Try this again with Quantize to Frames turned on.
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It was on. Also, after you have snapped the cursor to event edge (tail of event), a single alt/left arrow will move the cursor two frames instead of just one. Bounce around with alt/arrows and you can't get it to land on the edge of the event. Drag the event edge back 3/4 of a frame and the event will be the length it's supposed to be and fall on a frame grid line of the timeline. Ruler format doesn't make any difference. Give it a try Gary.

Craig H.

I see this all the time and don't have any answers. I also get lots/most audio streams not ending on a frame line. Other events will snap to their end rather than the nearest frameline, regardless of whether quantize is on or off.

It isn't right. Maybe there's a setting somewhere I've fiddled with but I can't find it.

Rob Mack

Gave it a try. Not seeing what you are.

Gary

Bump
Anyone else have a chance to look at this? Gary, you're saying that gen. media ends smack dab on a timeline frame line there? Timeline zoomed in so you are seeing frame #s across the top?
Rmack - lets do another message about the a/v length problem. That way we can keep this message focused.

Craig H.

I think it's a part of the wierd things that happen with a 29.9700299700... framerate.

Normally not a problem, but it doesn't feel right when events don't line up perfectly. Here in PAL-land (25fps) all is well.

Point taken.

So testing on a clean project and dropping a 9:29 solid color on it. The media ends 0.700 frames past the frame line.

Tried it twice with two separate generated media. Tried it a third time with a still. Always 0.700 extra frames. Consistant

Then I reset the "New Still Image Length" to 20 seconds. Now I get .401 extra frames.

Setting it to just one second I get .970 extra frames. And that is right. A second of video will be 29.970 frames long.

So maybe you'd like to set the new still image length to a number of frames instead of a number of seconds. The prefs panel doesn't do this but you can increment it up and down using the arrow keys. That makes 0.968 seconds =29 frames or 1.001 seconds=30 frames. And cut to overlap gets set to 0.234=7 frames.

Now my stills end exactly on a frame line. So does my generated media.

Rob

So maybe you'd like to set the new still image length to a number of frames instead of a number of seconds. The prefs panel doesn't do this but you can increment it up and down using the arrow keys. That makes 0.968 seconds =29 frames or 1.001 seconds=30 frames. And cut to overlap gets set to 0.234=7 frames.
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You nailed it there Rob. :-) If you adjust to the point where the next frame starts (149 for a true 5 seconds ends up being 5.005) everything is cool and no math needed. Don't really understand why they gave us so much micro adjustment or why 5 seconds wouldn't be 5 seconds on the timeline. It's not like Vegas lets us edit at anything less than frame level (Video). BTW, you can hold down the ctrl key while you drag the duration and it goes much slower. No need for the arrow keys on the interface. This trick also works for any and all slider adjustments in Vegas.
For the generated media, 9 min. and 29 frames (default) should be just that and not 9:29 and 3/4. Switch it to 10:00 and all is fine. I think that default setting should be changed.
Thanks for digging into this with me.
Craig H.

Sure, Happy to do it. I didn't know the answer until I was done with that last post.

But I think you're missing a key point or two. If you're doing an NTSC project then 5 seconds is a fractional number of frames. However, 4 seconds and 29 frames shouldn't be fractional. If it is, then the bug is in the fact that Vegas is translating 5 seconds as meaning 4:29 without actually making it 4:29.

The Madison folks make the control in seconds because it's a constant. They could allow you to set the number of frames instead but the prefs tool is a global tool. Maybe your project has a custom frame rate.

The reason there's so much fine control is precisely because of frame rates that don't divide into whole seconds. The control falls short in that it doesn't give enough feedback for you to see right away that your setting yields fractional frames.

The Madison team needs to work on this, without a doubt. They could provide a "snap to nearest frame" setting in preferences and/or they could give a decimal translation of the number of frames "New Still Image Length" translates to instead of using a whole number.

Better yet, the "New Still Image Length" setting should be at the project level instead of the global level. Otherwise I have to reset this global property whenever I change my project template to a different framerate. If I'm resetting this on a project by project basis then it either needs to be in the project settings or included in the project templates.

And of course if my new still length is 5 seconds and the media generator uses that setting BUT rounds it down to 4:29 then it ought to actually make the generated media 4:29. I notice that if I change the time duration in the media generator it still makes my clip 4:29 & change. Not the duration I selected.

Okay. You win. It's buggy.

Rob Mack

And of course if you open a media generator

>Better yet, the "New Still Image Length" setting should be at the project level >instead of the global level. Otherwise I have to reset this global property >whenever I change my project template to a different framerate. If I'm >resetting this on a project by project basis then it either needs to be in the >project settings or included in the project templates
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Great point.
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>Okay. You win. It's buggy.
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Nope, WE win because we know to watch for this. Maybe the Madison team will address this issue. I figured as I'm not a V5 beta tester I might as well hunt for bugs in the current version. All in the desire to not have things pop up while deep into a project. Guess it's time to start that audio event length message. BTW, I found a really cool feature to warn us about unquantized events on the timeline. Listed as "show unquantized event start" and "show unquantized event end" near the bottom of the "secret area". Puts a red bar on the edge/s of an event. Great for catching those different length audio events. Put a default length gen. media event on the timeline and you'll see a red bar on the end of the event.
Thanks again there Rob.
Craig H.

No kidding? Red bars everwhere!

Something new to keep me from working!

Rob

BUMP
Anyone have a URL for me to report this to Sony.

Craig H.

At the top of this screen, click on "Support" and under that click on "Email Support."

Might also be worth incorporating some of this into a tip of the day-like how to properly set imported still image durations.

One thing I'm missing is how to change the default length of generated media. Seems like it always makes a 10 second event, tells you it's 9:29, and then creates an event that's 9:29.700 frames. It'd be nice to reset this to 10.010 seconds so I'd get an even number of frames.

Am I being crazy about neatness?

Rob Mack

Before everyone assumes this is an NTSC only problem, this thread seems to tap into something I recently experienced with a 25fps PAL project, and possibly also relates to the legendary “flash frame” problem.

I had a generated media blue solid colour, which ended “in between frames” on the timeline, that is ONE EIGHTH of a frame after 6:08:13.

It butted up exactly to a video event, the first frame of which happened to be the very beginning, the first frame, of a captured media clip.

In preview there was no problem – the vision went straight from the colour to the video, but AFTER rendering, there was a flash frame.

When I zoomed into the rendered timeline, and put the cursor exactly on the frame 6:08:13 – it was visibly one eighth of a frame before the end of the colour event, yet the Preview window showed a video frame, which on inspection turned out to be the LAST frame of the captured media clip, I.E. the frame that would have been visible if the video event left hand edge had been dragged “backwards”, and of course this was also the flash frame that had showed up after rendering.

As soon as I dragged the edge of the blue generated media back to be exactly on the frame 6:08:13, then shifted the Video event back that portion of a frame, so that it butted up to the Blue event, the problem disappeared.

I did have Quantize to Frames on throughout, but this seems to affect durations of video events, rather than generated media or the position of events in the timeline.

It could simply be a question of not being aware of how Vegas does some things, but hopefully this can be clarified. I did send a screen shot and explanation to Dr.Dropout, so hopefully it’s in hand …

Pete . . excellent unambiguous description.. much appreciated .. I'll keep an eye out for this one too.

Grazie