[Mike Kujbida]

I don’t have an AVCHD camcorder so I grabbed a clip from the ‘net to play with.
In addition to adjusting the playback properties, you can also insert a velocity envelope on the clip for a 3X speed increase.
Combined, this gives you a total of 12X.
If that’s not enough, render it, import it and do it again.

Some tips for you:
#1. When adjusting the playback rate, select “Disable Resample” or everything will be a blur.
#2. Render in “Best” mode.

And here’s what Sony says in the Vegas 8 online help:

If you want to render to AVCHD format and export the rendered file to an AVCHD camera, please use the following steps:

a. Verify that your Vegas project is set to 5.1 surround mode.

b. In the Render As dialog, choose Sony AVC from the Save as type drop-down list.

c. Use the AVCHD NTSC 5.1 Surround or AVCHD PAL 5.1 Surround rendering template.

d. If you choose to use the Custom Template dialog to customize your rendering template, leave all settings at their default values except for the Bit rate control. The default Bit rate setting should work for most applications.

[Mike Kujbida]

Every post house is different so what will work at my local shops may not work at yours.
The time to talk to them is now to find out what their needs and how you can best meet those needs.

[Mike Kujbida]

I could only find one post about MP3 registration problems on the Sony Vegas forum.
The solution was to contact Customer Service using the Live Chat option.
Apparently they sorted out the issue for him.

[Mike Kujbida]

Chris, because of possible compression errors, a WAV file would be better than an mp3.
If you don’t have web space, sign up for a free account at YouSendIt.
The basic account lets you upload up to a 100MB which, for your needs, will be more than enough.
As far as Audition goes, I’ve heard some very good things about it but have never personally used it.

[Mike Kujbida]

Chris, is there any way you could post one of your problem clips on a website somewhere?
This way, someone who has SoundForge could play with it and tell you if it’s an easy fix or not.
This would help you in deciding whether to lay out the money or not (for what I consider a very worthwhile program).

[Mike Kujbida]

“Hey Mike I just tried that, it’s working fine except I am missing the first and last few words of the sentence!!!”

Maybe you’re not placing the words far enough right and left?

I made up a sample ticker veg file (using your words in italics above) for you to look at.
It was done in Vegas 7.
Grab it here.
BTW, I see from your profile that you’re in Toronto.
I’m just down the road in Windsor.

[Mike Kujbida]

Does this version already come with DVDA 4? Or is that a separate purchase?

Just like Vegas 7 came with DVDA 4.0, Vegas Pro 8 comes with DVDA 4.5.

I have been hearing about people installing 8 and not getting a transitions or Video effect plugins installed as 7 did.

First I’ve heard of this.
Everything worked just fine for me when I upgraded.

Remember that, as an existing Vegas user, the upgrade price offer ends Oct. 31.

[Mike Kujbida]

Drop a (Default text) text event on the timeline.
Set the size as desired (36 pt. or smaller).
Enter all your text as a single line (don’t worry about it going off-screen).
Set the text placement to Bottom Center.
Create a key frame at the beginning of the text event.
Go into the Placement tab and change the X value so that the beginning of the text crawl is at screen right (go off-screen if you want to).
Create a key frame at the end of the text event.
Go into the Placement tab and change the X value so that the end of the text crawl is at screen left (go off-screen if you want to).
Change the length of the event as desired to make it a readable crawl.
Readjust the end key frame if necessary.

[Mike Kujbida]

Your saying… I’d have better quality…
This will make the effects look even better also..correct?

Yes to everything!!
By it’s very nature, MPEG is a highly compressed format.
As an example, camcorder footage is (approx.) 13.5 GB/hr.
An hour of MPEG footage (on a DVD) is around 4 GB.
That’s more than 3:1 compression.
Something has to give with all that compression and it’s your image quality.

I’ve got a device that came with my pinnacle software…

Try and sell it on E-Bay.
There have been numerous posts over the years stating that it won’t work with Vegas.

[Mike Kujbida]

…I would be going from mpeg to DVD quite a bit.

Does this mean that you’re capturing from your HI8 as an MPEG stream?
If so, this will increase your render time as MPEG was meant to be a mastering format and not an editing format.
This has changed with Vegas 8 as it now has a “smart render” feature for MPEG files.
However, just as with DV-AVI, any time you add an effect, it will be re-rendered.
Also, going from MPEG to MPEG will mean another drop in quality as the original video is already compressed and you’ll be compressing it further when you render it for DVD.
My suggestion would be to either buy a device like a anopus ADVC-55 or a used miniDV camcorder from E-Bay (as long as it has the pass-through feature!!). The transport function can be broken as long as the electronics are functioning.
This will allow you to convert the the analog signal from your camcorder to a digital one that will be much easier to edit.
If you don’t already have one, you’ll need a firewire card for your computer but they’re available for around $30 or less.