You can also uninstall by running the install program again. This is how all the new Microsoft based installers work. It’s both an installer and an uninstaller. If it sense the program version is already installed, it will ask you if you want to Repair or Remove. Just select Remove.

~jr

Thanks Spot & JohnnyRoy.

This is a great plug-in!

Do either of you know how forward compatible this will be?

i.e. When Vegas 6 comes out will it still work or will plug-in upgrades be needed?

No one can comment on anything related to anything in the future of any as yet unreleased product.
And frankly at this point, I don't think even the Sony folks will know exactly what the future holds.

I bought and installed the Ultimate S plugin, but it doesn't show up as a video plugin. How do you access it?

Tools>Scripting>Ultimate S.
On the VASST Ultimate S FAQ page, in the Users Guide, and in the tutorials, you can find info about putting an icon on your ttoolbar.
Double click the tool bar to open the Customize toolbar dialog. On the left, scroll down and you'll find the various Ultimate S buttons. Start with the "S" button. Click ADD in the Customize Toolbar. Then click Close. You'll see the Ultimate S button on your toolbar.
Click it when you'd like to access Ultimate S tools.

OK now I'm starting to figure it out. I just did a 3:4 to anamorphic conversion and checked out the resulting avi in VirtualDub using an "unfold fields" filter. I got two absolutely perfectly resized images. This plugin is EXACTLY what I wantedand asked for when you were taking requests recently for what people wanted in a Vegas plugin! It will save me oodles of time in VirtualDub! It makes that fake anamorphic mode on the Sony and Panasonic cameras kind of pointless doesn't it? This is going to absolutely revolutionize Vegas editing!

By the way, what kind of algorythm does it use for resizing? It really looks good.

I'm looking at my anamorphic renders and they look so much better than my VirtualDub field separated bicubic renders: I don't believe that Ultimate S uses a resize algorythm at all. I think it just doubles lines in a pattern that changes the aspect ratio and doesn't screw up the interlacing pattern! I would have paid more money for just this function alone! I am so excited, I should be sleeping but here I am rendering anamorphic test disks!

Nope, no resizing algorithms at all. Just plain ole' Vegas set up to do this the way it should be done. While it's a plugin in the strictest sense of the term, it doesn't 'see' video at all. It simply acts as a tool to access functionality already existing in Vegas, sometimes using clever combinations of existing functionality, to give you consistency, speed, and quality with one mouse click.
Glad you're having fun with it! So am I, even this late at night.
Ultimate S is only the beginning of the journey for US.

OK, I made and watched my first "Ultimate S" anamorphic DVD. It is an absolutely perfect "stretch mode" version of the original footage! This is amazing! When I play it back with my DVD player and screen set to 16:9 mode, it looks exactly like letterboxed 4:3 footage. When I play it back with my DVD player and screen set to 4:3 mode, it letterboxes the image perfectly except that the DVD player adds the same subtle hardware deinterlacing that it does to all anamorphic DVDs. Otherwise the footage may as well have been letterboxed. There is no reduction in quality!

So let me get this straight, if you shot something on a camera with native 16:9 CCDs and played it back on the kind of regular 4:3 TV and DVD players that 99% of the world uses, it would look exactly the same as 4:3 footage does cropped and resized with Ultimate S! If you shot a show and it was broadcast over cable or satellite in the letterboxed mode that pretty much all cable and satellite tv stations use, it would look exactly the same as well! On top of that, shooting standard 4:3 mode and resizing with "Ultimate S" lets me render both anamorphic and 4:3 formats! This is pretty amazing stuff!

Now I'm getting twitchy too .. ! If I shoot, using my XM2, and "frame" the shot between the 16:9 guides and using the 16:9 option, I can then bring this into Uli-S and have it do its thing to 16:9?

. . . Grazie

Yes! It looks great too! I'll tell you from what I've seen tonight messing with this, I wouldn't shoot 16:9 now even if I had a camera with native 16:9 CCD's. I'd rather shoot 3:4 and be able to render both formats! What I'm going to do, starting with the shoot I have scheduled tomorrow, is to shoot 4:3 and frame for 16:9. When I edit, I'll render both 4:3 and anamorphic versions. Whenever I have enough space, I'll put both versions on the same DVD. This is really cool!

The only weakness I see thus far is that converted titles look sloppy when they're played back on a 4:3 set. They look fine though on a widescreen monitor. On new projects I would be rendering titles and photo animations for both formats separately anyway.

Has anyone been able to get the Audit>Check Opacity Levels to work in even the latest build of Ultimate S? This is used in the last part of the last tutorial for Ultimate S on the VASST site. When I try to correct the opacity levels in the downloaded clip, the script runs after clicking "OK" in ultimate S, processes the events, but nothing happens. All of the other tutorials and scripts ran fine.

I contacted VASST support via e-mail yesterday, but I have not received a response from them.

Tom

Tom,

I thought I had answered your email but I just checked and I can’t find my reply so perhaps not. My apologies for not getting back to you sooner.

Let me explain how the Auditing for opacity levels works and then you tell me if what you are seeing is correct. The level that you set is the allowable level. Therefore, if you set it to 3% and your opacity is between 3% and 97% inclusive, it will NOT change anything. So if you set the level to 3%, it will only change opacity levels of 1%, 2%, 98%, or 99%.

If you set the opacity to 98% or 99% and run the tool at 3%, those should snap to 100%. Are you not seeing this?

~jr

Thanks for responding.

I just checked again. I set the Opacity level at 99% and ran Ultimate S on the Audit.veg file. The Composite levels remain unchanged even though it says that 7 events have been procesed. I expected the composite levels to jump to 100% opacity or close to it. I don't think this script is working. It is the only one I have had any problems with.

Tom

Tom,
I'm wondering if you're looking for the compositing ENVELOPE to change, rather than the OPACITY fader?
This tool was put in place as a result of all the folks complaining that they have 'bumped' the fader and couldn't see it wasn't at 100% or 0%, and so their renders were going long.
Check out the Audit.veg on the tutorial page for Ultimate S.
I've just checked the action again, it's running smoothly for me.

Ahhh…. I see the confusion now. Check Opacity checks the Event Opacity. It does not check Composite Envelopes. Sorry for the confusion. The idea us that event opacity is always on and sometimes people click their mouse by accident and change it unwillingly. A composite envelope is something you deliberately add.

~jr

Spot,

I was confused, and it was the compositing envelope that I was expecting to change. However, where is the opacity fader that is supposed to be effected by this script? I apologize for my confusion, but it is clear that I am misunderstanding something here.

When I run this script on the audit.veg project folllowing exaclty the instructions in the tutorial, I just don't see any change in the project playback. The composite envelope levels don't change. The opacity envelope level does not change. What am I looking for here?

Tom

Spot,

I finally figured out the problem. Somehow in my Audit.veg project the opacity had gotten set to 100% so theire were no problems with the opacity and entering 99% in the dialog box produced no change. When I lower the opacity to say20% and then place a value of 99% in the box and run the Opacity script, it changes it to essentially 100% just as it should. I probably accidentally resaved the audit.veg file after running the script the first time that I did the tutorial.

I apologize for my confusion over all of this.

Ultimate S is a fine tool and I'll be placing my order shortly.

Tom