[Jerry Waters]

Very strange. Have you tried rendering the audio out to anything else? Like a wav file? I’d at least try that. If the wav file plays OK, drop in a new audio track below and mute the old one. See if you get better results.

JerryW

[Jerry Waters]

1. I haven’t done that yet but Vegas 8 has mpg4 listed and it works under QT (go to Custom and video tab to select). Flash player now plays flash and mpg4, I’m pretty sure.
2. The resolution is most important to me and HD will be the thing in the future so at that price look for 1920×1080 and I hear Dell has a good one for about $700.
3. The best noise reduction I’ve found is Sony’s in Sound Forge. Sony made it a part of Sound Forge but I bought it when it cost an extra $200. The ease of using Sound Forge in Vegas is right clicking the audio track, “open copy in Sound Forge”, edit and then “save” and it comes back as a “take.” You can right click the sound and select from several takes.

I’m just a user. The experts will have better answers.

JerryW

[Jerry Waters]

You can render out a Windows Media Video that looks good. I usually work in Vegas 8 with 1280d files I produce with CineForm Prospect. If I want on produce Flash I’m now using the $39 On2 Flix program. See the videos at my site:

http://www.15minuterule.com

(you have to enter the site). Those files are 640×360 converted from 1280×720 wmv files with the 300kbs VP6 codec setting. The files are very small and I think they look pretty good. Also, Adobe Flash player will play the H264 files now.

JerryW

[Jerry Waters]

What I like best (and what I’ve used for a couple of years) is CineForm. Their codec is editable and practically lossless. Sony licenses their codec to Vegas. They also make a better codec that comes in several of their products. The low end product, NEO, for Vegas is described here:

https://cineform.com/products/NeoHD.htm#NEO_Enhances_Vegas

Others can make other suggestions but I’ve been happy with CineForm and have upgraded from there to Aspect and Prospect.

JerryW

[Jerry Waters]

Thanks. I hope to start another feature in a few months after getting this project on the way. If you ever get to Dallas, give me a call.

JerryW

[Jerry Waters]

OK, I’ll throw you one more. We have a scene with people leaving an airport. License fees are too high for DFW and we find a private aviation reception area they let us shoot in but didn’t decide we can do it until the last minute. So we shoot the scene the day before in a plain room on a couch and plan to surround it with scenes of airplanes if we have to. Then we get word we can go to the airport so when we get there the actors are well rehearsed from doing the scene the day before. The actors are in front of a big glass window and I’m trying to catch a plane in the background. One of the actors is clowning around so I loose the only plane that lands. Then we spot a private jet heading our way. I call “action” and they do the whole scene without a hitch while this jet taxis in behind them, people run out, waive red sticks to park it, etc. An employee walks in and tells the actors their plane is ready, the actors stand up to leave. We cut, all the employees who waive the plane in and park it sign releases.

God only knows what that would have cost to stage, plus the plane came in at just such an angle so you never see its identifying numbers so we use the one continuous shot without even smudging the numbers.

JerryW

[Jerry Waters]

The movie was shot in Dallas. The bank was a lucky break. I was talking to a friend, saying I needed a bank (thought I might have to fake it all) and she said her uncle invested in a bank. The President wanted to help her uncle but we didn’t have insurance. I did have a CD I moved over there for a month to protect the bank and they agreed. We had to pay for two security guards that day. That cost.

Funny thing about the bank was I wrote the script more than a year earlier. This bank was laid out just like I wrote (guard at front door) except better. I never expected a big safety deposit box area like they had, especially up front, but this bank was robbed when it was in a temporary building at this site by some guys with AK47s and they designed it with the tellers in the back and the safety deposit room up front to make it more difficult to be robbed again. The vault door was over 100 years old, was bought from a bank in Illinois and moved to Dallas.

Another funny thing that day was the “getaway car” was actually an old Explorer, not especially powerful and I was thinking I’d have to dub in some sound for it. I was shooting it pulling away and all of sudden I hear it make this huge roaring noise as it pulls out. “What the hell?” I was thinking when one of the cast says, “Do you hear that Corvette pulling onto the freeway in the background?” It was a perfect sync. It made me think I was supposed to make the movie.

JerryW

[Jerry Waters]

No, I finally installed Windows 32 bit on my machine. I had a project to finish and couldn’t get it done otherwise. Maybe I could have with a virtual machine but it was too much problem. I’ll probably go back to 64 later – when the beta test of Vegas 64 is running and Red Giant comes up with a Vegas Magic Bullet Looks plugin. That would be my ideal setup. As it was, I finished my project with Vegas, some Premiere Pro, some After Effects and I beta tested Looks there. My project website isn’t finished but you can see some of it now at
http://www.15minuterule.com

JerryW

[Jerry Waters]

Thanks. We aren’t final for the DVD yet so I can shorten that and you are probably right.

JerryW

[Jerry Waters]

Cineform is described as “virtually lossless” and it is. I’ve done several rerender without noticeable change. The higher the product of theirs you are using, the more renders you can do.

JerryW