Vegas Video discussions from 2004 (Q3Q4)

[Glenn Chan]

I'm wondering:
A- Is it possible?
B- What hardware would I need to do this? (i.e. which serial control adapter/thingamabobber would I need)
C- How do I set it up in Vegas.

The whole point of this would be to make master with proper timecode (program starts at 1:00:00;00 or whatever with slate and bars before).

[Barry Schmetter]

If you asked me a year ago, I would have said that WM9 beat QT (w/any codec) by a large margin. However, with Sorenson Squeeze, the quality for similar rates of compression seems fairly close. I've just been working with one file so far, so that's not enough to say anything definitive, but I'm reconsidering my opinions on QT files. I'll throw the WM9 file up on my web site tonight and you can compare for yourself--I've already got the QT file posted. (I'll post the url after uploading the file).

[Tor Salomonsen]

Douglas,
Washington is a bit off the track for me at that time. But can you point me to some information on Acid Pro for someone who's old enough to think loops are what you do with airplanes?
I am familiar with composing, I use Finale and I am also used to lay out music on a midi sequencer. Every time I try to figure out what Acid has to offer me I get the feeling 1. They are selling to people who can't compose music but only wants to add some music-like bed behind their video. 2. They are selling to the generation that was born and bred by people I went to school with. I'm in neither group. Point me to some good information, please.

[Richard Alvarez]

Can't speak for Vegas, but in Avid you can use a "rossetta stone"

[Joe Carney]

Cool, I'll try to make it.

[Jos Svendsen]

Hi again.

My setup is a P4 3.0GHz with a Creative Audigy 2 and Logitech 5300 5.1 speakers. The speakers are calibrated using the Audigy THX setup routines. The living room surround set is a Pioneer Cs100 reciever and Sequence speakers with an AMC Sub. All calibrated using a sound meter.

Software is Vegas 5.0b with Sony Surround plugin.

I have been nosing around the dolby website just to get more into the AC3 tech. What I have found out so far can be summarized this way.

- The AC3 codec is more than just data compression. There is also an audio expander in play when the AC3 audio is played back.

- The expander at playback takes two parameters (well more actually, but for simplicity's sake I'll say two). These are Dialog normalization and profile. Profile gives the characteristics for the expander and the DN-parameter is used to "calibrate" the expander.

- The DN parameter should be set to the RMS-value of the encoded signal.

- There is no need to mix anything for the LFE-channel, as the decoder automatically will direct low frequencies to the subwoofer. The name implies what it should be used for Low frequency effects. The odd atom bomb in your soundtrack!

- Since Vegas does not do AC3-encoding for monitoring, then it is impossible to determine if the encoded AC3-tracn will sound OK.

OK these are my assumptions. I have found no way of determine RMS-value for the soundtrack in Vegas. And the DN-parameter stays at the standard -27 dB, no matter what. Meaning that Vegas does not automatically calculate a value for DN. Would have been nifty if it did.

So the big task is to find the correct RMS-value and feed it to the AC3-encoder.

And I have found a way. When I have mixed the soundtrack using the stereo downmix feature, so it sounds good in stereo as well, I encode to Microsoft Media 8 5.1 audio. This file is fed to Sound Forge 7.0, where the Statistics function is used to get a RMS value.

The WMA-codec is intelligent, so it will automatically down mix to 2.0 from 5.1. And it seems to get it right, as the RMS-value I get here and stuff into the DN-parameter for the AC3-encoding is working very fine, when I finnaly encode to AC3.

I am using the Film Light" profile as it got less compression that the FilmNormal profile. I have tried with the Film Normal profile as well, and so far no pumping or other audio-defects.

This is of course a somewhat strange workflow. I will be more than happy for any improvements/suggestions, but it works!
I find it very strange that Sony does not give any possibilities to get the RMS-value for the soundtrack in Vegas. Without this the AC3-encoder is useless!

And I am somewhat puzzled that nobody has done a "5.1 audio for dummies". In my search for information in Sonys Vegas forums, in these forums and on Doom9 and DV.com the most common reaction to question about settings in AC3-encoding is to reference to the Dolby site.

But all their documentation are more or less assuming that you sit in Skywalker ranch with equipment for a zillion dollars. It does not cater for people with a Soundblaster and a set of pc-speakers.

Since it seems that the available Vegas books do not go in any detail about 5.1 mixing (as far as I can determine. Deepest apologies if I am wrong), then somebody could do us all a favor by digging into the subject.

