Anyone using Magic Bullet 2 for Vegas??? at DVinfo.net

Peter Jefferson · April 24th, 2006, 09:15 PM

just curious.. coz recently i did a 20minute render and it took 19hrs... this was using a cookie cutter to create a vignette as well.... but yeah.. no less than 19 hrs for 20 minutes... very aggravating...

jsut wondeirng if anyones using MB2, and wht they think of its performance compared to V1??

cheers
p

Dale Paterson · April 25th, 2006, 01:03 AM

Hi,

We purchased Magic Bullet Editors 2 for Vegas for someone in our office in December last year and eventually we sent it back and exacted a refund - it was unuseable.

I don't think that the computer that MBE2 is supposed run on (or perform) has been invented yet! It is EXTREMELY slow - especially compared to the old (demo) versions that we had tested in the past.

And if you think that your render was slow - try and use the De-artefacter on the same footage!

Apparantely you can instruct MBE2 to use your graphics card to speed up processing but I can tell you that the graphics cards that are supported are by no means cheap (couple that with the cost of the software). We tested it with a new NVidia GeForce 6600 GT AGP 8X card (one of the cards recommended by Red Giant) and the only thing that speeded up appeared to be those icon displays in Vegas (you know the ones that show you what the effect is going to look like).

And if that is not enough - the installation did not work correctly either - there was a problem installing the Misfire module. They then posted a fix on the website for this and upon careful examination we found that this supposed fix was nothing more than than the MBE v1 installation and setup program. Go figure.

On the other hand - they were very good at processing the refund - no nonsense there.

It is a great pity though because the test clips that we rendered (they were obviously very short) looked great with some of those film looks but I cannot imagine rendering a one or two hour video - I'm too old (41 this year) and will probably not live to see the final result (and I intend to live to a ripe old age).

Regards,

Dale.

Peter Jefferson · April 25th, 2006, 07:03 AM

thx for the feedback on that.. at the moment with MG1, im getting about 4:1 render times when its the ONLY plugin in use, but as most of my work uses chains of plugs, im rendering the MB out, then re-rendering with the rest of the chain with MB turned off.. its doublehanding and its a waste of time and it does affect the quality of the video..
that 19hr render was an absolute joke and to be honest with u, the results ARE good, but not worth the time if u ask me.. I would have thought that a product like this (or any product in fact) would require a certain level of performance before a license is given to it to be able to bolt it into something like an NLE..

Very dissapointing to hear that even with a 6600 it runs like a bag of cow dung... i think the 6800 is the next card up, but if your telling me that even with a 6600 it runs this bad, then i wont bother...

as for Misfire, i have found a better solution, and that is to export the clip i intend to use for old film, and run it inside Edius Pro3. The program is as cheap as Magic bullet on its own, and not only does edius perform remarkably well as an NLE (not my choice of NLEs though) The realtime performance is astounding to say the least. I specifcially use it for training and as an effects program as some of the filters available on Pro3 were once only availabel on teh Storm card with stormFX... anywyas, misfire vs Edius flm effects is virtually no different apart from the gui and speed of processing.
Oh one other thing is that u can even change the colour of teh scratched were MB Misfire cant.so u can get some really trippy results..

John Rofrano · April 25th, 2006, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dale Paterson

We purchased Magic Bullet Editors 2 for Vegas for someone in our office in December last year and eventually we sent it back and exacted a refund - it was unuseable.

If you want an alternative that has very similar film looks, you might want to check out the ReelPaks from David Jimerson on the VASST web site. There are 5 different ReelPaks to choose from. These use native Vegas plug-ins to mimic many of the Magic Bullet film looks but render about 10x faster. They plug into Ultimate S or the free Celluloid plug-in.

Celluloid will help you convert your project to 24p and/or 16:9 widescreen quite easily and it comes with 6 free film looks, several of which were used in Stan Harrington’s Bred in the Bone which won several film festivals.

I work for VASST so don’t take my word for it, try Celluloid for free and see for yourself.

