[John Rofrano]

> Not to get off the Vegas subject but there is a not well known program called OnLocation recently bought by Adobe along with Ultra.

Actually, this package is very well know as Serious Magic DV Rack. Anyone who owned it knows that Adobe turned it’s back on all existing DV Rack customers when it purchased Serious Magic. The same is true for Ultra. There is no need to go into the details here but let’s just say that what they pulled did not make me want to be an Adobe customer.

~jr

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[John Rofrano]

> This time I didn’t answer the question, and I got a single segment of all the images together… Note, if the sequence runs too fast, you can control-pull the right edge to slow it down to taste.

Actually, you should not have dismissed that dialog box and this is why your segment is running too fast. Sorry for not pointing this out, but that dialog box is where you tell Vegas how many frames per second the still images represent. Getting this information correct is extremely important for having your video playback at the proper rate. So you can ignore the tape name but please set the FPS and any other attributes for your video.

~jr

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[John Rofrano]

> I’m not at all clear what you mean by “cineform intermediate templates”. Where are they, how are the labeled?

Under AVI you will see a bunch of templates with “intermediate” in the name. (e.g., “HDV 720-30p intermediate”, “HDV 1080-60i intermediate”, etc.) These are the CineForm intermediates.

> can’t you just import all the stills generated by the script?

That is exactly what I explained how to do.

> If you select the first still and check “Open Still Image Sequence”, you have to re-digitize from the original tape.

No, that’s not what that option does. That option only works with still images on your hard drive and has nothing to do with tape.

~jr

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[John Rofrano]

> I scan for Virus & spyware regularly, Defrag, occasional registry cleaner…

If you are already doing all of that then it sounds like you are doing everything you can to keep your system running smooth. It’s a shame that Windows is a junk magnet that just gets slower and slower with age.

One thing to check is how many programs are loading resident into memory when you startup that you don’t need. Run MSCONFIG and check the Startup tab and disable anything you don’t think you need. The great thing is that you can re-enable them with just a check in case you disable something you need so it’s non-destructive.

[soapbox]
It seems that every software manufacturer today feels compelled to suck up your resources with a resident program that checks for updates like that’s all you bought your PC to do. I like Sony’s idea of only checked when you run the program and giving you the ability to turn that off. Unfortunately, Adobe, Apple, Nero, Install Shield, and others deem it necessary to run several resident programs regardless all the time. Check for Quicktime (qttask), iTunesHelper, CyberLink/WinDVD (or your favorite DVD player), Adobe Reader (reader_sl), Nero servers and indexers (NMBgMonitor, NMIndexStoreSvr, NBKeyScan, NeroCheck), Hewlett Packard print utilities (HPWuSchd2, hpcmpmgr), Install Shield (ISUSPM), etc. Those are just some of the junk you don’t need at startup.
[/soapbox]

In the past I’ve used System Mechanic 7 to keep things clean. Sometimes it gets a bit too aggressive and will disable a program you need but in general it finds the junk and disables it. I also use Raxco PerfectDisk 2008. It has a mode that will keep your system defragged during idle times. Good Luck (I hate house cleaning) 😉

~jr

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[John Rofrano]

Hi Joe, This isn’t the only way to do it. If you are going to use Velocity Envelopes and re-render then use one of the Cineform intermediary templates that come with Vegas. This will make the re-renders almost lossless.

The other way is to render your video as an image sequence and then re-import it. Just use the Render Image Sequence script that comes with Vegas. Set the Step Time to whatever interval you want. For example if you want a frame every 5 seconds then set the step time to 00:00:05;00. Once the rendering is complete, use File | Import | Media and navigate to the first image in the sequence and select it. Then make sure the Open still image sequence is checked and Vegas will rebuild your video from the time sequenced images.

~jr

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[John Rofrano]

> To obtain this on AVI, I have to actually resize the video. I prefer reducing it because making it bigger would see everything distorted.

There is no need to reduce it. All of the information is there for 873×480 with absolutely no loss of quality. Widescreen pixels are wider (1.2121) and therefore the real resolution is actually 873×480. You can reduce it if you’d like but nothing will be distorted if you render at 873×480.

> One last question: I’m doing a custom template 704×396. (it gives me 16:9, I calculated it) with a PAR of 1. If I want to include, let’s say, a 480p video (640×480), what is the PAR I would assign to that video?

You need to crop the 16:9 in order to get 4:3. You cannot simply change the PAR. If you follow my advice and create 873×480 you will get the 480 video you want. If you want to cop to 4:3 then you must re-render the video with a 4:3 crop on the original 16:9.

~jr

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[John Rofrano]

Rather than correct it, the first thing you should do is avoid it. I would record your audio with the real song playing in you ear with headphones. This way you stay in sync. Just a small ear bud with a hidden wire will do.

The way to fix what you have is by time stretching. I have to do this all the time when I record a live performance and then need to sync the “studio” version of the song with it. Here’s what you do:

1. Open the master song in the trimmer and drop a marker at each start of each measure. This will add embedded markers to the media.
2. Open your recording in the trimmer and drop a marker at each start of each measure
3. Lay your recording and the song on two tracks and sync the first markers to match
4. Sync your recorded audio to the video and group them together (this is very important to keep them in sync)
5. Move down the timeline of the master song and each time it strays from the marker on the song you recording, split the event and Ctrl+Drag it to match the marker.
6. Repeat step 5 for each marker

This will stretch the music so that it stays in sync with your recording. It will be hardly noticeable because you are stretching each measure individually and the changes will be small. As I said, I’ve used this technique to take a live performance that was only done with an accompanying piano, and add back the entire band.

~jr

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[John Rofrano]

Hmmm… Vegas only copies the clip when you hold down the Ctrl key. Check to see if your Ctrl key is stuck. Otherwise it is possible that you have multiple copies of the clip already stacked on top of each other. If the last one won’t move make sure it is not locked. (right-click | Properties | Lock should be unchecked)

~jr

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http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

Vegas MSP is designed to capture video from camcorders for the purpose of editing. This is why it only supports firewire and a limited number of USB devices. I would capture your video with whatever software came with your TV tuner card and drop it into Vegas for editing.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

> And I’m using Windows Media Player, since that’s the only player I have to determine the aspect ratio

Well… with each post we are getting closer to uncovering the problem. This is good. 😉

It doesn’t matter what the Windows Media Player is showing you if that’s not your target device. All that matters is that the output device that it was intended for is displaying your video correctly.

You should be checking your MPEG2 DVD video on your TV via a DVD player. That is the only place it counts. Windows Media Player will not show your video correctly because it’s not a TV or emulating a TV. It’s just a media player that has no clue what pixel aspect ratios are. That doesn’t mean your video is not 16:9. It just means Windows Media Player can’t handle video with a PAR other than 1.0.

Burn a DVD. Play it on your TV. Everything will be fine.

For the web video, render it as 873×480 and I guarantee that it will playback as 16:9 widescreen in Windows Media Player.

BTW, VLC should play back MPEG-2 Widescreen correctly but the “real” test is a set-top DVD player connected to a TV

~jr

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