Vegas Video discussions from 2004 (Q3Q4)

Edward Troxel · July 23rd, 2004, 02:04 PM

How are you getting the video into the computer?

MPEG is NOT a great editing format.

David Mintzer · July 23rd, 2004, 08:12 PM

Any of you experience momentary freezes when scrubbing the time line with the JKL keys or the Contour Pro. Its becoming an annoyance

I am editing a two hour project. I have the Matrox card acceleration turned down, I am DMA, I have defragged the SATA drive, I turn off all system resources etc. In other words I've been doing this for awhile---

Any body experiencing the same??

Patrick King · July 24th, 2004, 11:23 AM

I'm assembling a short video for a Farewell party and have some footage shot on an inexpensive DV cam in a medium sized live room. The clip volume is low since the built-in mic was all they used to acquire audio.

I've normalized the clip and applied the Distortion AudioFX with some improvement resulting (love that it creates a Take whcih you can then switch back and forth between to see if what you did is better or worse).

I need to know if there is a standard set of Audio FX that I should start with in the FX chain in order to improve this audio. There are so many available, I could play with them all for a month of Sundays before I stumble on a good chain of FX for what must be a common audio situation.

Any specific recommendations will be greatly appreciated.

Ryan Mattos · July 24th, 2004, 12:43 PM

How can you adjust the black level of a picture in Vegas? I noticed that xl's carry this control but my gl2 does not, and i would like to experiment with this if you have any advice

Patrick King · July 24th, 2004, 12:50 PM

In another thread someone listed a Sony Walkman in place of a DV tapedeck.

<< One of this sites sponsers, EVS, has a new Sony miniDV walkman for under $1100... Would that work for you?
http://www.evsonline.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=GVD1000 >>

I looked at this and based on the description thought it might fill three purposes:
1. Save wear and tear on camera heads by performing DV-to-computer input via 1394.
2. Provide Vegas Video External Monitor preview which requires 1394 output.
3. Perform simultaneous DV tape record during a live shoot for redundancy.

Item number two is particularly attractive to me, will it work?

Paul Bisaillon · July 24th, 2004, 01:41 PM

i just bought a Canon Optura 20, and Vegas 5, and i have it all hooked up, i can control my camera and everything throgugh my computer via firewire....but when i capture it says it is, but when i stop the capture it says capture complete and then list nothing and no clip is saved! and one time i acutally got it to get something...let it got for about 5 minutes for this test...and got about1-2 seconds, what am i doing wrong, step by step how do you catpure, so frustrated.

Gary Kleiner · July 24th, 2004, 02:43 PM

The black level can be adjusted from the Color Corrector using the Offset slider.

Keep your eye on the waveform monitor when using this to make sure you don't go below 0 IRE.

Gary

Patrick King · July 24th, 2004, 02:49 PM

Paul,

With the Sony Video Capture tool active, select its Options menu then Preferences. Select the Advanced Capture tab and increase the pre-roll to at least 5. Then select the Capture tab and ensure that the second item in the box is unchecked (Stop capture on dropped frames).

Michael Wisniewski · July 24th, 2004, 05:49 PM

Does the network rendering performance scale linearly as you add nodes or is there a point of diminishing returns?

Patrick King · July 24th, 2004, 06:12 PM

I'll carry my own thread since no one is online now to help...

I removed the distortion FX and normilize effect I had previously put in. Then added at the track level (only these talking head narrations were on this audio track):
- Parametric EQ with the default settings
- Reverb with the Warm Ambience setting
- Volume with a 4dB boost
- Then had to selectively add a 2-3 dB boost to individual events where the speaker was quite soft.

That increased the intelligibility of the speaker and took out some of the ring from the live room it was recorded in. Its still missing something though (this is like making spaghetti sauce, its missing something, but I don't know what). May be the best I can get starting with poor input. Guess I should have stayed awake during those Vegas tutorials on the Audio aspects of the tool.

DSE, Ed T, Gary K, Glen, Ken, or others, any ideas?

Guy Bruner · July 24th, 2004, 07:08 PM

Have you tried boosting the audio at the 8K point by 6 db or so?

BTW, pet the boll weevil statue for me the next time you are by there.

