Vegas 6 wishlist (compilation 4?)

DataMeister wrote on 1/30/2005, 4:12 PM
I figured I would try to compile the wish list of features to help our awesome Vegas programmers. These are not all my ideas, but they are all things I would like to see. If I missed something add it on.

JBJones

-------------------------------------------------------------

Folder tracks and possibly nestable vegas projects within a folder.

Bring back track motion presets.

The name of a preset should be there when the FX window is reopened - not "Untitled".

Windows Explorer type thumbnails in the Vegas Explorer window.

Ability to drop AC3 encoded files on the timeline.

Auto Color, Auto Levels.

Script editing managment area similar to the way Photoshop Action management works. Once you install a script it stays in the program available for use with an easy mouse click.

After an automatic tape capture, allow previewing of captured clips in the summary window before the clips are added to the capture project. Or else a way to easily rename a sequential batch of clips after the junk has been deleted from the project.

When final rendering is in progress, have an indication curson moving along the timeline to show which frames are currently in the preview window.

When render is in progress have a X of Total frames being rendered rather than just the current frame. Sometimes it would be nice to know that you are on frame 9,045 of 10,365 frames.

Some 3D motion track scripting capability for the purpose of importing camera tracking data from apps such as SynthEyes. It would be nice to attach a title or graphic above someones head for instance like the signal strength bars on the Cingular commercials or attach a jpeg to the ground as a plane flew over.

Audio Event FX with shadow regions where a sound is extended past the event because of delays or other type FX.

Right clicking the Solo or Mute button gives you options of Solo ALL and Solo None.

An option to be able to scroll through Active compositing modes either with the arrow keys or the mouse wheel. So if I want to see what the composite looks like in Darken or Difference, I can easily switch between them.

Keyframeable DeShaker type option in the Track Motion box to help stabelize shaky clips.

And perhaps associated to the DeShaker, an automatic object tracker that a filter can be attached to such as a masked gausian blur, or a levels adjust ment just on someones face.

Scrub audio by draging the cursor across the timeline or spinning the jog wheel on external hardware. And I'm not talking about the shuttle feature that CTRL currently provides. I think it would be helpful to hear a preview at whatever speed you drag the mouse. And when you stop draging the mouse the cursor would be where your mouse was located.

Preview both audio and video across FireWire.

Zoom and panning on the preview window. Even if there is a "Zoomed to xx" read out to keep one from forgetting it has been zoomed in. "Zoom in" That is a funny word phrase isn't it?

Display tooltip of the file name when hovering over an event in the timeline.

In Video Capture or Vegas, the abiltiy to set a thumbnails preview frame and have it stick when viewed in the other app.


Comments

SeaJohn wrote on 1/30/2005, 4:34 PM
Good list; it will be interesting to see how many of these make it into the next version.

Here are some more:
- Background rendering
- Better prerender management; i.e. when a section has been prerendered, Vegas should keep it that way unless something WITHIN that section changes.
- Standardize the interface betwen Pan/Crop and Track Motion e.g. Pan/Crop has buttons to allow movement in a direction, but TrackMotion has buttons to prevent movement in a direction. (I know, it's minor, but it's confusing)
- Add a Move to Pan/Crop: e.g. if you Pan and Crop so that only the top 1/3 of an event is visible, PC puts that 1/3 in the middle of the screen. You then have to use Track Motion to move it back to the top, which then affects all the other events on the track, so you have to use keyframes around this one event. You should be able to do all of that from the same tool.
filmy wrote on 1/30/2005, 4:38 PM
Scrub audio by draging the cursor across the timeline or spinning the jog wheel on external hardware.

Unless I am not getting what you mean, you can do this already. I use ShuttleXpress and it does just fine.

And if you place you mouse pointer over the curser line, on a blank spot on a audio track, then hold down the Ctrl key you will see a little speaker appear with arrows - move your mouse left or right.
DataMeister wrote on 1/30/2005, 4:46 PM
I'll modify the Scrub description.

