TV News and Vegas Pro

[Steve Rhoden]

As with every professional editor here would advise you….
and as you read many of these posts….you cannot go wrong
in any way selecting Sony Vegas as your main editing tool
of choice…it can more than handle anything you throw at it,
and does it with great ease and speed and comes out smiling.

I cant specifically point out which television station is using
Vegas at this point…but that should not deter you as i have
mentioned above….I could go on endlessly about how reliable
Vegas is….but if you search this forum, you will find tons
of info pertaining to that truth.

Steve Rhoden
(Cow Leader)
Creative Arts Director and Film Maker.
Portfolio at:
http://www.youtube.com/hentys

[Bill Cortez]

Thanks Steve, The editing system, Sony Vegas Pro 8, w/ computers, has already been ordered, same with the cameras (Sony XDCAM PDW-700’s). I’ve been learning the software for the last month at home, but I would like to talk to somebody who has actually been using it in a news environment–find out any tricks they’ve learned using the software. On a daily basis we typically shoot approx. 30 minutes of video/audio and edit that into a 1:30 story, sometimes in less than 30 minutes time (once everything’s loaded into the computer). Bill.

[Erik Davis]

Bill,

I’m not in TV news (at least anymore as I was over 20 years ago) but I’ve been using Vegas with the XDCAM workflow now for about 9 months. The question I have for you is how do you plan to take the final edited piece to air? Of course, when I was in TV News we had to edit to a tape master and run it down to the control room and roll-in the video live. Do you plan to output to some tape format or are you able to play back computer format files? I would guess that this would be the trickiest part of the process but the workflow inside Vegas itself is a joy to work with and very fast.

If you are only shooting thirty minutes of video then you could actually import full res and probably work that way if you like. But the proxy/conform workflow is very nice for long form which is the kind of work that I do. The conform is flawless which is still a little surprising.

Erik

[Chris Franklin]

Hi Bill,

I used to shoot and edit commercials and news at our local tv station here, but have sinced moved on with my own production company.

I still have the opportunity from time to time to shoot some news and have edited using Vegas. But in all actuality, it doesn’t matter if someone shoots news, weddings, or commercials…the workflow is still basically the same. With news, you can use just simple cuts or you can jazz it up with dissolves and wipes. You can even take it a step further and highlight specific portions of text in a newspaper clipping or magazine article (like on Dateline, etc.).

Sony Vegas can handle anything that you need it to. Just remember the basics as with any editor. (Capture footage to different hard drive than oporating drive, make sure you have adequate disc space, etc.)

[Duane Burleson]

Bill,

A link to this story from Dec. 2008 was just posted on another forum. Its subject is Cameraman/Editor Jim Peeler of KWTX-TV in Waco, Texas that uses Vegas Pro 8 with XDCAM.

https://p3update.com/featured/production-technology/vegas-baby.html

Cheers,
Duane

[Bill Cortez]

Thanks Duane, I’ll give Jim a call. Bill

[Rich Shibley]

I’m another photog at KOIN, struggling to make Vegas work like avid… any tips on getting 4 channel mono editing on the timeline? or bringnig just the audio portion of a clip to the timeline?

Thanks

Rich

[Mike Kujbida]

“struggling to make Vegas work like avid”

Vegas never has and never will work like Avid so you need to forget that way of thinking.

“any tips on getting 4 channel mono editing on the timeline?”

Not sure what you’re asking here.
Is this 4 channels from a camcorder or something else?
If it’s 4 ordinary channels, just drag and drop them on the timeline and position them accordingly.

“or bringnig just the audio portion of a clip to the timeline?”

Open the clip in the Trimmer, select the desired portion to highlight it, right-click and drag it to the timeline, let go of the right mouse button, select Audio Only and choose one of the 3 options.