~jr

Alex Thames · April 28th, 2006, 03:20 AM

I just dled Celluoid 1.2.0 and installed it. I can't seem to make it work though. The ReadMe file says:

"Celluloid is not a stand-alone program. It is a script plug-in for Sony Vegas® 5.0 and 6.0 that is run from within Vegas. You do this with the Vegas menu item:

Tools > Scripting... > VASST > Celluloid > Celluloid"

"While the User Guide says:
Celluoid is a standalone version of the Film Look script in VASST Ultimate S."

So is it or is it not a standalone app?

Furthermore, I don't see Celluoid listed under Tools > Scripting > VASST Freeware > (celluoid should be here, but it's not?)

Alex Thames · April 28th, 2006, 04:26 AM

Nevermind, somehow I got it to show up by uninstalling and reinstalling. It's under Tools > Scripting > VASST Celluoid (the other ones like SubText, DoubleTake, CopyWriter, Trackalizer, etc.) are under VASST Freeware.

But I'm a little confused. I have a Vegas NTSC DV template open with these properties:
720x480, none (progressive), gausasian motion blur, deinterlace method: interpolate fields, 23.970 fps.

I bring in a clip I shot on the Panasonic DVX-100 and on the preview box, I check Simulate Device Aspect Ratio.

This unaltered clip does not have any black boundaries/borders whatsoever. But when I use Celluoid to apply a film look, now the new footage as viewed on the Vegas preview box has two fat black borders on the top and bottom. I'm not sure if it squished the original clip down or cropped/cut the top and bottom out and replaced with black borders? I'm pretty sure it cropped it - that's what it looks like to me.

Something I've noticed with other DVX-100 clips was that they all had black borders like this (even if I didn't use Celluoid or anything else, so actually, I was surprised that the DVX-100 clip today didn't have borders when I first imported it).

How do I get rid of the black borders for the original clip as well as the Celluoid processed clip?

Peter Jefferson · April 28th, 2006, 05:35 AM

umm i thought id check out the "free" celluloid... looks interesting, but why does it say its $24.99??

I havent downloeded or installed it yet.. i just want to confirm that it is in fact free, as i dont like instaling trial programs/scripts in shared folders as uninstalling has caused afew probs with V6 in the past....

Alex Thames · April 28th, 2006, 06:22 AM

It says its 25 bucks for Vegas 4 and 5, but if you just click the download button anyways, it lets you dl it for free. Then you unzip and install.

John Rofrano · April 28th, 2006, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Thames

So is it or is it not a standalone app?

I agree that is confusing because it is using two different contexts. In one context it is explaining that Celluloid is a script plug-in for Vegas and not a standalone windows program. In the other it is explaining that it is a subset of Ultimate S that “stands on its own” independent of Ultimate S but is still a plug-in. I’ll see what I can do to correct the User’s Guide explanation. Celluloid is not a stand-alone program. It is indeed a plug-in for Vegas.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Thames

Nevermind, somehow I got it to show up by uninstalling and reinstalling. It's under Tools > Scripting > VASST Celluoid (the other ones like SubText, DoubleTake, CopyWriter, Trackalizer, etc.) are under VASST Freeware.

While Celluloid is free, it is not part of our Freeware collections. That’s because it is a “player” of sorts for our ReelPaks which are not free. So you will not find Celluloid under the Freeware folder. I see that the ReadMe has a typo in the path. Celluloid can be found in Vegas under:

Tools > Scripting > VASST Celluloid > Celluloid

I also see that you have found it already. ;-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Thames

How do I get rid of the black borders for the original clip as well as the Celluoid processed clip?

I don’t have a DVX100 so I don’t know why native footage would have back bars. The Celluloid 24p conversion will add a 16:9 crop because film is 16:9. It doesn’t give you an option to turn this off if you are converting to 24p. If your footage is already 24p you should NOT be using the 24p option!!! That is only for footage that is shot 60i or 50i. When you turn this off, Celluloid will stop adding the 16:9 crop and will unlock the option at the bottom (Turn 4:3 project to Widescreen) which can be used to make your project widescreen if you want.

