That would be a very cool feature. With all the features they've come up with so far i would not be surprised at all if we get this ability.

Marc

Actually its been discussed before in the forum. To what end would such a feature hep you? The whole point of any NLE (which Vegas is) is to adjust the source video and make it better including adjusting color levels.

Beyond saying to yourself such and such clip is off, I wish I could adjust it to see how much it is "off" as it comes in is just an exercice is self-indulgence since you can NOT do anything about it unless and untill the file is ready to work on within Vegas which it isn't and can't be until AFTER the file is captured.

So in my opinion seeing real time scope readouts of incoming media is about as useful as trying to sell sunglasses to bats. They're blind is case anyone forgot.

But if you can set up your deck with a scope so the color bars are set right BEFORE you capture, then that will save a LOT of rendering time if you have to use the color correction tools after you get your video into vegas.

In the case of DV, since the video is already compressed on tape and a "capture" is actually just copying the data from tape to the hard drive, the video would have to be decompressed, levels adjusted, and recompressed during the tape > hard drive copy process. There is no particular benefit here except perhaps rendering speed.

However, it would be nice to be able to use the Vegas scopes at a shoot to adjust the camera during recording by simply connecting a Firewire cable from the camera to the laptop. I usually carry a waveform monitor and vectorscope to shoots and being able to do this on a laptop instead would be quite handy.

John

A real-time vectorscope would be great, especially when importing analog media. We often forget that the overwhelming majority of all video content is out there is on analog tape. Our studio's archive of Hi-8, 3/4, DVCPro, Beta...and yes, even VHS, is invaluable. My exeperience has shown me that the diligent use of a scope at the input stage insures the best chance of a high quality digital conversion.

I guess my point is that many people edit media originally captured in analog on Vegas and the digitized files benefit from having the original material imported to standards.

I would consider scopes on the input stage a true professional addition to Vegas.

I doubt anyone in the forum is more diligent using scopes and color correcting than I am. Doing it before, rather than after is like putting the cart before the horse.

Why do you think there is any advantage to importing to "standards" as opposed to adjusting to standards as part of the editing process?

I sometimes get the impression some if they use scopes and color adjustments at all, its just adding a few seconds of color bars* to the front of each tape. If so, that's just the tip of the iceberg.

* anyone can see for themselves how overrated 'adjusting to' color bars are to begin with. To prove it, next time the president or anything carried live is broadcast on multiple TV networks, just flip through the channels. If everyone supposedly 'adjusted to color bars' (what should happen before the signal goes out) explain the wide varation in hue, saturation and levels. Its mostly BS, wide spread incompetence or just simple lazinness. Probably a combination of all three. ;-)

I always thought that even if you capture from analogue, in order to do anything about the colour coming in before it gets converted to DV by either a DV camera, vcr or converter, you would need hardware colour correction - some kind of mixer, and a hardware scope, between the source and the converter.

By the time Vegas "sees" it, which is after the signal has been converted to digital, it cannot do anything about it until it has a captured clip to work with.

Is this right?

That's what I thought...but I could be wrong. Then again I got bit by the computer bug way back in the 70's and my mentor had a pet saying which was "If you can do it with paper and pencil, I can do it on that" pointing to his IBM 360. He could just about. He was something else.

BillyBoy,

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on this subject.

Granted, if you're importing analog content from consumer level machines that have no way to make adjustments, "fixing" problems in the NLE is a practical solution. On the other hand, when hue, color and level controls are available at the output stage of the source, I feel that it is prudent to resolve problems such as over saturation, etc. as close to the problem in the production chain as possible.

Referencing the old addage "garbage in-garbage out", I try to clean up my garbage as soon as I can. I prefer not to "fix it in the mix".

I think it's great that there are real differences in production philosophies.

Well, aren't we getting a bit silly then? If you have a means to color correct and set levels at the source using whatever, then that's the procedure one should use PRIOR to bringing it into Vegas, not doing it in Vegas, prior to the file even being on the timeline.

I object to adding features that turn Vegas into a Swiss army knife type of application where it is all things to all people. Accordingly I object more on the grounds of should it be done, rather than can it be done.

I think the focus should be on adding and improving features PART OF THE EDITING PROCESS, not adding bells and whistles of little interest to the majority of users for the benefit of a few. Besides, we're still at 'is it possible' stage.

Like with any application it gets difficult if not impossible to manipulate any incoming data steam prior to the data being is a application useable format.

