[John Rofrano]

That’s because the intermediary format uses the CineForm codec and the only application that is licensed to use the CineForm codec on your computer is Vegas. All other applications will not see the video. You must buy the Cineform codec if you want to use it in other applications.

If you just want to have playback from other applications you can download the trial of Neo HDV from CineForm. While the encoder will expire after the 15 day trial is up, the decoder never expires as long as the trial remains installed. This will give you playback in Windows Media Player.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

> I put the video onto the computer it’s squashed vertically

OK, now we’re getting somewhere. 😉

(1) Set your Vegas project (Alt+Enter) to DV Widescreen.

(2) Right-click on the Preview window and select Simulate Device Aspect

(3) Right-click on the media in the Project Media window and select Properties. On the Media tab set the Pixel aspect ratio: to 1.2121 (NTSC DV Widescreen).

This should unsquish your video. If you use PAL instead of NTSC then, of couse, substitute the NTSC settings in my instructions for PAL. (PAL Widescreen is PAR 1.4568)

That should fix it (he says with fingers crossed)

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

> That is a better way than saving to the presets. I guess it is stored with the project .veg file, right?

No, when you save the ProType title, that save is not saved in the project file. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. I was answering a different question that you asked. So let me be very specific.

If you create a title and do not save it, it gets saved in the project file. This is how you would normally use titles.

When you specifically save a title to a collection, it gets saved to a common area that is project independent. These collections are seen across projects. You do not have to do anything to share these across projects.

> So how can I transfer that title, and 100 more similar titles that I just saved into collections, to another Vegas project?

If I had 100 titles to transfer, I would just open a second instance of Vegas and cut and paste between them. That will take 2 seconds. I would only use collections if these were titles that I was going to use in several projects over a long period of time. Even then, I might just cut and paste because 100 titles is a daunting number to keep creating one at a time.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

> Are you referring to the Save Preset button, to the right of the Preset field?

No, but you can certainly save it as preset and that will work too.

I was referring to when you are in the ProType tool, look down at the bottom on the “track header” that has your text on it. There will be a diskette icon on the right side of the header just before the area of the track where you make your keyframes. That’s the icon for saving into your collection. If you hover your mouse over it, it will say “Save to Collection…”

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

The titles are stored in the project file. You should use the Save to Collection… button (diskette icon on the pro-type track) to save the title to your collection. Then in the next project just load it from the collection.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

My favorite audio mastering plug-in is iZotope Ozone 3. It has a great set of presets which usually get you very close to the sound you’re looking for. I use it on almost every project. If you just want to stay with the Sony plug-ins I would start with Wave Hammer using the Master for 16-bit preset. I usually adjust the Volume Maximizer output for -3dB and set the Threshold to taste depending on the dynamics of the source material.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

Hi Jesse,

I looked at the specs on the JVC site and all it says is “16:9 Fullscreen”. I have no idea what they mean by that statement. This is why I asked if it shoots true 16:9 or if it adds black bars to a 4:3 frame. Without knowing this it’s hard to help you.

What are you seeing when you say:

It shoots in 16:9, but when I put the videos onto the computer it crops it down terribly, so I have to put it back into widescreen on the video editor.

Are there black bars on the top and bottom? or is the image squashed vertically? What Vegas project template are you using?

If there are black bars at the top and bottom then your camera does not shoot true 16:9, it just crops a 4:3 frame to 16:9. This means you don’t really have 16:9. You have 4:3 with black bars. In order to fix this in Vegas you will have to crop all of the media to remove the black bars.

If the image is squashed vertically, and fills the frame top to bottom, then you have anamorphic 16:9 and should make sure that Vegas as set the media to a pixel aspect ratio to 1.2121 in the media properties.

Either way you should use the DV Widescreen project template.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

I did some more investigating and it looks like some people are having difficulty capturing from the Canon HV30 into Vegas but others are not. I’m not sure I see a pattern. (I only have Sony cameras)

You might want to disable scene detection during capture and perhaps that will stop what you perceive to be as capturing still images. In the HDV Capture tool go to the Prefs and on the General tab uncheck Enable HDV scene detection. This should capture the tape as one big file. I’m not sure why Vegas did not recognize your M2T files but perhaps it was the bad capture.

As for training… we (VASST) have some books and instructional DVD’s on Vegas and HD. Our book The Full HD will answer many of your questions on HD and if it doesn’t you can always ask us here. Douglas Spotted Eagle, one of our Vegas Forum administrators here at the Cow, is one of the authors. I would also recommend our Absolute Training for Vegas+DVD Beginner Bundle for Vegas Pro training DVD. On this 3 DVD set, Douglas, myself, and Jeffrey P. Fisher, will take you through all of the basics of Vegas Pro and DVD Architect. I’m sure there is a lot of good training material being offered so shop around.

Install/reinstall is as easy as clicking on the Vegas installer all over again and following the prompts. Vegas will see that it is already installed and will refresh the installation keeping all of your personal preferences.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

> …project A, which up until now has been a SD project (shot in and captured as SD), no problem. I had this open when I went to try and capture the HD footage. That’s when I found that 24f capture was “jerky” and 30f fine.

Hmmm… not sure if what you are experiencing is the cadence of 24 vs 30 fps which, of course, 24 motion will seem a bit jerky because there are less frames to smooth things out. You are mixing media (SD/HD) and frame rates (24p/60i) in the same project. You can’t expect it to all look the same. Then again it could just be the SD vs HD playback if HD isn’t playing back at full frame rates. You will see the frame rate at the bottom of the preview. On my 2.66GHz QuadCore I’m getting 29.976fps playback for HDV in Preview (Auto) mode.

> I have a Focusrite Saffire external sound card. I checked the settings in Vegas and it points to it.

OK, this is an audio problem. Are you using the Focusrite ASIO drivers or the Microsoft Sound Mapper? (check this in Options | Preferences | Audio Device) I can’t imagine why one project would be fine and another cause an error. Make sure the project audio properties are set correctly. The sample rate should be 48,000 and bit-depth 16. It just seems very odd that this one project is giving problems.

> (I’ve been eyeing Gearshift; 1) with the computer power I have do you feel I need it and 2) is it idiot-proof?

With your computer I don’t think you need GearShift. It’s fairly easy to use but you should be fine without it.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

> Is there a standard or useful guideline for what dB they should be set at?

[Note: tongue planted firmly in cheek] I’ve never done any work for broadcast but as a consumer of broadcast TV and having been thrown out of my chair with my ears bleeding from the volume when a commercial comes on I’d say there is no standard. As far as I can tell it’s a free-for-all and broadcasters should be embarrassed and TV manufacturers should be required to add an audio limiter to all TV’s so that the volume never exceeds what I set it to. 😉

I’ll leave the real answer for someone who knows.

> And is there anyway to minimize background buzz?

There are several noise reduction plug-ins that will handle broadband noise. BIAS Sound Soap 2 is inexpensive and gets the job done. Sony Noise Reduction is also good but getting a little long in the tooth. The best one I’ve found is iZotope RX. This is a tool that I believe every videographer should have in their bag. Quite simply, it can perform miracles. It can fix problems that just a year ago we would have told you were impossible to fix. On of the tools in the RX suite is DeNoiser which is the one you want. If you can’t afford iZotope RX, go with BIAS Sound Soap.

~jr

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