Disable redrawing frames of a clip?

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rmack350 wrote on 6/4/2008, 9:49 PM
Vegas can do subclips or regions, subclips have hard heads and tails but are otherwise just references to the original media. You can sort subclips into bins, which is nice, but the last time I worked with them was in V6 and they were a bit erratic. Maybe that's changed. Problems I had were that they seemed to jump out of their bins into other bins (WTF???) and they wouldn't retain a custom name if I moved their bin from one project to another.

Test it, maybe that's fixed.

Marking regions in the trimmer also works very well, and regions don't have fixed heads and tails, so in some ways they are more flexible. You can turn on "Region View" as a view type in the Vegas explorer and then it'll show you a list of the regions within that media file. From there you can open it in the trimmer or drag it to the timeline. It's not a bad organizational tool if you're capturing long master clips - I just think it should be integrated into the Project Media window.

I'm assuming that part of the problem is that you're trying to use the timeline to cut up this long recital clip. Regions and subclips might help a little but if timeline redraws are the problem this won't make it go away completely.

Rob
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/5/2008, 4:34 AM
could you post up a copy of the .veg file?

next time if you need only certain portions of a tape you can manually record/stop. i've done it with DV & HDV quite a bit. very useful. People will say it's a waste of time but you said you had lots of dead time on the tape & say that wasted several days of time. An hour manually capturing the tape would of (aparently) solved that.

but I don't think so, that's why I'd like to see your veg.

You also never posted your system specs. Are they different then the ones in your profile?
Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/5/2008, 8:53 AM
THF - System specs are up to date.

Veg file is now updated to reflect using subclips which really helped with organizing the edit - I was using the timeline to cut and edit clips which I now realize is inefficient and frustrating.

As I stated above, I did two performances - the second one I did stop and start in between pieces and that made editing the second performance a piece of cake

Lesson learned the hard way...

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com
rmack350 wrote on 6/5/2008, 9:34 AM
Vegas ought to be able to deal with long files, though.

My main gripe about the trimmer is really one of design. People have been happy using a timeline to cut things up and that kind of took the incentive away from SCS to make the trimmer more compelling. Many users used to be quite vocal about wondering why the trimmer even existed. Personally, I think the trimmer has needed a bit more developement so that people would actually want to use it. It can definitely solve some problems that would eventually arise from trying to cut soley on the timeline.

Rob
TheHappyFriar wrote on 6/5/2008, 10:45 AM
i've always felt cutting on the TL or trimmer 100% depended on your goals for the clip, and the results I got have always been consistent & predictable.

I use the Trimmer when I want definite, known sections of a clip. IE clip is 10 minutes long & what I want starts/ends withing seconds of the start/end of the clip. I want a specific part of a clip, etc.

I use the TL when I'm not sure what I want. IE in a 10 minute clip I have to take out many pieces & group the whole group together (normally via ripple edit). Saves a lot of time as I don't need to drop/drag a ton of events from the trimmer to the TL. Many times I'll even keep scrap bits @ the end of the TL, just in case.

I'd like to see some changes made to the trimmer so I don't have to make everything a region just so I don't accidentally un-select my area (like automatically making temp-regions when you click & drag the mouse, use the in/out points, etc) but it's a minor nuisance to me.

EDIT: I think I know what bluprojekt is having issues with as I've had that if I had lots of mpeg (or other compressed clips) on the TL, but I needed LOTS of clips, cut in to small parts, all over the TL. That's why I wanted to see the veg.
Cliff Etzel wrote on 6/5/2008, 11:20 AM
Rob - I think you hit the nail on the head regarding the trimmer.

I have avoided using it as I was use to working in a traditional clip source window where I could do ins and outs and then drag the clip onto the timeline - PPro, FCP, Avid, Edius all work in the fashion.

I know Vegas is different, but it these kinds of things are beginning to show where Vegas is weak in features for serious "Professional" editing. Having said that - I still find ways of doing things that seem simpler to do than in a traditional NLE workflow. I'm sure this comes from having worked in Acid Pro before Vegas.

Mike Jones is a big proponent of Vegas as THE application for editing content for 21st century. His perspective is the sole reason I chose Vegas in the first place - his arguments about going beyond traditional methodologies of what it means to edit video content are sound IMO.

For example: An easy workaround I discovered to create FLV's direct from the Vegas Timeline involves frameserving to On2 Flix Pro - straight forward and about as fast as if using PPro and using their built in media encoder. Wrote a blog posting about it so others could benefit from this workflow.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com
rmack350 wrote on 6/5/2008, 1:43 PM
The first NLE I was ever exposed to was media100 and at that time the trimmer didn't have a source window. Rather, you just assumed you were in trim mode, and the preview window showed waht you were trimming.

