It occurs in both preview and rendered. It occurs every time I make a cut. It is hard on the eye and almost looks like a quick black frame. I am very frustrated. I have an opportunity to do some video for broadcast, but this will definitely be unacceptable. I really don't want to have to go to a different editing program.

I've never got anything but clean cuts. What version do you have? Could it be a "local" problem? graphic card, RAM etc? Are you using plugins or various FX? Previewing in " "AUTO" and bite rate that your computer can keep up with? What is the desired output format?

R U Using Quantize to frames ?

I don't think it's the computer. I have a brand new athlon dual core with 2 gigs ram. I preview in draft auto. I use Vegas 5. I have used 3 & 4 with same results. I have never had cuts that are smooth and easy on the eye. To me, the transition from one scene to another with a cut should be seamless without a conscious visual change. I don't get that and never have. I have dealt with it by not using cuts. That is no longer possible with the new project I need to do.

Must get some sleep. Please continue to offer suggestions and answers. I'll catch up in the AM. Thanks.

Oh...I don't think I use Quantize to frames...unless it's a default. What does it do?

Without that ON your cuts can very easily not be on precise frame boundaries, i.e. Vegas will insert black or something equally nasty.

When you put the rendered file back on the T/L and look at the frames either side of a cut what do you see?

Is it the last frame of scene 1 followed by the first frame of scene 2, with nothing in between?

If that's all there is then that's all that ANY NLE can and will do, the rest is upto you and how you make a cut.

There's one other possibility to consider. What are you rendering to?
AVI, mpeg-2 etc and what template. Use the wrong mpeg-2 template and a cut can endup looking a bit nasty.

Bob.

"Use the wrong mpeg-2 template and a cut can endup looking a bit nasty."

. .and the wrong one would be? I guess what would be neat to know is what Template are you using, better the details of that Template. I guess then Bob will be able to identify which item is causing the problem. I'd like to know too.

Grazie

Just *how* are you making the edit cuts?

I think the default one, encode with too low a bitrate with any temoral encoder and things can get gnarly. I used to transfer from very low bitrate WMV to DV25, twas amazing how well it held up, that is until there was a cut, yikes, it'd take over a second for the new background to rebuild, block by block almost.

I'm really only stabbing in the dark here, we don't have a clue as to just what is being complained about. The problem could be:

a) Bad editing decision resulting in a jump cut.
b) QTF turned off causing a blank frame to get inserted
c) Just bad cuts
d) Just watching the result on a really bad TV where sudden jumps in APL at the cut cause partial sync loss
e) All of the above

Feel free to add to my list but without getting even a clear mental picture of just whats wrong it's a real c**p shoot.
I've got a copy of my first movie and ALL the cuts look really bad, anyone care to guess why?


Here's a clue, it was made over 30 years ago.



Here's another clue, it was shot on 16mm.



Here's another clue, it's telecined from the answer print.


Victor and Filmy, you're excluded from answering.

Bob.

Ooooh! Ooooh! I think i know! May i guess?










Missmatched frame rates? So wherever there is a cut it gets smeared over a couple of frames, and one field cuts before the other?

There are occasional times when a bad cuts rear out, that's why I visually check the entire project before rendering and as soon as I see one I separate the splice and find out which one is the culprit. Once in a while there is a little black frame sitting there. Sometimes when selecting a group of clips and moving them by dragging the copy & paste will automatically activate (don't know why in 6c & 6d)and I have to use the undo to get back where I was.

JJK

Nah,
an answer print is made from the work print, which is spliced with sticky tape, every cut you can see the tape.

The work print is just a cheap print run from the camera neg that you edited, pretty similar to using a proxy. To check that all was well you had a print made from that complete with the audio mix, if all was OK then the neg was cut into A & B rolls and from those two (or possibly more) rolls the final master neg was printed.
Bob.

One way to check your cuts to make sure they're on frame lines is to switch the timeline ruler to "Absolute Frames". Then do <ctrl + alt + (left or right) arrow> to move to a cut. If the frame number at that point is something like "1,41.311" then that point isn't on a frame line.

