How to add timecode

[Diane Sosnoski]

Thanks Mike,
It’s not an intuitive editing system for me, but I appreciate the depth of the Vegas feature set, which I need with this project. It’s great to know I’ve got some backup. Awesome actually!
Best regards,
Diane

[Jay Smith]

Hi Folks… I’m a newbie with Vegas. I have a simple project that I need edited and the producer gave me a paper edit which references the timecode off the tape (which I presume is called “source timecode”). In the trimmer window of Vegas how do I view the source timecode of the clip?

thanks bunch.

J

[Mike Kujbida]

In the bottom right of the Trimmer window, you’ll see 3 small boxes.
The one on the left (Cursor Position/Selection Start) is the one you want.

[Jay Smith]

Thanks for the reply Mike.

That box you pointed out is not showing me the source timecode. The video footage was captured on a final cut system as a dv file and then imported into vegas. I wonder if vegas cant read the timecode info off the file because it was captured on a different system?

thanks
J

[David Grantham]

I’ve just gone through this source timecode issue in Vegas 9.

Cinepak Radius Codec AVI file starts @ 8:31:18.

Tried many recommended settings from many posts, but all marked and/or reported the timecode starting from 00:00:00:00

Only this worked: going into properties for the clip, unchecking “use timecode in file” and checking “Use custom setting” and manually setting the start point to the actual number.

[Mike Kujbida]

Cinepak Radius codec? My guess is that footage has been re-encoded from the original as that’s not a codec that it’s common use (at least not by any camera or edit system I’ve known or used).

[David Grantham]

Yes, these are off-line intermediates rendered by me to that codec, set up to begin with specific non-zero timecode numbers*, (which premiere reads and displays correctly without tweaks, but Vegas does not.)

(*To match the timecode on other clips which I will substitute for these clips on some versions of this vegas project.)

I found affirmation that the problem might never be sorted out by all the automated settings I found on many sites (all of which I tried to no avail.) It’s on a string somewhere – i think this forum – where it’s declared that for certain flavours of video Vegas just won’t interpret the timecode as beginning at anything but zero no matter what the source timecode says.

Manually entering the start point isn’t a horrible work-around this time – luckily I have very few clips. I imagine that manual setting might exist for just this eventuality.

But this could make a complex project involving off-lining – or setting up to substitute clips – very time-consuming and tricky with the wrong codec.

If this is the way it is, one is behooved to test any intended codec for proper interpretation before embarking on that sort of project in Vegas.

[Mike Kujbida]

The way Vegas deals with time code has always left a lot to be desired 🙁
What I’ve done in your situation is to render clips out with the time code embedded on screen.
That way, once the off-line edit decisions are made, it’s pretty straight-forward to use those numbers with the original footage.

[David Grantham]

If I understand you, Mike, that extra step would help me place the clips into an off-line version according to my log notes, without having to manually set the Vegas-interpretted in-point. Considered that too, but subsequently subbed-in clips would have to match the offline ones exactly.

Of course substituted clips must have a) the same timecode/content relationship as the off-line edit. But any substituting clips not also matching b) the off-line clips’ in-points would require their Vegas-intepreted in-points to be manually set anyway – but not to their actual in-point, but to a number reflecting the difference between their in-point and that of the corresponding off-line clips. Yikes.

If Vegas is interpreting the off-line code correctly via manually-set clip in-point numbers, any subbing corresponding clips with varying in-points would require those in-points to be entered, but right off the timecode readout without the extra math.

Only a) (which is common to all video) is required with Premiere or any other program which uses the source time code reliably; this enables quite a bit of flexibility. Unfortunately the Premiere version I’ve bought – CS4 – is too unstable to produce on and Adobe tech can’t figure it out despite all the usual stripping down and updating etc. This was PPro’s last chance in my world, my last experience being the dreaded 1.5. So I’m looking for another alternative. Vegas might not be it but I’m giving the trial version a go.)

Rigidly disciplined timecode-matching hygiene between clip versions would obviate the need for Premiere’s flexibility, but flexibilty/forgiveability is a good thing.