Vegas Video discussions from 2006 (Q3Q4)

[Phil Hamilton]

I have a sword that I need a specialized light effect on. I would like the light to bounce off the tip in a starburst type effect. I know there is a lens flare but I need to be able to control the "starburst" effect and place it where I need it.

The same effect would be used for creating a sparkle in an eye or on a tooth if you get the idea.

I need ideas - I know they're there but can't yet figure this out. tks.

[David Ennis]

DVD Architect will no longer make a DVD folder for me. When it gets to writing the main VOB file I get the error message:

Warning: An error occurred while writing a file
Invalid data encountered when processing an MPEG file

This is driving me crazy. The program used to be so reliable. I've reinstalled XP, Vegas and DVD Architect.

Does anyone have a clue about this?

[James Binder]

Render as>select: windows media video V9>template, select: 512 kbps>custom button>video tab>mode:

What the difference between

CBR
CBR (two-pass)
Bit Rate VBR (Peak)
Quality
Bit Rate VBR

Driving me nuts – I’ve looked in the manual, did a search here and on the web in general -- and no luck!!

I understand the difference between CBR and VBR – but how about the variations ie, ‘Quality’ ‘VBR peak’, ‘Bit Rate VBR’ ??

Thanks!

[Jon Whiteford]

then you installed xp, then sp2, then any current upgrades and slipstreams.

then vegas, any updates and bugfixes, then the burner software (dvarchitect) and any updates.

then you DID NOT copy any OLD data (that might be corrupted or virus infected).

you captured NEW FILES from your camera and ran them thru vegas and tried to burn them and got the same error?

it happens every time on every file you try to burn?

if you restore old date, you could be restoring viruses or malware at the same time.

you could get a sector editor and page thru that file and see if a sector can't be read

before you reload again, I would download spybot search and destroy and ad-aware (NOT adware) and run them (BOTH, TWICE) then something like AVG, these are all free and you can get them at tucows.com, get the latest malware file definition updates

sacrafice goat/chicken......nothing smaller than a chicken tho.

if you know what kind of MB you have you could check for bios updates. unplug and replug the cables on your dvd burner, esp the ribbon connector at the burner, and the mb.

get some canned air and blow out the dvd burner........I'm running out of ideas.......

remember, nothing smaller than a chicken.

[Seth Bloombaum]

I thought I knew the WMV format really well, but I really don't use VBR much. Here are some hints for you:

CBR - constant bit rate. Good for most clips with consistent content. Quality is mostly determined by your choices in the bitrate tab and the quality slider (see below). It's good for web, because if you are on a WM server you can do multibitrate files under this option (windows media server only!) where there will be a handshake between the WM player and server where the player tells the server what bitrate to send, and it will autoadjust in changing conditions.

CBR (two-pass) - like above, but the first pass analyzes your clip so the encoder can do a better job on the second pass. Worth testing - see more on testing below. Takes twice as long.

Bit Rate VBR (Peak) - ummm when you choose this flavor of Variable Bit Rate, you get to choose the peak bitrate it wouldn't exceed. But, don't forget to add your audio bitrate to this number to get the overall bitrate. (***edit***)Good if your playback device has limited throughput, such as a CDROM drive (***end edit***). VBR is good if your clip is not of consistent complexity, it gives more bits to the complex parts and fewer to the simple parts.

Quality - this would be the slider between good motion follow at the possible expense of some blockiness to the left, and sharper to the right. Usually, somewhere between 75 and 90, but... see more on testing below.

Bit Rate VBR - Like VBR peak but you only specify an average bitrate, and let it peak as high as it wants. (***edit***) Good for hard-drive playback. (***end edit***)

*********edit*************
Note that VBR isn't for web distro - it doesn't do progressive download/play, nor will it work on a WM server. OK for download and then play, but who wants that?
*************************

You might find more information by downloading the freeware windows media encoder from microsoft and checking out the help files.

Bitrate is extremely important for internet distribution. Not so much for hard drive or Data-DVD or CD playback.

Your mileage ALWAYS varies. Encoding is an art as well as a craft - testing short excerpts is pretty dang important if encoding for web, and still desireable while you're figuring it out no matter how you're distributing or playing the content.

Complexity - How many pixels of the frame change on every frame? A pan, a dissolve, a jerky cam, noise due to gain or a single chip camera shooting black... all these things lead to every pixel changing on every frame. Takes more bits. For web distro, it's all about reducing bits.