Another thing to do while the ruler is set this way is to doubleclick on events and see how long they are. If the events aren't a whole number of frames long then that's another indicator that Quantize has been turned off (for a very long time it sounds like)

I just checked this. If I turn quantize to frames off and then start a new project, quantize to frames is still off. So it's possible to turn it off two years ago and leave it off forever. Basically you only want it off while editing audio.

Another possibitily is that if you always use a standard clip at the head of every project, and if that clip isn't a whole number of frames long, maybe it's jacking out all the subsequent clips, even if they are whole frames in length. Ripple edit could have made this happen, perhaps, maybe, hypothetically, if the first clip were off in frame count.

(Time passes...) I just checked and it looks like having an event of less than a whole number of frames no longer affects snapping and ripple in V6. At least in V6d but I think this applied to all the V6 revs. So it seems more plausible that Quantize has been turned off for a while. Especially possible if you aren't aware of the function (Found at the top of the options menu). The keyboard shortcut is alt+F8.


Rob Mack

If you have Quantize to Frame turned off, you WILL get bad edits. Guaranteed. That is definitely your problem. However, turning it on will not fix a project that is already created. You will need to go to each event and click on each end of each event to get it to "snap" to the underlying grid for your project. You can also use the "Quantize to Frames" script which I think is posted over at VASST. It will fix an existing project. You will then need to close any small gaps or remove any small overlaps that might result. You can use my gap "audit" script (over at VASST) to find these small gaps and overlaps without having to scrub through the timeline (my script only works on the first selected track, so you have to run it multiple times if you have lots of tracks).

Quantize to Frames is MANDATORY when editing video. When editing audio only, you want to turn it off. The reason for this feature is the Vegas is both an audio editor and a video editor. When editing video, the smallest unit of measure is the video frame, which for NTSC video is nominally 1/29.97 second. For audio, which can be sampled at various rates, the smallest unit of measure is the sample which is about 100 times smaller. Since cutting a frame of video at any place other than on a frame boundary makes no more sense than cutting a piece of film in the middle of a frame (although I've seen it done), Vegas gives you this tool (Quantize to Frame) to make sure it doesn't get done.

Once you turn it on, make sure to KEEP it on, even if you turn it off to edit audio. Lots of people -- even those who know better -- forget to turn it back on, and then start having problems like the ones you've been having.

Two statements have me puzzled:

"I use Vegas 5. I have used 3 & 4 with same results. "

"Oh...I don't think I use Quantize to frames...unless it's a default. "

============

I thought is WAS the default. It seems unlikely that Quantize to frames has been turned off for all THREE versions. Maybe he is dealing with a different problem.

John

If I remember on V4, it is not the default. You have to turn it on after an install.

Dave T2

Curiouser and curiouser . . .

Interesting thread,

Grazie

Have you zoomed way in on the cut and examined it for spaces or stray frames?

Thanks for all the replies. I couldn't get back to the forum until now.

I just checked. Quantize is ON by default. I haven't changed it.
I always zoom in and make sure there are no empty frames between events. What happens is hard to describe. It is as if the eye does not quite make the transition smoothly on straight cuts. Cuts I see on TV or in other videos(ie. movies) are smooth, almost unnoticeable, but mine almost seem to have flash at the cuts.

What is the mysterious black frame that doesn't really exist that I have seen in other threads? Is it what I am describing?

If you look at the rendered output and there is no black frames there that shouldn't be there then you can ignore the problem.
Black frames can endup in the rendered output if you had quantize to frames off, if you left a one frame gap or on rare occassions due to a bug.
One way to make cuts smoother is by matching visual elements on either side of the cut.

Bob.

I've had the "mysterious black frame " thing happen to me when I was using version 4.0 (I am using 6.0d now). The black frame thing would only happen very rarely...I seriously doubt that this could be the problem because it wouldn't happen at every cut. And usually when the black frame would appear, it would be in the middle of a clip or transition, but I never had one at a cut.

One way to make cuts smoother is by matching visual elements on either side of the cut.

...That makes sense to me and I thought that could be a problem, but I don't see how it's possible in most cases. I am watching a movie as I write this. The cuts go from unsimilar scenes and go very smoothly. The eye does not consciously detect the transition. The eye detects all my cuts. I give up. Nobody else seems to have the problem. Maybe I'm too picky.