[John Rofrano]

It depends on your workflow. If you need to use external programs like After Effects then I say Yes, CineForm will help your workflow because you will be rendering several times as you move work in and out of various programs and CineForm will hold up a lot nicer than HDV. Also, you don’t want to be working in programs like After Effects with long GOP formats like HDV because 14 out of 15 frames must be build from examining the difference between previous and next frames. CineForm maintains all the data for each frame of video which makes sure those frames are more accurately represented and easier to navigate.

If, on the other hand, you never leave Vegas and don’t perform intermediate rendering, working in HDV is preferable because Vegas can edit in natively and there is no reason to use an intermediary format.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

The silver surfer is probably done in a 3D application. Pick your favorite: 3DS Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, Lightwave, etc. You could probably use Poser, Carrara Pro or even the free DAZ Studio to animate the character although without motion capture it might not be believable. The other hard part is match moving them back into the scene. You would need match moving software like MatchMover Pro, Boujou, SynthEyes, PFTrack, etc.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

> I went into my cameras menu and turned on the firewire export and it still did not work.

It’s more than just turning on firewire. You have to also set the firewire output to either DV or HDV depending on how you want to capture and then use the matching capture mode in Vegas.

> I am out of ideas.

Have you been methodical about how you are debugging this? You need to start from one end of the chain and work toward the other:

1. Does your firewire port work? Have you used it with another firewire device to prove it works?
2. If Yes, does the firewire cable work when plugged into your working firewire port? Have you used it with another firewire device to prove it works?
3. If Yes, does Windows acknowledge your camera when you attach it via your working firewire cable and port?
4. If Yes, have you tried using both DV and HDV capture in Vegas to see if one works and the other doesn’t.

Somewhere along the line you will fine the point at which it doesn’t work and that’s what needs to be fixed.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

Yup, that’s how normalize all works. It just raises everything equally to make sure the loudest sound is at 0dBFS. You have several options if both talkers are on the same channel:

1. Add a volume envelope and raise and lower the volume as needed
2. Split the events and adjust their volumes individually
3. Add a compressor to the track and set the threshold very low so that it raises the low audio while compressing the loud audio.

I usually take option 1 and use a volume envelope. Option 3 is the laziest approach but sometimes it produces acceptable audio with minimal effort.

If you have Sound Forge you could open the audio and highlight only the low audio and normalize it separate from the loud audio. If you don’t have Sound Forge you might consider getting it. A lot of audio post work requires this level of precision.

Of course if the talkers are on left and right channels then just split the channels on the event into left and right on separate tracks and adjust the track volume accordingly. (and if they are not, seriously consider recording them this way the next time)

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

You have to use Ctrl+Shift+D to switch back and forth between the multi-camera and master view. There is no way that I know of to see both at once because they both use the preview window. That would be a great product suggestion though.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

Sorry I misunderstood what you wanted based on the picture you provided. Forget about the trimmer. You want to lay out your camera tracks on the timeline and then use Tools | Multicamera | Enable Multicamera Editing (Ctrl+Shift+D). Then select the video tracks you want to use and choose Tools | Multicamera | Create Multicmera Track. Then click on the track in the preview that you want to make active. You can read all about it in the help file.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

> Its a dvd I bought, so I dont know if that has anything to do with it.

It has everything to do with it. It is illegal to import copy protected DVD so Vegas will never support this. You will always need to use an illegal ripper to do this.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

That was probably the Trimmer window. Use View | Trimmer (Alt+2) to view the trimmer or right-click on any clip and select Open in Trimmer. Then dock the trimmer next to your preview window. You will also want to enable the Show Video Monitor button in the top right of the trimmer window to get a large view of your source footage just like the preview window.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

What did you upgrade from? Movie Studio has always only had those two modes.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

You can do this using 3D Track Motion. I have two tutorials on my web site on how to do this:

Using 3D Parent Motion to make a two videos move in unison in 3D space
Vegas Track Motion: Changing the 3D Pivot Point

This should give you a good idea of what can be done.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com