Best way to archive project with multiple audio tracks?

farss wrote on 1/12/2005, 4:32 AM

Lets say I've got a project with more than two 24/48 tracks, can I create an AVI file that contains more than 2 audio tracks?
I know that Vegas cannot render one but is it at all possible?
If it is it'd be kind of handy if Vegas could render one, it'd sure make archiving a lot easier. If that's not possible how about getting some support for BWF files?
I know I've been asking for BWF support for some time, maybe I'm all alone in this crusade but I find it remarkable that a NLE that started life as an audio app doesn't support what is an industry standard for multichannel location recording.

Bob.

Comments

PeterWright wrote on 1/12/2005, 5:06 AM

Hi Bob

For Archiving, you could create a Vegas project containing:

1. The original rendered DV avi on two tracks (Audio/Video):

2. As many other tracks, audio or video, as you want.

This .veg, plus the source media it points to can be saved to HD - or as DVD data, split into DVD sized chunks.

I may have missed something, though, as I don't know what BWF is.

Peter

farss wrote on 1/12/2005, 6:06 AM

Hi Peter,
well yes that's pretty much the way I'm doing it. Except mostly it's individual songs from say a days shoot with wild audio recorded on the laptop so I was thinking it'd be nice to have everything self contained. After I'd synced the tracks up and trimmed of the unwanted bits, then just render that song out to one file and bring that into a new project. For archiving then there's only one file with everything in it plus the .veg file.

BWF is Broadcast Wave File. Basically multitrack wav file with the tracks as interleaved data blocks. Most field recorders use them and Vegas will not read them. There is a utility around to split them into individual files but that seems counter to good practice to me as one file with interleaved data is easier to read than 8 files.
I was thinking they'd be an ideal way to save a multitack project as well. Wouldn't hold the video of course but would hold all your audio tracks in the one place.
One reservation I have about relying on the .veg files is if someone else needs to work on them sometime in the future. I guess if I render out all the tracks with sensible names all starting at zero anyone should be able to figure it out.

Bob.

PeterWright wrote on 1/12/2005, 6:22 AM

Yes Bob, good approach - render every track , each one along with a universal click ( hi hat ) intro - 2, 3 or 4 beats, depending on the song -, just to line 'em up.

Then, whether you resurrect in Vegas from an archived .veg, or as a collection of rendered .wavs in any other program, you're set.

... and if, as I often do, you have midi tracks - I also save the midi ( Logic Audio) (I wish Vegas did Midi) project, so I can go back and change orchestration without losing synch.