[Jill Simpson]

Thanks Mike and Edward,

I edited the thumbnail.js script, changing the size from full=true to =false, and I got 164×120 thumbnails, which is perfect.

[Jill Simpson]

No – Vegas does not have a storyboard view – either in the editor or for communication to clients/partners. Windows Movie Maker lets you switch between Timeline view and Storyboard view, but doesn’t let you print or save the storyboard. I found your post because I will be adding a new post to the Vegas forum, asking if there’s a way to Export Thumbnails (& comments or other data if possible), and perhaps put together my own storyboard for print-out or inclusion in an html or php or word document. I can imagine a template/view that is populated with data including the thumbnail, but I don’t have the skills, or the potential to develop the skills, to make that happen. I could only create storyboards manually, if I can export thumbnails, but I don’t want to waste my life away.

[Jill Simpson]

I might be able to insert the script bits John Rofrano suggested into your script, in the right places, and remove parts from your script which should now be removed, but I expect I’d waste a good few hours as I’d be pretty much going by trial and error unless there is a clear logic to me, a non-programmer.
Can you post the script here or send it to me?
Thanks.

[Jill Simpson]

I partially solved the error.

I installed the script version 2, and I got an error, all due to line 171 of the script, which is:
MessageBox.Show(“Cannot find media bin “in order””);
The problem is the quotes around “in order”. I replaced them with apostrophes:
MessageBox.Show(“Cannot find media bin ‘in order'”);

Before that change, the error details showed:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Vegas Pro 8.0\Script Menu\J – Convert Regions To Subclips.cs(171) : ) expected
(I think that means it got a close-parenthesis when it expected nothing.)
C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Vegas Pro 8.0\Script Menu\J – Convert Regions To Subclips.cs(171) : Invalid expression term ‘in’
C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Vegas Pro 8.0\Script Menu\J – Convert Regions To Subclips.cs(171) : ; expected
C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Vegas Pro 8.0\Script Menu\J – Convert Regions To Subclips.cs(171) : ; expected
C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Vegas Pro 8.0\Script Menu\J – Convert Regions To Subclips.cs(171) : ; expected
C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Vegas Pro 8.0\Script Menu\J – Convert Regions To Subclips.cs(171) : Invalid expression term ‘)’

After changing the quote marks to parentheses, I got a simpler error: “cannot find bin ‘in order'”.
I could change the script to match one of my bins, but I created a bin ‘in order’, and saved the project.

Then I ran the script and – oh darn – got the “Exception occurred” error, the details of which are:

Sony Vegas Pro 8.0
Version 8.0b (Build 217)
Exception 0xC0000005 (access violation) READ:0x2AC IP:0x77008D06
In Module ‘kernel32.dll’ at Address 0x76F60000 + 0xA8D06
Thread: GUI ID=0xF6C Stack=0x17E000-0x180000
Registers:
EAX=00000001 CS=0023 EIP=77008d06 EFLGS=00210297
EBX=00000000 SS=002b ESP=0017e6ec EBP=0017e768
ECX=00000000 DS=002b ESI=ffffffff FS=0053
EDX=000002ac ES=002b EDI=011eaa60 GS=002b
Bytes at CS:EIP:
77008D06: 0F B7 0A 8B 75 18 66 3B ….u.f;
77008D0E: 0E 6A 02 89 55 FC 89 75 .j..U..u
Stack Dump:
0017E6EC: 0D75B4AC 0D5A0000 + 1BB4AC
0017E6F0: 00000001
0017E6F4: 000002AC
0017E6F8: 00000000
0017E6FC: 00000000
0017E700: 00000000
0017E704: 000002AC
0017E708: 00000000
0017E70C: 00000000
0017E710: 00000002
0017E714: 5F009E34 5E880000 + 789E34
0017E718: 00000001
0017E71C: 00000000
0017E720: 00000000
0017E724: 00000000
0017E728: 00000000
> 0017E74C: 76F7151C 76F60000 + 1151C (kernel32.dll)
> 0017E764: 76FAB89B 76F60000 + 4B89B (kernel32.dll)
> 0017E76C: 76F7151C 76F60000 + 1151C (kernel32.dll)
> 0017E79C: 76F92AB7 76F60000 + 32AB7 (kernel32.dll)
> 0017E7C4: 00740539 00400000 + 340539 (vegas80.exe)
0017E7C8: 000002AC
0017E7CC: 0D75B4AC 0D5A0000 + 1BB4AC
0017E7D0: 313C8F08 305E0000 + DE8F08
0017E7D4: 4042C71C 401A0000 + 28C71C
> 0017E7E0: 00740701 00400000 + 340701 (vegas80.exe)
0017E7E4: 0017E81C 00080000 + FE81C
0017E7E8: 0017E810 00080000 + FE810
0017E7EC: 0017E7F8 00080000 + FE7F8
0017E7F0: 0017E8F8 00080000 + FE8F8
> 0017E7FC: 0073F922 00400000 + 33F922 (vegas80.exe)
0017E800: 0017E81C 00080000 + FE81C
0017E804: 0017E810 00080000 + FE810
0017E808: 0000001F
0017E80C: 8004E007
> 0017E818: 006E6D82 00400000 + 2E6D82 (vegas80.exe)
0017E81C: 000002AC
0017E820: 00360031 002E0000 + 80031
> 0017E824: 00770020 00400000 + 370020 (vegas80.exe)
> 0017E828: 006F0068 00400000 + 2F0068 (vegas80.exe)
– – –
0017FFF0: 00000000
0017FFF4: 0083F20B 00400000 + 43F20B (vegas80.exe)
0017FFF8: 7EFDE000 7EFDE000 + 0
0017FFFC: 00000000

