HD newbie: 2 questions ...

Rustydogg wrote on 11/15/2010, 12:31 AM

hi Folks,

new at working with HD Video, just bought the Sony Handycam NEX-VG10 and got Vegas Movie Studio along with it.

There's a couple of simple features that seem to be missing here, but maybe I just haven't found the right button to push.

One is to strip the audio off the video clip. In a lot of my shots the audio is unwanted, most NLE programs have a simple choice to split the audio away & delete it. Is this available in VM Studio?

Second: I like to layer 1 or 2 extra video tracks, then do an overlay controlled by keyframes, with say a luminance or difference filter between the clips. Can't seem to see any control here for keyframe-based overlays or alpha/chroma/luma filters, etc.

Thanks for any pointers on these two subjects ...

Rusty

Comments

Kimberly wrote on 11/15/2010, 6:14 AM

Hi Rusty:

Congrats on your new camera and welcome to the Forum!

The answers to your questions are Yes and Yes.

On question No. 1, Audio, you can mute the audio or you can delete it. I recommend muting it because (as I learned from my own bad experience) if you delete it then if you add more video clips, your audio will come along with it on a separate track. You may not notice it is there until you are all done and then have to hunt it down and delete it, or worse, until you are playing your creation for an audience and you can hear the unwanted audio under your music.

If you look on your timeline, over to the left you will see several buttons on each track. Hover your mouse over the buttons on your audio track. You will see a circle with a slash through it. The button toggles off and on to mute and un-mute. I suppose you could mute all audio while you are editing and when you know you are finished then you could delete all audio. That is certainly an option.

Okay now for question No. 2, Overlay/Keyframes. You can add extra video or audio tracks using the menu or keystroke commands. From your menu, choose "Insert" and then you will see the option for video or audio tracks.

It's a little more complicated to explain keyframes. There are some good tutorials on YouTube. Sony also has some tutorials here:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/support/trainingvids.asp?prod=moviestudio

I believe the "Pan and Scan Techniques" tut will discuss keyframes.

One last bit of advice. VASST.com has some excellent training materials. They are not free, but the price is reasonable for certain items. I have their book and DVD on Movie Studio 9. Here is a link to their stuff on Movie Studio 10:

http://www.vasst.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=155&category_id=2&manufacturer_id=1&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=66

I hope this helps.

Kimberly