BIZARRE Fix for scrolling/news crawl issues! Works great

mrjhands wrote on 8/16/2004, 11:40 AM
Hello Sony Vegas users! Long time listener, first time caller. I have benefited SO much from the advice given here and at Sony's Vegas forum, I think I finally have useful information to a dilemna that has plagued me (and others) concerning cleaner scrolls and crawls! This fix I stumbled onto I haven't seen posted before, but works great for me. And this addresses the menacing white text/black background choice...Of course, this goes hand in hand with the helpful methods already discussed previously, i.e., use non-serif text (Arial, Impact and the like), watch your SPEED of the scrolls/crawls, most defaults are too fast anyway to be useful, set text opacity at about 80percent...btw, works in VV4 and VV5, of which I have graduated to.

The problem: When compiling my standard movie scrolls using generated text scrolls, I get a slight GHOSTING problem, sometimes a pronounced ghosting, enough to keep me wondering if it can be achieved in DV editing, or Vegas anyway, realizing the achieved look I want is probably being performed by $20,000 stand-alone network character generators used at TV stations (uncompressed, real-time) and might be unattainable in the DV realm... OK, here we go:

Launch Vegas, (for starters, just use default project template NTSC DV (720x480, 29.970 fps)), insert Video track, and Insert Generated Media, Sony Credit Roll. For this test, just leave everything AS IS. OH, and have your video preview on and set to BEST(Full), as this is pretty much what you see is what you will get upon rendering...

Next thing (per previous advice, drop track opacity to around 80% for the white text that is used. With the video preview window open, set the curser about midway through the event and look at the preview, and notice the appearance, please note the ghosting and scan line noise present..Now I realize we are looking at a computer screen and that doesn't always translate ver batim to the TV screen, but we are all aware that this is a very good means to preview (in BEST(Full)) the finished result of our work, and in this case it is what you will get :-)

Now,in the VIDEO MEDIA GENERATOR: Sony Credit Roll dialogue box that opened, CHANGE the default length of the event from 4:29:00 to say, 7:29:00 and HIT ENTER immediately so the change will take place, look at the keyframe timeline in your Sony Credit Roll dialogue box to confirm the change took place (length of the event is arbitrary, I say the default of 5 seconds is just too fast to be useful in this example). NOW drag the right side of the event down your timeline to match the LENGTH you just entered so it's properly adjusted. Now again set the curser bout midway through the event and look at the appearance in the Video preview window...less ghosting and scan noise because we changed the length, so it's improved...go ahead and perform a PREVIEW IN PLAYER test if you are set up to monitor externally through TV or otherwise...just default NTSC DV, no need to change any parameters...

NOW, Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you....THE CLINCHER!

Go to VIEW, Video Bus Track, and insert the envelope Video Supersampling, and set the line/bar to 2, it defaults at 1, just bump it up ONE to 2, again look at the preview window with curser on the event and notice....a little brighter mayber, but otherwise NO CHANGE, agreed? Leave your curser where it is so you can still see your text in the Preview window...

NOW, on your track list, next to the Track Motion toggle, to the left, CLICK "Bypass Motion Blur"... yes, that is correct, depress the Bypass Motion Blur switch, and notice the change with the text! While looking at your Preview window, click and unclick to see the resulting improvement...maybe someone knows why this combination works, I DONT, maybe it was already suggested previously, I NEVER CAME ACROSS THIS IDEA, who knows....Perform another PREVIEW IN PLAYER test and look at the results! On my system anyway (Basic XP, HP Pavillion, Athlon 2000 or something) the result is a MUCH stabler scroll, for the hardest of scroll scenarios, White Text, Black Backdrop. NOW start goofing with different, better text than of those in the default. In a scroll such as the default, I even slow it down more to 8:29:00 cause its still a tad too fast, even looks better! btw, changing the level of supersampling to higher value didnt make any noticeable improvement, and don't forget a slight BLUR effect, even simple quick blur, will eliminate any twinkling if you have any, also TRY the MEDIAN plug in for blurring, and view your experiment with BEST(full) as you noodle around.

I preview to TV with my Nvidia Geforce 440 with SVIDEO cable, as it is improved from viewing with RCA Composite, and when I render to DVD, well, its amazing the improvement.

Good Luck! Worked for ME

John Anderson a.k.a. mrjhands

Comments

musman wrote on 8/16/2004, 12:52 PM
Cool, thanks for the advice. I'll have to try that out. I did have a couple quick questions:

1) What is the the "MEDIAN plug in for blurring"? Never heard of that.

2) Why are you previewing through your video card? That's a bit of a no-no as I understand it. Shouldn't you be doing firewire out instead?
mrjhands wrote on 8/16/2004, 1:15 PM
Hiya.
Yah, the MEDIAN is called Sony Median, between Mask Generator and Min and Max in the video FX group of FX with Vegas, it's just another method of blurring which basically, you just need to preview in your window as you mess with the FX parameters, gives you Horizontal and Vertical blurs with an offset slider, kinda like a drop shadow set of parameters except instead of a drop shadow, it blurs instead; another means to smooth the edges of text.

YES, I should be previewing with firewire, no DV Device though :-(....poor man, my "previewing thru video card" is actually I go to TOOLS , PREVIEW IN PLAYER so Vegas does a render for the section of vid I am working on, then I have my Vid Card w/TV out (through SVideo) to my 32 inch Sharp TV, so when Vegas launches my "Player" after it renders, my player is Windows Media Player9, and I have my card configed for Full Screen playback with my goofy computer media players...its not the Real Time previewing feature like with the Firewire...someday soon I hope to be previewing real time, for now I have to render small chunks and look. :-)
stormstereo wrote on 8/16/2004, 1:21 PM
Thanks for letting us know!
Best/Tommy