[Hans-joachim Schuetze]

Hey Jake, welcome back. Hope you’ve had a good time.

I have no definite answer, just a bunch of thought starters where things may have gone differently (“wrong” is such a strong word…) 😉

To start with, I cannot tell if something changed in the process from taking a picture with the camera to getting the picture sequence into Vegas at 8fps. If all those other things below fail, consider checking the camera (picture resolution? – mh, sounds unlikely) and still picture import settings (pixel aspect ratio?).

Also, reading your post it seems that you are pre-rendering the the still image sequences into video clips (and then compiling the video clips in another Vegas project), check the render settings… My best guess right now is that you have rendered the 2nd bit (the one without the storm trooper types) into a 16:9 intermediate project, and then gotten it back into a 4:3 aspect ratio overall project, squeezing it at some point during the process…or something like that. (If you did render the two bits into separate intermediate video files, ensure both projects are the same.)

Another wild guess is that you should look into the “Event pan/crop” feature. To open, use that little odd-looking rectangle center-right of the sequence in the time line, or (with the sequence clicked on in the time line) go to Tools –> Video –> Video Event Pan/Crop. Just by looking at this, you should check if, in the 2nd bit, the “selection area” (the dotted lines with the big F inside) goes outside the picture left and right. Very worst case, you could use the pan/crop feature to work around the bug, but this can be a pain in the behind, and you may experience a loss of quality, as you might see the pictures you zoom into pixelate.

This is a lot of guesswork. If the above rambling does not help, consider posting a screenshot of your Vegas project – if you want to keep the picture size small, a look at the time line might be the most useful.

————————-
Hajo Schuetze
Video editing amateur
https://vimeo.com/hajooo

[Hans-joachim Schuetze]

Jake,

my pleasure, glad to be able to help. I think I have seen some of your stuff on YouTube.

As for the size of the project your setup is able to handle, I would be more optimistic. I currently have Vegas handle a project with 3,000+ 3.1 megapixel pictures at 25 or 30 fps alongside with several pieces of video with a dual core CPU at 1.83 and 2 gigs of RAM. It may take time to render, but it does it.

Coming from Ulead’s Videostudio and Windows Moviemaker, my first impression of Vegas was “wow, it does not freeze, I can still do stuff”. So much better…

Enjoy!

————————-
Hajo Schuetze
Video editing amateur
https://vimeo.com/hajooo

[Hans-joachim Schuetze]

Previews can look choppy for a number of reasons. Try the following (in no particular order, I am working on my 2nd beer)…

Basically, I fully agree with your hypothesis: Preview tries to do in real time what a rendering process can take all the time in the world for. Render (over night, if need be) and check.

– Lower the quality of the preview: Above the preview screen, find a bit of text that may say something like “Preview (Auto)” or “Good (Full)” or something like that – change this to a lower quality level (the lowest being Draft — Quarter).
– Close other programs running on your machine, and close those hogging memory and/or CPU time. This may include crashed software (like on my machine, where a svchost process uses 100% of one of my the 2 processors in my rig)
– More memory, better CPU, faster hard drive, etc. (aka brute force approach)
– Render and check. Aw, right, I did mention that above.

If you have a slow rig, you may still experience a jumpy video when playing it back – when I watch some HD video on vimeo.com it happens to me all the time.

————————-
Hajo Schuetze
Video editing amateur
https://vimeo.com/hajooo

[Hans-joachim Schuetze]

Jake,

sorry to hear you are running into problems.

I can think of 2 possible causes, the 1st being the more likely culprit.

1. Like me the first time I used Vegas, when importing the pictures as project media, you may have selected ALL (or several) of your pictures in the sequence, and then checked the “open as still image sequence” box.
If that’s the case, click on the first picture in the sequence only, and check the box.

2. If you are running the new Windows 7 (Release Candidate), you may have run into problems with hard disk drivers.
Consider checking this thread, https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/893199

Hope it helps, good luck,
Hajo

————————-
Hajo Schuetze
Video editing amateur
https://vimeo.com/hajooo

[Hans-joachim Schuetze]

Jake,
I think John is referring to the “Properties” dialog box that shows up after you imported the still image sequence as project media (it’s important to check the “Open still image sequence” box).

Once you click on “Open” in the import dialog, a dialog box “Properties” should show up, with 2 tabs – Media and General. On the Media tab, you can specify the tape name, time code to be used, etc., including “Frame rate”. The default is the frame rate of your project (e.g., for NTSC, it would be something like 29.97). You can pick alternative values from the drop-down list, or enter any other numerical value.

John, please correct me if I am wrong…

————————-
Hajo Schuetze
Video editing amateur
https://vimeo.com/hajooo

[Hans-joachim Schuetze]

Mike,
happy to give credit where credit is due. Let me know if you prefer not to be associated with this bit 😉

I have rendered another sequence with 5 frames per picture / 2 frames overlap, and it (obviously) has the effect of reducing the speed of the clip. I realized that this does not match quite as neatly with the music I have in mind, which is faster/noisier/… than the Bach piece used for the test. It’s great for me to have the option to change speeds. (I do have a lot more pictures – probably have crossed the 3,000 mark a couple of days ago.)

Allen,
thank you for your post – it addresses a problem I was in the process of realizing I had, and would have had no idea how to go about. Using the switch goes a long way of making the sequence feel a bit calmer, at least helps avoiding introducing post production mess to the messy raw materials. Using this as default setting from now on, very much appreciated.

————————-
Hajo Schuetze
Video editing amateur
https://vimeo.com/hajooo

[Hans-joachim Schuetze]

Mike, thank you once again.

I managed to import, crop, render and upload a little test sequence, comparing this approach against Vegas’ default “still image sequence”. Here’s what I got – https://vimeo.com/4632136

Bottom line, I am not too excited about the results and will probably put this approach (not the project) on hold until I have yet another cunning idea.

Very best regards,
Hajo

Video editing amateur
https://vimeo.com/hajooo

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Vimeo framework” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Hans-joachim Schuetze]

Mike, thank you very much indeed for the fast and on-the-spot response. I adjusted the numbers you used as an example as I edit in NTSC format for now, but this did the trick.

However, I am now challenged using the Pan & Crop functionality – it seems that this feature can be applied to an event (in this case, a single picture), not a group of events.

Any way to copy and paste Pan & Crop settings across events?

Thanks again!

Video editing amateur
https://vimeo.com/hajooo