Fairly new to all this... some advice please

Viddy wrote on 8/21/2009, 1:32 AM
Hi all

I have been getting to grips with SVMS9-PlatProPack and have been generally very impressed with its features and functionality - especially for such a reasonably priced application (so thanks to Sony for providing video enthusiasts with a good and affordable product).

I have also benefitted enormously from this forum, reading the input by more experienced users such as Chienworks or Eugenia etc. In particular Eugenia has been a real 'life saver' and, for example, her proxy video editing method should be awarded an oscar!!!! I cannot imagine how I would have got on without that valuable tip as Vegas was not happy with my 1280x720 HD MP4 (MPEG-4) footage from my Sony DSC T900. Many thanks for all your help.

After several short test projects I feel I can now set about a more major holiday video editing project. Before I spend countless hours only to discover that I should have been doing something differently from the start, I would be most grateful if I could 'pick the brains' of experienced SVMS9 users first.

Question 1:
I anticipate my project is going to end up being about one hour of final video. There will be lots of effects, text overlays, music and narration, even some chroma key stuff etc. I am a little concerned about doing all this video editing in a single project. As the project grows am I likely to be pushing Vegas a bit far? I say this because in the past I have used Premiere (early versions) and when editing DV-AVI videos I tended to create projects that were for about ten minutes in length, then I would export the DV-AVI. I would then create a new project for the next ten mins etc. I found that this made the whole thing easier to manage, faster to work with, and, with some of the Premiere bugs less likely to screw up my whole video production! At the end I would then import all the DV-AVI chunks into a new project - bascially butt them end to end and then I could burn the whole hours' video to tape or disc.

Should I be thinking of doing something like this with my Vegas project? Ideally I did think that if you could import shorter Vegas projects into a new 'longer' one then that would be a good solution - but I can't see the feature in SVMS9. Or, is there a method you would recommend to me to try?

Question 2:
I am in the UK (PAL system). So my ideal video format is 16:9 at 25fps when creating my final DVDs. My camera is a Sony DSC T900 which shoots video at 1280 x 720, 29.97fps (even though it says 30fps I reckon it's actually 29.97). The bulk of my video will be from the DSC T900 for this project. I have therefore set up my Vegas project to be:

HDV 720-25p (1280x720, 25.000 fps)
None (progressive scan)
Pixel aspect ratio: 1.0000 (Square)
Frame Rate: 25.000 (PAL)
Full-resolution rendering quality: Best
Deinterlace method: None
Audio sample rate: 48,000, Bit depth: 16

My area of confusion here is mainly the framerate. My original video footage is 29.97fps and yet I want my editing process to do everything in 25fps for my PAL requirements. Do my Project properties seem to be okay? For example - I am not sure at what point the video footage is made/changed to 25fps, and whether this is going to degrade the appearance etc. It all looks fine in the project when I work on it.

Question 3:
In Premiere you could 'tweak' each audio clip individually on the timeline, adjusting its volume, EQ, adding effects etc. My one disappointment with Vegas is that it seems to treat any audio adjusting as applicable to the whole audio track. Am I missing something here or is that just a limitation of Vegas? I know that I can add a volume 'envelope' but the envelope line extends to the whole track.

I do have other questions but am mindful of making this a horribly long posting. Apologies for that.

Any help or pointers would be most appreciated!

Many Thanks
Viddy

Comments

ritsmer wrote on 8/21/2009, 3:08 AM
Your project sounds interresting.

I do such holiday projects 5-6 times a year - and even with a similiar camera, the Sony T500.
As to the camera, the small Sony T-series do not look like video cameras to the public, and disturbs nobody when you do the video recordings. Everybody thinks you are just taking a still picture with that little tourist camera :-) - they have no idea as to how excellent videos that little thing actually shoots... and no idea about sharp 4-5 x zoom... and great sound too btw.

T500 records in AVCHD main profile which is easily editable and previewable at full speed in Vegas while T900 records in High profile, which is difficultly digested by Vegas.
Wanting to change to newer technique I have had 2 T900 here, but had to return both because of the quality - specially the resulting video sharpness - compared to the older T500 - which is what I saw from Vimeo examples before ordering, but did not believe :-)
Now I have ordered the new TX1 because they are back to AVCHD main profile and they seem to be even sharper than the T500.
The T-series need much light - but the way they record in Main profile somehow fits perfectly with what the plugin Neat Video can "denoise" - so if you crunch the media through Neat you can shoot a candlelight dinner with astonishing result. I tested Neat and T900 High profile - they did not work well together.

