Vegas Video discussions from 2006 (Q1Q2)

[Brian Child]

Maybe I can put this question another way ...

I want to render from an .m2t file processed by CineForm Connect HD into a Connect HD .avi file to an HD 720-24p MPEG-2 file (thus preserving a 1280x720 resolution but in an mpeg-2 format).

What should my rendering settings be in Vegas 6.0(d)?

(perhaps my lack of practical knowledge is killing me here, and I can certainly render to files with a .wmv or a .m2t extension keeping the 1280x720 res, but I just can't seem to get Vegas to save to a file with a .mpg extension at that res)

[Shawn Redford]

Sytnax Olevia LCD TVs http://www.syntaxgroups.com/ are supposedly good quality at a low price, but I don't know if they are good enough for editing. Many users have rated their 26" HDTV with positive reviews.. However, if you want a true 1080p monitor, then check out this thread.

[Eric Stromblad]

Thank you guys so much - this worked perfectly. Sorry about the list of
"not gonna do its" sounding a bit snoby. Sometimes I post something and I get responces that are way off center like suggesting editing mpgs or something.

I thought for sure that TVs all generated different black bars, because they look blacker on computer screens and more grey on TVs. This wasn't the case, monitors are just usually set darker or something. I tested it on every monitor, tv, portable DVD player and computer that I have and it works perfectly, no matter the brightness setting.

I now have a saved timeline with a 16% generated media grey clip and several different crop macros for different aspect ratios, and am ready to roll.

My rendering time is even more horrible now, but I think that when I buy my decklink card and SCSI array and use uncompressed video, that will solve that problem.

Anyone trying this be sure to use the generated media clip from Vegas under the video and not a bmp made in photoshop or whatever. The generated media clip should be uniform with the color settings all the way through your output in DVD architect. And if you use a color filter on your video (like I do) be sure to only apply it to the clip or the track(s) necessary and not the whole project (because then it will skew the grey clip). I'm glad I didn't have to end up using a different authoring software, because I really love Architect.

[David Tyler]

Not sure if you've got a different version of Vegas, but on mine the column view ('grid') comes up automatically in media manager but the only column relating to date and time is one labelled 'original date' which is empty for all media. However, given that these are long clips covering multiple dates, I'm not sure what it should say? There's no date/time stamp option in 'column chooser'.

Update: I thought it might be something to do with the camcorder (HC1) or a feature missing from HDV footage so I tried adding a short avi file filmed with a different Sony DV camcorder that I know recorded this info. The file is a clip all filmed on the same day but still nothing in the 'original date' field.

I would have expected to see something on the clips on the timeline so that when it changes I could see imediately which clips relate to which dates/times. I tried turning on 'view active take information' but that only seemed to put the name of the file on the clip.

More thoughts welcome.
Thanks

[Rob Lohman]

That procedure works for Vegas 5. I haven't tried it yet with version 6 (as always not enough time in a day). Sorry!

[Brandon Wood]

I'm not sure if this can be done, but I have a scene that has a heavy shadow over an object that I want to be seen more. Is there a way to lighten just the shadowed area a bit?

[David Jimerson]

You can do it a few ways, but your best bet might be with the Color Curves.

Using the RGB curve, raise the lower left corner a little bit.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Originally Posted by Brandon Wood

I'm not sure if this can be done, but I have a scene that has a heavy shadow over an object that I want to be seen more. Is there a way to lighten just the shadowed area a bit?

Brandon, there is indeed.
You can use a mask or cookie cutter to isolate the area you wish to lighten so it doesn't affect the other areas. YOu'll want to use either Curves or secondary color correction to achieve this.
Make a dupe track of the trouble area.
Isolate top track problem areas with mask
Apply curves or SCC
Blend top and bottom.
You may/likely will need to toggle the SCC or Curves to apply BEFORE the mask, using the pre/post toggle in the SCC or Curves filters.

There is a tutorial on this found at: http://vasst.com/resource.aspx?id=b6...9-d8621e39d313

[edit] looks like David beat me to the post!

[Brandon Wood]

thanks to both of you, I will try it!

[Matt Brabender]

I've made my project in dvda. I have the film in mpeg2 format on the main menu with it's partnered ac3 audio file.

I press preview and go through it to make sure it's ok. It works perfectly - looks & sounds great.
I press make dvd, press 'burn'. It prepares the files and burns a dvd.
The movies looks perfect but there is no audio.

There's no warning messages in the prepare stage.
I tried re-rendering the audio track. I deleted the prepared files and re-prepared the dvd.
Still the same problem.

Please help - I'm stuck.

[Edward Troxel]

There are a couple of things I've seen that can cause this:

1) The audio is on the left only and the right is all that's plugged in (or the other way around)

2) The audio from left+Right is being combined into a single audio input and the two channels are cancelling each other out.

If it previews fine in DVDA, the audio should also be present on the DVD.

[Matt Brabender]

Yep, you were right
my bad - thanks Ed

[Tom Johnson]

i have a finished 720p hdv file i want to network render using to networked computers. I have set up a shared folder on my e drive with the vegas project not the media. media is on e drive though. when i goto render with networked checked vegas trys to open up that service and says network service not available. it is a full version of vegas. i know the computers are linked. but it seem microsoft net 1.1 is having trouble mabye????


1. do i need vegas installed on both machines and running on both machines to do this.

2. Can i do this if my media files are in cineform codec and the codec is not installed on both machines

2. if i have magic bullet effects do i need to install that on both machines too or are third party effects, text, and codecs only for nested projects like it says in the help section.


I already have a pretty fast machine but want more power!!! lol

[Tom Johnson]

nevermind i think this is not going to work anyhow from the research i have done. seems like with the large source files from hdv incineform codec it is just going to make things longer even with a 100mbps network card.. the test i read work well with small source files and heavy effecets...

but rate my rendering time anyhow

1080i cineform footage 3minutes 21 secs long with magic bullet applied to entire timeline going to wmv 720 30p 6mbps. 26 minutes

oh and can you even tell a difference with 1080 and 720p. i got that newwidescreen gateway monitor 1000:1 contrast looks real nice. 21". 720 looks just as good. mabye only see a difference on big screen huh?

[Brandon Wood]

Hope I'm not asking too many questions lately, but I'm trying to edit down a wedding and keep running into little issues that really annoy!

In this case I am editing down a slideshow using digital pics taken by the wedding photographer in Vegas5. In certain pictures in the slideshow (after rendering and encoding) there is a drastic 'shimmer' effect that is horrible (mainly with subjects against white backgrounds).

Without dealing with stills that often in Vegas, I'm not sure if its because they are rendered interlaced, just badly encoded or something else. They are very high resolution JPEGs and I am using Canopus at a fairly high encoding bitrate.

Anyone else had this issue or know of a fix?