So much of this is dependant upon your content - gotta' test.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Yeah, I'm agreeing with Jon mostly (not too sure about animal sacrifice... but then I've never tried it. Always thought barbeque had its own rewards, didn't notice any effects on the computers).

If you've done the obvious in the reinstalls, it sure seems like the next thing would be a reinstall/update of your burner drivers. Then BIOS flash (not for the faint of heart).

[Zdravko Jancevski]

I want to produce video clip from pictures with black background(moving stars, balloons, lens flares……) which I want to use as overlay video for my main video clip(video mask) but I have problem with making visible when I put the clip on the Vegas timeline.I use sequence of for example 50 JPG or BMB pictures with black background, putting them on the timeline and then render as AVI video clip with uncompressed RGB 32 AVI file wit 32 bit color depth. In Vegas I change the Alpha channel of the video clip from “None” to “Premultiplied(dirty)” but I still can’t get one overlay effect.
So, my main question is how I can get overlay effect from this video clip, how I should render this AVI file from pictures to make it visible with an overlay effect.
Regards.

[Peter Jefferson]

heaps of different ways..
first once u have ur slideshow thingy all set u can
1) Mess with teh clips opacityu
2) Mess with teh clip Parent child relationship in the Vegas compositing modes
3) use cokie cutter to create a frame
4) Use Mask generator to create a mask
5) use bezier masking to draw out your own cookie

thats jsut a couple of the simpler ones..

[Peter Jefferson]

" but I need to be able to control the "starburst" effect and place it where I need it."

keyframing is your friend.. ;) (note the twinkle in my eye)

[Mike Kujbida]

Here are links to 3 different threads on the Sony Vegas forum where folks were looking to do something similar. HTH.

Tooth sparkle effect
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/for...ssageID=207224

Sparkle in the eye
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/for...ssageID=233653

Sparkling Tooth - "ching"
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/for...ssageID=227605

[James Binder]

Seth --

Thanks for the great in depth info -- wow. Much appreciated.

Is there such a thing a 2 pass VBR? If so, Vegas seems to not have that option... or am I wrong?

[Seth Bloombaum]

Note the edit to my post above - vbr not for web!

To see all of what a windows media encode can do, I highly recommend downloading the WM encoder, it's free at microsoft. WME exposes *all* the encoding choices, Vegas & other tools are built upon it, but don't expose some of the less-common controls & choices.

If memory serves, (I don't use VBR much!), VBR is alway two-pass.

[Carl Downs]

Your replies are always greatly appriciated, Carl.

[Nick Hope]

I have done this in 3 different ways, sometimes one after another as appropriate on the same blobby clip:

1. Cut a hole through the footage over the dirt using a bezier mask with blended edges. It will just look like a black hole. Then place the same footage on a track below and move it a few pixels. Then it shows through the hole in the track above. This works well for areas of flat colour or cloudy skies etc.. It's useless when detailed action passes across the dirty area.

2. Use the Delogo plugin for VirtualDub. Both free tools. This works nicely and like other VirtualDub plugins can be used directly in Vegas using the free Wax plugin from debugmode.

3. Render the video to a image sequence under the Vegas scripting menu. I used PNG and kept it interlaced throughout. Paint out the dirt frame by frame in your image editor. I used Photoshop CS2 and monitored on a TV over IEEE1394 while I did it. After repairing the frames, save them as interlaced and reimport the image sequence by choosing "import media" in the project media window, choose the first frame of the sequence only, and tick the "image sequence" checkbox at the bottom left. This last method is time consuming but gives the best control for busy/moving scenes. It's quite an art getting consecutive frames to look similar when you paint them. Otherwise the repaired footage "shimmers" over the repair. I thought I would lose some quality during the export/reimport but it looks just like the original DV footage.

I hope this helps. Let us know which method works best.

[Jarrod Whaley]

You can also export a JPEG of the offending footage from the timeline, paint out the problem on a separate layer in Photoshop, delete all of the image except for the painted area, export as a PNG with transparency, and then drop this PNG on top of the original footage. The same issue that Nick describes in his first idea arises in these situations, however--if anything in the frame moves over the corrected area, the painted-in matte will be layered in on top of it.

This is what I typically do to remove boom mics, unwanted reflections, lighting cables, etc. from my footage. It works well and is pretty easy to deal with as long as the movement in the footage doesn't get in the way of the matte.