Patrick King · July 24th, 2004, 09:04 PM

8k being the standard voice range, right? I guess I should use a band-pass filter centered on 8K. Now I wonder where in the chain it would go, before or after the Reverb and Volume FX. So many options!

Not many folks outside the Wiregrass know we have a monument to a bug. You must have red clay under your boots.

Edward Troxel · July 24th, 2004, 09:31 PM

Each machine will be assigned jobs as previous jobs are finished. Once all pieces have been rendered, the one machine must "stitch" all of the pieces together. So, the video is rendered faster but there is a final step that slows it down.

Network rendering can be used in a variety of ways, though. For example, if you had a few projects that needed rendering while you still worked on additional projects, you could assign a couple of them to two separate machines while editing on the third. Or if you are on a multiprocessor machine, use network rendering on the same machine (might even want to try it on a single processor just to see how it works).

Remember also that each copy of Vegas only allows two additional nodes. But I believe the basic answer to your question is genereally yes.

Edward Troxel · July 24th, 2004, 09:35 PM

Turn OFF the "Minimum Clip Length" option in the capture preferences.

Glenn Chan · July 24th, 2004, 10:20 PM

No... 8k is a little on the high end. You have all sorts of harmonics up there but not much that contributes to intelligibility.

IMO, what you should do:

1- Get a better mic. A camcorder is generally the worst place you could put a mic, but is the only place for it for run and gun situations. A shotgun mic on the camcorder is generally the best compromise.

The audio forum has lots of posts on this, but a better mic with a shockmount (and windscreen if necessary) is usually a good step up from the built-in mic on your camcorder (generally crap). If you have a 1CCD consumer cam, then a lot of the posts there may not apply. You might want to look at something on the level of the Sennheiser MKE300, which could be a huge improvement over your cam's on-board mics (a lot of them are really bad). Anything more expensive/better may not be appropriate for what you want to do.

Getting good sound in the first place is a much better idea than fixing sound in post (which is rarely effective... time, money or quality-wise).

2- Don't add reverb or distortion. I don't see the point.

3- DSE has written an good article on noise reduction.

http://digitalproducer.com/articles/...e.jsp?id=25455

You are looking at using the track EQ to get rid of everything but voice frequencies. Set them to be sharp and play around with them unless you hear the voice get distorted, then back off. You may need to apply multiple EQs to get them sharper.

The parametric EQ does the same thing and may or may not give better results (theoretically it has a very small advantage). I haven't tried it for some reason.

If there are specific noises in the background that are in a narrow range of frequencies then you can do some additional tricks as pointed out in DSE's articles.

More information on this:
http://www.dv.com/news/news_item.jht...se0903_feature

4- To make the sound less boomy, you could tune a few parametric EQ filters to handle the room modes (where the resonance of the room boosts certain frequencies).

To do this, work in reverse:
Set the parametric EQ to make a narrow bandwidth of sound louder. In Vegas, set the bandwidth to 0.1 octave (the lowest it'll go). Start the frequency at 100hz or thereabouts, and scan through 0-300hz (these numbers are not very good). The goal here is the find the fundamental frequency of one of the room modes.

As you scan around, listen to the sound to see where the volume peaks. This is where one of the room modes are. There are usually extra room modes at multiples of the fundamental frequency (2x, 3x, 4x, etc.). Don't worry about everything over 600hz.

If the room is rectangular, there will be 3 room modes and harmonics of them.

4- To save time with volume envolpes, you could apply a compressor instead. A compressor can bring down the volume on loud sounds and will typically have a control for makeup gain.

I don't think I can explain how to use a compressor very well. Perhaps there is a good link somewhere?

July 23rd, 2004, 02:04 PM	#256
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	How are you getting the video into the computer? MPEG is NOT a great editing format. __________________ Edward Troxel [SCVU] JETDV Scripts/Scripting Tutorials/Excalibur/Montage Magic/Newsletters

July 23rd, 2004, 08:12 PM	#257
David Mintzer Rextilleon Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: Pleasantville, NY Posts: 520	It's Back Again Any of you experience momentary freezes when scrubbing the time line with the JKL keys or the Contour Pro. Its becoming an annoyance I am editing a two hour project. I have the Matrox card acceleration turned down, I am DMA, I have defragged the SATA drive, I turn off all system resources etc. In other words I've been doing this for awhile--- Any body experiencing the same??

