Vegasaur Smart Trim--Some Observations

wwaag wrote on 12/20/2015, 9:08 PM
Major improvements to Smart Trim in Vegasaur were introduced in V2.4, based on efforts by Nick Hope in this thread. http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/showmessage.asp?messageid=932826 I spent awhile trying the new feature using different footage and thought I'd share a few observations. In all cases, I imported one or more files for each media type and then 3 created three events with simple cuts editing. I then selected the three events and created a trimmed file for each event using the Vegasaur Smart Trim feature. I then imported the trimmed files on a new track for comparison with the original events.

First, if you use GoPro footage, you'll be delighted since trimmed files corresponded exactly with the original events. I used both 2.7K and 4K footage.

I then followed the same procedure with some other footage I had: AVCHD 1080 60P footage from 2 different Sony Handycams (consumer), AVCHD 1080 60P footage from a Panasonic FZ200, and finally some old HDV footage from a Sony HC1. Unlike the GoPro, in no instances were the trimmed files the same as the events on the timeline. Mostly, they appeared to be a bit shorter, although a few were longer. Clearly, they did not match up with events on the timeline.

There is an option to add frames at both the start and end of each event. I ended up adding 60 frames to both ends. In all instances, the trimmed files started "before" the event start and ended "after" the event end--good news, at least for archiving.

However, it would be nice to "trim" the trimmed files inside of Vegas and thus replace the original long media clips with the trimmed clips. Actually, this turned out to be a walk in the park using PluralEyes. After adding the the trimmed files to a new track, they were easily synchronized with the original media files on the timeline. Back inside Vegasaur, I then created Regions for each original timeline event. Then select the new tracks and use the option to "Keep inside regions". Close gaps and you're done. You now have the trimmed files in exact correspondence to events on the timeline. You can then discard the original tracks containing the much longer media files. Clearly, this procedure is best done during the early "cuts editing" phase of one's project.

In any case, the procedure seemed to work very well. Just thought I'd share.

wwaag

AKA the HappyOtter at https://tools4vegas.com/. System 1: Intel i7-8700k with HD 630 graphics plus an Nvidia RTX4070 graphics card. System 2: Intel i7-3770k with HD 4000 graphics plus an AMD RX550 graphics card. System 3: Laptop. Dell Inspiron Plus 16. Intel i7-11800H, Intel Graphics. Current cameras include Panasonic FZ2500, GoPro Hero11 and Hero8 Black plus a myriad of smartPhone, pocket cameras, video cameras and film cameras going back to the original Nikon S.

Comments

NickHope wrote on 12/30/2015, 8:52 PM
Nice workflow wwaag, and good news re GoPro footage.

Will PluralEyes sync video-only events? I wonder if a script could do that...
wwaag wrote on 1/1/2016, 11:28 AM
@Nick Hope

Will PluralEyes sync video-only events? I wonder if a script could do that...

Not quite sure I understand what you mean. PluralEyes syncs off of the audio track. Since the trimmed file has the identical audio of the original event on the timeline, it is very easy to sync the audio tracks and hence the video tracks as well, unlike the usual situation where audio tracks come from different recorders. Whether a script could be written is a good question. You might be able to do this, but certainly not me.

What would be most useful seems akin to the archiving feature which allows you to specify extra head and tail frames for intra-frame codecs such as DV, wav, etc., but extended to long GOP formats such as MPEG, AVC, etc. But rather than simply archiving at project completion, it would seem useful to be able to do this during the early project phases and simply replace the original media files with the trimmed media files, while maintaining the precise cut points. This would seem to be extremely useful for projects where a lot of footage is generated, but only small portions are actually used. Hope this makes sense.

BTW, a Happy New Year to you.

wwaag

AKA the HappyOtter at https://tools4vegas.com/. System 1: Intel i7-8700k with HD 630 graphics plus an Nvidia RTX4070 graphics card. System 2: Intel i7-3770k with HD 4000 graphics plus an AMD RX550 graphics card. System 3: Laptop. Dell Inspiron Plus 16. Intel i7-11800H, Intel Graphics. Current cameras include Panasonic FZ2500, GoPro Hero11 and Hero8 Black plus a myriad of smartPhone, pocket cameras, video cameras and film cameras going back to the original Nikon S.

NickHope wrote on 1/3/2016, 12:25 AM
@wwaag

I meant literally syncing two events by their video content only. More often than not I delete the audio of my footage, and so the video stream is all I have.

Also, syncing by the audio cannot be relied upon in every case. For example in the case of GH4 30p UHD footage, if the audio is transcoded to aac in FFmpeg (or Vegasaur Smart Trim) when smart trimming, the resulting audio is more than a frame off from the original. In the following example the original footage on the first track and the smart-trimmed footage with aac audio is on the 2nd track. The audio waveform shows about 1.5 frames sync error.



I have seen that kind of sync error in quite a few other cases too. Not sure where the "fault" lies. Note that if that type of footage is trimmed and re-wrapped to MOV to retain the audio, then the sync is fine as per the original, and that would certainly be my preference over aac transcoding as the audio is lossless and the MOV trimmed file is handled by the same decoder in Vegas as an MP4 file would be. I hope FFmpeg or 3rd party apps will support LPCM audio in an MP4 wrapper in the future, like what the Panasonic cameras generate.

Agreed, a script that will trim clips then put the trimmed clips back in the right places on the timeline would be really great, and probably not the greatest technical challenge either. Perhaps something that Vegasaur could add in the future? I envisage a "Replace original footage on timeline" option to Smart Trim, with an option to delete the original footage.
Arthur.S wrote on 1/8/2016, 6:02 AM
I've always found that syncing via the audio is much easier - even manually if Pluraleyes fails. Failing that you're looking for a camera flash or similar which is not always there when you need it. Of course you could always use a planned camera flash yourself if you don't like the audio method.