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Videoon 6/3/2018
Getting scanned text to look sharp when rendered
JN -- I did think of that but (a) it's a LOT of typing and (b) I don't think I could fully recreate the look of the original program, which includes some graphics. daivid-tu -- I got the pdf from the person who created the program so that is the resolution they came to me in. Would it make sense to downscale the resolution in a graphics program like Gimp and then bring those smaller stills into Vegas?
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Videoon 6/3/2018
Getting scanned text to look sharp when rendered
Edit: the screen grabs below were uploaded using the forum uploader. When I try to view them in the context of my comment they appear on my screen so small as to be worthless. I haven't added screen grabs to a comment before so if someone could advise me how to do it in a way that produces an image that is readable, I'd appreciate that. What follows below is my original comment. Thanks for the comments. Other things intervened and I had to put this project aside, but now I'm back to finish it and am still looking for help. The goal is to create a DVD of two complete performances of a community theater production of a musical. I will be putting this on a dual-sided DVD that will contain about 4 hours of video, so my final bitrate will be about 4000. Since the video during the overture is just black, I want to include a video of the program for the musical, presented one page at a time and with the page turning effect. I got the program pages as pdf files, two pages per file and high resolution. I used Gimp to separate the pages so there is only one per file and also to convert the file to png, since I have never been able to make Vegas import a pdf file. The resulting png file is about 4000x5000, with some variation since I split the pages manually. I created the page turning effect in a separate project and rendered that as an uncompressed avi. Here are the project settings for this page turn effect veg: And here is a screen grab of one of the program pages as it appears in the avi file I rendered from the page turn veg (as played on my computer screen by VNC): I then put this avi on the timeline for the veg containing the performances of the musical. Here is a screen grab of the project properties for the performances veg: The video of the performances was created by a Sony AX100, so the project properties are set to match. Here is the MediaInfo analysis of the video file: GeneralComplete name : E:\Theater\Annie movies\CTA performances\Sunday 10_29\C0001.MP4Format : XAVCCodec ID : XAVC (XAVC/mp42/iso2)File size : 33.3 GiBDuration : 1 h 25 minOverall bit rate mode : VariableOverall bit rate : 55.5 Mb/sEncoded date : UTC 2017-10-29 18:54:06Tagged date : UTC 2017-10-29 18:54:06 VideoID : 1Format : AVCFormat/Info : Advanced Video CodecFormat profile : High@L5.1Format settings : CABAC / 2 Ref FramesFormat settings, CABAC : YesFormat settings, RefFrames : 2 framesCodec ID : avc1Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video CodingDuration : 1 h 25 minSource duration : 1 h 25 minBit rate mode : VariableBit rate : 53.7 Mb/sMaximum bit rate : 60.0 Mb/sWidth : 3 840 pixelsHeight : 2 160 pixelsDisplay aspect ratio : 16:9Frame rate mode : ConstantFrame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPSColor space : YUVChroma subsampling : 4:2:0Bit depth : 8 bitsScan type : ProgressiveBits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.216Stream size : 32.2 GiB (97%)Source stream size : 32.2 GiB (97%)Encoded date : UTC 2017-10-29 18:54:06Tagged date : UTC 2017-10-29 18:54:06Color range : LimitedColor primaries : BT.709Transfer characteristics : xvYCCMatrix coefficients : BT.709 AudioID : 2Format : PCMFormat settings : Big / SignedCodec ID : twosDuration : 1 h 25 minBit rate mode : ConstantBit rate : 1 536 kb/sChannel(s) : 2 channelsSampling rate : 48.0 kHzBit depth : 16 bitsStream size : 942 MiB (3%)Encoded date : UTC 2017-10-29 18:54:06Tagged date : UTC 2017-10-29 18:54:06 OtherType : metaDuration : 1 h 25 minSource duration : 5146141Source frame count : 154230Source stream size : 157931520Stream size : 157931520 Here is a screen grab of how the same program page appears on the Vegas timeline for this performances veg: I then rendered the performances veg using the standard DVD Architect widescreen template, with a CBR of 3450 (as noted above, I can probably use a 4000 bitrate but was being conservative until I knew how much other stuff I’d want to put on the DVD). Here is a screen grab of the same page in the final rendered output: As you can see, this final rendered output is much softer, barely readable on my 17” inch computer monitor. In case it matters, I am using Vegas Pro 14.0 (build 270) on Windows 10 Home (version 1803) with graphics acceleration turned off. I appreciate any suggestions for how to make this text look sharp enough to be readable.