July 24th, 2004, 11:23 AM	#258
Patrick King Major Player Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Enterprise, AL Posts: 857	Which AudioFX to get just voice I'm assembling a short video for a Farewell party and have some footage shot on an inexpensive DV cam in a medium sized live room. The clip volume is low since the built-in mic was all they used to acquire audio. I've normalized the clip and applied the Distortion AudioFX with some improvement resulting (love that it creates a Take whcih you can then switch back and forth between to see if what you did is better or worse). I need to know if there is a standard set of Audio FX that I should start with in the FX chain in order to improve this audio. There are so many available, I could play with them all for a month of Sundays before I stumble on a good chain of FX for what must be a common audio situation. Any specific recommendations will be greatly appreciated. __________________ Fear No Weevil!

July 24th, 2004, 12:43 PM	#259
Ryan Mattos Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 38	Black Level How can you adjust the black level of a picture in Vegas? I noticed that xl's carry this control but my gl2 does not, and i would like to experiment with this if you have any advice

July 24th, 2004, 12:50 PM	#260
Patrick King Major Player Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Enterprise, AL Posts: 857	Would this work for External Monitoring in VV5 In another thread someone listed a Sony Walkman in place of a DV tapedeck. << One of this sites sponsers, EVS, has a new Sony miniDV walkman for under $1100... Would that work for you? http://www.evsonline.com/merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=GVD1000 >> I looked at this and based on the description thought it might fill three purposes: 1. Save wear and tear on camera heads by performing DV-to-computer input via 1394. 2. Provide Vegas Video External Monitor preview which requires 1394 output. 3. Perform simultaneous DV tape record during a live shoot for redundancy. Item number two is particularly attractive to me, will it work? __________________ Fear No Weevil!

July 24th, 2004, 01:41 PM	#261
Paul Bisaillon New Boot Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Vermont Posts: 10	Capturing VIDEO!!! no save? i just bought a Canon Optura 20, and Vegas 5, and i have it all hooked up, i can control my camera and everything throgugh my computer via firewire....but when i capture it says it is, but when i stop the capture it says capture complete and then list nothing and no clip is saved! and one time i acutally got it to get something...let it got for about 5 minutes for this test...and got about1-2 seconds, what am i doing wrong, step by step how do you catpure, so frustrated.

July 24th, 2004, 02:43 PM	#262
Gary Kleiner Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Fort Collins, Colorado Posts: 166	The black level can be adjusted from the Color Corrector using the Offset slider. Keep your eye on the waveform monitor when using this to make sure you don't go below 0 IRE. Gary

July 24th, 2004, 02:49 PM	#263
Patrick King Major Player Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Enterprise, AL Posts: 857	Capture settings Paul, With the Sony Video Capture tool active, select its Options menu then Preferences. Select the Advanced Capture tab and increase the pre-roll to at least 5. Then select the Capture tab and ensure that the second item in the box is unchecked (Stop capture on dropped frames). __________________ Fear No Weevil!

July 24th, 2004, 05:49 PM	#264
Michael Wisniewski Wrangler Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Makati, Metro Manila Posts: 2,706 Images: 32	Network rendering performance: Linear as you add nodes? Does the network rendering performance scale linearly as you add nodes or is there a point of diminishing returns?

July 24th, 2004, 06:12 PM	#265
Patrick King Major Player Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Enterprise, AL Posts: 857	I'll carry my own thread since no one is online now to help... I removed the distortion FX and normilize effect I had previously put in. Then added at the track level (only these talking head narrations were on this audio track): - Parametric EQ with the default settings - Reverb with the Warm Ambience setting - Volume with a 4dB boost - Then had to selectively add a 2-3 dB boost to individual events where the speaker was quite soft. That increased the intelligibility of the speaker and took out some of the ring from the live room it was recorded in. Its still missing something though (this is like making spaghetti sauce, its missing something, but I don't know what). May be the best I can get starting with poor input. Guess I should have stayed awake during those Vegas tutorials on the Audio aspects of the tool. DSE, Ed T, Gary K, Glen, Ken, or others, any ideas? __________________ Fear No Weevil!