As our monitors are limited in size it is good to split the project into 10-minutes - overseeable - parts.

After a holiday I have some 1000++ shots plus stills filling 5-15 GB. Normally I use a day or two to put them through the Deshaker and also apply Neat Video - where needed - plus a little brightness and even less colour correction - it's a documentary - not a studio made film.
Project props = media props. The result from this is in the final delivery format (here m2t 1280x720 30 Fps at 19,7 Mbps since I play it on the Plasma through a small PC - btw. here is also PAL land - but playing my videos through that little PC and feeding the Plasma through RGB it seems that I can keep the 30 Fps all the way from the camera to the TV - and so movements on the video are little less jerky.)

Now the editing starts - and is easily done on the stored m2t media.
And the final rendering to the final delivery format is fast as it is done with "smart rendering" not de/re compression anything - and so not decreasing the video quality. I render the 10-minutes-parts and then put 2 or 3 of these onto a new timeline for the final render - which is also done with smart rendering.
And so all the media is only rendered to a compressed format once during the whole process.

As to the sound: you can Normalize single clips and thereafter adjust the level drawing the top edge down. But you will need an Volume envelope for the ducking for the narration of course.

Last thing: You wrote "about one hour of final video"... - Have mercy with your public: 20-25 minutes from one holiday is endurable - and actually the editing is much more fun when you can discard 60-70% of the footage - so only using la creme de la creme of your shots :-))

PS: The T900 has a very excellent and super fast auto-focus - it sees anything you pass and tries to focus near and focus far and focus near and far and ... - and so a video from a simple walk in a crowded street - or just passing something - becomes totally unuseable. Use manual focus.
Eugenia wrote on 8/21/2009, 1:06 PM
>So my ideal video format is 16:9 at 25fps when creating my final DVDs.

Unfortunately, the final won't be ideal. It will be jerky, or ghosty, choose your poison. I explain the 3 methods of turning 30p to 24p here, and that's the same as turning 30p to 25p: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2009/08/04/the-3-ways-of-converting-30p-to-24p/

I suggest you do a small test with that camera, and do a panning or a somewhat-quick movement and then try to export this in 25p with one of the ways in the article linked above. If you are not satisfied with what you see, I believe you should buy a PAL camera.

>At the end I would then import all the DV-AVI chunks into a new project

If your exporting is ONLY going to be a DVD, then yeah, you can do that. But if you want to export Blu-Rays in the future, or an HD web video, DV-AVI won't do the trick because it's low-res.
Viddy wrote on 8/24/2009, 4:13 AM
Hi Ritsmer

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my posting. I am interested to hear about your experiences with the T900. I must admit that I am very pleased with the results from my T900 - for such a tiny camera it is really a marvel I think. I fully realise that the video it produces might not be perfect - but the fact is that if I had to carry a normal camcorder (even one of the latest small Sony ones) with me I just know that most times I would not bother to take it, and therefore would have no video at all!! :) At least with the T900 it's in my pocket and I am frankly amazed at its quality both for stills and video. I am intrigued though that you are suggesting that the T500 shoots better video? Is that really the case?

Your suggestions and tips about the video editing questions I posted are all very useful so thanks. Don't worry, when I said I would end up with about "one hour of video" - it is not for inflicting on friends etc, just for me and my wife (and she seems to take it all rather well - even a 3 hour USA video I produced a couple of years ago).

It seems from what you are saying that the idea I had to create about ten minutes of edited video at a time, and then put the batch of 10min sections into a new project and render the whole thing, is a good idea. Based on that do you have any particular recommendations as to what settings I should initially use to render the ten minute sections so that they are saved in the very best quality with no loss etc. I want to ensure that when I put the various 10min sections into a new project's timeline that I do not sacrifice any quality due to any compressing etc.

I have a gut feeling that this method of editing a video in smaller chunks rather than one big long project is going to be far easier to manage, less likely to make Vegas crash, take less time to load each time etc etc. However I am surprised that I have not heard of anyone actually working like this with Vegas as yet on these forums. It certainly worked well for me when I used to use Premiere.