You probably only want to use the Apply Film Look option of Celluloid unless you want to convert your project to 16:9 as well.

~jr

John Rofrano · April 28th, 2006, 08:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Jefferson

umm i thought id check out the "free" celluloid... looks interesting, but why does it say its $24.99??

The $24.99 is for ReelPak-1 (or any of the other ReelPaks). You can download and use Celluloid for free with the 6 film looks that come stock. Then you can decide later to buy any of the ReelPaks for $24.99 each and add them.

~jr

Steven Davis · April 28th, 2006, 08:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Jefferson

it runs like a bag of cow dung.....

That is one of the funniest sayings i've heard lately. Thanks for the chuckle Peter.

Alex Thames · April 28th, 2006, 08:58 AM

Sorry, I actually meant to say the native clip with no black borders was shot with a Sony HVR-A1U camera (but turned into 4:3 ratio and SD). But I do get black borders on the top and bottom when I use the DVX-100. I don't know if it's because I'm less familiar with the DVX and have some sort of setting wrong when I'm shooting or what.

Because I also have the Sony camera that shoots 1080 60i, I would be able to use the 24p option of Celluoid, but I'm interested how it converts 60i to 24p? What process does Celluoid perform to achieve 24p? What if I just took 60i footage and dropped it into a widescreen 23.970 fps Vegas template with field order of none (progressive) and deinterlace method: interpolate fields - does that also create 24p?

John Rofrano · April 28th, 2006, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Thames

Because I also have the Sony camera that shoots 1080 60i, I would be able to use the 24p option of Celluoid, but I'm interested how it converts 60i to 24p? What process does Celluoid perform to achieve 24p?

Celluloid converts 60i to 24p by taking each event on the selected video track and rendering it to 24p in Vegas using the "NTSC DV 24p (inserting 2-3 pulldown)" template. It then changes the Vegas project properties to NTSC DV 24p Widescreen and adds all of the newly rendered 24p footage back to the timeline. As a final step it adds a 16:9 crop to all of the events on the timeline so you can adjust them as necessary.

It is meant to be used as a first step in your project. From there you are working in a true 24p widescreen project so any generated media you add to the project will also be 24p widescreen.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex Thames

What if I just took 60i footage and dropped it into a widescreen 23.970 fps Vegas template with field order of none (progressive) and deinterlace method: interpolate fields - does that also create 24p?

Yes. In effect this is what Celluloid does for you. If you only have one clip, it’s no big deal. If you have 100 clips, Celluloid automates this process quite nicely.

Vegas 6 does a better job at rendering 24p than Vegas 5 did. The Celluloid method of rendering the source to 24p first yielded the best results for Vegas 5. With Vegas 6 this is not as critical and you can just drop your 60i footage into a 24p (23.976) timeline and Vegas will “do the right thing”. Some people even advise that you can work entirely in 60i and then just render to 24p and get the same results because Vegas 6 is that good. You’ll have to do some tests to see for yourself.

Even if you don’t use Celluloid for the 24p conversion capability, it’s main focus is still on providing the various film looks.

~jr

Peter Jefferson · April 28th, 2006, 12:29 PM

thanks for all the info John. Its noce to know that you guys are still outthere supporting the goodies released and offerng advice on how to use the tools in an efficient way.

Ill check out celluloid after i finsih tis curent projec,t but in the meantime, i heard someone here was having issues with a DVX??

