Chris Young
Forum Replies Created
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For international program delivery this is a common request. Usually what is required is a full stereo or 5.1 mix on channels 1&2. This includes everything you hear in the program. On channels 3&4 you usually need all of the program audio MINUS any English voice-overs or dialogue. You can mute these voice clips or make sure they are on separate tracks and mute those tracks. If the program has interviews in English they normally stay on 3&4 along with the rest of the M&E audio. This way the overseas client can totally re-voice the program in whatever language they like. With the English interviews they normally ‘duck’ the audio and then translate/voice over them with Japanese or whatever language is required.
To do this you would have to go back to your original project timeline and print out to a four-channel format or if printing to DV tape and to hold max quality you need to print to tape twice. Once with the full program mix and secondly with just the M&E tracks. You would then have to find a post house that can then transfer your MiniDV to Digi-Beta and then sync and drop in tracks 3&4 for you.
Good luck.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Any of the AVCHD files generated by today’s small HD cameras are virtually unplayable in their native form. They are extremely difficult to decode highly compressed long GOP files and even on powerful PCs will cause stuttering playback and in some cases hang the PC. The sooner we all realise that AVCHD is an acquisition format and NOT an editing format the better off we will all be. We run into AVCHD files every week from onboard racecar cameras on a TV show we do and found the following workflow the best solution in Vegas 9.0.
The first thing we do is drop all the files into Cineform’s NeoScene which quickly batch encodes them all to Cineform HD ‘I’ frame based files that play as smooth as butter in Vegas and use less CPU power than regular DV. Editing them then is a snap. When you have finished your edit then export back to AVCHD if you have to. Though in my wildest dreams I can’t see why one would go back to AVCHD unless you want to put them back onto a memory card in a camera for some reason or other.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Vegas 64-bit v9.0b is available. Been runing it for a couple of weeks now now. Down load at:
https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/updates/vegaspro
Just make sure you use the drop menu to select the 64-bit version.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Philippe ~
I notice you are on Vegas 7. Have a look at Simon Wyndham’s Vegas 7 XDCam Workflow Overview. This will give you a much more detailed rundown on how to go about getting your project done and out.
https://www.simonwyndham.co.uk/vegas-7-xdcam-workflow.html
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
One option open to you which won’t break the bank is beg, borrow or hire a Sony PDW-U1 USB XDCam disc drive unit and buy a couple of XDCam discs, 23GB or 50GB depending on your program length.
Along with the PDW-U1 you would need its installation disc so that you can install Sony’s PDZ XDCam Browser software which will also install the Sony Prodisc FAM driver. Without the FAM driver you PC won’t see the PDW-U1 drive unit.
Once you have all that set up you can render your timeline to an MXF file. Most likely using the ‘HD 422 1920×1080-60i 50Mpbs’ template.
Now under the Vegas ‘View’ menu you can select ‘XDCam Explorer’. From within XDCam Explorer you can select the ‘Export video to Sony XDCam Disc’ option. By following the export instructions in XDCam Explorer you can then export your rendered MXF program file direct to an XDCam disc in the USB PDW-U1 drive.
Most large video duplication facilities would have the Sony PDW-HD1500 XDCam studio deck. From your XDCam disc they can then run your program straight out of the HD1500 via HDSDI straight to an HDCam deck for an HD master. Conversely if you want a Digi-Beta master they can down-convert your program via SDI From the HD1500 straight to a Digi deck.
Doing it this way you don’t need to hire any expensive HD decks or have any HD I/O card in your PC.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
When resizing or modifying still images in Vegas in 99% of cases it’s best to make sure that you have ‘reduce interlace flicker’ selected on the modified, distorted or resized images, works well for video also. Right click on the images and select ‘Switches’ and then select the ‘Reduce interlace flicker’ option. Finally set you Project Properties to ‘Best’ under the ‘Full-resolution rendering quality’ drop down selection menu. In the bulk of cases those jaggies and wave type line lines you are seeing will not be there when your video is rendered. Selecting ‘Best’ will increase the render times a little but at least you get good results, well worth the trade off.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Luc ~
Re WMVHD renders I find far and away the best thing for rendering these is Microsoft’s own Windows Media Encoder 9. Just throw your Vegas AVIs at it and get good quality output. It has heaps of encode profiles and a much wider range of fixed and variable bitrate, single pass, two pass, frame size, interlace de-interlace options etc to choose from. Profiles for streaming, downloading and so on, SD and HD. Good flexible ‘custom’ profiles if you want to create your own which you can export/re-import and save. Leaves any other WMV encoder for dead in my experience. Best of all it’s free. If you had to buy a piece of software like this it would cost you some serious $$$ no doubt. Worth a try out. Just make sure you download the correct version as there are 32 and 64 bit versions.
https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
v9 has been problematic for me with freezes and crashes on two 32bit systems, 1 Vista and 1 XP. A colleagues facility which has three systems, 1 x 64bit Vista and 2 x 32bit XP has had similar experiences. The problems have been bad enough that both of us have gone back to 8.0c. Hope Sony resolve this pretty quickly because we need the EX codec asap.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Thanks Eric ~
Much more elegant TC solution. Now recall having TC on the timeline clips years back, v4, 5,6 or was it 7 maybe, can’t really recall other than it was a long time back. Clean forgotten about that selection!
Love the ‘Open in Trimmer’ solution, much better than the right click option. Have now done the same as you now with the ‘Esc’ key. Also assigned it to the ‘ (apostrophe key). Works well for me ajacent to the JKL keys, falls right under my little finger. Could of used the : (colon) key but sometimes I hit that when going for the JKL trio.
Just goes to show you are constantly learning. Luv this forum. Thanks again Eric.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Points well made JR. Vegas must be approached with an open mind. If an editor does that he will find new worlds of flexibility only limited by his/her imagination… and the client… and the budget… and the OS. Well U know what I mean.
Chris Young
Sydney