Your analysis of what I'm asking for is accurate, and you are correct, not having to redo an entire "Print to tape" to fix a few bad frames is a nice feature.

It's a professional feature found on most "high end" systems.

It's not currently available on VV3. What I'm looking for is a workaround solution from one of the VV Forum genius's (you know who you are).

There was a discussion of this recently. I believe it was SonicEPM who pointed out that the device control through firewire doesn't support frame-accurate positioning. It would probably require something like an RS-422 interface.

I'm ready to explore other options. I understand that it might require the use of additional hardware and software.

What I'm hoping is that someone has actually had some "hybrid" experiences with Vegas as the prime optical and editing environment, and (perhaps) Canopus or Matrox plus possibly Primiere as the layback to tape with full control option.

Victor, I am considering this same issue as I seek a temporary workaround while awaiting an RS-422 implementation in VV. Until I get this, I am limited in what use I can make of VV.

My current plan is to buy an RS-422 plug-in for Premier 6.0 (which I have here already) as I am thinking of taking the finished .avi movie created in VV3 and using Premier to do the print-to-tape since it 'possibly' offers accurate insert edit capabilities - we'll see.

Sounds right on target -
a lot of us out here are eagerly awaiting your experiments.

anyone else working out this problem??

v

"My current plan is to buy an RS-422 plug-in for Premier 6.0 (which I have here already) as I am thinking of taking the finished .avi movie created in VV3 and using Premier to do the print-to-tape since it 'possibly' offers accurate insert edit capabilities - we'll see."

Let us know if this really works (reliably, repeatably).

If you guys had TWO DV decks, you might be able to pull off insert edit more easily than going from a PC to a deck. The decks could (if the decks are gen-lockable, using a horita sync gen or the equivalent) be genlocked so you'd be using the same clock...dump the clip off to deck one, then sync up decks 1 & 2, trim and preview until it looks perfect, then record back to the master.

I still advocate the guaranteed/free/right-now method: capture the entire program, make the changes, print back the whole show. That will definitely work, no changes for anybody.

Sonic... we do truly love you... but...
re-compressing and then re-recording a two hour show to insert a 30 second commercial really sucks.

We understand that it works... it's just that we're all congenitally lazy, and that's so much work, plus if something glitches - well, you get the idea.

But if we all understand (and admit) that there's a problem, and someone else claims to have a solution... well we VV boys are going to find a way to make it all work, because we DO love the software.

Smiles to all... and let John and me know if anyone comes up with a workable solution.

v.

Vicmilt: you wouldn't be doing any recompressing of any of the video. The original parts will be copied over bit for bit. The part you're replacing is probably new and undergoing it's first rendering.

It still seems to take a bunch of time for VV to prepare itself for the actual tape layback, even if it isn't recompressing the whole show.

But ignoring that altogether, just the actual layback of a two hour video is awful. If you have to do it twice, simply to insert 30 seconds of revised commercials, that's a lot of computer and tape time, plus you can't ignore that a human has to watch the whole darn show AGAIN to make sure there are no hits, dropouts, etc. In a two hour production, that's a lot of time spent (wasted)... that's what we are talking about.

On other systems (not as yet confirmed but heavily advertised) insert to tape via a DV controller is possible. It's definitely possible on a 422 controlled deck with analog output, because that's what I was doing on the AVID prior to switching to VV. (I will be selling my AVID MC this week and completely switching production to VV, a true testimony of happiness and satisfaction... now if we could just solve this little glitch in professional layback, welllll......)

Random thoughts:

It may be worth noting that some of the board/SW systems for NLE employ(ed) some kind of "bus mastering" to help maintain uninterrupted video data flow to the outputs. AFAIK, in Vegas, video data rides the same bus as all the other commoners. (Perhaps someone can confirm this.) That said, Vegas must be able to output when printing to tape in a fashion the prioritizes the 1394 stream, unlike the preview process where the output gets interrupted (or slowed) to acommodate other issues.

THAT said, for those looking to insert-edit into tape, there may be some merit in exploring a MIDI/GPI/422 type interface that can release an editing deck from a pause at the edit-preroll point. i.e.: Setup the deck for a self-insert, and trigger it via Vegas MIDI (or vice-versa). I haven't explored it yet, but it would probably be good enough to drop :30 spots into a master. The trick might be optimizing for constant data flow from Vegas, using the PTT mode.

Back in the day, we kept some cuts in a program, rather than all dissolves/transitions so there was a convenient place to drop in replacement footage. (That was before memory TBC controls and switcher disk-storage.) I presume there are dips-to-black for the :30 spots, so + or - 2 frames might be allowable.


MPH

good thoughts martyh, but (so as to not mislead folks) the current VV setup is assemble edit only. Therefore your bumper of 2 seconds of black on either side (good idea, but not really necessary if you're using frame accurate service), will break not only your time code, but also your video picture. You will get a second or so of that blank video (not black, but static). Plus, having broken code, your master will be useless for further revisions.

Hi Vic,

Yep. Using the Vegas interface to punch-in would be problematic.

To clarify, I was trying to convey that a high-end insert-edit capable deck can frame-accurately edit on it's own... mark in, out, preroll, etc. So, if you could playback from Vegas while the edit-deck is doing its own thing, you might get somewhere.

The model could work if a GPI triggering the prerolled edit-deck were run by Vegas (via MIDI), or if a device chasing the deck's TC triggers the Vegas playback .

This methodology was/is common with audio-layback to video systems, and Vegas is MIDI compatible, so this seems (to me) to be a viable concept.

Regards, MPH