"A little baby powder can keep bald heads from becoming white glare."

LOL! Now if I can only get away with putting a little baby powder on top of bald heads. Now that would be a miracle!

LOL! Now if I can only get away with putting a little baby powder on top of bald heads. Now that would be a miracle!

I have some small powdered wipes (about 2" square) that I bought at Body Shop that I use if my talent (men and women) have a shiny spot on their face or head that I need to get rid of. Lightly dab it on and the spot goes away. They come in different shades so ask the clerk for their recommendation or pick up a few different ones.

Mike

Yes, actors use it all the time (see above). Although he does have a bit of a shiny spot from the fresnel directly overhead . . .

+ 1 mike's suggestion.

for many years my kit included a selection of max factor (was the cheapest) powder puffs. i found that i could get away with three; light, medium, dark - though that was based on caucasian talent. if you have to deal with other skin tones it would be best to sort the right shade prior to shoot ;-)

It seems clear that something needs to be redesigned in the software. Start with studying how Premiere and Final Cut handle these issues for the editor. Sometimes a simple dialog box prompt (that can be disabled) could do wonders.
I've been bugging SCS about this for years haha.

Other NLEs convert levels for you automatically. Vegas doesn't.

I strongly, strongly believe that Vegas should convert levels automatically. The current system is unintuitive, extremely user unfriendly (especially when so much isn't documented), time consuming, and is error prone even for advanced users.

"I strongly, strongly believe that Vegas should convert levels automatically. The current system is unintuitive, extremely user unfriendly (especially when so much isn't documented), time consuming, and is error prone even for advanced users."

I completely agree. I'm all for giving users freedom to change things back to the current way but I see no reason why Vegas should not try and match the majority of other editing programs out there. It just makes sense especially if you want to collaborate with other editors or use other programs in your workflow. As it stands now Vegas is more suited to "Vegas only" or watch out!

Premiere and Final cut don't handle anything. They just guess what you supposedly want to do. You really want that?

This is a non issue. We have eyes. Adjust until it looks good and that's it. Nothing has changed regarding this since they invented TV.

That may not be true. For instance, I seem to recall tons of checkbox options in Premier on the project properties and render settings. Even down to the model of camera you used on the project properties side.

Look, all I'm saying it is study it, not necessarily adopt it. Take the best part of all of them. Three heads are better than one.

Smugness can make a company end up like K-Mart or Polaroid.

If a large contingent of users are unhappy with something, whether a company empathizes with them or not, there's a problem.

>>>I seem to recall tons of checkbox options in Premier on the project properties and render settings. Even down to the model of camera you used on the project properties side.<<<

That hardly sounds like automatic.
And knowing them I bet at least 1/2 of those options are set completely wrong.

>>>Take the best part of all of them. Three heads are better than one.
<<<

Everything they have they have taken from Vegas, so there's nothing to take. All of their future features are already in Vegas too. Wait another year and they will announce their new feature which is handling levels the way Vegas handles it today. You'll see.

Yeah like fading to illegal black... what a great feature. Oh and lets keep the inability to export to many popular codecs (Avid, Cineform and uncompressed) files that show up with accurate levels in other programs. Even Hitfilm integrated into Vegas appears to require a levels filter to adjust for a level change during render.

Like I said Vegas is great if you stay in Vegas 100% of the time. But it does not play well with others and some of us like to use additional programs in our workflow. Just because you do not have problems in your particular workflow does not mean we are all crazy for requesting changes. If Sony would give us the options and change certain codec behaviors both sides will be happy.

Deleted

Reply to GlennChan

"I strongly, strongly believe that Vegas should convert levels automatically."

I strongly, strongly disagree!

"The current system is unintuitive, extremely user unfriendly (especially when so much isn't documented), time consuming, and is error prone even for advanced users. "

I strongly, strongly, strongly, strongly disagree!

Options are good. Give them to those that want them. Just allow me to continue handling levels as Vegas always has allowed me to do.

I really think that a user has to take some degree of responsibility for knowing the color space/levels he's working with to avoid problems. There seems to be some confusion even from users of the programs that supposedly do it "automatically." This is from the first thread I found when I searched for how Premier handles levels - on Creative Cow:

Question: "How does Premiere handle a dissolve from a native RGB source and a YCrBr source?"

Answer given:
"I think it would depend on output as, from the comments by Premiere's engineer, they like staying native for as long as they can in the processing pipe. If it's for playback, YUV may be converted to RGB. If it's for output to a YUV-based format then the native RGB would probably be converted on the fly."

OK, what happens if the source Premiere identifies as RGB is camera footage at 16-255? If a project is set up as either RGB or YCrBr, is Premiere camera-aware enough to make these decisions in a project with footage from multiple sources with different levels?

In Vegas the answer to that question is easy: It does the dissolve with the existing levels. You can adjust the levels of one or the other. Take your pick.

