Newbie Questions -Please help (and don't kill me!)

GarageSpin wrote on 10/5/2009, 7:54 PM
I recently started using my wife's copy of Vegas Movie Studio 8, and have some very basic questions -- I'd love your help, if possible..!

- I have .MOV files I shot with an HD camera. (1280x720, 59.96 fps, H.264). When I drop them into a Vegas project, the audio gets lost? I read somewhere that changing the file extension to "MP4" solves the problem, and it did, temporarily, for one file...but then never worked again when I tried to drop more "mp4" files into the project. What's wrong???

- I'm editing music footage that I shot of myself recording a song, and am trying to sync up the audio of the final song track with the movement of my lips on the video...but the preview window isn't smooth enough. It's too choppy. What can I do to make the preview smoother? (It would be MUCH easier to sync the song audio and video audio if the audio did not get lost when I dropped in the video files!!)

- YouTube recommends exporting to 1280 x 720 (16x9 HD) and 640 x 480 (4:3 SD), with the H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 codecs, but none of these seem to be choices in the Project Preferences window. Am I missing something? Are they even options in Vegas Movie Studio?

Thank you!!

-Mike

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 10/5/2009, 8:10 PM
1) You probably have recently upgraded to Quicktime 7.6.4 and iTunes 9. You need to roll back to QT 7.6.2 and iTunes 8. There is a discussion of this in the Pro forum. Do a search.

2) See #1 above.

3) These should be available to you in Movie Studio. H.264 is called AVC or MP4. MPEG-2 is called MPG.

3a) If you are looking in your Project Properties for these, you certainly are missing something. These are "Render" or "Make Movie" options.
GarageSpin wrote on 10/5/2009, 9:48 PM
Hi MusicVid,

Thanks for your reply, I found the thread you talked about, and was able to fix the issue as described for #1. #2 will now be much easier to solve as well, though I still wish the video was less choppy in the preview window, So I could verify my syncing attempts. Is there any way to optimize it?

Re: #3, I don't see AVC or MP4 listed as output options, but I do see MPG. Is it possible those file types aren't available in Movie Studio?

Thanks!

-Mike
Eugenia wrote on 10/5/2009, 10:26 PM
http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/11/09/exporting-with-vegas-for-vimeo-hd/
musicvid10 wrote on 10/5/2009, 10:26 PM
#1, #2,
Yes there are ways to optimize preview. Briefly, these are to set your project properties exactly the same as your media properties, set your preview window to Preview and turn off Scale Preview to Fit . . ., and possibly turn off Simulate Device Aspect . . .

However, syncing your audio to a visual cue is not the best way to do it, unless there is a plosive. You would sync the audio waveform to the audio track associated with your video.

#3. I don't know. Which version of Movie Studio do you have? Does the Main Concept AVC or Sony AVC show up under your render options?

Different versions have different render options available. Look under your version's specs to find out. Good luck!
GarageSpin wrote on 10/7/2009, 12:33 PM
MusicVid: Thanks again for all the help! Using the iTunes rollback instructions, I was able to recover audio components of video files, which will definitely help to sync everything up.

Regarding Move Studio, indeed, the basic version didn't export to HD file sizes, but the Platinum version does...so I upgraded.

So, a new question: Now that I've upgraded to Movie Studio 9 Platinum, will my current Movie Studio 8 project be easily converted to the new software version? Will I lose any data?

Thanks!

-Mike
musicvid10 wrote on 10/7/2009, 1:14 PM
My best guess is that the Studio 8 project will open fine in Studio 9, but since I don't own those versions, I can't promise that everything will be retained. Just to be safe, it would be a good idea to do a "Save As" right after you open the project in Studio 9.
GarageSpin wrote on 10/7/2009, 6:25 PM
MusicVid: Well, it seems to have worked. Some of the project settings had to be changed to take advantage of the new maximu frame sizes, etc. Thanks for your help!