Within that trimmer you could create subclips (which are more like Vegas's regions in that the ends weren't set in stone). This was also the place to make freeze frames, change the speed of a clip, add a clip level effect, etc, etc. The point is that there was a lot to do in the trimmer so you had to use it. It was the place to work on media at the clip level and it was capable of rendering new clips for you too.

There are definitely times when you can just work on the timeline but as you develop your program the trimmer becomes more and more useful. There comes a point where you don't want to slap footage directly onto the timeline because your complex edit is sitting there.

The trimmer is also useful as a tool to review your footage and mark out regions you think might come in handy before you start to edit. The trimmer is a bit more compelling if you capture whole tapes or long clips because it's easy to break it all down into regions and the explorer view of those regions is very hierarchical.

The trimmer lacks a few things. An ability to actually do a three point edit would be really nice. I had to look into this long and hard before I could see the value of it - it's difficult to see what's so great about a three point edit if you've never been able to do it.

Does it really need a source window of it's own? Beats me! Same situation as three point editing...I don't have it so I don't see the need, but people who've had it miss it so that's a good enough recommendation for me.

But, again, the talk about the trimmer digresses from the point you were making about timeline thumbnails. As I see it, if you've got long GOP media on the timeline then Vegas has to load the whole GOP to calculate what the timeline thumbnails will be. That's cumbersome and I'm not surprised that it takes time for Vegas to redraw it all. In the whining words of our fearless leader, "It's hard work!"

Rob Mack
PeterWright wrote on 6/5/2008, 6:09 PM
Rob, I don't know if this equates to what you know as three point editing, but here are three examples:

1. Place cursor on timeline at desired in point. Use I and O in Trimmer to define in and out points. Press A and selected part of clip goes to Timeline at selected In point.

2. Drag in Timeline or Double click in a gap to create region marking desired In and Out points. Use I to select In point in Trimmer and press A to sent clip starting at In point to exactly fill selected region on Timeline.

3. Drag in Timeline or Double click in a gap to create region marking desired In and Out points. Use O to select Out point in Trimmer and press A to sent clip ending at Out point to exactly fill selected region on Timeline.
rmack350 wrote on 6/5/2008, 9:27 PM
Hmm.
I know one of the issues was insert and overwrite modes. Somewhere back in the forum there's a post I made on this (unless it's on the Cow). Basically I tried to step through someone's complaints about a lack of complete three point editing with insert and overwrite modes.

So let's see..

1. Place cursor on timeline at desired in point. Use I and O in Trimmer to define in and out points. Press A and selected part of clip goes to Timeline at selected In point.

Yes, with limitations.

if I place my timeline in point on an existing clip and then set In and Out in the trimmer I, and then A to add the media to the timeline I get the media overlayed onto the existing clip--however, the existing clip isn't cut which I think is what the people who ask for overwrite mode want-they want the new media to completely replace the old bit. <edit-It looks like the trimmer will always default to filling a selected range on the timeline, so to simulate having just one point on the timeline you need to press I and O so that no time is selected.>

If I turn Auto Ripple on I get clips farther down the line rippling but the clip I dropped the new media into the middle of didn't ripple because it wasn't cut. I think that's what people mean by an insert edit.

2. Drag in Timeline or Double click in a gap to create region marking desired In and Out points. Use I to select In point in Trimmer and press A to sent clip starting at In point to exactly fill selected region on Timeline.

Yes, but actually you probably need to press I-O to get that single point in the trimmer. At least that's what I just did and it works. <edit-I have this wrong. it seems that when you have a range selected on the timeline then it doesn't matter if you also have a range selected in the trimmer. So you don't need to press I-O> Still lacking the overwrite and insert options but you can simulate that in the timeline with 5 or 6 extra keystrokes

3. Drag in Timeline or Double click in a gap to create region marking desired In and Out points. Use O to select Out point in Trimmer and press A to sent clip ending at Out point to exactly fill selected region on Timeline.

Actually, you need to key I-O in the trimmer to get that single out point, and then Shift-A to use that Out point. <edit-Wrong again. Ranges selected on the timeline always take precedence over a range selected on the trimmer. No need to press I-O on the trimmer except that you need to have your in point at the end of what you want to add. It get's confusing, doesn't it?>

This is a bit more than I realized you could do but it still doesn't give you the overwrite and insert modes that people coming from other NLEs seem to miss so much in Vegas. To simulate these modes you need to manually split a clip on the timeline, possibly delete the unwanted segment, maybe turn ripple on/off or manually ripple after you overlay from the trimmer.

So, I'm going to conclude from these examples that you can do three point overlay edits but not inserts and overwrites.

Here's a link to the last thread I looked at this in: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=553388

Rob