I don’t imagine that means anything to anyone (anywhere).

[Jill Simpson]

Jon Barrie,
Are you saying there will be a patch made available for download to CS4?
Please tell all. I am using CS4 and I have not found any solutions.
If it’s still in the lab, do you know what they are trying to do?

(P.S. So… How many video editors does it take to change a lightbulb?)

[Jill Simpson]

So “recapture” won’t recapture only the events on the timeline.
Can I create a BATCH CAPTURE from my Project’s EVENTS SPREADSHEET?

In Edit Details view, the Events list is a spreadsheet with TapeName, TimeIn, TimeOut etc. It can be copy-and-pasted into a spreadsheet application. Can I create a BATCH CAPTURE file from a spreadsheet or straight from the events list? That way we can recapture the (e.g.) 2 minutes we want, without also capturing the 44 minutes we don’t want. I saved a batch capture list (the file extension is .sfvidcap) and opened it in Notepad++. I’m comfortable reading most code but this was almost all non-alphanumeric gobbledygeek, so I don’t know how to convert the Events spreadsheet into a batch capture file. Do you?

Wo! We can’t capture at low resolution? I had talked with my colleague about how uncompressed video eats up disk space and I thought he had captured at low res, but I see he did not – and that it cannot be done – in Vegas. Vegas Help includes an entry on Intermediate Files, which says if you can capture, _then_ convert to low res, then edit, then replace the project media with the high res version. I’m working with 68 hours of SD DV – I don’t have room for all that uncompressed video on my computer or on my external hard drives – especially not for the few months it will take to edit the video. So I’m supposed to capture, convert to low res, delete the uncompressed video, edit the project, then recapture all the tapes that have something we want, capturing 60 minutes each time even if we know we only want a specific 30 second chunk.

I’ve never heard of anything more wasteful. Until now I’ve been a big fan of Sony Vegas. Is Sony concerned about this inefficiency?

Do Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier, Windows Movie Maker, AviDemux, VirtualDub and other programs have these absurdities?
(1: can’t recapture only the contents on the timeline, must recapture the whole original capture.
2. can’t capture at low res.)

Best Possible Workflow:
I read most of Vegas’ Help file and did numerous searches on their support site, trying to find a suggested workflow. I found nothing. Given the limitations of the software as described above, it seems the following is the best possible workflow:
1. Watch the tapes in the Advanced Capture window, logging in and out points.
2. Review and revise the in and out points if necessary, while the tape is still fresh in memory.
3. After watching all the tapes, do a bit of editing in my head or on paper, thinking if a previously logged clip is no longer needed now that I’ve seen some clip on another tape, or now that we’ve changed the design/theme/structure of the movie. Then review and revise the in and out points if necessary. This would require changing cassettes multiple times, unless you remember the previously viewed tapes well. (For this part of the process, it would be very helpful to have all the clips on computer in low res, but alas we are in a catch-22.)
4. Batch capture to an external hard drive.
5. Convert each clip to a low res “intermediate” file, by
(a) using some other software
(b) opening a clip in Vegas, rendering it at low res, and repeating for each clip. (Can Batch Render help here? How? I understand Batch Render for rendering a single file to multiple formats, but can it be used to render multiple files? If I bring all the files into my timeline, and then click batch render, is there a way to make it render the files as separate files, or would it just render the project as one file?)
6. Edit.
7. Replace the project media with the uncompressed clips.

Do you agree? Should Sony include that or something similar in its Help files and its online support?