I have a firewire cable running from my computer to my camcorder. When I play the timeline in Vegas (and have the "preview on external device" button selected, the video reaches the camera but not the audio. The only way I can get audio and video to reach the camera thru firewire is to Print to Tape.

And yes, my speakers are on.

So, kameronj, you can simply play the timeline (not the print to tape function) and you get both audio and video out of the computer thru the firewire cable to an external device?

Phil (not Willis)

IF I recall, you have to use your PC speakers or run cabling from your soundcard to your monitor. Makes sense as the reason to preview on a monitor is to check appearance of the video. In a lot of situations, the TV monitor may not have speakers, or at the least is inferior to a better PC speaker setup or stereo monitors, so again, makes sense to me.

However, I'm going from memory & might be wrong.

IT works on my computer too, the video plays through the monitor and I get the audio through my soundcard which I run through my computer speakers, or I could run it to my monitor, but my computer speakers sound better.

I believe the actual question is this:

In Adobe Premiere when you are editing you can not only see the picture but also hear the sound via firewire. This applies to other audio items as well - drop in an MP3 files or an 8 bit wav and they will be coverted real time to be able to out put via firewire.

In VV when you are editing all you will see via firewire is the image. Audio is not converted nor output in real time via the firewire, no matter what the format. In order to do a 'full' realtime output via firewire in VV you have to PTT and the question was why can't VV do what Premiere does - in other words why do you have to PTT in order for the audio to also come out via firewire in VV?

I have asked this same question. One thread mentions re-rendering all of your audio files to "w64" format then resyncing them that way audio will not have to render when you do a PTT. Seems like an extra step to me no matter what if all you want to do is dump some stuff out to tape for preview.

For me, audio wise, I have the computer monitor in front of me, not that NTSC monitor. So when I playback to look at something off the NTSC I have audio coming from the computer - it is a weird thing to hear audio coming from somewhere other than where you expect it to come from. Yes I could easly take the audio out from the PC and put it into the monitor, or my stereo, or into the VCR....but then I will have computer audio coming from everywhere but the computer and I don't really feel like re-patching cables everytime I use a different program. So it really depends on how you want to wire your system more than anything else.

But the question still remains - why is there no audio via firewire in VV unless you PTT? And then why does the entire time line have to render audio in order to PTT? What is the theory behind the W64 format and firewire that VV uses vs. what other NLE's use to playback the audio in the DV file via firewire?

"...the question was why can't VV do what Premiere does - in other words why do you have to PTT in order for the audio to also come out in VV?"

A better question is why should you care?

There is nothing to be gained in feeding the audio through firewire real time when you are doing so to ADJUST THE VIDEO, which is what you should be focused on, when feeding a signal to your external monitor, not listening to the tinny output from a laughable 2-4 inch speaker that's typical of a monitor/TV used as an external monitor.

Someone in twenty five words or less explain WHY they want to hear the audio from their cheesy external monitor. (this is humor... nobody get bent out shape)

Lets see - I can't do it in 25 words or less.

1> As I said in my post the audio can be coming from anywhere. Thusly, as I also said in my post, it depends on how you wire the audio. Point is that in Premiere the video and audio are coming via firewire and going into whatever I have the audio outs from the dv device plugged into. In my case that is a switcher so I do not have to unplug the Pc's audio and re-cable into a stereo, a VCR, a monitor or what have you.

2> Some people specialize in Color Correcting and for them audio does not matter. I am not a colorist by nature. Neither are most of my clients. Most people have a perception that audio should come from in front of them when they are looking at the screen. Thusly, as I said in my post, if you sit in front of the NTSC and yet hear sound coming from the computer it is a wierd perception.

3> I do not have a dual monitor set up thusly I view my edits via the firewire on the monitor. In other words I watch full screen playback not on my PC but on the monitor.

4> Using your scenerio of using VV for color correction than you might think that if I use it for Sound Editing or Mixing I shouldn't even look at the picture - thusly it would be irrelevent. Not. I need the picture and the sound for that and to have to PTT would defeat the cause of doing a mix with picture unless you wanted to do it in less than real time looking at a tiny image.

5> I have never been able to get real time playback with VV unless I use PTT. Premiere does not have that problem. When I make an edit with Premere all I have to do is hit play and walk away from the 'puter, plop down and watch. With VV if I want smooth firewire output with audio I have to hit PTT, wait for the audio to render and then hit the start button. With Premiere if a client said "can you change that edit?" I can do it and they can watch it. With VV if a client asks I would have to do to and then do another PTT for them to watch it real time with audio. And what to do in that uncomfortable time waiting for the render? If they pay you by the hour they might not be too happy with this waiting period every few minutes. Even longer if the edit they wanted to change contained something like a dissolve. (or they would have to just watch it on the screen - same for Premiere 6.5. AvidXpress will put it out basic effects via firewire as it renders, so will After Effects with the Echo Fire plug-in - but that doesn't help with the audio question)

6> One thing I learned, for better or worse, in my years of doing post is that many people (countries) do not watch videos through some elaborate THX/Dolby/DTS/Stereo home theatre set up. I actually mixed one film via a mono TV set because the distributor was most concerned about TV - mono TV. The film recently came out on DVD and I picked up a copy and I cringe when I hear it...but it wasn't mixed for a surround set up, home or otherwise. When it was made there wasn't DVD and very few people had stereo TV's. So why would anyone want to hear audio through a "cheesy external monitor" is to replicate what many people may have. It is the same reason a studio mixer will playback a mix through "cheesy home speakers" or even make a cassette and tell the artist to go sit in their car to listen to it.