[Peter Sieben]

I am not an expert, but after tweaking my surround set up in the living room, testing Vegas/DVD-A dvd's on it I can give you some info that might be helpful:

THE SUBWOOFER / LFE-CHANNEL
Are you sure about the subwoofer channel? There are 2 ways a subwoofer can be connected to a surround amplifier:
using the LFE output or (if the subwoofer is an active system like my REL Quake subwoofer) plugging them into the L+R speakeroutputs together with the wires that go to the L+R front speakers. (I my case, I connected my REL both ways, I think I was advised to do so. ) The first way only plays bass tones if the AC3 signal contains subwoofer info, or with non AC3 data the amplifier decides for itself which info goes to the subwoofer and it lowers the bass info that goes to the L+R speakers. The second way the subwoofer gets full spectrum audio info and it calculates the bass sound it has to play from that info. In this setup the surround amplifier does not alter the original sound. You don't have to miss the specific LFE info in the AC3 data if your amplifier has an option to re-route the LFE-info to the L+R frontspeakers in cases where there isn't a subwoofer. If you don't have that option then you won't hear the specific LFE bass info from AC3 data, only the bass sound the subwoofer calculated from the L+R info in the AC3 data.
If you render to AC3 (5.1) in Vegas I think there is an option to include a specific LFE track, but I also think you have to enable the LFE track in your project within Vegas. Check your settings. I have done several projects and am always very keen om getting "film like" bass sound from my REL Quake when playing a dvd ;-)

COMPRESSION / AC3 RENDERING
I never use the compression setting like "Film Light" etc. I always thought that this option was harming the dynamics in the final AC3 info but never did an A-B test to be sure. So I always change these two menu-options to None (there are two parameters).

5.1 MONITORING BEFORE RENDERING
I use a M-Audio Delta 410 soundcard and a NAD surround amplifier with my pc, connected with 6 outputs to the NAD to get a nice monitoring before rendering. I used this new setup for one small project so far, but am very pleased with the monitoring quality, compared to the AC3 sound files afterwards. But you use it for music and I for soundmixing for my film projects, so no doubt you listen with "other ears" then I do.

WORKFLOW
I monitor the way I described above. When working on a short movie project, I often make a test dvd with video and 5.1 audio, to check the way how my work is progressing on 2 places: on my pc using the other (basic) pc soundcard with Dell surround speakers and on the surround setup (Sony ES-series) in the living room. Regarding the 5.1 audio mixing I find two things difficult: keep the volume of the LFE audio right and the loudness of the center speaker.

Check this discussion: it might has some info for you you like to read:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...5&pagenumber=1

Regards,
Peter

[Adi Head]

when captureing a tape using vegas scene detection, vegas asks for a tape name and then automatically names the detected scenes: "clip 001", "clip 002", "clip 003", etc.

my question: is it possible to tell vegas to name the first detected clip: "clip 078" rather than: "clip 001". and then continue naming the clips to follow: "clip 079", "clip 080", "clip 081"... and so on?

[Glen Elliott]

Check this out- this is my disc after capturing roughly 6 tapes (2-cams) from my most recent wedding...


http://www.msprotege.com/members/Laz...%20Capture.jpg


After it was finished defragging it alerted me that two files couldn't be defragged...they were both really long clips- one at 12gigs and the other at 11. I'm assuming there wasn't enough space to compress the other files to make room to move these two without re-fragmenting them.



Why does Vegas Capture always fragment all my captures like this?!

[Edward Troxel]

Vegas Capture doesn't. Window XP (or 2K or NT) DOES.

[Glen Elliott]

Is this normal though?

[Edward Troxel]

Yes. You would think if you started with a clean drive that you would capture a totally defragged file. This just doesn't normally happen. I've tried starting with a clean drive and always ended up with a fragmented file.

[Dana Pence]

I ran some tests and found that you HAVE to import the MPEG4 video from my camera via Pinnacle's DVS Importer program rather than just downloading the files straight to the hard drive. Your well-put questions solved the mystery. The process takes longer, but not near as long as removing a black frame every couple seconds throughout the timeline. Thanks again.

[Trey Perrone]

*note, this may be better off in a different forum, i thought maybe a convert here would be able to help though*

hey all...question about Final Cut...

im a pc guy, not familiar with mac very much...

im doing a colloborative school project with other students, they all use the lab at school (mac ofcourse)

they have been rendering out uncompressed .mov files...

i checked the setttings...these use colorspace 4:2:2

ntsc dv is 4:1:1

so it seems that setting would be innefficient for our use..

i only noticed because i went to grab the other girls files...and one of them kept giving me copy error -36 when i was xferring to my ipod to bring home here and add onto Vegas

i thought maybe her file was corrupted, so i went to rerender it out under a diff name and check

noticable her original uncompressed .mov weighed in at 10.5GB

i rendered it back out as .avi DV/DPRO ntsc and its sitting at a measly 1.42GB

i just want to make sure i am keeping it as within spec as the original .avi files i gave them which i catptured with Vegas5. (we still need to combine all files and render out a complete project)

thanks!

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Not and have it keep the new numbering sequence.
What you can do is rename all the files after a capturing session by using the Rename all button, or by using rename in the Windows Explorer with all files selected.
If you name a file clip O78, Vegas will rename the next one Clip O78(001)