its not the "insert generated media" test pattern. it seems to happen arbitrarily. i'm not sure about ptt. what is ptt? i'm talking about the test pattern that starts as soon as pre-rendering ends, right after the countdown, and before the test pattern allotted in the "print to tape" forms. the duration of the pattern seems to have to have something to do with the time length of the file printing, or the file size. i've seen it last 10 seconds (before my 3 second tone and 1 second of black) and i've seen it last 5 minutes. is there a standard 10 or 20 second pre-test pattern?

I am finding it happens more when I select manual control rather than alowing vegas to start the dv camcorder recording automatically

I have to use manual mode because I have a Sony DSR-11 DVCAM deck and I notice this too. I always set mine for 1 second and that seems to work, but leaving it at the default of 5 secs or whatever it is always ended up more like 30 seconds. I thought it was just mine!

are you aware of this behavior SoFo?

I have the same problem.

I use manual because I have a DSR20 DVCAM.

Sometimes it works OK and sometimes I have to wait 5 minutes or more.

My solution is to stop the first PTT if the lead pattern delays more than 30 seconds and make another inmediatly, normally it works. Other issue is the remaining time , it never matches the real time.

Josaver.

FWIW, for me it seems to happen randomly regardless if set to manual or automatic.
Randy

this is getting annoying. I had mine set to 1 second and it went on for over 2 minutes. I finally hit cancel and now I'm stuck. Vegas can't kill the background operation. tape is due in 1.5 hours. better get back to banging on Vegas.

I ended up skipping the color bars and tone at the beginning altogether because it was too unpredictable. A few times it overwrote the beginning of my video.
This problem needs to be addressed in an update......3.0d

John

I have always experienced this problem, and even mentioned it once on this forum to little response. I am just glad to hear I'm not alone. I too use manual device control, since I'm mastering to VHS.

Usually the long colorbars (2+ minutes, when it's set to 5 seconds) occur when it's just compiled the wav64 file for audio. The workaround I use is canceling the print to tape and immediately printing to tape again -- if you don't leave Vegas, the wav64 file doesn't need to be recreated, and it works pretty well the second time around.

Of course, like someone mentioned in a previous post, trying to cancel the print when the colorbars are hanging can throw windows into confusion, so it takes some patience.

SF please be aware of this issue!

Luxo

To cancel the PTT not only cancel in vegas, try to switch off the camera or deck and immediatly vegas cancel the operation. I think is a problem on communication via firewire with the camera or deck.

I use my own patterns and automatic via Vegas capture or manual via PTT, it depends on the project and if its a VHS or a Dvcam copy.

Josaver.

Changed the title...Maybe that will get their attention.

John

We've been watching this.

I just (15 times in a row) tried ptt from the timeline to a GL1 with a 10 minute project, using both manual and device mode, 5 sec, then 10 sec, then 30sec bars/tone-and it is right every time. In the ~12 months or so that Vegas 3 has been out there, I've never run into it.

Enough people are seeing this to make it seem like a real bug, so can somebody please tell me if there is something you think triggers this bad behavior? Is it only when printing to a deck for instance?

Also, as a workaround, you can create your own bars/tone on the timeline and bypass the generated bars/tone. For those w/o Forge (which can generate tone for you) I have uploaded a 1k test tone, download it at

ftp://porker.sonicfoundry.com/

username: dude
password: sweet
file: 48k .wav

Go to the start of your V3 project. Turn on ripple mode, UNSELECT everything (click on empty section of timeline) insert time (say 30 secs) at the start- everything including all keyframes, envelope points, markers, and events should ripple down 30 secs.

Drop the tone at the start, loop that out to 20 secs.
Loaded into a track with default settings, this tone file will play back at -12db (change that if you want). Put a color bars generated media event above the tone, same length.

Print this whole thing to DV tape from the timeline (or render project to file). You will get 20 secs tone, 10 secs black, then your program. Using this method you can bypass the bars/tone generator (set to 0) and not worry about this issue(until we can repro and fix it).

Hope this helps ease your pain.

I am glad to discover that others are also having this frustrating problem. It's difficult sitting with a client.... waiting for the damn bars to go away (sometimes only after five minutes or MORE) You almost have to sit at the ready and wait for the tones to come up. WHen they do you only have about 5 seconds to react. I am also using manual as I go straight into a stand alone DVD recorder and I don't need five minutes of bars on the front of every project I archive or master.

I am not sure what the issue is - most of this thread is from 2 years ago so it should not matter with Vegas 4. Bobnoxious what are you doing, or not doing, to get the Bars and Tone for 5 minutes in Vegas 4? When you do a PTT you can set the pre and post black duration and the duration of the Bars as well. You can also state if you want the tone to play or not. If you have done this - my educated guess is that you think you set the bars and tone for 5 seconds but you really typed in 5 minutes.

Must say I've had no problem with this at all.
My only gripe is that the black leader and trailer is at superblack i.e. outside broadcast legal but that's easy enough to get around. I now insert my own legit level black at start and end of project for anything that matters.
Would be nice if Vegas also inserted a decent countdown and ident screen as well but again these are easy enough to do for yourself.

Nope. I have been thru the routine too many times now to know if I am missing something. The window says "in seconds" and I type in 10 or 5 or whatever. That should be 10 seconds or 5 seconds or whatever - the way I am led to understand it. Someone tell me if I am wrong here.