How are u actually shooting your footage?? are you letterboxing in cam, or are you strecthing (squeeze mode)
these 2 are very differnt in the way they work, the letterbox retains the ful 720x576 resolution@ 4:3 aspect (im in pal) while the squeeze mode brings it down to about 720x443 cropped and stretched, its STILL 4:3 but its been electronically messed with to emulate the 16:9 frame.
Now when shooting progressive scan, this slight drop in resolution really doesnt impact the image quality all that much at 720x347.
Now this is the EXACT same way Vegas does its conversions to 16:9. One is jsut don in the camera, while the other is done in teh NLE. I prefer doing it vegas manualy as it allows for greater flexibiity when reframing a shot and allows u to slide up and down to get the headroom just right. If i was to be shooting 16:9 with the Z1 however, i use 1.85.1, or 2.35.1 masks overlaid on the 16:9 footage and present the material as 2.35.1 or 1.85.1 as opposed to 16:9 as these other aspects are all still encoded as 16:9, but they offer the black bars which gives you that headroom to reframe if yoou need. Everyone says "get the shot right in the first place and u wont need to do this" but for events and run and gun type of work, sometimes u cant get it right all the time. And besides, i think the black bars look good..

John moving back to celluloid, you mentined this woks on the project level is that correct?? Or am i getting it all wrong and its used as a delivery "GUI" to achieve a specific look??
Are yu saying that Celluloid will automaitcally pick up every piece of media and adjust it to fit a 16:9 frame??
Does it zoom the 4:3 footage?? In the past, with the DVX100, i just created a 16:9 project, imported my (UNstretched) 4:3 fotage to a 16:9 project, and used media pan and crop on the clip level, with stretch and maintain aspect set to on.
It does zoom the footage and on my LCD Projector going across a 18ft wall, it looks ok.
Im jsut curious as to how Celluloid does the 16:9 conversion as im sure its far more efficient than my current methos, i just want to be sure im doing it right.. lol

When i shoot in squeeze alongside teh native 16:9 of the Z1, there are no problems.. i jsut change the aspect of the squeezed footage and voila, its all good and these issues dont pop up.. but if i shoot 4:3 native, then i usualy give myself a headache.. lol

Alex Thames · April 28th, 2006, 03:13 PM

Sorry, when I typed 23.970 it was supposed to be 23.976. Anyways, I'm confused. I want my projects to be completely hi-def when using my Sony camera. HDV is widescreen by default, but it's the 16:9 aspect ratio that gets me. Widescreen DV has 720x480 resolution, but so does regular DV (I'm guessing 4:3 ratio?). How can they both have the same resolution but have their aspect ratios be different? And with HDV, isn't the pixel aspect ratio something like 1.333, while DV widescreen is 1.2(something)? Is it this PAR that makes the 16:9 consistent between DV and HDV as well as 4:3 DV and 16:9 DV?

I really don't know much about the DVX, so I have no clue what settings I'm using. It's not my personal camera, so I only get a few hours a week to play with it (or less). I'll try to figure out what's up though.

April 24th, 2006, 09:15 PM	#1
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	Anyone using Magic Bullet 2 for Vegas??? just curious.. coz recently i did a 20minute render and it took 19hrs... this was using a cookie cutter to create a vignette as well.... but yeah.. no less than 19 hrs for 20 minutes... very aggravating... jsut wondeirng if anyones using MB2, and wht they think of its performance compared to V1?? cheers p

April 25th, 2006, 01:03 AM	#2
Dale Paterson Major Player Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Johannesburg, South Africa Posts: 200	Hi, We purchased Magic Bullet Editors 2 for Vegas for someone in our office in December last year and eventually we sent it back and exacted a refund - it was unuseable. I don't think that the computer that MBE2 is supposed run on (or perform) has been invented yet! It is EXTREMELY slow - especially compared to the old (demo) versions that we had tested in the past. And if you think that your render was slow - try and use the De-artefacter on the same footage! Apparantely you can instruct MBE2 to use your graphics card to speed up processing but I can tell you that the graphics cards that are supported are by no means cheap (couple that with the cost of the software). We tested it with a new NVidia GeForce 6600 GT AGP 8X card (one of the cards recommended by Red Giant) and the only thing that speeded up appeared to be those icon displays in Vegas (you know the ones that show you what the effect is going to look like). And if that is not enough - the installation did not work correctly either - there was a problem installing the Misfire module. They then posted a fix on the website for this and upon careful examination we found that this supposed fix was nothing more than than the MBE v1 installation and setup program. Go figure. On the other hand - they were very good at processing the refund - no nonsense there. It is a great pity though because the test clips that we rendered (they were obviously very short) looked great with some of those film looks but I cannot imagine rendering a one or two hour video - I'm too old (41 this year) and will probably not live to see the final result (and I intend to live to a ripe old age). Regards, Dale.

