[Wayne Waag]

When you save a .veg file, you have the option to save media with it, and another option to keep only the used parts of source media with 2 second tails. You can do this and then delete the original source media.

This only works for a few formats like DV or audio wav files. It will NOT work for HDV or AVCHD files. You end up copying the entire clip.

wwaag

[Wayne Waag]

So, the applications you are suggesting can use smart rendering to cut four short clips out of a one hour video?

Yes, you can easily cut individual clips from a video and they do smart-render, so there’s no generational loss except the few frame at the start and end of the clip. The software for Sony Handycams is called Play Memories and for Panasonic, its called PhotoFunStudio–what a name! Both are included with the purchase of the camera. I use them mostly for importing footage. Both convert the MTS file on the SD card to an m2ts file whose name is the actual date code which is really convenient. Works much like the old HDV Split for HDV video.

For the Sony software, at least, you can only do one clip at a time. You set the start point and then the end point and then render. It is frame accurate, so you can advance frame by frame to set your start and end points. You can’t do say 4 clips on a single pass though, just 1 start and 1 end, but once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty quick and the renders are extremely fast–mostly just copying.

I must admit they are a bit clunky to use, but if you only need a small portion of your footage, or if you happen to leave the camcorder “recording” when it should be “off” like I sometimes do, they are very useful to get rid of the unintended footage. I’ve tried other 3rd party software, but the edited clips did not play well in Vegas. So, if you use a Sony Hanycam, its probably worth trying–if nothing else, for its import function.

wwaag

[Wayne Waag]

I’m not sure why one would move to different software when John has already outlined a solution that will work within Vegas.

Quite simply, Vegas does not “smart-render” AVCHD footage from Sony or Panasonic consumer camcorders. If you trim camcorder footage with these applications, there is no generational loss and hence no loss of quality in the trimmed clips. If maintaining the best quality possible is not a concern, then sure it’ll work. And if the footage came from a smartphone, as suspected, then such software wouldn’t work anyway, unless there are specific apps for trimming smartphone footage.

wwaag

[Wayne Waag]

What did you use to record your source footage? From your portrait orientation, it would appear its from a cell phone? If by chance you used a Sony Handycam and you simply cropped it in Movie Studio to appear in a portrait orientation, then you could use PlayMemories to do your initial trimming. The resulting files would be smart-rendered so there is no loss in quality, except at the beginning and the end of the rendered clip. Panasonic camcorders also have such software. Don’t know about Canon.

wwaag

[Wayne Waag]

Try it and see. There’s a free download trial for Mercalli. Don’t believe it expires–I still have a V3.0 on my system. It places a big watermark, so that it’s unusable, but at least you could see how the stabilization works with your footage.

wwaag

[Wayne Waag]

I agree with Bob to do your video editing first. For noise, the tool of choice is Izotope RX, but it’s pretty pricey. If you do have to fix your audio in Vegas, another suggestion is to do a simple copy and paste over some noisy sections. E.g. during the first part of the sample video, simply copy part of the later audio while walking and paste it over the part where there s handling noise. If you have a music track, it would be further masked. I do this all the time.

Regarding stabilization, Mercalli is the way to go. Here’s an example I posted awhile back using Mercalli 4.0 with its CMOS correction, which you would probably need. Again, a pricey piece of software, although well worth it if you do a lot of editing. And finally, you would probably want to correct the lens distortion that results from using the GoPro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euclQi4GxPE

wwaag

[Wayne Waag]

Just an idea, but have you tried filming some type of grid? Quite frankly, I don’t know if this is even feasible, but if you could then you would know the exact nature of the distortion and more importantly, how well the corrections in Vegas or PS work. Just a thought.

wwaag

[Wayne Waag]

Sorry about my presumptiveness. In that case, I’d suggest you try the Videohelp forum. There is a Conversion subforum that might be of assistance. There is also a Tools section that lists lots of tools for doing conversions. And lastly, have you tried just “googling”. I just tried .tivo file converter with lots of hits. As a last resort, you could always download the VideoReDo TV suite I mentioned and use it in a trial mode for your conversions just for your project. In any case, good luck.

wwaag

[Wayne Waag]

You didn’t state your interest, but it seems likely that since its a tivo file, you probably want to get rid of commercials. If that’s the case, then save yourself a lot of time and try VideoReDo TV Suite 5. It can open .tivo files directly. It also has a built-in ad scanning capability. Just do your cuts and render directly. Vegas will work, but it would be very cumbersome, where VideoReDo is designed for this type of application.

wwaag

[Wayne Waag]

Landon,

Right off the bat, I can see from your project properties that full rendering is set to Good. It should ALWAYS be set to best for final render. Since animation is a bit like text, perhaps that will solve your problem. In any case, you should also provide a screenshot of your source file information using Mediainfo. Right now, no one has a clue what that might be. The more info you provide, the more likely you will find a solution to your problem.

wwaag