[Dale Mcclelland]

I can’t speak to the iPad as I don’t have one and am not very familiar with Apple products. But I can tell you what I do with an Android based tablet and maybe that will help you.

I use a ASUS Transformer 10.1″ tablet with 32 GB storage plus it has a micro SD slot for additional storage. I use a program that runs on the PC named “DVD Catalyst” to convert the 1920x1080i AVCHD video from my Sony camcorder to .mp4 files that are properly sized for the tablet’s screen. If I recall correctly, the program cost me about $10 and is available directly from the author’s website. The program has presets for most popular tablets and phones so that the converted file fits the screen and remains in the proper aspect ratio. You can also set a custom size if your device doesn’t have a preset. Keeping the proper aspect ratio requires small black borders if the tablet’s screen isn’t 16×9. On the Transformer the borders are so small that I don’t notice them so the screen must be very close to a 16×9 ratio. (A 4:3 video results in fairly large borders on the sides, just as it does on a widescreen TV.)

I am sure there are some free programs that could do the conversion too. I suspect Handbrake is capable of it. I tried several free programs and trial versions of a few paid programs and ended up buying DVD Catalyst because I thought it provided the best combination of ease of use and quality of the converted video. (I did not try Handbrake – I bet it could do an excellent job, but it looks complicated to me and I didn’t want to take the time to figure out how to use it.)

The converted files are considerably smaller than the original files but still look like HD on the tablet’s small screen. I can get many hours of video files just in the tablet’s 32 GB of internal storage. The Transformer’s microSD slot provides additional storage if needed. Once you have the .mp4 files on the tablet, there are a variety of Android apps that can play .mp4 video on the tablet. I use Act 1 Video Player that I bought at the Google Android app market.

As John said, you would need a tablet with sufficient storage and a way to get the converted files onto the tablet. I think they all have a way of transferring files between the tablet and the PC. On the Transformer, it is done through the same port used to charge the tablet’s battery. I use a cable that has a ASUS proprietary connection on the tablet end and a standard USB Type A male connector on the PC end. On the Transformer I can also transfer files from a microSD card to the tablet’s main storage using Android file browser apps.

So you can definitely do what you want but you will need to find the right software, and a tablet that has enough storage and a port to transfer files between a PC and the tablet.

Sorry for the long reply but I hope it helps.

[Dale Mcclelland]

You’re welcome. Glad it helped.

[Dale Mcclelland]

In Options/Preferences, “in the Video” tab, there is a setting entitled “Thumbnails to show in video Events. If you change that to “All”, that might solve the problem.

[Dale Mcclelland]

Nigel, I appreciate you sticking with this. A solution would be appreciated by me, and I am sure, by the OP, Richard Strom.

To illustrate this, I started a new project to do a simple test. These are the steps I took:

1. New project

2. Added 2 clips to the timeline (1920x1080i AVCHD) by selecting them in the Explorer then dragging them both to the time line. I dragged them so they butted up against each other (the blue snap line appeared).

3. From the Transitions tab, I selected “Dissolve” and dragged the large “Fade to Black” icon to the time line to the point where the two events touched.

Following is a screen shot taken after step 2 (just before adding the transition), followed by a screen shot taken after step 3 (after adding the transition). In the second screen shot, note that the out of sync amount that Vegas is showing in the red box is the length of the 2nd event. Despite the warning from Vegas, when I play the timeline, the lip sync is perfect. This is the same thing reported by Richard in the original post of this thread.

(Sorry, I should have taken the screen shots so they both showed exactly the same area of timeline. The two shots look like they don’t line up, but that is just because of my screenshot technique. The time line cursor didn’t move.)

Before adding transition:

After adding transition:

I have tried this with various options toggled on/off that I thought might have an impact. This includes “Ignore Event Grouping” and “Auto Ripple”. The out of sync warning occurs regardless of whether these are selected or not. Also it may be relevant to know that I keep Automatic Crossfades turned off. I rarely want an event cross-fading to the next. I prefer fading to black, like you get when you draw a fade with the mouse.

