few questions/bugs/issues -4b

filmy wrote on 4/23/2003, 11:55 PM
First I want to say I thought 4.0 was great now with 4.0b is awesome. Being from an audio background I have always loved vegas for it's audio portions - reminds me a bit of Studio 16 minus the SMPTE TC input ablity. (Which would be a HUGE HUGE thing if there was a way to do this in the future - and I don;'t mean SMPTE TC > MIDI sync, I mean real external TC coming off of a master tape and into the program via a VITC reader say) Anyway here are my issues/problems -

According to the little tut on how to convert 30 to 24 you get told to disable resample and to use either Interpolate or Blend for the fields. For the most part this works except than no matter what I do if I choose Interpolate when I PTT I get the bars and tone and the black fine but when it hits the file I get an error. 'encountered an error' and unable to play that file. No real reason, just this unhelpful error. If I check anything other than Interpolate it works fine. Seems to me this is a bug. As for the dissable resample - I have not been able to see if it makes a difference, I have tested both ways and have not seen a clear change in either file. I know for slowing down a clip resmaple most times makes the end clip smoother, so I would think it is the same thing for converting 29.96 to 23.976? What is the reason for suggesting disable resample? Just curious.

For the playback part of the Video Capture module. It does not seem to play out to tape any 24/23.976 material, or even display the material. I can load up any 30/29.96 dv file and it plays fine. If I load up any 24p/23.976 material it loads and it will say printing to tape but nothing happens. Screen is blank. Same goes for preview to monitor. Is this a bug as well? Again - only in relation to the actual 'vidcap' module.

My ongoing 'complaint' with Vegas has been with the external monitor preview function. One of the reasons I love Premiere is that I can look at everything on a monitor direct from the timeline. I do not have to do a 'print to tape' in order to get realtime playback and audio. Here we are at VV 4.0b and overall it is very very close to being a Premiere killer *BUT* we still have choppy playback off the timeline unless we do a 'print to tape'. Still no output of audio from the timeline via the firewire unless you do the 'print to tape' as well. Why is it so hard for Vegas Video to simply output the audio AND video from the timeline in 'realtime'? Even if I render a file and put it in back to a timeline I can not play it out with audio and without being choppy - but if I do a print to tape it 'renders' audio and plays perfect. Seems like an extra step to me. And on the rendering of audio - I can see if you are doing a lot of audio work than it would need to be rendered but if I have an edited 90 minute film I really do not want to have to do a 'print to tape' and have 90 minutes of audio pre-render just to be able to either preview it real time on a NTSC monitor or to run a copy off to tape, with audio. Even Premiere can handle various audio files on the timelime and still be able to output via firewire realtime. It would be perfect if Vegas was able to do this as well.

Comments

SonyDennis wrote on 4/25/2003, 12:04 AM
If you don't disable resample, you get blended frames. By disabling resample, especially with "interpolate" mode, single fields get converted to full frames, which is kind of like having a fast shutter speed. Blend fields makes higher resolution output, but can have double edges on moving objects.

The Video Capture application can print 23.976 material to tape just fine; it sees it as 29.97 material since it doesn't do pulldown removal. The errors and blank screens you are having makes me think there might be issues with the hardware. As far as the Video Capture application knows, 24p DV looks exactly like "regular" DV due to the pulldown added. It can't tell the difference, so they should both print to tape the same.

///d@
filmy wrote on 4/25/2003, 10:02 PM
Thanks Dennis. Any reason why I get the error message, and what that generic message is, if I choose the "interpolate" mode and than print to tape?

Per the vidcap module and playback of 24 materail - does it have a different method than either playback or print to tape than the actual edit module? I can playback fine from within the edit module, just the vidcap won't playback the 23.976/24 material. Keep in mind it isn't just the firewire playback it is also the screen playback as well that is blank. The file works fine in the edit module, the file plays fine with the windows media player, it plays fine in premiere (Although it is played fast as there is no support for 24 yet), plays fine in after effects. Not sure about hardware issue when it playsback fine on everyting BUT the vidcap module. It is a minor thing really EXCEPT that if it would work I could print to tape from that and not have to do a render of a render, so to speak, in the edit module.
SonyEPM wrote on 4/28/2003, 8:26 AM
You can print 24p DV files (like those from the Panasonic DVX100, or 24p DV files rendered in Vegas) using SF Video Capture, but those are the only supported 24p variant that SF Vidcap will accept.
filmy wrote on 4/28/2003, 2:49 PM
why is that? I actually was doing some tests to see what the problem might be and I tired some 23.976 DV files created with After Effects and they would not even open...just returned an error. Why is the only 24P accteped from VV? I am guessing it only will link up to the VV DV codec than? I normally render out using the Mainconcpet DV codec. Is there a plan to allow the VV DV codec to be avalible as an option in other programs such as After Effects? Or are their plans to allow other 23.976/24P rendered DV files to be playable in the VidCap module?
SonyEPM wrote on 4/29/2003, 9:23 AM
24p DV files from the Panasonic camera (or those rendered from Vegas using the 24p DV templates) have specific header info that are required for print to tape in SF Vidcap. AfterFX does not currently support reading or writing these "special" 24p DV files, so that's the reason Vidcap can't print them.

Side note: Many companies at NAB claimed that they would be supporting 24p DV in the future (Apple in fact has been promising this for close to a year), but as of this writing I don't think anyone else writes a 24p DV avi that we can read. DVFilmaker does 24p Quicktime, so that won't work without conversion. Blade...haven't tried it. Might work, might not.
filmy wrote on 4/29/2003, 11:28 AM
Thanks for all the info. Guess for now I have to just re-render anything I bring into After Effects and than bring back into VV, at least for printing out via the vidcap module.