Newbie ** Deleting parts of a media file

suden wrote on 8/9/2004, 2:10 PM
After capturing a tape from a VCR, I wanted to delete a few scenes from the file (shift-click, select parts, click delete and save the work). I've deleted 10 parts total. Now, when I preview the clip, there are blank spaces where I've deleted the parts. I've tried to join the parts together by sliding them with the cursor but the parts I've deleted re-appear and the yellow little triangles are still there. My questions are...
1. If I do the rendering of the clip now, are all the parts gonna be joined ?
2. If not, what should I do now?

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 8/9/2004, 3:55 PM
It sounds like you're dragging the edge of the piece out to meet the other piece. This extends the clip rather than moving it. Drag the clip from the middle instead of the end and it will move.
stormstereo wrote on 8/9/2004, 4:07 PM
Remember that editing in Vegas is non-destructive. You can chop that file up on the timeline however you want. The original file is still intact. You are just telling Vegas how to play or not play the file.

When you have followed Chienworks advice you can then render your file to a new AVI (or WMV, MOV, RM). The old one will still be intact but you'll have a new one on your disk.

Sorry if I'm telling you the obvious but I got the feeling you were a new user here.

Best/Tommy
busterkeaton wrote on 8/9/2004, 4:46 PM
You should also look into how to do "ripple" edting with Vegas.

If you didn't want the empty space, you can turn ripple-editing on and delete the clips. This will shift all the remaining clips down the timeline.

There's an icon to turn ripple on and off.

When you are ripple-edting, remember to select both the Audio and the Video of the clip. If you just select the Video, only the video track ripples and this causes all the downstream media to be out of sync.
bStro wrote on 8/9/2004, 4:50 PM
The others have good advice, but since you captured from a VCR rather than a camera, I feel the need to ask:

Are the captured files AVI or MPEG? If they're MPEG, you do not want to use Vegas to do edit them. Not only will re-rendering them reduce the quality further, but it will take a looooooong time. Your best option is to capture to AVI instead of MPEG or to use a program specifically designed to edit MPEG (Vegas is designed to edit uncompressed (or at the very least, less compressed) video.

If you're already capturing to AVI, please disregard. :)

Rob
suden wrote on 8/9/2004, 9:06 PM
To answer to bStro, I want to make DVDs with my old tapes so I capture in MPEG2, render the clip and prepare and burn it with Architec2. It takes me 4 hours of rendering for 2 hours of tape. Am I doing the right thing ?? I've already burned 3 tapes on DVD but it is the first time that I want to edit a clip. What would be right way to do it ??? Thank you guys....
stormstereo wrote on 8/10/2004, 1:09 AM
I don't want to put you down or anything but I think you should have a look in the Vegas manual and/or help. All you need to know is there. You should not have any problems following that since you've already got a good grasp of what you are doing.

Your workflow seem correct to me except that you're capturing and working with Mpeg. Vegas is optimized for DV AVI (higher quality). Mpeg is a delivery format and you loose a bit of quality when re-rendering such a file. Maybe it's not so big a deal since the original material is old tapes (I'm guessing VHS?), but others here might disagree.

If I were to do what you're doing I would capture in DV AVI through firewire, edit them on the timeline and then render out to MPEG2 and AC3 for completion in DVDA.

Best/Tommy
Chienworks wrote on 8/10/2004, 4:02 AM
Quality issues aside, editing MPEG files is horribly slow in Vegas. It takes nearly forever (maybe longer) for the images in the timeline and preview to redraw every time you make an edit or even move the cursor. Using DV AVI files instead will speed up the editing process enormously.
jaegersing wrote on 8/10/2004, 4:51 AM
I agree with Chienworks. All the fun things about editing in Vegas just disappear when you try to edit MPEG2. You will get a much smoother process if you capture in DV AVI.

Richard Hunter
bStro wrote on 8/10/2004, 8:26 AM
What brand / model device are you using to do the capture?

As the others said, if you're going to be doing editing on the video in Vegas, it's best to capture to AVI, edit it using that, then render to MPEG2. Trouble is, however, not all capture devices even do AVI. ;-) I have two analog-to-digital capture devices that encode the stream directly to MPEG. Others will scoff, but it's fine for projects that I'm only going to do cuts / joins and minor transitions (I use Womble MPEG Video Wizard for those projects. Whereas Vegas is designed to work with AVI, Womble's products are designed to work with MPEG, and will not re-render the whole video).

For this particular project of yours, if you're not really applying any effects or doing color correction, I'd recommend simply using a different application (one geared towad MPEG editing) to do the edits. Maybe something even came your capture device. My Hauppage card (or maybe it was my previous ATI card) came with NanoEdit, whose interface really sucks, but it got the job done. If you feel like spending the money, though, the Womble products I mentioned above are really good.

By the way, if your capture device will capture to AVI, and if you've got enough harddrive space to do so, disregard everything I just said. ;-)

As a sidenote, regarding the tapes that you captured, rendered, and prepared/burned without edits... You shouldn't have to do the "render" portion of that process. Even most of the "convert your home movies to DVD!" devices have a setting for DVD-compliant video. Once you capture / encode it with the device, you should just be able to bring that file into DVD Architect and have it prepare / burn without re-rendering. No need to even involve Vegas. Check your device's manual regarding DVD-compliant settings -- there should be at least one setting that encodes to a 720x480, MPEG2 file between 3 Mb/sec and 8 Mb/sec. If it gives you the option of VBR (variable bit rate), all the better. It will probably encode the audio as MPEG, but you can let DVDA separate and re-encode that to AC3.

Rob
suden wrote on 8/10/2004, 10:09 PM
I use ATI 9200 multimedia for the capture...once it is captured, I add a title and the I encode it....Is it possible to add a title without rendering it ?? For 2 hours of tape I use about 35 GIGs on the HD. After the rendering, the size is reduced to 4.3 GIGs., so I burn it with DVDA2.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Project properties :

Video:
Template : NTSC DV (720x480, 29.970 fps)
Width : 720
Height : 480
Field order : Lower field first
Aspect ration : 0.9091 (NTSC DV)
Resolution rendering : Best
Motion blur : Gaussian
Deinterlace method : Blend fields

Audio:
Master bus : stereo
Sample rate : 44,100
Bit depth : 16
Resample quality : good
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rendering :
Type : Main concept MPEG-2
Video : 29,970 fps, 720 X 480
Audio : 224 Kbps, 44,100 Hz, Layer 2
bStro wrote on 8/11/2004, 11:21 AM
Two hours = 35 gigs on your harddrive?

Are you sure you're capturing to MPEG? That sounds an awful lot like an AVI (which is good).

Rob
suden wrote on 8/11/2004, 11:32 AM
You're right the extension is AVI......Last question....Is it possible to add a title without rendering it in Vegas or I have to ??
bStro wrote on 8/11/2004, 1:18 PM
No, it's not possible to add a title without rendering.

Rob

Grazie wrote on 8/11/2004, 11:03 PM
Is this a daft idea? - I know I can add a "title" within my Canon XM2 - it's called .. .er . Title Mix .. just thought it might be relevant .. ?

Here some links
1 - The Background DV.Info Conversation .. .

2 - The Movie by Tustin Larson - thank you Tustin!

I was thinking that a Finished Movie could then have its Title put on and over a miniDV Tape within my XM2 .. . just a thought . .other cammies have this?

"It may be render . . . but not as we know know it - Jim"

[ . . .back to having fun with V5b .. . ;-) ]


Grazie