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Videoon 5/18/2016
4K on XP with Core2 Duo?
Thanks, but that link is for the 64-bit version of XP and I have the 32-bit version. I did try loading the 4K clips on my Macbook laptop after downloading Davinci Resolve and the clips load and play just fine (well, the playback is far from smooth, but it does play). But when I try to bring a clip into a Davinci Resolve project, Resolve crashes. Not sure what's wrong there and not sure I want to troubleshoot that one.
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Videoon 5/13/2016
4K on XP with Core2 Duo?
After writing my last post it occurred to me that there might be a converter for Mac OSX so I checked and apparently there are several, so I'll give that a try. Thanks again for the helpful suggestions.
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Videoon 5/13/2016
4K on XP with Core2 Duo?
Thanks for all the comments, they are very helpful. I asked and my friend says he doesn't know if he used the dual recording feature so that probably means he didn't. Even so, I will look into the Grassvalley suggestion, though when I tried hooking the SD card to my computer just to see if it could be read, Windows XP was unable to read it. Research on the web shows that Microsoft did release a patch (WindowsXP-KB955704-x86-ENU.exe) to enable XP to read the exFAT format that the AX100 uses, but that patch has been removed from Microsoft's site and I haven't been able to find it anywhere else. I do have an old Macbook Pro and OSX is supposed to be able to read exFAT so when I get back from my current travels I will try that. Not sure what good that will do, though since the Grassvalley converter is only for Windows. As I suspected, trying to do this with old technology just looks more and more complicated. A good reason to get myself into the new millenium.
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Videoon 6/29/2009
Can't open old veg files anymore
Never mind -- I figured it out. I realized that in the meantime I had reinstalled Windows but not reinstalled my NeoHD and all the underlying clips were in Cineform AVI so once I reinstalled NeoHD I could open the veg files just fine.
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Videoon 6/12/2009
Using external audio editor on m2t audio
I installed Sound Forge and unfortunately got the same error message when trying to send the audio from an m2t clip. Guess I'll just have to render to a new track and go from there.
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Videoon 6/7/2009
Using external audio editor on m2t audio
Thanks for the replies. I do have Sound Forge but haven't worked with it enough to get used to it. I'll install it and try that route.
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Videoon 9/22/2008
Timing dialogue - audio buffer delay?
Yes, they match. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that this material was recorded on a Canon HV20, which puts the 24P in a 60i wrapper, which I then used Cineform to redo as a 24P avi? And it doesn't seem entirely consistent; that is, some clips seem to sync properly.
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Videoon 9/22/2008
Timing dialogue - audio buffer delay?
Thanks for the reply. The source material is Cineform 24P and wave files. When I am trying to time the dialogue I use the selective pre-render option, and then play it back on my computer monitor and through my sound card (Audiophile 2496) which is connected to my computer speakers. What mystifies me is that even the original dialogue, which is presumably correctly lined up, seems ahead a couple of frames.
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Videoon 9/14/2008
Jerky playback on some DVD players
Thanks for the suggestions. Sorry about the 192 minutes; it should have been 132 minutes. And I'm not really compressing to mpg twice, because when I render after putting all the scenes together it is with the same template (except for 2-pass) so no re-rendering is actually done (or so Vegas tells me). And it actually does look quite good, I think. I did do 2-pass and had the quality slider at 31. I will certainly try the DVD-R media (hadn't thought of that) and bring the burn speed down. The reason we did not render from one Vegas file with all the m2t files is (1) we needed to go to Cineform to convert the HV20 m2t files into true 24P (which my daughter really wanted) and, most important, (2) my daughter just found it much more efficient to work on individual scenes instead of one huge file. The reason we used DVDShrink was simple -- I didn't know how long the movie would be in its finished form, we were trying to get done quickly so I was rendering each scene when finished, and I simply guessed wrong on length and hence rendered each scene with an average that was a little high. Though I can see that this plan is probably not the ultimate in visual quality, there is very little loss going to Cineform and the DVDShrink didn't make any difference that I could see either. But in any case, I don't see why that approach would cause any problems in playback: are you suggesting that multiple renders somehow introduce errors that will cause some players to hang up?
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Videoon 4/30/2008
How to substitute Cineform for m2t clips
Just wanted to let Rosebud know that I did upgrade to 8.0b and used his script to change hundreds of clips. It worked without a hitch and saved me vast amounts of time. Thanks so much for making this script available!
