Vegas Movie Studio inserting blank spaces

rrrrob wrote on 9/30/2010, 11:21 PM

This appears to be a glitch, but maybe I am doing something wrong...in any event, when it happens, it wastes hours of time.

I often work with video projects that require I insert many segmented clips at once to the timeline. I typically start with 24 fps .avi files that I am trying to convert to DVD Architect MPEG-2 format (29.97 fps).

When I drag the files to the timeline, sometimes I get a single frame inserted between each clip. I usually don't notice it until I finish creating the final DVD where I notice the black frame that appears where the segmented clips are supposed to abut one another.

When I try to manually bring each clip together, I can't seem to get them to abut cleanly...they either have to be one frame apart or they overlap slightly.

The only thing I can do is close the program, open it again and start over.

I don't know at which point the blank space gets introduced or what I am doing when they appear.

I have had this happen on several different computers, and two operating systems (Vista and XP).

If Sony can't fix this, it would be nice if they could at least develop some sort of warning system to let you know when you have blank spaces in your project, because unless you are zoomed in extremely close to the timeline, the gaps are not noticeable until you play the final project back from a DVD.

If anyone knows of something I may be doing wrong, please share!

Comments

MSmart wrote on 9/30/2010, 11:50 PM

What version of VMS?

Enabling Snapping (F8) should resolve your blank space/overlap issue. Snapping causes the clips to abut.

Chienworks wrote on 10/1/2010, 5:14 AM

24fps vs. 29.97fps is the majority of your problem. The frame rates don't match so the end of each clip is unlikely to fall on a frame boundary. This means that with snapping enabled you're going to get overlaps or gaps.

Don't get me wrong; snapping is a good thing and i recommend you leave it on.

What you need to do is trim the end of each clip back to a project (timeline) frame boundary. Then when you add the next clip you'll be able to butt it up exactly.

Alternatively you could set your project properties to 24fps while editing, then render to a 29.97 output.

Tim L wrote on 10/1/2010, 9:15 AM

I've never worked with 24p footage before, but my inclination would be to go with Kelly's final suggestion -- to use a 24 fps timeline.

Although, if you have titles and text in motion, they might look a little choppier in a 24 fps project than in a 29.97 project? But still, they'd match the 24 fps rate of all the source media.

Is 24p an option for the DVD itself? I don't recall if the DVD standard supports it directly...

Tim L

Chienworks wrote on 10/1/2010, 9:47 AM

Generated media is dynamically sampled at whatever frame rate is currently in force. So, if you have a 24fps timeline then you'll get 24fps in preview, but when rendering at 29.97 each frame is generated at 29.97, not 24.

rrrrob wrote on 10/3/2010, 8:54 AM

Well, thanks to the thought shared here, I did figure out how to replicate the issue and perhaps discovered what I am doing wrong, although I am not convinced it's not a glitch.

When I import 24 fps video (actually 23.9476 fps) to the timeline and the project propery is set to that frame rate, no spaces appear between the clips.

If the project properties are set to 29.97 fps (NTSC/DVD/TV frame rate), and I import the 24 fps video, the clips will be spaced apart by one frame.

Strange thing is, if I import the 24 fps video to a project with properties set to 24 fps and THEN I change the Project Property to 29.97, the spaces don't appear between clips--I would have expected that they would.

In any event, I now know I have to make sure the project properties have to be set to the same parameters of the clips I am importing or problems will occur.

Sony still should consider adding some sort of alert that would let you know when gaps have been introduced between your clips (I believe Final Cut Pro does this).

Thanks to everyone for your help!

Tim L wrote on 10/3/2010, 9:35 AM

I think the issue is that with "Quantize to Frames" turned on (as it should be), if you have a 29.97 project Vegas will only let you place an event at the start of a frame -- using a 29.97 hz frame rate as defined by the project properties.

When using 24P media, the frame rate doesn't match the project frame rate. So the "end" of a 24P frame could occur right in the middle of a 29.97 frame. You can't butt the next clip against the end of the previous one because Vegas is requiring you to place the second clip on a legitimate 29.97 frame boundary -- not starting in the middle of a timeline frame.

A warning would be handy, I suppose, but I think Vegas is doing it the proper way. Apart from using a 24P timeline I don't know an easy way around this.