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Videoon 4/24/2006
Nice n' warm for NAB
Spot- I hoping this Cinescore announcement isn't the life altering one you teased us with ...
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Videoon 4/22/2006
Camera - Vegas - DVD - back to Vegas???
I'll second the rec for just buying an external hard drive. The cheapest way is to buy an "internal" hard drive and an external enclosure for it, which will have either a USB 2.0 or Firewire interface to your computer. Here's 250GB solution with a USB connection, both from NewEgg.com (probably the best computer website out there!). I love my Seagate drives - they run cool, quiet, and still fast; probably the best drives shipping today. I don't know anything about this enclosure, but it's very favorably reviewed by other users, which is a good sign, especially if it has a lot of reviews. Only $94 for the drive and $35 for the enclosure. Actually, if you've got room in your computer, you can just add this drive in and skip the external enclosure. Seagate 250GB drive http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148100 Enclosure http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817145133
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Videoon 4/16/2006
Vegas on 32 vs 64 bit XP Pro?
Rob, I haven't attempted it myself, but I did look into this about a year ago when I had the same question. Seems the only limit to using XP Pro x64 is finding the drivers for all of your equipment, with the sound card & video card being the hardest. Sounds like you're building/buying a new system, so you could pick & choose what hardware you get instead of having to match what you already own. Of course, do you really want to pick your hardware just for OS compatability? I'm not sure if the x64 drivers are going to be compatible with Vista, so you may have to wait for Vista drivers to be released or buy new hardware again if you want to jump to that OS when it comes out. I haven't heard of anyone having any significant performance gains from x64 (nothing is optimized for it), so I'm not sure why you'd want to limit your options so much and go through so much pain for minimal tangible benefit. In my book, the "cool factor" just isn't worth it. There have been plenty of threads on x64. If you Search on "x64" you'll probably find the vast majority and see if anyone's had particular problems or solutions. Brian
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Videoon 4/13/2006
Writing DVD's that will work
Leslie, Unfortunately I don't have any advice on why it's still not working for you. However, I can't resist throwing my 2 cents in on burn speed with DVDA2. I burned a xmas disc for all of our relatives at 8x speed which worked fine on my component DVD player, but not on a single one of theirs (like 8-9 different folks). I then burned 4 test discs of the exact same VOB files, all at 4x speed but with two variables: either the original disc media or a different brand, and either burned with DVDA2 or Nero. Sent them to my sister to validate. All four worked like a champ; so the only difference was 4x speed instead of 8x speed. Speed DOES count! Welcome to Vegas & this forum, BTW. Vegas is a great program, and this forum is fantastic! This forum is largely what convinced me to go with Vegas over other options. It's a great place to lurk about and learn stuff. Download some of the videos posted by users for some inspiration on what can be accomplished. Brian
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Videoon 3/31/2006
Keyframe woes
Beugnet- I can't say this is the fix to your problem, but have you tried setting all of your keyframes to a smoothness value of 0, and then set each keyframe to be "linear," "smooth," "slow," etc. as you desire. I don't think the smoothness value has anything to do with how smooth the keyframe transition is. For example, if you have four keyframes to pan something in a square pattern, with a smoothness of 0 it'll pan in a square. With a smoothness of 1, it'll blend the pans into more of a rounded, circular motion. This may not be your fix, but Sony's default setting of 1on the smoothness has caused plenty of mysteries in the past, including for me. Unfortunately there's no way to change the default setting. Brian
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Videoon 3/20/2006
Effect how-to: child drawing
Rick, I've only done this on a very simple scale, but here's how I would probably tackle this. Method 1: If all of your elements are already saved as separate, transparent PNG files (i.e. one file for the left arm, one for the right, one for the body, etc.), then you can simply use hard edge "wipe" transition to "draw" that body part on (i.e. transition the "body" from top to bottom, transition the "left" arm either from upper left to lower right or vice versa, etc.). This works like a champ for basically straight pieces, not so much for circles. If you get really lucky (or just design it that way), you could use a "clock wipe" to draw in a circle (but the circle would have to be in the center of the screen). Otherwise, you have to bezier mask/keyframe the circle using method 2 below. Method 2: If all of the elements in your drawing don't run together (i.e. gaps in between), then it'd be relatively easy to keyframe the bezier masks. For the first keyframe, make a two-anchor mask (just a line) between elements in your drawing. Then move the cursor further along the timeframe to the point at which you want that element (i.e. the left arm) to be completely revealed, and add mask points and move the mask points as required to reveal that element. Probably easiest to reveal an element in the middle of the drawing and move out from there. Keep creating more keyframes and revealing more elements (body parts). Vegas will interpret between keyframes to provide a smooth reveal. Note: (I'm assuming you're doing this in Pan/Crop) In the Pan/Crop window, you obviously have to check the "Mask" option at the bottom. Not so obvious, the Mask timeline (to the right of the mask checkbox and below the "Position" timeline) must be active (highlighted) for you to make changes to the mask. Also, just to make sure we're not talking apples & oranges here, you have to create the drawing in a different program (PSP is great), and then save the image/images as a file (I think most use the transparent PNG). You only use Vegas to "reveal" parts of your drawing as time passes. I haven't done much of this, so I'm sure someone else could explain it more elegantly and probably has much better techniques. Surely there's a tutorial about masking on www.vasst.com, as well. Brian
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Videoon 3/19/2006
Track Motion ... Drop Shadows ...