July 24th, 2004, 07:08 PM	#266
Guy Bruner Major Player Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Ashford, AL Posts: 937	Have you tried boosting the audio at the 8K point by 6 db or so? BTW, pet the boll weevil statue for me the next time you are by there.

July 24th, 2004, 09:04 PM	#267
Patrick King Major Player Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Enterprise, AL Posts: 857	8k being the standard voice range, right? I guess I should use a band-pass filter centered on 8K. Now I wonder where in the chain it would go, before or after the Reverb and Volume FX. So many options! Not many folks outside the Wiregrass know we have a monument to a bug. You must have red clay under your boots. __________________ Fear No Weevil!

July 24th, 2004, 09:31 PM	#268
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	Each machine will be assigned jobs as previous jobs are finished. Once all pieces have been rendered, the one machine must "stitch" all of the pieces together. So, the video is rendered faster but there is a final step that slows it down. Network rendering can be used in a variety of ways, though. For example, if you had a few projects that needed rendering while you still worked on additional projects, you could assign a couple of them to two separate machines while editing on the third. Or if you are on a multiprocessor machine, use network rendering on the same machine (might even want to try it on a single processor just to see how it works). Remember also that each copy of Vegas only allows two additional nodes. But I believe the basic answer to your question is genereally yes. __________________ Edward Troxel [SCVU] JETDV Scripts/Scripting Tutorials/Excalibur/Montage Magic/Newsletters

July 24th, 2004, 09:35 PM	#269
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	Turn OFF the "Minimum Clip Length" option in the capture preferences. __________________ Edward Troxel [SCVU] JETDV Scripts/Scripting Tutorials/Excalibur/Montage Magic/Newsletters

July 24th, 2004, 10:20 PM	#270
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	No... 8k is a little on the high end. You have all sorts of harmonics up there but not much that contributes to intelligibility. IMO, what you should do: 1- Get a better mic. A camcorder is generally the worst place you could put a mic, but is the only place for it for run and gun situations. A shotgun mic on the camcorder is generally the best compromise. The audio forum has lots of posts on this, but a better mic with a shockmount (and windscreen if necessary) is usually a good step up from the built-in mic on your camcorder (generally crap). If you have a 1CCD consumer cam, then a lot of the posts there may not apply. You might want to look at something on the level of the Sennheiser MKE300, which could be a huge improvement over your cam's on-board mics (a lot of them are really bad). Anything more expensive/better may not be appropriate for what you want to do. Getting good sound in the first place is a much better idea than fixing sound in post (which is rarely effective... time, money or quality-wise). 2- Don't add reverb or distortion. I don't see the point. 3- DSE has written an good article on noise reduction. http://digitalproducer.com/articles/...e.jsp?id=25455 You are looking at using the track EQ to get rid of everything but voice frequencies. Set them to be sharp and play around with them unless you hear the voice get distorted, then back off. You may need to apply multiple EQs to get them sharper. The parametric EQ does the same thing and may or may not give better results (theoretically it has a very small advantage). I haven't tried it for some reason. If there are specific noises in the background that are in a narrow range of frequencies then you can do some additional tricks as pointed out in DSE's articles. More information on this: http://www.dv.com/news/news_item.jht...se0903_feature 4- To make the sound less boomy, you could tune a few parametric EQ filters to handle the room modes (where the resonance of the room boosts certain frequencies). To do this, work in reverse: Set the parametric EQ to make a narrow bandwidth of sound louder. In Vegas, set the bandwidth to 0.1 octave (the lowest it'll go). Start the frequency at 100hz or thereabouts, and scan through 0-300hz (these numbers are not very good). The goal here is the find the fundamental frequency of one of the room modes. As you scan around, listen to the sound to see where the volume peaks. This is where one of the room modes are. There are usually extra room modes at multiples of the fundamental frequency (2x, 3x, 4x, etc.). Don't worry about everything over 600hz. If the room is rectangular, there will be 3 room modes and harmonics of them. 4- To save time with volume envolpes, you could apply a compressor instead. A compressor can bring down the volume on loud sounds and will typically have a control for makeup gain. I don't think I can explain how to use a compressor very well. Perhaps there is a good link somewhere?