Vegas Video discussions from 2003

Edward Troxel · August 19th, 2003, 02:53 PM

They are being released by Zenote. No dates given yet - still in beta.

Dave Largent · August 19th, 2003, 05:22 PM

Hi,
I work with Vegas 4. I'm trying to create titles that appear that
they are being written out in long-hand while the viewer is watching. Anyone know how to do this?
Dave.

Harry Settle · August 19th, 2003, 07:14 PM

Someone else might have a better solution, but, I seem to remember a veg file at the sundance site that allowed you to do this.

Glen Elliott · August 19th, 2003, 07:54 PM

I just finished editing the first part (ceremony) of the most recent wedding video I'm working on. I decided to break out the camera tonight and connect it to an external monitor (television) to see how it looks. Let me tell you...I'm glad I did!
It looked terrible, the colors looked so good in the monitor window on my computer but turned out too rich (too dark and overly saturated) on the TV monitor. About 80% of my footage needed HSL adjustments along with some Levels and Color Balance tweaks. I had no clue the tweaks I made "in-camera" turned out like this on the screen. On camera A (DVX100)I purposely cranked up the black pedestal and upped the chroma level to try and match camera B (GL-1) super saturated colors. Apparently my LCD on my camera isn't very accurate either. UGH

On a good note it only took about an hour to sort thru the clips on the timeline one by one and make the necissary color adjustments. I rendered out the sequence of edits to one long AVI file (which took quite a bit of time, maybe the color adjustments made lengthened the render time) played it back...now it looks washed out and low-contrast in the vegas preview window but looks great on the TV monitor. I recomend everyone to make use of the preview to external monitor you might be surprised at what your footage REALLY looks like!

Don Bloom · August 19th, 2003, 08:08 PM

I have never trusted the on camera LCD for anything but framing and the computer monitor is even worse. I have 3 different systems I edit on and none of the monitors shows the same. The worst is the laptop, the best is my primary system with the dual monitors but I still use a TV with the camera pass thru. My old NTSC monitor died-proper burial has taken place :-(
Don

Peter Jefferson · August 20th, 2003, 12:29 AM

yeah, with the monitor "monitoring" it is a little darker with alot less contrast....

one thing i do as i use 2 LCD's in post is view the footage as its being captured.

this way i will have a fairly basic idea as to where to keep my colour levels when wirking with effects and colour corrections...

the DVX is an awsome camera and what your doing seems to defeat the purpose of its existance.
IMO i think you should try to match camB to the DVX footage in post or use the footage as supplemental to the DVX instead of tryin to match the 2 by using effects and slow mos from cam b with the main footage on cam a.

Vegas4 has awesome colour correcting capabilities, have you read the supplemental manual? It literally matches colours and saturation levels from differnt cams...
there are also projects which demonstate film/dv interchaged footage...
all these can be found on sonic foundrys site.

Tor Salomonsen · August 20th, 2003, 12:53 AM

Here's one way to do it:
http://home.hesbynett.no/saltor/_test/write2.wmv

I don't think Vegas can create a properly animated write sequence, so some sort of trick is needed. Look for the veg file Harry mentioned. I've heard about it, but never seen it.

Glen Elliott · August 20th, 2003, 06:23 AM

I had to use my GL-1 as a reference beings the settings I chose turned out so terrible. I shot an earlier wedding using F1 mode and it lacked contrast- the blacks looked dark grey. I used that info and adjusted the blackpoint. I also upped the chroma- which I never should have done trying to get that highly saturated image the GL-1 produces. One I actually prefer for wedding videography. I know the DVX is far superior of a cam to the GL-1, it was just an instance where the GL-1 footage turned out better due to my idiotic tweaks in-camera on my DVX.

I'll soon have to learn the more complex color correction tools in Vegas. Right now I'm only working with color balance to fix bad white balance.

Brad Higerd · August 20th, 2003, 06:25 AM

Glen,

I tried what you suggested, and it looks like I have introduced soon aliasing/deinterlacing to the higher motion portions of the video. I believe the two video tracks were aligned correctly. as far as any still frames go, the effect looks great, but when I play the video, it looks a little rough (particularly the part fore mentioned).

