[Hannah Jacobs]

Thanks so much for the link to MP4 Fast Start, John. Hard to believe Vegas doesn’t do this automatically in the Pro version!!

I assumed it was an actual Vegas glitch I was experiencing. I’ve been doing this horrible double-render to render the final MP4 outside of Vegas… Quality loss, enormous interim file… It’s awful.

Thanks again! 🙂

[Hannah Jacobs]

I’m confused, does the Sanken Cos-11 (w/XLR & phantom power) need a preamp to supply phantom power before being run to the video camera? (I’m using a Canon HV20)

-Or can I run an adapter from the XLR straight to the Video Camera? Right now the inexpensive lavalier I’m using has its own battery. Can you please clarify? -Thanks very much.

[Hannah Jacobs]

I stumbled onto a fix, I think:

When I set project properties I changed the default 720×480 to 640×480, but I didn’t change the “Pixel Aspect Ratio” setting from .9091 (NTSC) to 1.000 (Square)

With that setting changed in Project Properties, I’m rendering exactly what I’m seeing in the preview window, with no black bars on the left and right.

(If that setting causes any other issues I should be aware of, please let me know.)

[Hannah Jacobs]

Thanks for the response, I’ve already done that though, here’s more info:

I started a new Vegas Pro 8 project w/dimensions 640×480

Added 1 video and opened pan/event and selected “match output aspect” so it took up the full screen (no black borders visible)

However, When I render at 640×480 with the MP4 640×480 template (“Allow source to adjust frame size” is unchecked because that seems to just stretch everything out width-wise), it renders with black bars on the left and right, AND those black bars become visible in the preview window while it’s rendering.

I then tried to output as a WMV, and under video settings for image size it actually says “Keep Original Size”, I also tried it with “640×480 DVD Quality” as an alternative render setting, and it STILL outputs with black bars on the left and right side of the screen.

Unless I’m doing something wrong, it feels like a glitch… Any suggestions on trying something different to find out what the problem is?

[Hannah Jacobs]

Thanks so much for checking that clip for me.

Your instructions on how to use Chroma to remove the black background worked perfectly. I’m new to Chroma and didn’t realize it could be applied to anything other than green/blue (seems so obvious now)

As I put in the subject line, I removed the zip file I linked to in my previous post, but this forum doesn’t allow me to remove the link unfortunately, so I hope too many people don’t waste time clicking that download link now that my problem is fixed.

Thanks again for your help, it’s greatly appreciated. 🙂

[Hannah Jacobs]

I’m getting no where, so if anyone is so inclined, here’s one of the lower 3rds to download and try, it’s a 46 megabyte zip file. I cannot get the Alpha channel to work:

https://tinyurl.com/qosxaw

If it works for anyone else, I sure would like to know how you did it. 🙂 Thanks in advance for the help.

I put it in the track, right-click right-click properties, then:
=>media => Alpha channel => Straight (unmatted)

I’ve also tried premultiplied, premultiplied dirty, and nothing works.
Thanks again for looking at the video, I’ve wasted hours.

[Hannah Jacobs]

I just dropped the lower 3rd .mov files into the timeline and tried to set the Alpha channel.

The copyright on the DVD is 2003, so maybe something’s incompatible or something. I’ll contact them (bought from e1itevideo.com) tomorrow to see if they have a fix. Again, thanks for your help.

[Hannah Jacobs]

Well, I found other Lower 3rds to download online to test, and they work fine in my Vegas project (Properties=>Alpha Channel=>Straight (Matted) and it works perfectly, so I guess the problem does lie in the original Lower 3rds.

They’re a couple years old, so I don’t know. The ones I downloaded had a gray background before applying the Alpha channel, the ones I’m having trouble with have a black background, but I don’t think that makes any difference.

Anyway, thanks for the offer to help, guess I’ll just find other Lower 3rds to buy to avoid whatever problem I’m having.