[I]"This is a non issue. We have eyes. Adjust until it looks good and that's it. Nothing has changed regarding this since they invented TV."[/I]

So why were there waveform monitors and vectorscopes in the monitoring bridge of every VTR, in front of everyone mixing, editing, or transmitting vision?
Why was there a small army of technicians whose task was to adjust all the tweaks on all the gear to ensure every piece of gear conformed to the standards?
Why was it that back then in the linear world and even today in the digital world one could pull the master vision fader down to zero and a million TVs didn't have a sync roll?
Back then one could put white text from a character generator over vision without the viewers hearing a loud buzz from their TV's speakers.

To suggest that a product with an attribute that leads the user to produce vision that is by design and default, defective, is a "non issue" is a highly questionable statement . There's a moral and in most countries a legal obligation on engineers who design things to ensure that by default a product will keep a user safe when the product is used within the constraints of its intended use. Vegas as far as I can see is the only NLE that makes no concession to this obligation.

To say the competition doesn't entirely get it right is meaningless. One expects that the designers of every vehicle have made a reasonable effort to prevent the death of those who travel in the vehicle. Simply because it's not possible to make a vehicle 100% safe in all circumstances doesn't mean they shouldn't have brakes or steering designed such that there'll be no consequences that a reasonable person driving in a reasonable fashion wouldn't anticipate. The standard that applies to every product sold is "fit for purpose" and when it comes to how Vegas handles video levels it fails that test, there's not even so much as a warning, anywhere, that a user should exercise care.

Bob.

I think I finally get it. If my camera shoots at 16-255, then I would apply the modification mentioned at 9:05 in the DNxHD to Handbrake tutorial video, correct? If I don't apply that modification, then a full studio RGB filter will cause the black level which is already at 16, to go up even higher, thus causing blacks to become gray. Yes??

Yes.
Yes.

Bob, If you're comparing Vegas to riding without a helmet, you've probably just increased sales. ;-)

>>>>
Why was there a small army of technicians whose task was to adjust all the tweaks on all the gear to ensure every piece of gear conformed to the standards?
.<<<

Good question and I don't know why. But that sounds more like Vegas' way of handling it. If it were all automatic they would not have needed that army of technicians.

You could also ask: why do Facebook and Twitter have so many employees when 2 demented monkeys with 2 months of programming lessons could program the whole thing by themselves.

Bottom line, there is nothing automatic about the way Premiere or FCP handle any of this. It's a shot in the dark at best. We have all of the tool in Vegas and it's better to do it yourself than play $tupid and hope Premiere or FCP get it right for you.

"Why was there a small army of technicians whose task was to adjust all the tweaks on all the gear to ensure every piece of gear conformed to the standards?"

Because all that gear was analog and it drifted, plus the FCC had very specific technical standards to which the signal had to conform in order to be "broadcast legal." I come from the old analog days and it was a pain.

1- If you try using another NLE, you will realize that it handles levels for you. You don't have to worry about it. They just work.

2- Can you guys please stop spreading misinformation? If you haven't even used another NLE, how can you say that it doesn't handle levels correctly?!


*Most cameras shoot superwhites / illegal values above white level. That is a different issue. The correct default behaviour is to clip those values.

In Vegas the answer to that question is easy: It does the dissolve with the existing levels.
To say that it does the dissolve with "existing" levels is pretty misleading.

Final Cut Pro has the ability to apply cross dissolves without having to convert from Y'CbCr to RGB. Vegas cannot do this. Footage that is processed in Vegas has to go through a codec that converts from Y'CbCr to RGB. Different codecs will perform the conversion differently. The Microsoft DV codec will handle levels differently than the Sony Vegas DV codec. (You can make Vegas use the microsoft codec. You will see a difference once you restart Vegas.)

You don't have to take my word for it. There are tests that you can perform.

#1 - Put a JPEG and a DV video file on the same timeline.
In Vegas, the two formats will have mismatched levels.

(Assuming that you are using a newer version of Vegas that uses the Sony Vegas DV codec, not Vegas 5 and before.)

In other NLEs, the two will have matched levels.

Some video cameras and dSLRs can even shoot both video AND still images. So that's another way of performing this test.

#2- In Vegas, export the project above to:
a- MPEG2
b- A still image format, such as an image sequence via Quicktime. Or, in the video preview window, click the button that allows you to save an image file.

Notice that the levels between a and b are different when you open those files outside of Vegas.

On other NLEs, the output will have the same levels.

#3 - Add color bars (from the NLE's built-in color bar generator) to the timeline.
In Vegas, you can see all three PLUGE bars. This isn't right.
In most other NLEs, you can see only two of the PLUGE bars. The preview is correct.

"

When you make judgments like that, I have a really difficult time understanding the rationale. I simply wouldn't accept clipping as a default behavior.