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Videoon 4/15/2008
How to substitute Cineform for m2t clips
Thanks. It really only is useful for a project with basic edits, though. For example, in my project I had one clip that I had speed up using the event velocity envelope and it looks like that did not get recorded in the EDL.
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Videoon 4/15/2008
How to substitute Cineform for m2t clips
I also thought of another way to do this. In the project with the original m2t clips I saved it as an EDL text file. Then I opened that text file in a word processor and replaced all instances of "m2t" with "avi". Then I opened that EDL file in a new Vegas project and it loaded all the avi files with all the cuts and edits I had made so far. I'm sure the script you point me to is easier and I will try it as soon as I get up the gumption to upgrade to 8.0b. Thanks for all the suggestions.
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Videoon 4/15/2008
How to substitute Cineform for m2t clips
Yes, right-click-drag into the media pool is quicker than what I was doing, but it still requires an individual action for every clip to be replaced, right? That's what I was hoping to avoid, since there are hundreds that would have to be replaced.
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Videoon 4/15/2008
How to substitute Cineform for m2t clips
OK, this is weird having a conversation with myself, but I just discovered the first major problem with my method: After Effects 6.5 won't import files with the m2t extension, which means every time I go to AE I'll either have to render out a separate file or make a copy with the avi extension. (Or fork out the dough for AE CS3, which I hear does import m2t.) Rats. Any other suggestions?
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Videoon 4/15/2008
How to substitute Cineform for m2t clips
Well, I found one way, but don't especially like it. Turns out that if I just move all the original m2t clips to another folder so Vegas can't find them and then change the extension of all the Cineform files from "avi" to "m2t" then Vegas will happily load them en masse. The Cineform files seem to work fine even though the extension has been changed. This seems very clunky and I worry I'll get confused at some future point about what type of file I'm dealing with (though the "properties" are correctly reported as a Cineform codec file), so if anyone has a more graceful way I'd appreciate hearing it.
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DVD Architecton 3/12/2008
Menu with constant left, changing right
OK, that's what I was afraid of. Well, at least I can copy and paste the 16 page buttons instead of having to recreate them for every submenu. Thanks.
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Videoon 1/16/2008
HV20 render settings
Oops, I forgot to mention that I can't do the obvious and download the trial version of Neo because I already did that early in the summer. I had trouble using it to capture -- I think it was dropping frames or something like that -- and for various reasons gave up on it at that time. Of course now I wish I'd done enough testing to see for myself what difference removing the pulldown makes, but once the trial period expires that's it. And my only other computer is too ancient to even run Neo.
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Videoon 1/26/2006
Pixel comparison plugin
I'm just beginning to learn about AE's expressions, so I may be wrong about this, but from what I've learned so far, an expressions uses one layer-wide property (such as the layer's scale or position) to control another layer-wide property, whether in the same layer or another layer. So I can control the opacity of an entire layer with the value of, say, the scale of another layer. But the key point is that expressions seem to operate at the layer level. I need something that operates at the pixel level. The ideal plugin would allow me to examine one pixel in a layer, and if that pixel's green value is greater than that pixel's red value, turn that pixel transparent. Of course that same procedure would be applied to each pixel in the layer, but one by one. The reason a range effect won't work is that the red and green values might be 4 and 2, or 253 and 197. In both those cases, the red value exceeds the green value so they should both be opaque even though the two situations cover just about the entire range of red values. I found a digitalanarchy.com plugin ("color sampler" in their toolbox) that does return the RGB value at a certain position, but that value can apparently only be used to control another property layer-wide, not per pixel. I have tried Serious Magic Ultra, but it seems to work with fixed ranges also. Anyone else?
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Videoon 12/5/2005
Can Vegas shrink matte in chromakey?
Thanks very much for the step-by-step explanation. I think that will really help my project. And no, I don't have the Editing Workshop books; I will look into that as well.
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Videoon 12/5/2005
Can Vegas shrink matte in chromakey?
Thanks for the reply, but I'm afraid I'm not sure to what you refer. (This is a problem I have with the Vegas help system -- there's no way to look up words like "garbage" or "matte" and find anything.) Do you mean creating a mask in the pan/crop tool? Or something else? Could you please direct me to the specific command? As I'm sure is obvious, I'm a relatively new user. Thanks.
RoyBU
Offline, Last login 6/3/2018, Member since 3/16/2018