Many thanks
Viddy
Viddy wrote on 8/24/2009, 4:31 AM
Hi Eugenia

Many thanks for your reply. Hmmmm, your comments have given me much to think about. My first comment is that if I could buy a very small camera like the T900 that videod in 25fps I would purchase one tomorrow. However it seems that the manufacturers all make these very compact cameras work at around 30fps. I do find that a little frustrating.

Obviously, for a normal camcorder I would naturally buy a PAL-compliant model - and have in fact got a very nice (but old now) Sony DCR-TRV900E PAL camcorder (a hefty silver thing). However, it's rather bulky, works in 4:3, and has seen better days I feel. It was around £2000 when I purchased it so it was quite a big item for me at the time. At some point in the near future I do hope to purchase one of the newer diminuitive camcorders that record to SD card - but for the moment I am using (and happy with) the remarkable and tiny T900. With the T900 in my pocket at all times it's such a great tool for grabbing video when you would not normally have a full size camera with you. It's even got optical image stabilization which I find incredible in such a tiny thing.

So, it looks like a lot of my videos are going to be shot in 30fps for the time being, so I do need to decide what to do about the 25fps issues raised.

I looked at the example video in the link you included and although I could see small differences, to be honest I didn't think that any one them looked too bad really. Obviously I want to keep as good a quality as possible - but I do balance this against the fact that I get pretty-good video from my tiny T900 so maybe accept a few compromises.

I will have a play around with your suggestions and try to evaluate which method works best for me. I guess I want something that doesn't involve too much extra work/conversion of video etc so I guess that if there's not too much action or panning in my video then maybe the default Vegas method might suffice. Do you think that it would be a good idea to consider treating various video clips differently? By that I mean, for example, if a video clip has very little movement in it then just leave it as is, but if another video clip has lots of panning or movement then just convert that video clip using one of your methods?

Finally, is there any benefit in leaving the 25fps setting in Vegas to any particular stage of the editing process? At the moment I am setting up my initial project like so:

HDV 720-25p (1280x720, 25.000 fps)
None (progressive scan)
Pixel aspect ratio: 1.0000 (Square)
Frame Rate: 25.000 (PAL)
Full-resolution rendering quality: Best
Deinterlace method: None
Audio sample rate: 48,000, Bit depth: 16

...but should I consider leaving my initial project settings at 30fps and then change to 25fps later on (in the rendering stage for example). Does or would this make any difference at all? I guess I am not sure what Vegas is doing to the fps rate at what point in the process of my editing. Hope that makes sense!!!

Many thanks again

Viddy
ritsmer wrote on 8/24/2009, 9:03 AM
As to the en/decoding: download the manual for The Full Vegas http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/vegaspro and check i.e. page 250 and 337. Do some tests to find out what suits you best.

As to the camera: See http://www.vimeo.com/5012651
The T500 does video very much like the camera to the left while the right footage from the T900 speaks for itself.

Beeing eager to try a new Sony compact camera I ordered the T900 - but trying it I thought that I had got a faulty one - so I ordered another - but with the same result.
Going anywhere worth a resulting 1 hour video (K2?? :-) I would sell the T900 and get a T500. Definitely - or - if time enough - try the Tx1 or the Wx1 coming in the first half of September. Have ordered both.
Paul C wrote on 8/24/2009, 12:53 PM
Viddy,
"....if I could buy a very small camera like the T900 that videod in 25fps I would purchase one tomorrow..."
I had the Sony T500, until Panasonic released the TZ7. AVCHD Lite (1280x720) at 25fps. Edits better in Vegas than the MP4 from the T500, and unlike previous Panasonic models, it's got a stereo mic on a par with the Sony. Also takes better stills than the Sony.

Might be worth a look? As Eugenia states, you'll find it very difficult to create a PAL DVD from the T500 footage.

The only problem I've had with the TZ7 is that it outputs video at 50fps, and it takes a bit of working around in Vegas to get back to 25fps, but it's not a big deal.
Viddy wrote on 8/27/2009, 12:16 AM
Hi Eugenia

Thanks for your advice. I have taken a good look at your suggested methods and appreciate that they are all somewhat of a compromise and that in fact there's no single ideal method of converting 29.97fps to 25fps. I guess it's a balance between the amount of effort involved in achieving the best conversion and the acceptable quality of the final editied video.

