split video clips refuse to crossfade

leewise wrote on 3/1/2010, 7:11 PM

I'm sure it is something simple that I overlooked...

I have a three camera system. (Camera 3 video-trk8 audio trk9, Camera 2 video trk10 audio trk11, Camera 1 video trk12-audio trk13.) With all videos and audios synchronized and grouped to avoid shifting, I split the videos and audios using CTRL+S. As a group, they split fine. I then trimmed both sides of the split and attempted to slide one side of the group back to do a crossfade. Only one (Camera 3) of the three video/audio tracks did the proper crossfade--the ones on top. The other two lower video/audio tracks did not crossfade (Cameras 2 and 1). I tried manually adjusting the crossfade on each side before sliding them together, but nothing works. And, of course the video that I want enabled across this crossfade is the lowest one (Camera 1).

I'm using Vegas Pro 8.0c.

Thanks.

Comments

xberk wrote on 3/1/2010, 7:56 PM

If there is video on 3 tracks, one on top of the other, then Vegas will preview and render the upper most track. The ones below will not show up unless the one above it is "muted" or is not there at all. To cross fade from the top to the bottom track then the tracks needs to look something like this:
=======................
=====.....................
.............==========
In this case, the track in the middle will not display at all. The top track will display until it ends, then the bottom track will display.

There's more to say about this and doing a multicamera edit but this is a start. Is this helping?

leewise wrote on 3/1/2010, 8:19 PM

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I do know the precedence of the videos and use track composite level waveforms to do the video switching. That's not a problem.

My problem is with crossfades. I have the stack of three video and three audio tracks as I described earlier. I am attempting to remove "dead time" between more interesting things going on in the video, by splitting, trimming, and then sliding all 6 tracks which have been grouped back together with a 1 sec crossfade.

What I'm getting is a real crossfade in the top two tracks (video and audio from camera 3). But in the lower 4 tracks I'm getting the right side of the split just overlapping the left side without a crossfade and the video is just jumping to the from the 'left side' of the split to the 'right side' with no crossfade. And, yes, I do have the auto crossfade button enabled.

Just to let you know, I have produced over 30 DVDs, and have been using Vegas beginning with ver. 6 for a few years now. I have never had this problem before.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the grouping function. As an aside, I notice that when I attempt to remove a track from a group I get an unwanted copy of the video clip superimposed right on top of the original. I don't think that is supposed to happen, either...

Any ideas?

Thanks again.

leewise wrote on 3/1/2010, 8:45 PM

Follow-on to previous post...

If I open a new project, pull in the same video clips without doing anything else. I can group, split, trim, and slide them back together and all 6 tracks crossfade perfectly.

So apparently something that I have done has maybe corrupted the project. Now, the question is... Is there any sort of repair function that I could run? I've looked in the user's manual but did not see any.

I hate to lose the several day's of editing that I have done...

Thanks.

farss wrote on 3/1/2010, 8:47 PM

"I'm wondering if it has something to do with the grouping function. "

Quite likely. For example if you group three tracks and split through them the three events on the RH side of the split are no longer grouped.
"As an aside, I notice that when I attempt to remove a track from a group I get an unwanted copy of the video clip superimposed right on top of the original."

Removing it from the group is probably not what has caused the copy. I think you created the copy earlier on in your workflow but it's very easy to not notice this has happened. It would explain your problem with getting the fade to happen. Check that you've not got duplicates on the bottom two tracks. Hit Ignore Grouping and try deleting one of the tracks.

Bob.

leewise wrote on 3/1/2010, 9:12 PM

Thanks for the reply, Bob.

I don't know if you were writing your response as I was writing my follow-on...

As I mentioned I was able to create a new project, and pull in the same video clips and everything works as I think it should.

The unwanted copies of video clips I found was due to clicking and dragging with CTRL. I found that in the manual. And when I was grouping, I would hold CTRL while I was selecting all the clips that I wanted in the group. I guess I moved the cursor a little bit once in a while--causing a copy of that clip to get inserted. I'm looking for a way to disable that copy function.

At this point it looks as if my project file is corrupted somehow... Any ideas on fixing it would be most welcome.

Thanks,

Lee

farss wrote on 3/1/2010, 10:13 PM

"At this point it looks as if my project file is corrupted somehow... Any ideas on fixing it would be most welcome."

If it is corrupted no clue as to how to fix it. I've had maybe one or two corrupted projects in 10 years and zero joy in fixing them. This is why I always make regular incremental backups e.g. Project-001, -002 etc.

However I would really check first that you have not duplicated events as this would exactly explain your problem and it is very easy to do, I used to get myself into a mess doing what you've described. It's quite easy to fix, just delete the duplicate event(s).

Bob.

leewise wrote on 3/2/2010, 6:01 AM

Thanks, Bob.

As much as I have preached backups to others--I got caught in my own trap.

I now know how to look for duplicate events and to keep them out of my project.

And, yes, I will begin a regimented backup scheme. Luckily the Vegas files are small and easy to deal with.

Thanks,

Lee