[Edward Troxel]

You have to take into account that it is not only converting to MPEG2, it is also applying all of your effects. Both of the processes take time (Plus some effects take longer than others to apply).

Generally speaking, you do NOT need to render at “BEST”. Good and Best are really misnomers. Use best when resizing photos. When working with straight video, you can stick with good.

As for the newsletters, just click on the picture beneath my name.

Edward Troxel

[Edward Troxel]

As for the size of your file, you need to reduce the bitrate to be correct for the length of your video. 2.5 hours is really pushing the amount you should put on a single DVD. Take a look at Vol 1 #7 of my newsletters for more info on this including a bitrate chart.

As for the length of time it takes, you don’t mention any of the key settings. For example, are you rendering CBR or VBR (to get 2.5 hours on a single DVD, I hope VBR). If VBR, are you doing 1-pass or 2-pass? Naturally, 2-pass will take longer than 1-pass. Is this rendering from straight AVI’s or is the timeline with all edits/effects/etc… that must also be processed?

Edward Troxel

[Edward Troxel]

I have Adorage and have seen Pixelan. Really two different animals. Both do entirely different things.

Pixelan is more “organic” in it’s transitions and gives you a ton of controls in how they behave.

Adorage works more with particles and images to create the transitions. For example, you could have an airplane flying across the screen doing a wipe.

It’s really hard to recommend one over the other because it really depends on the look you are trying to achieve. Both are very good products.

Edward Troxel

[Edward Troxel]

TrueType fonts should work well – but I’ve seen some of them have spacing issues. 40% sounds like a lot.

Edward Troxel

[Edward Troxel]

Hold down the ALT key and use the arrows. That will give you frame by frame.

Zoom in on the timeline and use the arrows. Different levels of zoom will move differing numbers of frames (it actually move one “pixel” so if you zoom in far enough it becomes one frame)

Edward Troxel

[Edward Troxel]

Sounds like all should be fine. I didn’t remember if it had been updated from Vegas 4 to Vegas 5/6.

Save the file as MatchAspect.js in the following directory
c:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas 6.0\Script Menu

Now when you start Vegas 6 and select your images, you can match them all by going to Tools – Scripting – Match Aspect. You can also assign this script to a button on the toolbar or a keypress.

Edward Troxel

[Edward Troxel]

I have found that there are some fonts that simply do not work properly.

Edward Troxel

[Edward Troxel]

DVD Architect 2 is a good product. However, to get the update, you’ll probably need to upgrade to Vegas 6 + DVDA 3.

Edward Troxel

[Edward Troxel]

Ok, buy yourself a convertor (such as the Canopus ADVC-100), connect the analog out’s of the camera to the analog inputs of the convertor, connect the firewire port of the convertor to firwire port on the computer, and then capture standard DV-AVI.

Until you do that, you will continue to suffer all kinds of problems.

Edward Troxel

[Edward Troxel]

Shoot with the safe area in mind. Don’t try resizing the video. Besides, what size you would resize it for? A tv that cuts off 2%? A tv that cuts off 5%? A tv that cuts off 10%? Just plan for the loss ahead of time.

In the preview screen, you can turn on the safe area indicators. The button looks kind of like #. You will see two areas. The outside one is the Action Safe area. All of your action should remain in that area. The inside one is the Title Safe Area. All of your titles should remain in the smaller area.

Edward Troxel