Question for Steve Mann – Videotagger

[Stephen Mann]

[Ken Bennett] “You say you use Videotagger to create your credits. We know the Vegas version doesn’t really cut it.”

I did use the Vegas scroller up until a few years ago. There was nothing wrong with the Vegas version, except that inserting or deleting new cast members, or cast changes, was simply awkward. I bought Videotagger simply because I could build my credits in MS Excel. Which is far more “editable” than the Vegas Scroller. As a side benefit, VT lets me insert a JPEG image into the credits roll. The downside it that JPEG inserts greatly adds to the render tme for VT to make an .avi file.

[Ken Bennett] “1- Can it create transparent scrolls? Lots of my credits are played over video or images and graphics.
2- Can you have complete control over the speed of the scroll?
3- You say you use Excel to create your data and import it. How do you do that?
4- It looks like it might take a very long time to render out a 4 to 5 min scroll. Is this true?
5- If you can use a transparent background, can you add drop shadows, outline color etc?
6- Have you have any issues with this software?
7- It looks like it can do slide credits (but I can do that in Vegas pretty quickly)?”

1- Videotagger makes the credit roll with a black background, but the Vegas chroma key takes it out very well.
2- Sure, I just select the “medium” speed from VideoTagger and compress or stretch the event on the Vegas timeline to fit the time desired.
3- In Videotagger in the “New Project” menu there is an option to “Create credits from an Excel spreadsheet”.
4- If the scroll is just text the render will take a few minutes. I’ve never timed it but .5X real time feels about right. If you insert JPEGs into the timeline the render really, really crawls.
5- No, it just make simple scrolling credits. It’s written for the indie filmmaker, and to be honest, I can’t think of a single feature film where I ever saw anything but plain white text in the credit roll.
6- As I said in #4, rendering with a JPEG image inserted is painfully slow. The first time I did it, I thought something was wrong. It has some idiosyncrasies that I work around. There is a “Project Defaults” where you can set the fonts for the whole project, but I’ve never gotten it to work – I just set the fonts in each section.
7- I’m not sure of the term “slide credits”. Are you thinking of scrolling JPEG images?

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Ken Bennett]

Steve-
In #7 “slide credits” just refers to single pages of text which I use Vegas all the time.

Can you provide some more detailed info for how you create your Excel lists for the various credit rolls? One column of “part/name” and two columns of the same. Or are these instructions in the Videotagger manual?

Thanks

Ken Bennett
Video Adventures
Capturing Your Life’s Adventures!

[Stephen Mann]

The manual is a somewhat sparse on details PDF file.

Basically, the Section head is the sheet name, and the role and name is in two data columns. Name only is a single column. I’ve been ragging on them to add more control in the xls file, such as font control and spacing.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Sam Carter]

Have you had any problems with juddering from the videotagger output? If so, how do you overcome it?

[Stephen Mann]

[Sam Carter] “Have you had any problems with juddering from the videotagger output? If so, how do you overcome it?”

Only during preview. It looks good when on the DVD.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Sam Carter]

Thanks Steve – you were right, it totally works and the movie credits look great in Vegas.

What do you use videotagger for primarily?

[Tim Boone]

Thanks Steve! I just found this post and downloaded VideoTagger. You’re right, it couldn’t be easier! Saved me a ton of time messing around with vegas