Brad

Glen Elliott · August 20th, 2003, 06:29 AM

Did you pre-render it?

Brad Higerd · August 20th, 2003, 06:39 AM

I actually rendered a 30 min episode. It took about 4 hours with a 800MHz FSB 2.8GHz P4 PC.

Rob Lohman · August 20th, 2003, 07:00 AM

That depends on how your footage was shot. Vegas can do
de-interlacing (no idea how it looks, since I always shoot in
"progressive" mode)

Glen Elliott · August 20th, 2003, 07:39 AM

What do you mean exactly by aliasing/deinterlacing- they are two totally different things. Describe what you see the best you can. Posting a sample clip would be most beneficial for us.
I can't imagine what problems you would have by simply applying a gaussian blur @ 50% opacity to a duplicated track/clip. Unless of course maybe your footage is a frame off sync. A good way to get them in sync is to double click one of the tracks to create a selection the total lenght of the track then drag the other clip over that area to snap to the guides from the selection.

What format did you render out to?

Glen Elliott · August 20th, 2003, 07:41 AM

Ed is there a site we can visit to find out more about Tsunami? Is it officially released yet?

Brad Higerd · August 20th, 2003, 08:01 AM

I used the exact technique you just described to create a duplicate track. The original footage was all recorded in Frame Mode (GL2), and the softening effect was rendered to an AVI file (Interlaced). Should I have rendered a progressive AVI video?

I'm not sure how to post an example, but I would describe it as an increased interlacing artifact. As one of the actors legs is kicking up and down (with respect to the NTSC monitor's horizontal resolution), there are more "unrepresentative" horizontal lines related to the true edges of the leg. The original video was without the obvious interlace effect.

August 19th, 2003, 05:22 PM	#782
Dave Largent Trustee Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 1,483	Titles "Being Written" Effect Hi, I work with Vegas 4. I'm trying to create titles that appear that they are being written out in long-hand while the viewer is watching. Anyone know how to do this? Dave.

August 19th, 2003, 07:14 PM	#783
Harry Settle Major Player Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Bemidji, MN Posts: 276	Someone else might have a better solution, but, I seem to remember a veg file at the sundance site that allowed you to do this. __________________ "DOH"!!!

August 19th, 2003, 07:54 PM	#784
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Previewing to external monitor- what a surprise! I just finished editing the first part (ceremony) of the most recent wedding video I'm working on. I decided to break out the camera tonight and connect it to an external monitor (television) to see how it looks. Let me tell you...I'm glad I did! It looked terrible, the colors looked so good in the monitor window on my computer but turned out too rich (too dark and overly saturated) on the TV monitor. About 80% of my footage needed HSL adjustments along with some Levels and Color Balance tweaks. I had no clue the tweaks I made "in-camera" turned out like this on the screen. On camera A (DVX100)I purposely cranked up the black pedestal and upped the chroma level to try and match camera B (GL-1) super saturated colors. Apparently my LCD on my camera isn't very accurate either. UGH On a good note it only took about an hour to sort thru the clips on the timeline one by one and make the necissary color adjustments. I rendered out the sequence of edits to one long AVI file (which took quite a bit of time, maybe the color adjustments made lengthened the render time) played it back...now it looks washed out and low-contrast in the vegas preview window but looks great on the TV monitor. I recomend everyone to make use of the preview to external monitor you might be surprised at what your footage REALLY looks like!

August 20th, 2003, 07:00 AM	#792
Rob Lohman RED Code Chef Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Holland Posts: 12,514	That depends on how your footage was shot. Vegas can do de-interlacing (no idea how it looks, since I always shoot in "progressive" mode) __________________ Rob Lohman, visuar@iname.com DV Info Wrangler & RED Code Chef Join the DV Challenge \| Lady X Search DVinfo.net for quick answers \| Buy from the best: DVinfo.net sponsors

August 20th, 2003, 07:41 AM	#794
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Tsunami for Vegas 4.0d Ed is there a site we can visit to find out more about Tsunami? Is it officially released yet?

