Regions and Explorer - not what I expected

TeetimeNC wrote on 3/18/2015, 3:28 PM
I'm using SVP 12. In the past I used Media Manager when I needed to work through a large amount of footage looking for the nuggets to use in my project. This time around I decided to try using regions. Hopefully someone can tell me if I am doing something wrong but I'm not getting what I expected. Here's what I did.
1. Opened a long interview clip in Vegas and created regions around each area of interest. Saved project as Interviews.veg.
2. I then opened another instance of Vegas that contains my main project Main.veg.
3. In Vegas Explorer I enabled region view and navigated to the folder containing Interviews.veg. Sure enough, I see my regions in Explorer.
4. I assume I can just drag the region from Explorer to the timeline just as I would for other media, but when I do it just transfers me to the other (Interviews) instance of Vegas.

What am I missing here? Is there an easy way to pluck regions from one Veg and place them in another?

/jerry

Comments

Marco. wrote on 3/18/2015, 3:36 PM
In case of using regions there is no need to use the veg file. Just select the interview clip in explorer while having it set to region view.
TeetimeNC wrote on 3/18/2015, 4:21 PM
Thanks Marco, but still not working for me. When I click on the interview clip (a .mts file if that matters) I see no regions. And I assume the region info is stored in the veg so wouldn't you have to point to it rather than the .mts? And what would happen if regions were defined for the .mts in two or more .veg files?

Also, thinking maybe the cause was that I defined the regions on the timeline rather than in the trimmer, I did a test with a region defined in the timeline and another region defined in the trimmer. Explorer only reported the one defined on the timeline. And yes, I am refreshing Vegas Explorer after each change.

I'm perplexed.

/jerry
OldSmoke wrote on 3/18/2015, 4:52 PM
I think the only way to store the regions/markers in the video file itself is to open it in the trimmer, make the regions/markers and press the save button in the trimmer window.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

videoITguy wrote on 3/18/2015, 6:22 PM
Timeline regions are relative to the timeline - thus saved as part of the .veg parameters.

Trimmer regions maybe saved to the file type of source all dependent on what the source file is and only relative to VegasPro review. AND controlled by an internal settings preference switch.
rmack350 wrote on 3/18/2015, 9:14 PM
maybe the cause was that I defined the regions on the timeline rather than in the trimmer

Gosh, I didn't realize the Vegas explorer would even show timeline regions. You're forced to learn something new every day!

What you should be doing is opening the media in the trimmer and then setting your regions there. Then browse to it in Vegas explorer and if you've elected to show regions it'll then show you the regions in the clip. You can then drag the region from the explorer back to the timeline or to the trimmer.

One of the advantages of trimmer regions is that you can drag out their heads and tails after placing them on the timeline. You can't do that with subclips, but I think a subclip will accept a time-based effect (or keyframed?) in a way that regions won't

When you bring one of these regions back onto the timeline, vegas will import the media into the project. I assume that if you drag a region from a veg file it'd do the same thing, it'd import the veg file.

When you create regions in the trimmer, Vegas also creates a matching SFL file. As long as you keep this with your media and you don't rename the source file then all your vegas projects should recognize the regions. They aren't tied to the project, they're tied to the clip.

Rob
TeetimeNC wrote on 3/19/2015, 5:34 AM
What you should be doing is opening the media in the trimmer and then setting your regions there. Then browse to it in Vegas explorer and if you've elected to show regions it'll then show you the regions in the clip. You can then drag the region from the explorer back to the timeline or to the trimmer.

rmack, that's not working for me, even when I try a simple one test with one of my .mts media files. Perhaps .mts is not one of the supported formats for this. So for me, I can only see timeline regions for these .mts. I do this by looking at the veg in Vegas Explorer. But then I'm not able to drag them to the main veg.

My reason for wanting to use timeline regions has to do with my workflow in this particular case. I have a veg which holds a couple hours of interview footage. In the veg I have synced an additional audio track from my external recorder. I have also added time code display. I created a low res render of this footage and sent it to the client to give me in/out codes for the segments they wanted me to use. I then marked those regions in the veg timeline and removed the time code display. It would have been perfect had I then been able to Explore that veg and drag those regions into my main project. My workaround is to nest the interview veg in my main timeline and cut in the desired regions.

/jerry
TeetimeNC wrote on 1/25/2016, 3:57 PM
My workaround is to nest the interview veg in my main timeline and cut in the desired regions.