7> This is my 'old school' talking here but in an edit there are different parts and normally the color correction is the last part. First part is locking picture. Lots of times you toss in some temp sound effects or temp visual effects. Have a client come over to see it and you want them to hear the temp audio as well. But at that point it isn't about the audio, it is about "does this edit work for you?". When picture is locked the rest can start to come into play. When the effects are cut in, the adr and foley done, the music done - then is is about the audio. Certianly when you present this version to a client than you don't want the TV speakers anymore than you want the "cheesy computer speakers." But you still want to hear audio WITH the picture and hopfully said audio is coming from the correct place(s). Now the last few tweaks are also taking place - like the color correction. And right - you don't need the audio for that. So actually you could be doing that from the locked edit, you don't even have to wait for the audio to be done.

8> And still no answer as to why VV needs to PTT in order for audio to be output
via firewire. :(

And hey - I am still not bent...er...out of shape...er...my feathers are fine? :)

I never gave it much thought until now, but pdmath has a point. Yes, the speakers on my PC are better than the ones on the NTSC monitor sitting here alongside my PC; nonetheless, the nice thing about being able to get audio out of the TV along with the video is that it would be guaranteed synced, and more than that, it would be a more literal representation of what the output would both look and sound like. There have been times when I watch the video on the TV via firewire, and someone will say, "But the audio is out of sync!" and I have to explain to them that it won't be in the actual final product. Better to be able to show it right the first time.

Oh my... I been called a lot of things in my years, but a colorist? LOL!

On a more serious note, I'm starting to get a little ticked reading the recent influx of posts from people that recently kicked the Premiere habit using phrasing contained something along the lines: '... but Premiere does it this way, why doesn't Vegas, blah, blah, blah.' The short answer to that is Vegas does a LOT of things better and sometimes different than Premiere, thank God!

That isn't to suggest that Premiere isn't a pretty good editor, only I think you'll find many that were X Premiere users, over time, some quicker than others... sooner or later give themselves a kick in the head once it sinks in they could have switched to Vegas sooner and in doing so get more done, quicker, easier and frequently better. Does this forum have a Vegas bias? You bet just like people using Premiere are more biased in that forum towards it, once you weed through all the complaints.

With regards to using an external monitor... of course I use it visually. To run audio to it when I've spend a good bit of change on installing a premium sound system for the computer I edit on would be foolish. Besides, I listen with my ears, not my eyes. And since I'm doing 5-1 surround sound the speakers are already positioned where they should be... thank you.

Now most of you that read my posts know I'm just mostly teasing, this issue is hardly one to go to war over. Different strokes for different folks I guess. Which is why God made us different. Be an awfully dull world if everybody agreed on everything.

Like I said at the end - still not bent...er...out of shape...er..feathers are fine.

For what it is worth - I have used Sound Forge almost since the start, I actually got in reprimanded at one job because I was using Sound Forge and NOT Cool Edit. I picked up on VV when it first came out because I liked the ability to mix audio to video. When VV 4 came out I seemed to be the only person who posted over at the Adobe forum asking if anyone felt that VV 4 was on it's way to being a Premiere 'killer', no one responded. I love the plug-ins for audio that SoFo has. I loved the fact when VV came out that it could do 'real time' preview. On of my clients loved my work and asked me about audio and I told them about the SoFo line for audio and I just heard a few weeks ago they are now using Acid on all of their workstations for all of their radio stations. I have recomended VV to TV stations who feel they "need" to purchase and Avid system to turn out basic cuts only work.

But even so I simply feel in some areas Premiere does some things a bit better. But, like I said, that may also come from my 'old school' feelings. The Color Correction issue has become more important over the years but still when I edit I am editing. When I am doing audio I am doing audio. I am not thinking about how good VV is with color correction vs. other NLE's at that point. Premiere 6.0 anmd up is an excellent NLE. VV is an excellent NLE. After Effects is excellent compositing software. Studio 16 *was* an excellent audio program.

Also you have to remember that VV is still a newborn compared to some of the other NLE's out there, including Premiere. Certianly logic says that VV users may well be former/current Premiere users because of that. I am also a former Trinity user and a former D/Vision user, they both do things different from VV as well. Lots of people use the Discreet stuff now and the editor part was based on D/vision. I personally have not used it since Discreet took it over and remodled it.

A lot of people find the learning curve to Premiere too hard, I found it extremly easy. I cut some spots for a TV station in San Francisco with the D/Vision and I found out later that were confused as to what I was doing because they were used to sitting in on Avid sessions. I personally do not like the interface for AvidXpress, for example, but I do love the fact you can drop an effect on the timeline and see it on the firewire with no pre-rendering and with a basic 1394 card. Neither Premiere nor VV does that, but I am far from being ready to leave either for Avid.

Anyhow...all this and *still* no answer as to why VV needs to render out the audio before it will play back via firewire. Maybe it is like the the secret sauce - we aren't allowed to know. LOL. :)

Here's my setup in case anyone cares:

Audio runs out of my Echo Gina 24/94 to a small mixer. From the mixer, I feed a pair of Tannoy studio monitors, a Creative Inspiron 5.1 set, a pair of Sony headphones, and mono to my TV monitor. I can easily switch between any of these monitoring devices without a bunch of cable fiddling.

If I'm running video to the external monitor it is no problem to listen through the TV speakers- no sync offset adjustments needed once I've set it ("4" works well for me). The benefit to this method is I get to a/b/c/d the mix in different delivery scenarios- mono, stereo, 5.1, hi and low fi, phones...works pretty well, was cheap.

Oh now I got ya.

I haven't tried that one yet. It probably won't work.