[Timothy Duncan]

To my knowledge, gearshift only automates what you can already do in Vegas. The Sony YUV codec is part of the Vegas install, although it is only available inside of Vegas iteself.

Sony YUV codec will not play nearly as smoothly as Cineform intermediate on your average computer. The bottleneck is the drive speed. You must have a very, very, very fast array in order to get full frame rate playback of the uncompressed YUV files. You need 122 Megs per second for HD uncompressed. Plus you need a LOT of storage space. 1 min of HD 1920x1080i YUV uncompressed = 7.3 Gigs which is 438 Gigs per hour.

Intermediate is much more efficient editing at around 9 megs per second. 1 min of HD 1440x1080i Cineform intermediate = 560 Megs which is 33.6 Gigs per hour. Your performance for the Cineform intermediate files should very closely resemble DV performance. This is why using the intermediate makes it possible to edit HDV on a laptop with Vegas.

So — be prepared to spend a LOT of time rendering if you are editing HDV. And remember that batch capture and recapture is not yet possible. The results are stunning, but make sure you budget the time necessary to convert to intermediate, and then the time to convert back to HDV for print to tape (if you are going back to HDV tape).

td

[Timothy Duncan]

Don’t forget the Vegas to AE plugin that you can purchase from Forged Images:
https://www.forgedimages.com/AEPlugIns.html

This enables you to take a Vegas timeline into AE.

td

[Timothy Duncan]

[The Old Timer] “Is there anyway to fill the preview window with the 4×3 still & still retain the quality. I might add that these still are of a much higher resolution than that of video.”

If you are working in a 16×9 project, then change the aspect of your stills in the properties to match. Other than this, you will have to live with bars on the right and left, or get higher resolution stills so that you can zoom in.

td

[Timothy Duncan]

Richard,

I find that I can do the majority of all my FX work directly in Vegas without having to go to AE. I still have and use AE for specific things, such as motion tracking. I also use AE for specific 3rd party filters that aren’t available in Vegas. However, I usually do not complete the composite in AE, but rather output uncompressed elements with Alpha channel to bring back into Vegas for all the finishing.

Vegas is a lot more powerful than most people every find out. Dig a little deeper.

My summary: AE is a great tool and it can do many things Vegas can’t, but I only have to go into AE rarely because I find Vegas meets the majority of my needs.

td

[Timothy Duncan]

My guess is that they are waiting to add scripting to the text because the text tool needs a major overhaul. It is now the weakest area in Vegas, and one of the oldest. It pales in comparison to the text generator found in competive NLEs.

I use Photoshop very often for text. Just yesterday on a project, I had change out font, color, edge FX, etc. I was able to make actions in PS to make this much easier. (I only had about 30 graphics to change).

Another program I’m learning and really getting into is Heroglyph. It works as a media generator within Vegas and version 2 has some very nice improvments. Instead of using Swish to make flash files, I’ve found I can do all the flying text even looking much nicer in Heroglyph.
https://www.heroglyph.com/

So let’s hope Vegas 7 brings us a new text tool with scripting!

td

[Timothy Duncan]

Yes — I’ll be in Birmingham on Monday night for the Sidewalk Salon. It is at the Rojo Restaurant: https://www.birminghammenus.com/rojo/

You know — on several other lists I participate in, they call me “Mr. Vegas” instead of Mr. Duncan. 😉 Looking forward to seeing you and a whole bunch of folks with Sony. There will be a copy of Vegas 6 as a door prize.

BTW — I love your enthusiasm!

td

[Timothy Duncan]

Rick — it sounds like a bad disc. Try burning to another disc, or another brand.

Bad discs will typcially be fine over the first half, but then the closer to the outer edge you burn, the worse your playback will become.

td

[Timothy Duncan]

Chris — I use and highly recommend Scenalyzer. It’s a far better capture tool for DV than Vegas. Plus — it has a bazillion more features than Vegas. Generally, I only use Vegas to re-capture offline files, or to specifically capture exact time codes for multi-cam work. (Of course using Excalibur!)

I’ve suggested to the Vegas team that they include Scenalyzer with Vegas. It’s is a very good value for the $39 it costs. Also — It allows you to browse files so much easier. I wish the Media Pool and Media Manager had a mode to show the clips as filmstrips. I’ve also wished that I could drag and drop from Scenalyzer into Vegas.

You will have no problems capturing in Scenalyzer and then using in Vegas. Timecode is frame accurate and Scenalyzer includes reelnames for EDLs, recapture, etc.

One thing that’s important: Scenalzyer crash captures are frame accurate. Vegas crash captures are not. If you wish to re-batch capture any DV material in Vegas, you must used the “advanced capture” mode. Otherwise, you’ll have a 16 frame offset. That’s one more reason to use Scenalzyer to capture.

td

[Timothy Duncan]

[Larry Watts] “In practical workflow terms what advantage does direct i/o do?

Does it save time? How?”

The advantage is uncompressed I/O. If you are doing DV projects and only have DV decks, then there is no gain other than an SDI or component preview from Vegas. The Decklink solution is for those having SDI or component decks that are higher resolution/quality than DV. For me — I’m using Digibeta decks so I’ve now finally got my wish of being able to capture/PTT directly in Vegas with uncompressed video. As long as you stay in Vegas, and you have plenty of disk space that can support uncompressed data rates, then this is a good solution. However, if you need to access the uncompressed footage to use in a 3rd party application, such as AE, then you will need 4 times the disk space.

So if you are doing DV based projects — Decklink is not an advantage, but if you are doing uncompressed work, then Decklink is great. If you want to offline/online with Digibeta, you’ll still need an SD-Connect because the current relase of Vegas only supports uncompressed with Decklink.

While I like Decklink, I’m looking forward to uncompressed with SD-Connect and Vegas.
I’m also excited about the HDV-Connect that was announced at NAB last week.

—
td

P.S. — nice to meet many of you last week at NAB! I missed the Sony party because I was presenting Vegas 6 at the ProMax Digital Cafe on Tuesday night.