Now, when I look at rendering options, the following exist:
Default Template
NTSC DV
NTSC DV Widescreen
PAL DV
PAL DV Widescreen
NTSC SD YUV
PAL SD YUV
HD 1080-60i YUV
HD 1080-50i YUV
HD 1080-24p YUV

The "Default" version includes:
Audio: 44,100 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo
Video: 29.970 fps, 1280x720x32

I'm not 100% sure if that meets YouTube's suggested formats listed here:
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=132460&topic=16612&hl=en-US

YouTube Suggested Video:
1280 x 720 (16x9 HD) and 640 x 480 (4:3 SD)
H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 preferred

YouTube Suggested Audio:
MP3 or AAC preferred
44.1 kHz
Stereo

Any idea? Thanks so much for your help!!! I'm incredibly grateful for this forum...

-Mike


Audiio:

GarageSpin wrote on 10/7/2009, 6:51 PM
MusicVid:
Ok, good news and band news. Good news, is, I just noticed the "Custom" button on the render page, which gives more options. Bad news, is, there still doesn't seem to be an ideal set of options that fits the YouTube suggestions. Come on, Vegas!!!

Audio format choices:
-ACELP.net
-CCITT A-Law
-CCITT u-Law
-DSP Group TrueSpeech(TM)
-GSM 6.10
-IAC2
-IMA ADPCM
-Microsoft ADPCM
-Microsoft G.723.1
-MPEG Layer-3
-PCM Uncompressed
(YouTube prefers AAC and MP3 at 44.1 khz. But, AAC isn't a choice, and the max level for MP3 is 56 kBit/s, 24,000 Hz, Stereo! If I choose PCM Uncompressed, I can select 44.1 khz and stereo, as recommended by YouTube.)

Video Options:
YouTube recommends H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4; 1280 x 720 (16x9 HD). Once again, I'm really frustrated with Vegas, as I don't see MP4 or AVC as options. WTF??? The options they have are:
-Default Template
-NTSC DV
-NTSC DV Widescreen
-NTSC DV (inserting 2-3 pulldown)
-NTSC DV Widescreen (2-3 pulldown)
-NTSC DV (inserting 2-3-3-2 pulldown)
-NTSC DV Widescreen (2-3-3-2 pulldown)
-PAL DV
-PAL DV Widescreen
-NTSC SD YUV
-PAL SD YUV
-HD 1080-60i YUV
-HD 1080-50i YUV
-HD 1080-24p YUV

How can you not include YouTube-recommended formats? Come on!!

Now, you can customize the files:
-Frame size
-Frame rate
-Field order
-pixel aspect ratio
-video format
-Quality

It also has several checkboxes that can let you edit:
-"Interleave every # seconds
-Keyframe every # seconds
-Data rate (KBytes/second)
-Render alpha channel (uncompressed video formats only)
-Create an OpenDML (AVI version 2.0) compatible file

So, alrighty. I'm sorry to dump all this info here, but I'm just a bit at a loss as to what to do. I could customize the file properties to meet YouTube's recommendations, but then they wouldn't have the MP4 video or AAC audio formatting...and the default format is AVI.

Any suggestions at what to do?

THANK YOU SO MUCH for your help!!

-Mike
musicvid10 wrote on 10/7/2009, 6:57 PM
You are looking at the submenus for AVI files.

If you will go to the main menu, you will find not only AVI, but MOV, WMV, MPG, AVC, and many others. Each of these will have their own submenus.

Eugenia has posted instructions for rendering to Vimeo, YouTube, etc. with Movie Studio Platinum. Search near the top of this thread for the link.
GarageSpin wrote on 10/7/2009, 7:06 PM
Oh geez, you're right. :)

Looking at the "file type" choices, there is a huge list of MP4 options. The mystery is solved.

See, I told you I was a newbie. ;)

Thanks again for your help.

-Mike
musicvid10 wrote on 10/7/2009, 7:14 PM
Hehe, it's all right. We all started at the same place!

At the risk of being a bit off-center, my grandfather's most famous quote (one that we heard thousands of times) was:

"We all look the same in red underwear."