereo in very general terms is compressed usually to 192 kbs for DVD, this is very similar in approach to MP3 encoding music. You know it sounds good, you may lose a little but unless it is music you would be hard pushed to tell.

So there is no better or worse specific answer, but I would recommend looking at the type of project and ask yourself do I need the Best Video quality or the Best Audio Quality and use that to make your decision on whihc route to go. Encoding the audio in Vegas or Architect is exactly the same. So it sounds like you are doing everything right.

[Mark Howells]

I suspected that might be the answer but it doesn't hurt to ask.

Many thanks for your reply Matt.

[Steven Davis]

I'll plug Excalbur on this one. Mucho time saver.

[Edward Troxel]

Unless you tell it otherwise, DVD Architect will take your WAV file and convert it to AC3 for you anyway. The only advantage of doing it in Vegas instead of letting DVD A do it is that you have full control over all parameters in Vegas.

[Jarrod Whaley]

This is the most bizarre thing to have happened, and I have no idea what's going on. I should say that I'm no Vegas noob; I know what I'm doing.

I'm using Using Vegas 7.0b to edit a feature-length project, and I had a problem pop up today out of the clear blue sky. The project I'm working on is a plain old NTSC interlaced project, with footage from a Canon gl1 mixed in with (mostly) 30p footage from an XL2. I went to render out about a 3-minute section from footage entirely from the XL2, shot in 30p. The resulting video displayed some very nasty interlace artifacts, which shouldn't be the case since the footage was shot in 30p. Weird.

So then I go into the media properties for a randomly chosen event. Sure enough, the field order for the clip is set to progressive, when it should obviously be set to lower field first. OK, weirder, since I didn't change anything.

I begin to look at the field order settings for each individual event. Every one of them is set to progressive. I'm beginning to pull my hair out at this point, because it just makes no sense.

I check an old clip from the GL1--an interlace-only camera, mind you--and the field order in the media properties dialogue is again set to progressive. WTF?

The weirdest part yet: I start a new project with Vegas' generic NTSC DV preset. I import a clip. Check the field order. Progressive. Arrrgh.

Up until today, everything in this project was rendering out just as it should. Somehow the field order got changed for every media file in my project. And there are about 500 or so clips in the media pool.

I didn't change any global, project, or event preferences--unless my cat stepped on the keyboard or something, but I don't think that happened.

Anybody out there have even the foggiest idea about how this happened, or about how I can fix it without manually changing the settings on over 500 events? Please? Am I retarded? What am I missing here?

[Mark Howells]

Assuming there are no issues with fitting a project onto a DVD in terms of bitrates what would be the optimum settings for best quality?

At the moment I render to mpg2 using the DVDA template and author in DVD Architect. Up to now I haven't really adjusted the bitrates for the video or audio in Vegas, just leaving them at the default DVDA template settings. However, some of the projects I have burned to DVD have been 3 minute shorts for which the file sizes are nowhere near the maximum 4.7GB.

I have read that the combined bitrate for video, audio, menus etc should not exceed 10,080kbps and that the video max is about 9,000Kbps. So what settings would yield best theoretical results in these circumstances. ie CBR 8,000 - 9,000Kbps ?, VBR (what settings - max, average, min) or VBR (2-pass), and audio.

[David Jasany]

I just finished a project with DVDA4a. Somewhere along the line I lost my themes and background choices. Both windows are displayed, but with no themes or backgrounds. The only thing displayed in each window is "No Themes Available", or in the other window, "No Backgrounds Available".

I can pull up a new DVDA project or an old one and the standard themes and backgrounds are displayed.

Any suggestions? Thanks.
Dave

[Jeremy Hughes]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know if Vegas can export clips to tape from an entire timeline with handles? We have a feature we finished up and are pleased enough with it to have a Da Vinci CC done on it. The facility is requesting footage put onto DVCPro tape from the timeline with handles of around 5 frames on both the beginning and end of each clip. Avid does it, does Vegas?

Thanks for the help!
Jeremy

[John Rofrano]

I would not mess with the defaults except to turn them down to make more room on a DVD. Some DVD players choke at higher than normal bit-rates even though it's within the spec. Unless you are seeing unacceptable compression artifacts on your DVD, there is no need to turn the bit-rate up. Just use the DVD Architect templates. They work great.

~jr

[John Rofrano]

This wouldn't happen to be a "single movie" project would it? Since a single movie has no menus, the themes and backgrounds will display that there are none available. This is also true in a regular DVD project if you navigate into the media (like the video file) and then go to the themes and backgrounds tab, it will tell you there are none available. You have to be viewing a menu page for those tabs to show content.

~jr

[John Rofrano]

Yes. When you select File > Save there is a checkbox at the bottom of the window that says, "Copy and trim media with project. If you select this option, the next window will prompt you for the size of the "handles" (although it doesn't use that term). You can adjust it to whatever you need.

It's a good idea to select a new folder to placed the trimmed media in. Then after you process those clips, open that saved project file because it now links to the trimmed media instead of the original media.

~jr

[Jeremy Hughes]

Thanks John,

Thats a big help! One more question. Is there a way after copying out to then print all those clips to tape in batch? Or skip the copy to a new drive and just put it straight to tape like that?