When you want to save the project, select "Save As" and then check the "Copy All Media With Project" button. This will gather all of the media used in the project and save it into the directory that the .veg file gets saved to. Then, just burn this directory to CD or DVD or whatever. Is this what you were after?

Please note that you can copy media, and in VV3 you can also copy/trim (trimming .avi only). This makes project archiving less disk-hungry. We're looking at trimming .wav as well in a future update.

Appreciate the advice. I'll have to give it a whirl. My CD burner is a microboards SCSI CD-R that came bundled with my CD Architect package, and I have not used it for anything but audio. I was under the impression that if I tried to write anything to this device that was'nt audio, I'd need some software to support the function. Thanks to all for the responses. Larry

I was under the impression that if I tried to write anything to this device that was'nt audio, I'd need some software to support the function.

-yes that is true and I did not mean to imply otherwise. Data CD's (project archive files) can not be burned directly from Vegas.

My Tascam CD burner came w/Adaptec Easy CD Creator. Easy CD Creator can be used to burn data CDs. Your Microboards burner may have come with that program or one similar to it.

JL
OTR

Larryo,

Something I've found very useful in backing-up/archiving CD projects is Sonic Foundry's Perfect Clarity Audio (PCA) codec. The nice part is that it provides a wonderful amount of compression with zero loss. I've usually been able back up between 3 and 5 entire CD project on one disk, which is really convenient. Here's the organization:

1. First I have my final project open.
2. I save each song/file/event as PCA, either by opening it in Sound Forge and doing so, or by using Batch Converter (I assume all your source file are near one another on the hard disk, so this should be too much trouble).
3. Then I write all files (including the project itself) to a CD, all in the same directory (each project gets its own directory).
4. Now, if I ever need to reopen this project, I can do so from the archive CD. If it asks me where all the files went (and it will, since the names and locations are different), I simply specify the PCA files on disk as replacements. Vegas gets the idea after the first one, and it does the rest.

So anyway, that's what I do. Could be good for you, and maybe not. Food for thought either way.

Hope this helps,
Nick LaMartina

what's the deal with PCA. is it lossless compression or just 'perceptually lossless' compression. the help file only mentions it briefly.

- ben (cheesehole)

PCA is "perceptually lossless"-

Truly lossless compression exists, but it has some limitations. Zip files
are lossless, but rarely compress more than 50% (2:1). PCA 160Kbps
has about 89% (9:1) compression. Obviously there is more squishing
going on, and something has to give.

Lossless compression relies on "sparse" data; information with lots of
repeating sections or empty sections. A large database file or a solid
color image will compress very well without losing any information, as
the data that is removed is replaced with a complete description of what
was removed and can be restored exactly the same as the original. This
works because a description of repeating or empty data can be a lot
smaller than the data.

On the other hand, "dense" data doesn't compress well at all. Music is
very dense data. Each wave of the file often differs significantly from the
previous wave, giving very little repeating or empty stretches. In this
case, a description of the data would often be larger than the data itself.
This is where lossy compression comes in. A nearly complete description
of the data can often be much smaller by ignoring minute details.

Obviously, the more complete the description is, the better the result
will be when the data is decompressed. This is why higher bitrates sound
much better than lower bitrates. PCA at 160Kbps is a level of compression
that was arbitrarily decided to sound "perceptually" as good as the
original. The description is complete enough to make the difference not
noticeable.

As a general rule, if a file of dense data is compressed more than 50%
(2:1), then most likely the compression is lossy. However, it may be
good enough for most purposes, as long as you don't repeatedly
decompress and recompress the data too many times. Each time a file
goes through that process, a little more data is lost and eventually the
loss will become noticeable.

If you're simply archiving the source files for a project, you'll probably be
fine since you'll be opening the same files each time you open the
project. If, however, you save a compressed output file, then open that
as the source for a new project, compress that output, use that as the
source for a new project .... etc., then you will eventually have trouble.

In the context of this discussion, anyone have anything to say about Shorten (.shn)?

http://www.softsound.com/Shorten.html

-Jeremy

Ben and Chien,

I wanted to check and see if PCA actually uses lossless compression or if that was just PR hot air, so I did some digging. I currently lack the tools to do an actual bit-by-bit comparison (although I'm sure I could find some), but I was able to find the original press release concerning PCA. You can find it here:

http://www.sonicfoundry.com/news/ShowRelease.asp?ReleaseID=310&CatID=

The text they use seems pretty clear. It's referred to as a "lossless codec" with compression around 2:1, and as high as 5:1 (key phrase, "as high as"). If indeed they mean what they say (and I've believed that from the beginning), then this codec is a pretty big deal, and is absolutely perfect for archival purposes. Either way, it's good enough for my backups. Oh, and thanks for the little lesson on compression Chien. =)

Regards,
Nick LaMartina

Thank you, this is exactly what I needed to know!