Since what you want to do is already supported AFTER the steam is on the timeline it just seems redundant to rewrite perhaps many sections of the Vegas engine just to preview the source on scopes. Then you have the very thorny question of what do you do with the adjustments, meaning how is the source file adjusted? If you don't want to adjust the source file, then what has been accomplished? To me it just seems like an exercie that doesn't accomplish anything beyond the gee-whiz, wow look at that factor. Surely there are more important things to be added in the way of features and refindments to the Vegas Wish List that would be of much more benefit...to everyone.

The feature doesn't really matter to me, I was just playing devils advocate. We usually use an external scope to set the bars on our decks before we bring it into Vegas anyways.

Thank you

> However, it would be nice to be able to use the Vegas scopes at a shoot to adjust the camera during recording by simply connecting a Firewire cable from the camera to the laptop.

That's exactly what I had in mind with my original question.

>I object to adding features that turn Vegas into a Swiss army knife type of application where it is all things to all people. Accordingly I object more on the grounds of should it be done, rather than can it be done.

The scopes tool is already there in Vegas. Just a matter of allowing the data to flow from capture to the scopes. That doesn't sound like a major challenge to me.

I think some of the other NLE programs have a way to do this. If it seemed like a big deal to implement, I'd shut up in favor of other issues, but this seems easy and useful to me.

Of course I was thinking of aiming my camera at a reference chart and using Vegas to monitor the output.

I had heard that the DSC Labs charts were the thing to use. Now I have priced them. Yikes! Thought it would cost me tens of dollars. Now I see its more like $250+ and it is only guaranteed good for a limited time.

This is a bit beyond what I think I can justify at my budget. I saw B&H has a different one for $1xx .

These reference charts are way more than I expected. I guess you get what you pay for. Anyone know of any "semi-pro level" decent charts at more reasonable prices.

"The scopes tool is already there in Vegas. Just a matter of allowing the data to flow from capture to the scopes. That doesn't sound like a major challenge to me."

Oh really, perhaps then you'll share the necessary programming code with the Sony engineers then. Currently, the scopes are tied to the contents on the timeline. While it may on the surface sound "simple" to pipe an incoming data steam through them during capture, I doubt from a programming standpoint it would be the simple task as you seem to think it would be. Which NLE does this now? Any of them?

Is this what you're considering?

http://www.dsclabs.com/camalign%20family.htm

I don't know if this is a realtime scope, but it is a standalone shareware scope.


http://www.digitalmediaworks.com/products/vscope/default.html

DaveT2,

That looks like a handy tool. Thanks for the heads up on it. I believe its basically what we're talking about here.

We still have 2 older AVID Media Composers (1000's) doing duty. They came with built in scopes very similar in function to these. Although the AVID's cost us a "LOT" more than Vegas in 1998, tech has advanced while costs have dropped dramatically. I honestly don't know if they are included in the AVID DV line. I do believe that enough editors would find them useful enough for Sony to consider including them in future versions.

I would like to able to use realtime input for setting up lighting for certain shoots. That way I could just use a laptop and bypass the need to bring a waveform/vectorscope in.

Marc

Although a little slower, if you have a laptop on set, you can set up lights, capture a sample direct to HD then look at it in Vegas.

I know you miss out on seeing the effect of changes instantly, but at least it can be done right now ...

True and if I never get this functionality, I will never complain about it. Vegas is a very cool program and I look forward to seeing what the software team comes up with next.

Marc

>While it may on the surface sound "simple" to pipe an incoming data steam through them during capture, I doubt from a programming standpoint it would be the simple task as you seem to think it would be.

I can't say for sure, anything is easy if someone else is doing the work. The capture utility pumps a video stream to a monitor, as does the timeline. I was guessing that the same video stream is what feeds the scopes tool. If so, I would think using an OOP language they could be hooked together without too much work. Its pure conjecture on my part but no a completely uninformed guess.

>Which NLE does this now? Any of them?

I don't really know. I read something somewhere that gave me the impression one or more does, but I haven't looked. I like Vegas. I think what I read was in the book "Digital Moviemaking" by Scott Billips.

>Is this what you're considering?
>http://www.dsclabs.com/camalign%20family.htm

Yep. That's them. I found a different set of charts on the B&H pages that were about 3 dB cheaper ($1xx) and that would probably be good enough for my purposes, but its still about twice what i guessed that a chart would cost.