Hopefully someone will spot a flaw in my workflow that explains this false out of sync warning. Richard hasn’t responded to Steve’s question yet about how he added the transition, but I suspect his workflow is similar to mine.

Thanks again.

Dale

[Dale Mcclelland]

[Steve Rhoden] “What extra work are you speaking of Dale? Overlapping the events and
then dropping your transition on that overlapped region is the
correct way to apply Transitions on your timeline in Vegas.”

Thanks, Steve. The NLE I used previous to Vegas didn’t require the overlap when applying transitions, so I assumed Vegas wouldn’t either. Bad assumption.

[Dale Mcclelland]

Thanks Nigel. I’m not sure why I am experiencing the problem and you aren’t. It must be something I am doing wrong.

I’ll end with this post because I’ve taken this thread off topic. The OP asked about transitions, not InfinitiCam (although they have the out-of-sync symptom in common.) I’ll either start a new thread re: InfinitiCam, or contact VASST support. When I have contacted VASST in the past, John Rofrano was the one who responded (and quickly I might add). I’m just reluctant to submit this to VASST support because it isn’t an InfinitiCam problem. It is either a Vegas problem or a problem with my understanding of proper technique.

Dale

[Dale Mcclelland]

Steve, can you elaborate on why I am going “about certain things wrong”? Since I am a relative novice, that wouldn’t surprise me, but I’d like to understand it.

I may be trying to add transitions in a way that was not intended by SCS, and isn’t how experienced Vegas users do it, but Vegas flags something as out of sync, and says it is out of sync by the full duration of the second clip, when it is actually in-sync. That sure seems like a bug to me, and I spent 34 years in software development so I have some experience with bugs (I created quite a few myself over the years).

This issue especially causes a lot of extra work when using InfinitCam. When I want to make a camera change, with dissolve, I have to use “Alt-right-arrow-key” to count into an event a certain number of frames before making the change (equal to the dissolve length set in InfinitiCam). If I make the change sooner than that, the out of Vegas sync flag occurs.

I hope I am not hijacking the thread — your answer may be of interest to the OP as well since he is experiencing the out of sync thing too. If there is a way around this, without doing extra work (like overlapping the events first), I’d be happy to know about it. It sure would save time.

Also, I hope this reply gets sequenced in the right place in the thread. My last two replies were placed out of sequence (at least when I view the thread in Firefox). I’ve never had that happen before at this forum.

Thanks.

[Dale Mcclelland]

As I looked back at this thread, as of this moment, the forum put my second reply (about not being discouraged, out of sequence so it shows up before my main reply. Maybe that will be fixed by the time you read this, but if not, I didn’t want it to be confusing because my 2 replies are showing up in the wrong sequence.

[Dale Mcclelland]

P.S. I should have added, (since you are “trying” Vegas): I hope you don’t let this small oddity discourage you. Vegas is a fine piece of software and has very few of these types of quirks.

[Dale Mcclelland]

This Vegas behavior is annoying to me. With two events next to each other in the time line (no gap, no overlap) dragging a transition to the point that they join always results in the out of sync warning. In fact, it shows the out of sync amount as being the full duration of the 2nd event. But there is no sync problem; Vegas just seems to think there is. This happens in 10d and 10e, as well as Movie Studio 10 HD Platinum.

This also happens when I use VASST’s InfinitiCam for multi-cam editing. If I choose a camera at a point that is right at the beginning of an event, and use the InfinitiCam’s dissolve, rather than cut, Vegas flags it as out of sync at the point of the camera change. The only way to avoid it is to not make the camera selection until it is at least X frames into the event, where X is the length of the desired dissolve (as set in InfinitiCam’s settings) This isn’t a problem with InfinitiCam, it is a problem with Vegas.

I consider it a bug, but maybe SCS has a valid reason why Vegas flags it as out of sync (even though it isn’t).

Two work-arounds:

1. Disregard the warning
2. Before adding the transition, drag the second event to the left so it overlaps the first event by the length of time that you want to transition to be (or use a script to do this). Then add the transition.