April 25th, 2006, 07:03 AM	#3
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	thx for the feedback on that.. at the moment with MG1, im getting about 4:1 render times when its the ONLY plugin in use, but as most of my work uses chains of plugs, im rendering the MB out, then re-rendering with the rest of the chain with MB turned off.. its doublehanding and its a waste of time and it does affect the quality of the video.. that 19hr render was an absolute joke and to be honest with u, the results ARE good, but not worth the time if u ask me.. I would have thought that a product like this (or any product in fact) would require a certain level of performance before a license is given to it to be able to bolt it into something like an NLE.. Very dissapointing to hear that even with a 6600 it runs like a bag of cow dung... i think the 6800 is the next card up, but if your telling me that even with a 6600 it runs this bad, then i wont bother... as for Misfire, i have found a better solution, and that is to export the clip i intend to use for old film, and run it inside Edius Pro3. The program is as cheap as Magic bullet on its own, and not only does edius perform remarkably well as an NLE (not my choice of NLEs though) The realtime performance is astounding to say the least. I specifcially use it for training and as an effects program as some of the filters available on Pro3 were once only availabel on teh Storm card with stormFX... anywyas, misfire vs Edius flm effects is virtually no different apart from the gui and speed of processing. Oh one other thing is that u can even change the colour of teh scratched were MB Misfire cant.so u can get some really trippy results..

April 28th, 2006, 03:20 AM	#5
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	I just dled Celluoid 1.2.0 and installed it. I can't seem to make it work though. The ReadMe file says: "Celluloid is not a stand-alone program. It is a script plug-in for Sony Vegas® 5.0 and 6.0 that is run from within Vegas. You do this with the Vegas menu item: Tools > Scripting... > VASST > Celluloid > Celluloid" "While the User Guide says: Celluoid is a standalone version of the Film Look script in VASST Ultimate S." So is it or is it not a standalone app? Furthermore, I don't see Celluoid listed under Tools > Scripting > VASST Freeware > (celluoid should be here, but it's not?)

April 28th, 2006, 04:26 AM	#6
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	Nevermind, somehow I got it to show up by uninstalling and reinstalling. It's under Tools > Scripting > VASST Celluoid (the other ones like SubText, DoubleTake, CopyWriter, Trackalizer, etc.) are under VASST Freeware. But I'm a little confused. I have a Vegas NTSC DV template open with these properties: 720x480, none (progressive), gausasian motion blur, deinterlace method: interpolate fields, 23.970 fps. I bring in a clip I shot on the Panasonic DVX-100 and on the preview box, I check Simulate Device Aspect Ratio. This unaltered clip does not have any black boundaries/borders whatsoever. But when I use Celluoid to apply a film look, now the new footage as viewed on the Vegas preview box has two fat black borders on the top and bottom. I'm not sure if it squished the original clip down or cropped/cut the top and bottom out and replaced with black borders? I'm pretty sure it cropped it - that's what it looks like to me. Something I've noticed with other DVX-100 clips was that they all had black borders like this (even if I didn't use Celluoid or anything else, so actually, I was surprised that the DVX-100 clip today didn't have borders when I first imported it). How do I get rid of the black borders for the original clip as well as the Celluoid processed clip?

April 28th, 2006, 05:35 AM	#7
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	umm i thought id check out the "free" celluloid... looks interesting, but why does it say its $24.99?? I havent downloeded or installed it yet.. i just want to confirm that it is in fact free, as i dont like instaling trial programs/scripts in shared folders as uninstalling has caused afew probs with V6 in the past....

April 28th, 2006, 06:22 AM	#8
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	It says its 25 bucks for Vegas 4 and 5, but if you just click the download button anyways, it lets you dl it for free. Then you unzip and install.

