[Douglas Spotted eagle]

If you have legacy tape, use it to get the tape to HDD. Then toss it from a cliff and film it as it breaks up (if it does).
I’ve thought about tossing one from an airplane just for giggles(we have 3).

Useless junk, IMO unless you have tape to play back or archive.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

The tutorial, which appears on the VASST site without the ads as well) is very good, but it doesn’t mention that muslin is a tough fabric to key from. Stiff, shiny fabrics are tough.
Try putting your key in pre-mode, you might lose the line.
Plastic is almost impossible to key with.
Keep distance between your subject and the screen, that’s very important to reduce spill.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

We use a script that takes the greater of the horizontal/vertical values and reduces it to 2K. Of course, this assures that the other value is also reduced to a more optimal number.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

no mandate for HDV.
and no mandate for HD.
Only DTV. Many broadcasters are moving to HD at the same time as digital because it’s convenient and cost effective.
https://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.html for factually correct information.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

More info about source and output bitrate might provide a better informed answer?

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

Works great in Vegas 8, no conversion needed, Vegas manages the streams at 1920 x 1080/full raster.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

right click on the Vegas timeline, choose “Open Copy in Editor” and if you’ve gbot the Vegas prefs pointing to SF, it’ll open. Modify, then simply close SF down, it’ll ask you to save the file. Choose “Yes.”
The newly savedfile will be on the timeline in Vegas, exactly in sync. Be careful to not shorten the file, only edit it for volume, EQ, etc.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

Actually, both Excalibur and Ultimate S do this via scripts.
You can do it by hand, just turn on a grid and line em’ up.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

Thanks for the kind words.
It may improve on render, but bear in mind the bitrate at which you encoded the new file is significantly smaller than the raw files, and if you rendered to avi prior to the render to mpeg and then are planning on re-rendering MPEG, you have so little information to play with there, I’d expect soft, mushy video.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

Looking poor in your Preview window, or looking poor on render? Remember that Vegas will recompress the footage when you output it, but all in all, not a lot should be lost. However, the Preview window in Vegas 8 suffers from some very odd/weirdness depending on the size at which it is stretched, and whether you’ve got scaling enabled. Frequently I see where I’ve missized a window by just a touch, and it’s enough to put it into the next scaling algorithm, and it looks horrible.
Try resizing the window, turn off scaling. Set to Best/Full to get a perfect idea of what you’ve got, if you’re seeing the problem prior to render.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor