Matt Crowley
Forum Replies Created
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Your problem is that the aspect ratios for standard definition formats like NTSC DV are not quite true 4:3 or 16:9 but are slightly wider – hence the black bars when going from HD (proper 16:9) to SD.
Vegas has an option in the Project Properties to “Adjust source media to better match project or render settings”. However, this only seems to affect video events, not still images – at least in Movie Studio 10, where it’s enabled by default I think.
You can uncheck this option to force all media to be treated the same, which means you will always get a slight pillarbox effect (black side edges) when rendering from HD to SD/DV formats like DVD. That won’t look so bad when you view the output on a TV.
Unchecking “maintain aspect ratio” in pan/crop just allows Vegas to slightly stretch your images horizontally to fill up the black bars.
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There are a few flavours of MPEG4, MP4, AVC… all related, but sometimes camera manufacturers have their own quirky implementation that causes problems for software. It could be that the MP4 files from the NEK-3K do not strictly conform to the standard format.
Do you have any codec packs (video decoders) or extra playback software installed. Codec packs like K-Lite or FFDShow can cause trouble if they take over from the normally installed codecs in Windows or Vegas.
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Duplicate the audio track so that you have 2 tracks each with the stereo audio. Then right-click on one audio event and select Channels>Left Only. Do the same for the other event but select Channels>Right Only. Then you have the two people each on their own track in Vegas and you can adjust volume/FX independently.
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If you want to make a standard video DVD, then you have to use the MPEG2 PAL or NTSC settings as Nigel described. Only Blu-ray can properly support HD resolutions like 1920×1080. DVD only supports standard definition (SD) resolutions of 720×576 (PAL, Europe) or 720×480 (NTSC, USA). That might sound horribly low, but it’s what all DVDs use and shouldn’t look too bad since you started with HD footage.
Watch out with the “adjust source media” option in the project properties. In my experience with Movie Studio HD 10, this only affects video, not still images. So if you have a project set up as HD, and then render to a DVD format you’ll end up with slightly cropped video and pillarboxed stills. It appears to be similar for NTSC size SD output.
Unchecking “adjust source media” causes a slight pillarboxing for all media when going from HD to PAL SD, which is probably better.
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If you have the FX window permanently open/visible (especially if it’s docked), it’s easy to mistakenly edit the FX for a different media item or track – usually whatever item you last edited FX for.
To make sure you are editing the FX for the item you want (track or media), always click the FX button for that item first.
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Interestingly, Mike, I notice in VMS 10 that if you collapse the loop region (either with that option of manually) then the “render loop region only” option in the render dialog gets disabled automatically.
Vegas assumes that if you DO have a loop region selected then you want to render only that. Problems arise when you inadvertently make a loop selection and forget to de-select the “render loop region” option.
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This area between the yellow markers is called the loop region, and it only affects loop playback or rendering.
In normal editing, you don’t need to worry about it, as it always follows whatever time selection you make (which includes double-clicking an event). There’s no need to delete/collapse it, but if you really don’t like it, you can check the option in preferences>editing called “collapse loop region”. Then it will disappear whenever there is no time selection made.
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You can try setting the layers as “compositing child” of the top layer (aka “Track” in Vegas) that you want to zoom, then doing keyframed track motion on the composition parent. That should affect all the children exactly the same as the parent. It also means you can have other tracks (eg overlays, captions) in your project that do not follow this zoom.
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It’s easy once you know how…
Just make a duplicate keyframe after the keyframe that you want to pause the pan/crop at, i.e. with the same settings as the first keyframe. Then add keyframes after the duplicate keyframe to continue the pan/crop. The pan/crop will effectively be paused between the two identical keyframes.
You can create a duplicate (copy) keyframe by Ctrl-dragging (on the keyframe timeline at the bottom of the pan/crop window) the keyframe you wish to duplicate, and placing the new keyframe at the point you wish to end the pause.
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Actually, I have this issue with Movie Studio Platinum HD 10. I used to be able to open the help normally from the menu in Vegas, but now that does nothing. I can still see and open the help file itself from Explorer. I haven’t done any Vegas updates or major system changes.