time compression (a lot)

mcgeedo wrote on 1/23/2003, 2:10 PM
I just started using Vegas (newbie alert..). I am aware that I can time-compress a video clip, but I am curious if there is a limit as to how much. I have a two-hour recording of some people building something and I'd like for it to run no more than a minute or to in the finished movie (not clipped, just very, very fast). Is this ridiculous?

Thanks,
Don

Comments

wcoxe1 wrote on 1/23/2003, 2:38 PM
Of course its ridiculous, but it sounds like a LOT of fun. Hope someone posts a simple way to do this. Sounds interesting.
jetdv wrote on 1/23/2003, 2:46 PM
1. Using CTRL-Drag, you can compress it 4x.
2. Render that segment
3. Take the rendered segment and CTRL-Drag up to 4x
4. Render that segment.
5. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until you reach the speed you need.
mcgeedo wrote on 1/23/2003, 3:07 PM
Thanks, jetdv,
If I reduce it 4X three times, and then 2X one time, a 120-minute movie will run in about 56 seconds, which is perfect. And obviously I don't care that the quality siffers thru each rendering; who will notice.

Thanks again,
Don
ozdf wrote on 1/23/2003, 3:16 PM
Yes, that is absolutely ridiculous... :)

My understanding is that Vegas is limited to a playback rate of 4 times the original length of your project. So the work around to that is to compress, render, recompress, render, until you get the desired length...

If you have a 120 minute clip (2 hours) and you change it's playback rate to 4 so it will be 30 minutes long. Render that as a new clip. Now you have a 30 minute clip, compress it by 4x and you have a 7.5 minute clip. Render that, and recompress to create a 1 minute 52 second clip. Now you could compress this about only 2x to get a 1 minute long clip.

Another option, if you have downloaded the Vegas 4 beta, you could compress the 120 minute clip by 4, and then, by using the scrub control on the left center of your screen, you can play it back at 20x normal speed (you're limited to 2x in Vegas 3). Just hold the scrub control there with your mouse. If you have your camera hooked up you can record this playback, by having the "Preview on External Monitor" button selected and simply pressing record on your camera, and then when that's completed recapturing that footage like you did the original. So if you start with 120 minutes, compressing it by 4 will yield 30 minutes on the timeline. Then by playing this back at 20x you will only create 1.5 minutes of footage, in just one record and recapture...

Let me know if you have any other questions about either procedure.

Dan
ozdigitalfoundry.com


Note: I wasn't trying to copy your answers, two of you posted while I was typing this up originally...
jetdv wrote on 1/23/2003, 3:27 PM
One other thing you CAN do, compress it 4X using CTRL-Drag. THEN, apply a velocity envelope and set it to 300% (or 3X). Now, you have effectively gotten 12X in ONE PASS.
PDB wrote on 1/24/2003, 4:22 AM
I would suggest you apply resample and reduce interlace flicker throughout the whole process and you will get a much cleaner super-duper fast motion at the end and no quality loss hopefully...

just a thought..

Paul.