I can't record my movie! help..

Thyrius wrote on 7/20/2003, 3:59 PM
Ive just bought Vegas Video 4.0 and I was very possitivly surprised of how easy it was to use this program. The project turned out great and I was very proud of what I had accomplished.

The problem is that I can't make it an .avi file! it keep insisting to make it a .wav, the recorded file however does not work at all! Not even sound..

Hmm.. when I press record it starts on a new field and it's just making 3 straight lines within the track.. I am guessing that these stright lines are suppose to move.. but since Ive never been able to record anything, I don't know.
help me out you guys?

Comments

BillyBoy wrote on 7/20/2003, 4:29 PM
Can't make WHAT KIND of source file an AVI?

Check your project settings, be sure you pick the correct file type and template.

To record from Vegas, under preferences be sure things are set correctly under the audio tab.

You didn't say WHAT you're trying to record or from what source. It doesn't help much.

For example to record your voice

a. turn on your mic if it is powered.
b. either create a new audio track or click on a already present audio track
c. click on the round icon in the track header area (extreme left) It should arm, and turn red and add a strength meter below within the track.
d. when ready click the same type of icon on the scrubber control. As you record you should see a wave pattern. You should see a the peaks in the waveform.
kameronj wrote on 7/21/2003, 8:34 AM
Yeah...see...when you press record in vegas - it want to record. But, from your explanation you are not telling us (or vegas) what you want to record.

If you are getting an audio track, then it is trying to record audio...but with a straight line this tells me that it doesn't have a source to record from (i.e. microphone).

If you are trying to record video from a camera...then that would be the source, but a bunch o'things have to be in place in order for it to capture the cam...like, for starters, the camera has to be on (lens cap off, etc).

It may help us to help you if we had a few more specifics of what you are trying to record and make an AVI.
Thyrius wrote on 7/21/2003, 11:27 AM
Yeah, I am making a music video, I have clips and a mp3 file as audio. I don't know what you mean when you ask what source I want to record from.
dvdude wrote on 7/21/2003, 11:35 AM
>>"The problem is that I can't make it an .avi file! it keep insisting to make it a .wav"

I think you want to create an .AVI file of the finished project. If this is the case, try "Render As" under the "File" menu.

Andy
kameronj wrote on 7/21/2003, 11:42 AM
YEah, I agree with DVDude. From what it sounds, you want to do a render to AVI.

But...just so we know exactly what you want to do versus what you are doing....walk us through the steps of what you are doing. As in...:

1. I have x-amount of video clips on timelines
2. I have x-amount of audio clips on timelines
3. Everthing looks great when I play the preview
4. I want to have a finished file of all my video/audio clips
5. I press the red record button, but nothing happens.

Something like that.

If, by chance, I listed out already what you are doing - then what you want to do is Render. So as DVDude says, click "File" then "Render as" - give it a name youwant and make sure your choose the save as type to the type you want (in this case AVI).
jetdv wrote on 7/21/2003, 11:47 AM
The "record" button in Vegas records AUDIO - aka WAV files.

To "record" video - you have to CAPTURE it - File - Capture Video.
Thyrius wrote on 7/21/2003, 5:01 PM
great! I manged to record it, thx you guys. However the filesize is rather large.. like 700 meg on 3 minutes. How do I make it around 50 meg like most others? :D
John_Cline wrote on 7/21/2003, 5:05 PM
"How do I make it around 50 meg like most others? :D"

You don't. DV video is recorded at a fixed bitrate of around 3.8 megabytes/second. One minute of DV is about 212 megabytes. One hour of DV is around 13 gigabytes.

That's just the way it is.

John
kameronj wrote on 7/21/2003, 8:18 PM
Yup....like John says, rendering to uncompressed AVI takes up a lot of space.

Maybe what you have been seeing is other AVI files that are not this large (and a heck of a lot longer). Most likely those are DIVX files. AVI files that have been compressed with the DIVX Codec.

I have seen some fantastic looking DIVX files...about 45 minutes only take up about 200 mb.

I don't think VV has the DIVX codec in it by default. Had to download it from Divx.com.

You could, of course, compress the final to MPEG. The file should turn out pretty dog-gone decent to watch and the file size will be considerable less than that of an uncompressed AVI.

Then again, depending on what your final product is or needs to be (saved to CD, VCD, DVD, to e-mail, play from webpage, etc), you can always render to other formats like WMV, MOV, MPEG2, blah blah blah. And then play around with the bit rate for either of the file types and end up with the same video running at umpteen different file sizes.

when I first started with VV....I tested one 10 minute file and renedered with all the default settings for (basically) all the render types. As a WMV file, it ranged all the way from a little over 1 mb...all the way up to 200 mb.

So just find what you like and render that way.

KnawhaImean?
John_Cline wrote on 7/21/2003, 9:33 PM
Uncompressed video is 720x480x3=1,036,800 bytes per frame. 29.97 frames per second is 31,072,896 bytes per second. One minute of uncompressed video is 1,864,373,760 bytes. (And don't forget to add 192,000 bytes per second for two channels of 48k 16 bit audio.)

DV, which is Vegas' native format, at 3.8 megabytes per second is indeed compressed, but still takes up a fair amount of room.

John