But what I mean is that when you drag the cursor across the timeline the audio plays what is under the cursor. The CTRL method just duplicates the scrub slider in the track header column.

And I definitely like the Pan/Crop idea. But I usually just drop the event on a new track if that is needed. Track folders would help the organization of that aspect.

JBJones
Nat wrote on 1/30/2005, 4:51 PM
"Standardize the interface betwen Pan/Crop and Track Motion"

yes !! please fix this for the next version. I find the controls in Pan/Crop much less confusing than in Track motion.

I mainly use the keyboard to activate those functions and hitting X if I DON'T want to move on the x axis is confusing, it should be the opposite.
rextilleon wrote on 1/30/2005, 5:04 PM
I suspect that the new version is nearing beta testing---therefore what we suggest now is definately wishful thinking---
beerandchips wrote on 1/30/2005, 5:24 PM
More like going to be released at NAB in April. This is a no brainer folks. Becuase if they don't release a new version, they will be dropping the ball. Read between the lines on Spots talks about NAB and the things that are planned.
Hulk wrote on 1/30/2005, 5:39 PM
Scrub audio by draging the cursor across the timeline or spinning the jog wheel on external hardware.

YES! YES! YES! This is the ONE feature I really miss since switching from Ulead MediaStudio Pro to Vegas. When you drag the cursor it should respond IMMEDIATELY to the move, not simply play the video at a preselected speed. For example, it should be like physically grabbing the tape reels or records and moving it with your hand. Think about "scratching" on a record, Vegas can't make those moves. That's not my intended effect, but an example of the behavior I'm trying to describe.

This feature is extremely useful for finding the end spots of dialog quickly. You can scrub back and forth over and area to find the dialog end point WITHOUT having to zoom in and locate the audio waveform.

Keep the current scrubber control, but have the option for the above described type of timeline scrubbing. Please.


The name of a preset should be there when the FX window is reopened - not "Untitled".

YES - Don't understand the current behavior?

Background rendering AND complete multiprocessor support for video only operations. Multicore chips will be all the rage this year. Hopefully Vegas will be ready.

Finally, and this is a biggie. Project timeline cursor and keyframe timeline cursor sync for Generated Media. Either use a frame offset to sync the project and keyframe cursors or create "fake" timecode on the generated media events. Just please make it happen.

- Mark
Trichome wrote on 1/30/2005, 8:07 PM
Decklink control too much to ask for?
rmack350 wrote on 1/30/2005, 10:42 PM
"Better prerender management"

This is an area where refining the interface would help. The problem with prerenders is that you're just prerendering a timecode range on the timeline. Maybe for this to work better, prerenders should all appear on a "mini track" and should ripple along with everything else. Honestly, the mini track for prerenders needn't be any thicker than the current little indicator line. The main point is just to drive home the point that this is an object that is subject to ripple editing just like anything else.

Regardless, there should be other methods of doing a prerender. One method might be to select a set of events and then choose to prerender just those events. Seems like this would require them to be locked together-which would necessitate mutliple levels of grouping so that you could have A/V pairs in their own little group inside the larger group of prerendered events.

And of course the other way to do this is to have nested sequences or groups of clips. Although I always talk about them as nested Veg files, they'd pretty much be the same thing as the group of prerendered events above. They could be prerendered as a group. The main addition that thinking of them as a nested Veg gets you is the ability to open them up in another instance of Vegas.

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 1/30/2005, 10:53 PM
Without looking at other people's responses, I an at least relate what I've seen elsewhere.

Some NLEs allow you to grab the playback head and the audio will play as you move the head. You can get a little scratch groove going that way, if that's what you want. Since Vegas doesn't have a playback head I think it might be hard to scrub this way.

Another nice feature is a key combo that plays just a little bit of audio in front of or behind the cursor (but not both at once). This is nice if you want to know if you are in front of or behind a breath or pop. I suggested this a while back but I guess I wasn't too clear because what we got was the "play around" function of the numpad 0 key. I find it hard to know where the cursor is in relation to the sound that gets played by this method.

