Hold on, I need to find out if there is a way to bypass recording to mini DV first.

Same directions as above. When you get to the page that gives you the option of Auto or Manual Device control, choose manual. This will send you to a page with a countdown of when to press record. Just press record on your VCR and not your Mini DV.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll try that.
I still don't know how to get the second Veg file to be ready to print in less than 5 minutes before all the decks unpause and go into stop mode. There will surely be a glitch in the VHS tapes as a result. Even after they prerender once, the Veg files seem to take longer than 5 minutes to be ready to print. Can I cue up two Veg files and leave the second one at the 10 second countdown ro will that sap resources.
I an not sure if making one huge AVI file using render and then Capture's Print to tape feature is better because I don't know if it will fit along with the others on the hard drive. I don't want to delete them yet. Defragging can take hours on an 80GB drive too. Right now it's all defragged. Thanks

John

You can have two copies of Vegas running on your computer simultaeously. Get the second veg file to the countdown spot and leave it sit. Print the first veg file from the other copy of Vegas, then the second one will be ready to go at a moment's notice when the time comes. I'm guessing you have two separate files because there were two acts? Does the gap between your files line up with the intermission? If so, you can probably switch from one veg file to the other fast enough (it will be black on the tapes inbetween) so that you won't even have to pause the recording decks. If you set your countdown/black length to 0 you should be able to achieve a very rapid transition. (All this assumes that you're sitting there at the computer ready when the time comes, of course.)

Alternatively, you could copy & paste everything from the second veg file to the end of the first one and make it all one big project.

Chienworks,
Yes thanks, it does line up with the intermission blackout. I am not sure that there won't be a glitch in the blackout though. I'll try it.

Any way to add Veg files to the media pool and then combine the two as a third Veg file. I have seen it posted that copying and pasting causes problems with generated media and transitional effects. Is that so?
Thanks for all the help.

John

Either marry the 2 veg files or recapture the second tape and add it to the first on the timeline. That way you can record it all at once.

Hi Swarrine,
The second tape has a credit roll at the end followed by a fade into an outtake sequence. In looking back over previous posts it seems that I will lose the credit roll because it won't copy and paste. Was there another way to marry or merge the second project file intact to the first. Past SonicEPM posts referred to copying keyframes and pasting them. Not sure how to do that either. Havent worked with keyframes yet.
Thanks,
John

John, as far as i know, the only problem is with generated media. If the only generated media you have is the credit roll, you could always render that out as a new .avi file, copy the rest of the timeline, paste it into the first project, and then add the credit roll clip.

John,

Just glanced over you post, so forgive me if I'm off base, but if you're looking at simply dumping a 2.5 hour project to MiniDV from the timeline, but are unable to get around the time limitations of the MiniDV cassette, try Panasonic's DV tapes:

120 minute Panasonic DV casette (SP)

I bought a couple 80 minute tapes a few months ago and used them for a wedding. I taped in LP, so I managed to get 2 hours out of each. The extra time REALLY helped out. I think this could help you as well. The 120 minute tape will do 3 hours in LP, so maybe it'd work for you.

Also, to combine two seperate Vegas projects, do this:

1. Open Vegas.
2. Open you first project.
3. Open Vegas again (So now you have the program running twice. We'll call them Vegas[A] and Vegas[B]).
4. Open your second project in Vegas[B].
5. To combine the two projects, (we'll assume project[A] is chronologically first), Alt+Tab to Vegas[B]. Press Ctrl+A to select the entire project (or a frame or two, whatever you need), and Ctrl+C to copy.
6. Alt+Tab to Vegas[A]. Click the point in the time line where you want to insert the copied material. Ctrl+V to paste it down.

Hope this helps,
Nick LaMartina

I like the long tape idea. LP is fine for mastering. I'd never use the long (thin) tapes or LP for shooting though. The quality of an LP master is the same as SP.

Two other thoughts:
*) You should have included the cost of renting a DVCAM unit into your price.
*) It's too darn long. Even a VHS tape won't hold more than 2 hours unless you go to EP mode which *does* give you a big quality hit. Anything over 30 minutes and your audience will be bored to death.

