Buying Vegas

[Edward Troxel]

[Claire West] “1) Can Vegas be set to a default for the timeline to read time only (no frames) with a set reading (say, five second intervals)

[Claire West]

The absence of frame numbers isn’t really important to me, only a means of simplifying the visuals. What I really want to know is if the specific setting — of say 5 second intervals marked out — is something that can be made a default setting and will appear automatically when I open any of what you called “nested VEG files.” Is that possible?

Thanks for the clarification on combining “VEG” files and the info on DVD Architect. Both are reassuring. I will probably continue this thread for another week or two to get a few other answers before purchasing.

Claire

[Edward Troxel]

The timeline is totally separate from nested veg files. You can eliminate the frame counting on the timeline but the exact interval you see will be determined by how far you are zoomed in on the timeline. When you exit and restart Vegas, you will be returned to the default zoom. It will remember the timeline setting – just not the zoom setting.

However, all of the above is totally immaterial to editing and I still don’t see why that would be any sort of determining factor.

Your best bet – download and install the demo and play with it. As you’re playing with it, ask specific questions.

Edward Troxel

[Claire West]

[jeditdv] “However, all of the above is totally immaterial to editing and I still don’t see why that would be any sort of determining factor.”

My project involves — besides many freeze frames and slow motion clips to be timed — a huge amount of text/photos/background sources, copying them from one area to another, sizing them in terms of seconds as well as placement and matching them to one another. With my current software, the constant opening and closing of alternate sub-projects for the copying and the subsequent adjustments in zoom level are a huge pain in the neck and extremely frustrating. So — it’s a very big determining factor.

I did plan on a download, but only after getting some reassurance about Vegas meeting my needs. I don’t have the time to learn new software if I don’t have some reason to think it’s going to work for me.

Thanks.

Claire

[Edward Troxel]

You need to look into scripting, then. If you have a series of items that need to be 10 seconds long, a script can easily set them all to that length. If you have another group that need to be 5 seconds long – just select them, run the script, and done!

Plus, when you manually resize events, the actual length changes in real-time – just look at the number below the timeline on the right side. Here’s another easy method: Double-click the event, that will create a selection area around that event. Now double-click the number below the timeline and adjust it for the length you really want. The selection area will change to reflect that new length. Next resize the event to match the selection area.

Given the number of ways to change things and ways to see HOW they’re being changes, I still don’t see setting the timeline to remove frames as a necessity.

As you get started, you may want to take a look at my newsletters – particular the “Beginner’s Corner” series. You can find them at https://www.jetdv.com

Edward Troxel

[Claire West]

Thanks, Edward. With my current software, I can only “transform” individual sources or add and “transform” an entire track — and time isn’t one of the things that can be controlled on a track-wide basis. Given the huge number my individual sources, and the variety of commands for these, I’ve had quite a struggle. So the scripting option sounds great to me, and that one feature alone will probably drive my purchase.

[Edward Troxel]

One thing to note: Scripting requires the FULL version of Vegas – the Movie Studio versions do NOT have scripting included.

Edward Troxel

[Claire West]

It is the full version I’ve been thinking about. I noted the limitation of four tracks in the partial version and that definitely couldn’t work for me. Thanks.

[Bill Mark]

[Claire West] “My project involves–besides many freeze frames and slow motion clips to be timed–a huge amount of text/photos/background sources…”

Claire has mentioned a number of things that I expect to be heavily involved with. How well and how easily does Vegas deal with these things, especially text?

[Edward Troxel]

Text is probably the weakest link. It can be very powerful when added to the other features of Vegas but it doesn’t do everything for you like some titlers do. I have some information on compositing with text in the newsletters.

Edward Troxel