April 28th, 2006, 08:58 AM	#12
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	Sorry, I actually meant to say the native clip with no black borders was shot with a Sony HVR-A1U camera (but turned into 4:3 ratio and SD). But I do get black borders on the top and bottom when I use the DVX-100. I don't know if it's because I'm less familiar with the DVX and have some sort of setting wrong when I'm shooting or what. Because I also have the Sony camera that shoots 1080 60i, I would be able to use the 24p option of Celluoid, but I'm interested how it converts 60i to 24p? What process does Celluoid perform to achieve 24p? What if I just took 60i footage and dropped it into a widescreen 23.970 fps Vegas template with field order of none (progressive) and deinterlace method: interpolate fields - does that also create 24p?

April 28th, 2006, 12:29 PM	#14
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	thanks for all the info John. Its noce to know that you guys are still outthere supporting the goodies released and offerng advice on how to use the tools in an efficient way. Ill check out celluloid after i finsih tis curent projec,t but in the meantime, i heard someone here was having issues with a DVX?? How are u actually shooting your footage?? are you letterboxing in cam, or are you strecthing (squeeze mode) these 2 are very differnt in the way they work, the letterbox retains the ful 720x576 resolution@ 4:3 aspect (im in pal) while the squeeze mode brings it down to about 720x443 cropped and stretched, its STILL 4:3 but its been electronically messed with to emulate the 16:9 frame. Now when shooting progressive scan, this slight drop in resolution really doesnt impact the image quality all that much at 720x347. Now this is the EXACT same way Vegas does its conversions to 16:9. One is jsut don in the camera, while the other is done in teh NLE. I prefer doing it vegas manualy as it allows for greater flexibiity when reframing a shot and allows u to slide up and down to get the headroom just right. If i was to be shooting 16:9 with the Z1 however, i use 1.85.1, or 2.35.1 masks overlaid on the 16:9 footage and present the material as 2.35.1 or 1.85.1 as opposed to 16:9 as these other aspects are all still encoded as 16:9, but they offer the black bars which gives you that headroom to reframe if yoou need. Everyone says "get the shot right in the first place and u wont need to do this" but for events and run and gun type of work, sometimes u cant get it right all the time. And besides, i think the black bars look good.. John moving back to celluloid, you mentined this woks on the project level is that correct?? Or am i getting it all wrong and its used as a delivery "GUI" to achieve a specific look?? Are yu saying that Celluloid will automaitcally pick up every piece of media and adjust it to fit a 16:9 frame?? Does it zoom the 4:3 footage?? In the past, with the DVX100, i just created a 16:9 project, imported my (UNstretched) 4:3 fotage to a 16:9 project, and used media pan and crop on the clip level, with stretch and maintain aspect set to on. It does zoom the footage and on my LCD Projector going across a 18ft wall, it looks ok. Im jsut curious as to how Celluloid does the 16:9 conversion as im sure its far more efficient than my current methos, i just want to be sure im doing it right.. lol When i shoot in squeeze alongside teh native 16:9 of the Z1, there are no problems.. i jsut change the aspect of the squeezed footage and voila, its all good and these issues dont pop up.. but if i shoot 4:3 native, then i usualy give myself a headache.. lol

April 28th, 2006, 03:13 PM	#15
Alex Thames Major Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: New York Posts: 508	Sorry, when I typed 23.970 it was supposed to be 23.976. Anyways, I'm confused. I want my projects to be completely hi-def when using my Sony camera. HDV is widescreen by default, but it's the 16:9 aspect ratio that gets me. Widescreen DV has 720x480 resolution, but so does regular DV (I'm guessing 4:3 ratio?). How can they both have the same resolution but have their aspect ratios be different? And with HDV, isn't the pixel aspect ratio something like 1.333, while DV widescreen is 1.2(something)? Is it this PAR that makes the 16:9 consistent between DV and HDV as well as 4:3 DV and 16:9 DV? I really don't know much about the DVX, so I have no clue what settings I'm using. It's not my personal camera, so I only get a few hours a week to play with it (or less). I'll try to figure out what's up though.