I love Sony Vegas, but………

[Peter Wright]

I don’t know how you made your transitions, but for a crossfade, you need to drag two clips so that they overlap – that’s all. The amount of the overlap will be the duration of the transition. If there is no overlap, there is nothing to crossfade to/from.

Peter Wright
Perth, Western Oz
http://www.allroundvision.com.au

[Edward Troxel]

[Tinfish] “But I still cant master fading from one frame to the next”

I don’t understand what you mean by this. You mean fading between two different clips? (one frame only lasts 1/30 of a second {ntsc}). As Peter said, just overlap the clips (events). Or, simply place the two events next to each other, place the cursor between them, and press the “/” key on the numberpad (which will make both clips slightly longer and create the overlap for you – but you’ll need enough head and tail to accomodate that).

[Tinfish] “apart from Panning and zooming being very fiddly and often leaving borders around the zoomed shot, but thats another issue”

You’ll have to explain what you mean here. Panning and Zooming is one of the things most people like most when leaving other NLE’s.

Edward Troxel

[Jeff Farr]

You probably know this, but if you right click on your transition (the overlapping of the two clips) you can change the arc of the curves for finer control of each event’s fading.

[Tinfish]

Thanks for all those helpful tips guys.

It seems my problem was not having enough overlap to make the crossfades effective after all. But having read and tried your suggestions its made a big difference.

Re Panning and zooming. I’ll practice on this too and get back if I have problems.

Thanks again.

–

[Marc Istook]

Ugh. I have to say that panning and zooming is the one feature of Vegas I specifically DON’T like! I think FCP, Premiere, After Effects, etc., are much more user-friendly and intuitive in this regard. While Vegas 6 is much improved, I wish there were a way to enter a percent scale rather than a pixel size when zooming/re-sizing footage. I feel like Sony is married to its pan/zoom/scale interface, so instead of choosing a better interface, they just stick with what they have.

And I also don’t understand why so many of the filter controls are on a 0-1.00 scale instead of using more widely-available systems. For instance — the levels filter uses a 0-1.0 scale. Why not 0-255 like EVERY OTHER PROGRAM I’VE EVER SEEN!? Or with the text plug-in — the shadow distance is measured in hundredths… hundredths of what?! Why not use pixels like EVERY OTHER PROGRAM!! Perhaps I’m missing something here — if so, please share, because these idiosyncracies drive me crazy.

Despite the fact that it sounds like I’m fed up with Vegas, I really do love the program. Just those little quirks cause a real hangup in my workflow.

Thanks for letting me vent!

Marc

[Edward Troxel]

[Marc] “I wish there were a way to enter a percent scale rather than a pixel size when zooming/re-sizing footage.”

You could always use a script 🙂

[Marc] “why so many of the filter controls are on a 0-1.00”

My guess would be that they’re basically a percentage. 1=100%=totally on to 0%. Although, I can’t prove this.

Edward Troxel

[Marc Istook]

I’ll admit that I am not that familiar with scripts. Maybe someone could enlighten me on how to use one in this instance. But still — why would Sony choose to use an interface that’s fundamentally different than what most (if not all) other NLE’s use? I could understand if it was a markedly *better* interface. But I don’t think it is.

That said, Vegas is still my favorite NLE — but some of those interfaces drive me nuts. Perhaps it’s just a stylistic preference.

Also, I still haven’t been able to figure out why my DVD Architect 24p (23.976 progressive frame) mpeg 2 file is nearly identical in size to my DVD Architect 30i (29.97 interlaced fields) mpeg 2 file. Any thoughts?!

[Liam Kennedy]

[Marc] “Also, I still haven’t been able to figure out why my DVD Architect 24p (23.976 progressive frame) mpeg 2 file is nearly identical in size to my DVD Architect 30i (29.97 interlaced fields) mpeg 2 file. Any thoughts?!”

It’s usually best to create an entirely new post/thread when you have a question that is totally unrelated to the thread you are posting to.

To answer anyway… the size of the MPEG file is mostly related to the bit-rate you specifiy and NOT the frame rate. That’s likely why the file sizes are very similar. The point of going to 24p instead of 29.97 is that you can achieve a higher quality with a reduced bit-rate.

[Marc Istook]

You’re right — I should have started a new thread — that was my mistake. In actuality, this was an issue I’ve posted already on this forum and have yet to get a clear answer to. Yours helps, though I’d like to see whether or not the bitrates for both files are similar. Is there a way to find out? They were both rendered with the standard DVD Architect settings (though one was the 24p setting, the other just regular NTSC).

[Liam Kennedy]

Yeah… click on the CUSTOM button for the Templates and check out what it says for the bit-rates.