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 1/30/2005, 11:00 PM
I think If Vegas could send video out to a preview monitor through the decklink card, that alone would be a big step. Why in the world would you want to look at a 4:1:1 DV25 preview on your studio monitor if you're planning to output in 4:2:2 or 4:4:4?

Getting things captured or printed to tape with the Decklink cards probably isn't that much of a hassle to do outside of Vegas, although recapturing offline footage might be inconvenient.

Rob Mack
rmack350 wrote on 1/30/2005, 11:02 PM
I don't think anyone's asked for this but it'd be nice to have some indication of your zoom level. Maybe an indicator that says that your grid spacing is currently 10 seconds or 1 second or 1 frame. Be nice to be able to work at a consistent zoom level.

Rob Mack
PeterWright wrote on 1/30/2005, 11:20 PM
Great one Rob - with keyboard shortcut(s) to go straight to preset zoom level(s).
gordyboy wrote on 1/31/2005, 4:31 AM
'Ability to drop AC3 encoded files on the timeline'.

Don't understand - I can do this already in Vegas 5. It must be to do with the way codecs are (or aren't) registered.

I would like some way of locking connected audio and video tracks permanently (or at least not being able to accidentally ungroup them using the U command so easily).

Too often I've ended up with unsynchronised audio due to having gone mad with the group and ungroup commands!

Ideally, I would like to override this setting on occasion (for example - when you want the audio track to run on past the video event) so there would need to be a routine that allowed it but with suitable dire warnings about the consequences.

Unless there is someway of doing this already - in which case I'd be overjoyed to learn what it is!

Cheers

gordyboy
busterkeaton wrote on 1/31/2005, 5:20 AM
I would like some way of locking connected audio and video tracks permanently (or at least not being able to accidentally ungroup them using the U command so easily).


Other NLEs have a visual cue when the audio and video are out of sync, and folks have requested this feature for vegas.
JJKizak wrote on 1/31/2005, 5:48 AM
Something of the effect that a warning would pop up saying that "frame sections from this to that are consuming large amounts of memory and should be pre-rendered as avi and re-inserted". Or an "Auto Render Check" function that will highlight memory intensive areas of the timeline ,then another button to automatically pre-render and delete the old files from the media bin. This would solve about 10 million render problems. This whole function could be done automatically with the normal rendering scenerio.

JJK
bcollier wrote on 1/31/2005, 6:38 AM
I would like to see the ability to add handles to a clip in advanced capture.

Often I'm working with clients who've selected the basic clips they want in a project from a VHS or DVD with a window burn of the DVCAM's timecode. As the project progresses, they/we may decide the clip should start a bit sooner or end a bit later than the original selected clip. If I had handles, no problem. Without handles, I have to recapture the clip.

Now in Vegasspeak, if a region, with the requested "in/out" points, could be recorded at the time of clip capture and the event could have an input box to begin x frames before and end x frames after the region timecodes, I'd be all set. Of course, a naming box for the range would be nice, too.

I never read any requests for this "handle" feature so maybe I'm missing the boat, but when you're working with 80-100 clips, it makes a big difference for me. In fact, it's the only reason I haven't yet ditched my Premiere and Final Cut Pro systems.

Thanks,
Bob
Grazie wrote on 1/31/2005, 6:43 AM
Audio Event - Right Click Insert Pan/Vol - got Velo Envel on Video event? Why not same for Audio?

rmack350 wrote on 1/31/2005, 7:43 AM
Yes, Exactly. M100 does this, btw. You get two presets, zoom-in and zoom-out. If you change the zoom level in either state then that's the new state. That might not work exactly the same way for Vegas since it's a lot more fluid than M100.