August 19th, 2003, 02:53 PM	#781
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	They are being released by Zenote. No dates given yet - still in beta.

August 19th, 2003, 08:08 PM	#785
Don Bloom Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,609	I have never trusted the on camera LCD for anything but framing and the computer monitor is even worse. I have 3 different systems I edit on and none of the monitors shows the same. The worst is the laptop, the best is my primary system with the dual monitors but I still use a TV with the camera pass thru. My old NTSC monitor died-proper burial has taken place :-( Don

August 20th, 2003, 12:29 AM	#786
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	yeah, with the monitor "monitoring" it is a little darker with alot less contrast.... one thing i do as i use 2 LCD's in post is view the footage as its being captured. this way i will have a fairly basic idea as to where to keep my colour levels when wirking with effects and colour corrections... the DVX is an awsome camera and what your doing seems to defeat the purpose of its existance. IMO i think you should try to match camB to the DVX footage in post or use the footage as supplemental to the DVX instead of tryin to match the 2 by using effects and slow mos from cam b with the main footage on cam a. Vegas4 has awesome colour correcting capabilities, have you read the supplemental manual? It literally matches colours and saturation levels from differnt cams... there are also projects which demonstate film/dv interchaged footage... all these can be found on sonic foundrys site.

August 20th, 2003, 12:53 AM	#787
Tor Salomonsen Major Player Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Stavanger, Norway Posts: 265	Here's one way to do it: http://home.hesbynett.no/saltor/_test/write2.wmv I don't think Vegas can create a properly animated write sequence, so some sort of trick is needed. Look for the veg file Harry mentioned. I've heard about it, but never seen it.

August 20th, 2003, 06:23 AM	#788
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	I had to use my GL-1 as a reference beings the settings I chose turned out so terrible. I shot an earlier wedding using F1 mode and it lacked contrast- the blacks looked dark grey. I used that info and adjusted the blackpoint. I also upped the chroma- which I never should have done trying to get that highly saturated image the GL-1 produces. One I actually prefer for wedding videography. I know the DVX is far superior of a cam to the GL-1, it was just an instance where the GL-1 footage turned out better due to my idiotic tweaks in-camera on my DVX. I'll soon have to learn the more complex color correction tools in Vegas. Right now I'm only working with color balance to fix bad white balance.

August 20th, 2003, 06:25 AM	#789
Brad Higerd Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 186	Glen, I tried what you suggested, and it looks like I have introduced soon aliasing/deinterlacing to the higher motion portions of the video. I believe the two video tracks were aligned correctly. as far as any still frames go, the effect looks great, but when I play the video, it looks a little rough (particularly the part fore mentioned). Brad

August 20th, 2003, 06:29 AM	#790
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Did you pre-render it?

August 20th, 2003, 06:39 AM	#791
Brad Higerd Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 186	I actually rendered a 30 min episode. It took about 4 hours with a 800MHz FSB 2.8GHz P4 PC.

August 20th, 2003, 07:39 AM	#793
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	What do you mean exactly by aliasing/deinterlacing- they are two totally different things. Describe what you see the best you can. Posting a sample clip would be most beneficial for us. I can't imagine what problems you would have by simply applying a gaussian blur @ 50% opacity to a duplicated track/clip. Unless of course maybe your footage is a frame off sync. A good way to get them in sync is to double click one of the tracks to create a selection the total lenght of the track then drag the other clip over that area to snap to the guides from the selection. What format did you render out to?

August 20th, 2003, 08:01 AM	#795
Brad Higerd Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Orlando, FL Posts: 186	I used the exact technique you just described to create a duplicate track. The original footage was all recorded in Frame Mode (GL2), and the softening effect was rendered to an AVI file (Interlaced). Should I have rendered a progressive AVI video? I'm not sure how to post an example, but I would describe it as an increased interlacing artifact. As one of the actors legs is kicking up and down (with respect to the NTSC monitor's horizontal resolution), there are more "unrepresentative" horizontal lines related to the true edges of the leg. The original video was without the obvious interlace effect.