[Jerry Black]

There are indeed plenty of them and Flash is a great tool, but by itself, a Flash file is not playable. To be a playable video file, the video must be imported into Adobe for creation of the other supporting files necessary enable a playable Flash video. There are other programs that will produce Flash files like Camtasia if you begin with raw AVI footage.

For compressing raw content, there is Sorensen Squeeze, a great compressing tool but Vegas can get you good results if you begin by preparing the Vegas effort to match the format for which you are publishing the video.

[Jerry Black]

Are you using a camera to do this? For screen captures, Camtasia does not need or use a camera. It is all done internally and if anything, you would edit first in Vegas (if you have a pice that needs editing) then import that into Camtasia not the other way around.

If you use a camera for recording yourself, you have to keep it away from the screen positively!

[Jerry Black]

Much thanks for this advice. I was unaware of that and will make the adjustments to future pre-rendering efforts.

Thanks again,

Jerry

[Jerry Black]

Gary,

Thanks for your response. I believe that I first saw the “rats teeth” artifacts in the in the preview window of Vegas during rendering. I certainly saw them in the rendered un-compressed AVI file. Playback was using Windows Media Player 9. It was pretty awful!

I did not render directly to to WMV as I wanted to experiment in this step with certain compression utilities such as Sorrenson. Seeing the “rats teeth” in the un-compressed output stopped me cold which is when I switched to a progressive rendering template.

Project properties before progressive were: standard DVD settings 720X480 lower field first, .9091 aspect ratio, best quality, motion blur Gaussian, deinterlace none, 29.970fps interlaced. These were the original settings before switching to a progressive template.

The captured video properties that vegas shows when the file is selected in the explorer view is 720X480X24,29.970fps interlaced.

Is there additional information of these settings you need that I may have overlooked regarding your question?

[Jerry Black]

Using Veags capture utility in Vegas 7. The VX2100 is connnected as a digital device leaving little room for modifications to the capture settings as far as I can see.

The resulting AVI file, the only option, is then placed on the time line and edited. During the rendering process, using the uncompressed AVI template for output file, I noticed that the “rats teeth” interlaced artifacts were present (watching the preview window during the rendering process) and was seen in the rendered file as well. Viewing the final file Windows Media Player and other players showed the same results. Using a progressive template in rendering, the artifacts were not seen. I am pretty sure that even after seeing these artifacts in the rendered, uncompressed AVI output, I dumped the file and never attempted to compress it to WMV.

Any suggestions or clues for me would be most appreciated and valued!

Jerry

[Jerry Black]

Gary,

Thanks for the input but I believe I am doing exactly what you you suggested. The softness I reported in my post happens when I de-interlace by rendering to progressive which I have to do BEFORE rendering to WMV or the interlaced artifacts remain with the raw footage to the WMV.

Prehpas if you could provide a bit more information in your response, I might better understand if you are suggesting that I am leaving out a step.

I would be delighted to have your insight on this issue and what exactly you were offering.

Jerry

[Jerry Black]

If you decide not to purchase your friend’s PC, please let me know what components are included for $300.00 I might be interested.