Rob Mack
FuTz wrote on 1/31/2005, 7:51 AM
My preferred ones so far:
-Auto Color, Auto Levels.
-When render is in progress have a X of Total frames being rendered rather than just the current frame. Sometimes it would be nice to know that you are on frame 9,045 of 10,365 frames.
-Right clicking the Solo or Mute button gives you options of Solo ALL and Solo None.
-An option to be able to scroll through Active compositing modes either with the arrow keys or the mouse wheel. So if I want to see what the composite looks like in Darken or Difference, I can easily switch between them.
-Keyframeable DeShaker type option in the Track Motion box to help stabelize shaky clips.
-And perhaps associated to the DeShaker, an automatic object tracker that a filter can be attached to such as a masked gausian blur, or a levels adjust ment just on someones face.
-Preview both audio and video across FireWire.
-In Video Capture or Vegas, the abiltiy to set a thumbnails preview frame and have it stick when viewed in the other app
-Better prerender management; i.e. when a section has been prerendered, Vegas should keep it that way unless something WITHIN that section changes.
-Scrub audio by draging the cursor across the timeline or spinning the jog wheel on external hardware.
-The name of a preset should be there when the FX window is reopened - not "Untitled".
-Project timeline cursor and keyframe timeline cursor sync for Generated Media
-Audio Event - Right Click Insert Pan/Vol


I'd like, too:
-getting rid (or being able to) of this "sample text" text when I use the titles. I KNOW I have to put text there...as questionable as the "untitled" in the FX title bar instead of the effect we already chose before.
-of course, nesting
-EDL compatibility with industry standards. Haven't had to use it so far but I know it's coming soon and I'd like to be able to work at home and bring the stuff at work without having to learn FCP... from what I've read so far, it's still not possible (?). Let's just hope Sony won't be doing the same thing they did for decades up to now: sticking with "their" standards...
-this idea of storyboarding that came to discussion at the release of V5. In Media Pool, for example, being able to re-organize clips by moving the thumbnails and by pushing a button, everything would pop on timeline in the order we just designed it in "storyboard mode". VERY usefull for documentary. Along with this " abiltiy to set a thumbnails preview frame and have it stick when viewed in the other app" suggestion up here...
filmy wrote on 1/31/2005, 7:52 AM
Coool JJ!! Yes this would be a good thing. Maybe you are going off of what I am about to say - but I never had this happen/saw this before last night: I am online looking at some websites. Suddenly Mozilla stops responding - I hear the fan crank up to full, as in massive CPU use. I can not get Mozilla to respond and task manager shows Mozilla red lining and showing 98 - 99% memory use. So I am just going to close it up - but something in my head tells me to "Wait". After about 45 seconds I get this pop up saying something along the lines of "There is a script on this page running slow and causing excessive memory use. If you continue to allow this script to run it could cause your system to become unstable. Do you wish to continue to allow this script to run?" and it had the typical yes/no - I clicked "No" and everything went back to normal, but I didn't have to close up Mozilla. And I thought "now how cool is that?" - now I see your post and it really follows that same pattern.

So yeah - how cool is that? Editing along and get a pop up about excess memory use being cause by this file or that file and asking, maybe, "Would you like to place these unused files offline to save memory" Good call JJ.
FuTz wrote on 1/31/2005, 7:57 AM

Indeed!
Clever..!
JJKizak wrote on 1/31/2005, 8:25 AM
Also would be great for labtops. They could call it "MMU Rendering"
for "Minimum Memory Use Rendering" and if some of the big guy's wanted an "option check box" for this so they would'nt have to monkey around with it, Guy's with 8 gig of memory I mean. But I think with the HDV stuff coming on they will have to do something for the little guys.

JJK
rmack350 wrote on 1/31/2005, 9:29 AM
You mean like when you've got MPEG2 or WMV files on the timeline? Sure I can see that, but I can also see expecting people to drop stuff on the timeline and then just render it to something more efficient.

Still, if more and more people use HDV footage then maybe it's appropriate to prod people with a sharper stick than usual.

Rob Mack