I just had another of these projects and made a small improvement to my original workflow that I will share. It involves using the trimmer and might be useful to others if you need to quickly make a highlight reel from an existing project.

Background
In this job, I created a 1.5 hour DVD of a memorial service. This had an opening title and panel, a number of speeches, and a brief slideshow near the end. I also had two audio tracks (on board and a soundboard feed) that I cut between during the video.

I wanted to provide a 10 minute version of the highlights of the service. I rendered a low res version of the full service with time codes so the client could provide to me the in/out time codes for the segments he wanted in the highlight video. Once I had the time codes I followed this workflow.

Workflow
1. Create a region around each segment that is to be included (30 in this case).
2. Save the full length project, create a new "Highlights" project, and import the full length veg that contains the region markers.
3. Open the veg in the trimmer and zoom in far enough so the region markers are clearly visible.
4. Double click the first region marker and press "A" to add that region to the timeline.
5. Repeat for the remaining 29 regions.
6. In the timeline, create a new video track above the main track and add a two second black generated media event centered above the intersection of the 1st and 2nd regions.
7. Create a one second fade on each end of of the generated media, to provide a fade to black transition between the two events (regions).
8. Now copy/paste the generated media centered above each of the remaining 28 intersections.

Using the trimmer in this manner went a lot faster than cutting in each segment on the timeline. One issue: I hardly ever use the trimmer and I couldn't recall how to zoom in. A search reminded me you have to make the horizontal slider visible by enlarging the trimmer window vertically until the you see the horizontal slider. Then the up/down arrows or the +/- keys can be used to zoom in/out.

Regards,

Jerry
http://www.takeonesolutions.com
Photography • Video
OldSmoke wrote on 1/25/2016, 4:19 PM
You already made regions around the sections you needed, why not batch render the regions?

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

TeetimeNC wrote on 1/25/2016, 4:30 PM
You already made regions around the sections you needed, why not batch render the regions?


Because I wanted to add the fade to black transition between each region. I originally planned to use the Vegasaur Transcoder which lets you insert a leader for each region (which can be generated media) but I ran into a bug with that, so that's when I tried this approach. It was so easy I would go straight to this next time.

Jerry
http://www.takeonesolutions.com
Photography • Video
OldSmoke wrote on 1/25/2016, 6:49 PM
If you have Vegasaur you could try to promote the media markers to timeline markers and then to regions; I don't think you can go straight to regions. That should eliminate the manual adding of markers.

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)

TeetimeNC wrote on 1/25/2016, 10:00 PM
OldSmoke, I'm not sure if I understand what you are suggesting, or maybe you aren't understanding what I was trying to accomplish. There are no media markers, nor could there be because it wasn't one piece of media. This is a five track project with 2 audio tracks, one onboard audio and one feed from soundboard, and I mixed between the two. There were also three video tracks. So I created the regions in this 5 track project. At that point I could have deleted the unused segments across the five tracks and closed up the gaps - in fact that was what I did in the first project discussed further up in this thread. But this time around, I found it much easier to nest this five track project into a parent project and use the trimmer to build the condensed timeline. It was literally a 2 minute job, but more importantly it was much less prone to error because I wasn't having to move anything on the timeline. All I did was double click on a region marker, press letter A, move to the next region marker, and repeat 29 more times.

Now, I would for sure like to hear from you if I am misunderstanding what you are suggesting and there is an even easier way to accomplish what I was doing. But be sure you read through the steps in my workflow - it sounds to me like you may have missed what I was actually doing, probably because not explaining this clearly enough.

Also, yes I do have Vegasaur - it is a great tool.

Jerry
http://www.takeonesolutions.com
Photography • Video
OldSmoke wrote on 1/26/2016, 6:52 AM
Jerry, yes, you are right I missread the post. I was under the assumtion that you had a single file that you wanted to break up. Now it makes sense!

Proud owner of Sony Vegas Pro 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13 and now Magix VP15&16.

System Spec.:
Motherboard: ASUS X299 Prime-A

Ram: G.Skill 4x8GB DDR4 2666 XMP

CPU: i7-9800x @ 4.6GHz (custom water cooling system)
GPU: 1x AMD Vega Pro Frontier Edition (water cooled)
Hard drives: System Samsung 970Pro NVME, AV-Projects 1TB (4x Intel P7600 512GB VROC), 4x 2.5" Hotswap bays, 1x 3.5" Hotswap Bay, 1x LG BluRay Burner

PSU: Corsair 1200W
Monitor: 2x Dell Ultrasharp U2713HM (2560x1440)