Based upon this I have formed a few thoughts so far:

1) I have decided to change my project settings and edit my video matching the format of most of the source footage (in my case the source footage video is primarily 29.97fps). I will then probably even keep the exported final video in 29.97fps too (which I presume will give me a NTSC-type of video which I know will at least have smooth video etc). I will end up with a NTSC DVD which will probably play on most UK DVD players anyway. I know this is not ideal for my needs but at least I have an edited video which is faithful to its source-type. This seems to be the 'cleanest' way of doing things and I suspect I am no worse off if I decide to convert to 25fps at the end of the project anyway.

2) I will almost certainly want to have a PAL-type 25fps version of my video too. I am going to have to decide which of your three methods will suit my purposes better. I suspect that I might just opt for the 'ugly' Vegas default method for the following reasons:

a) It's at least giving me a true 25fps which I know will play on anything in the UK. Although I don't particularly like the 'ghosting' effect my videos generally aren't full of much high-action stuff (although I do use panning a fair bit...) and with my current T900 camera I regard any video footage I get from this tiny camera as a bonus because I happened to have it in my pocket with me at the time. I guess I am saying that I will forgive some of the quality issues because I know that , more often than not, I would not have any video footage at all if it depended upon me carrying a full-size camcorder with me at all times!

b) I actually think that I prefer the ghosting effect to the second method of 'dropping frames' which results in the 'jerky effect'. I would be interested to hear opinions about this though. Also, would it be possible, prior to exporting a converted 25fps video, to selectively decide which clips would suit which method better. For instance if I had a panned or action shot then have that clip use the Vegas default 'ghosting' method - or if a clip was very 'static', without much movement in it, then set that clip to 'disable resample' so that the 'drop-frame' method is employed. Has anyone done this? Is it even possible in Vegas Movie Studio to treat individual clips along a timeline like this?

I like the slowing-down method (Eugenia's third method) and might use that on occasions. However I would see that method as essentially being done pre-editing. Also, I take your point that it's only really suitable for clips where audio-sync is not so important. If I had After Effects I do believe that there's the ultimate version of this trick which even overcomes the audio problem (but again it's a time-consuming method). See this excellent link for that method: http://www.videocopilot.net/presets/frame_rate_converter/

Eugenia, you mention the convert-percentage figures for various conversions on your webpage but you don't seem to mention what it would be for 29.97 to 25fps. Do you happen to know what that percentage would be?

As a follow-on question I would like to pose the following:
If I end up with a true 29.97 NTSC exported final edited video (as I will do now that I have decided to do all the editing faithful to the source footage) is there a better program than Vegas which I could use to convert the whole finished video to 25fps? I am thinking that I might export the final 29.97 NTSC video in an uncompressed format (I know it will be huge but at least it's lost no quality whatsoever) and that there might be a more specialised (and cheap!) program that could process/convert it all to 25fps better than Vegas. I realise that the After Effects method described above might be good for that - but that's an expensive program and a waste to use a program like that just for converting 30fps to 25fps.

Many thanks again to you all. I know that this subject is mainly only of interest to us living in PAL-land but I still think it's a big issue and one which seems to get somewhat 'ignored' by the manufacturers and video program makers (maybe for good reasons though).

Viddy - all in a tizz about his frame-rate.....
P.S. I will be responding to the comments that have arisen about the T900 later. It's a bit off-topic I guess but seems to have generated more interest than my original main questions!
Eugenia wrote on 8/27/2009, 1:35 AM
Answering to your questions:
I personally do not like the ghosted blending effect, I find it very amateurish.

AEffects does not fix the audio in any way better than Vega. If you slow-down the footage you will end up with audio of people sounding like Russians.

Apple's tools can do motion estimation, that Vegas doesn't do.

IMHO, you should root to get a PAL camera. There is no reason to hold on to this NTSC one.
Eugenia wrote on 8/28/2009, 10:42 AM
Also, another thing you asked, about "how much" to precisely slow-down from 30p to 25p so there's a clean number so there's no ghosting. Unfortunately, Vegas does not support a UI for slow down that uses percentages, so with the 0.xxx nomenclature you can't do a precise clean slow-down one for these two frame rates, only an approximation (meaning that you will get ghosting, and you will have to disable resample).

Again, my advice is: get a PAL camera. There are way too many constraints using a 30p camera for your purposes.