Hi,
Thanks again. I haven't tried mastering in LP yet. The longest tape I was aware of was the Panasonic 83 minute MQ master tapes which is what Act 1 is on. Act two is on a 60 minute MQ tape. That new Panasonic 120 /160 tape really interests me. If it works, it sure beats getting a larger format DV deck just to get around a limitation which I may be able to solve with a camera as a deck. Besides, I have been reading posts here which indicate incompatibilities with some of those decks and VV such as the Sony DSR-11. The camera/deck is unlikely to cause such a problem.

With the outtakes and the cast party which they wanted on the tape it ended up being 2 1/2 hours. The rack has T-160 VHS tapes which are being recorded in SP not LP. Fuji makes a decent T-160. I did a rough edit to show at the cast party and they loved it. There are three nights worth of scenes edited together between Act 1 and Act 2. You can see that this project took up a lot of real estate on the hard drive
following capture.

I think I'll combine Nick and Chienworks suggestions by making an AVI file of the generated media and then follow Nick's suggestions for cutting and pasting the project together. Then I'll start looking around or calling my tape suppliers to see when they will be carrying that 120 minute tape. Fortunately it is Panasonic because that is pretty much all I have been using in the camera (sometimes Fuji 60's)

Hopefully I will eventually get to the point where I can start helping others on this forum as you all have helped me.

John

craftech-

I don't know about long mini DV tapes, but all you need to do is get the entire program on the timeline and record as per my previous suggestion.

You could just recapture one or both tapes/renders and pop them on one (new) timeline or (and I have not tried this) copy your timeline on the second veg and paste it to the first. (Note: if the scrolling credit does not copy to the first timeline, simply reverse it and copy the first timline and paste it in to the second).

>>>Besides, I have been reading posts here which indicate incompatibilities with some of those decks and VV such as the Sony DSR- 11. The camera/deck is unlikely to cause such a problem.

just FYI:
the DSR-11 is great except that Print to Tape from Timeline won't work in *automatic* mode, which means you have to cue it up and hit record manually. you can put well over 4 hours of DV onto a 180 minute DVCAM tape.

I'm still waiting for a response from SoFo on the compatibility issues. to me it seems like an obvious deck to target for compatibility since it's the smallest and cheapest DVCAM deck. (also works with miniDV by the way)

OK Here's what I did to combine the two VEG files into one:

1. Since the credit roll and outtakes were at the end of Act 2 I put that one on the new timeline first. That left everything intact without having to do anything to it.
2. Next, I opened another instance of VV3 with Act 1 on it.
3. From the menu I chose select all.
4. Then I used the "copy" command (with the mouse)and minimized Act1
5. I then pasted it at the front of the timeline. That gave me all of act one except that the copied generated media was blank(in this case the opening graphic with intro followed by a title effect)
6. Even though the graphic was blank, it was in the correct place on the timeline along with the proper duration and sequence.
7. I maximized Act 1 again and went to the opening graphic on the timeline and clicked on Video Event FX. When that opened I went to the bottom where the keyframe area is and found the small keyframe marker, right clicked on it and chose "copy".
8. I minimized Act 1 and then pasted the keyframe to the blank generated media on the new timeline and it instantly changed into an exact duplicate of the one in Act 1
9. I saved the new project and used the Print to Tape feature with manual control.
The preview was set to "external monitor"
10. After about a 20 minute prerender the 10 second countdown appeared.
11. I put the VX2000 in VCR mode and cued up all the decks which were connected to the camera via my distribution amp.
12. After starting record on all the decks I clicked on the 10 second countdown.
13. I monitored the recording process on the external monitor which was hooked up to a switchbox connected to the output of each deck.
14. The results were perfect without having to mess with pausing at the end of Act two and switching tapes.
15. I ran an A-B visual test between the dubs made from the masters in the first run and those made directly from the timeline. The quality was better in those dubbed directly from the timeline as compared to those dubbed from the master tape. I ran the test with several different tapes and decks to eliminate deck to deck differences and the results were consistent. The biggest difference was in the sharpness and very very slightly in the color quality. There is no proc amp in the chain. Along with the increase in the sharpness was a very slight increase in video noise. Of course this as always most noticeable during the dark scenes. It certainly was not objectionable. The increased sharpness was worth it.

Thanks again for helping me solve this problem.

John

WTG John.