Dang! Well, that would explain the shreiking upstairs. Good thing I already got my hardware upgrade in recently. The only house extension now, though, might be a doghouse. Think I can get a broadband drop there?
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Videoon 3/19/2006
Track Motion ... Drop Shadows ...
Oh yeah, I'm jones'in for V7, even though I don't know what features might be included and even though V5 is far more than I'll probably ever need. It just feels like it's about time ... just don't tell my wife! (Okay, maybe a year of reading V6 users discuss features I don't have has worn me down.)
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Videoon 3/19/2006
Track Motion ... Drop Shadows ...
ClipMan- Probably a more difficult solution than you're looking for, but can't you just keyframe the shadows in & out, as required? Seems like it wouldn't involve too many keyframes, as I don't imagine you'd change the shadows / lack of shadows too many times (or you wouldn't mind giving up that track). edit: Yep, just verified this works pretty well. Just put in some keyframes in the Shadow line of the Track Motion screen. Used "Hold" as the keyframe type. Seems like this would allow a little bit more editing flexibility than using nested tracks, although as a V5 guy, I don't know anything about nesting. Of course, if you're thinking of upgrading just for that capability then you save some coin, too. Brian
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Videoon 3/19/2006
OT: Wireless router recommendation
ChrisH, I'll second the vote for Linksys. Based on some reviews (and a great sale at the time), I bought a Netgear wireless router, and have regretted it ever since. While it generally does a decent job, it drops out the signal far too easily (from only 30 feet away down the hall in a wood-frame house) in even an extremely low density environment (house backs up to forest and only one other 802.11b/g network within range. NAT does take care of probably 99% of all internet-based vulnerability scans. NAT can be worked around, but if you're a hacker, why go to the effort when there are so many totally unprotected systems to take advantage of? A real hardware firewall in a router will make sure that a internet packet that's trying to get in was actually requested by the computer. However, I'm pretty sure it has no way of knowing whether the request for a packet was made by "good" program or a malicious one. A software firewall will give you the opportunity to give or deny permission for individual programs to access the internet. Even if you don't click on the "wrong thing" while surfing or open email attachments, who knows what adware programs install with "innocent" programs you install these days? Me, personally, I'm a little on the paranoid side. My security isn't foolproof, but I'm not an easy target, either. I'll never be without a software firewall again, and prefer to have the hardware firewall in addition to the router NAT. Why not run a software firewall when there are several decent ones that are free? Brian
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Videoon 3/19/2006
Ultimate S 3???
Thanks for the good words, JohnnyRoy. Now, we'll see if I can stand the wait until NAB to see if there'll be a V7, just a V7 announcement, or if we'll come up empty! Hopefully ACID 6 will be ready soon so I can at least have *one* new toy.
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Videoon 3/19/2006
Ultimate S 3???
JohnnyRoy- Do you know if US 2 will be incompatible with V7 (whenever *that* comes out)? B
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Videoon 3/11/2006
Multiple Camera Editing
Okay, Johnmeyer, does this cool device have a name?
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Videoon 3/7/2006
Fave Vegas feature?
I can't resist this post - Stability! Any guesses on my previous NLE?
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Videoon 3/3/2006
Where did *YOU* buy Vegas???
V5+DVD from Academic Superstore. Standing by for V7.
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Videoon 2/17/2006
Adding FX gives pixelated look
Do you think the "DVD Architect video stream" option is better than the "DVD NTSC" option? It's more of a hassle to render the video & audio separately, but if it's significantly better then it'd be worth it.
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Videoon 2/12/2006
New Video -Comments please?
Jim, Awesome video! I'm living with just a hair better than dial-up speed for internet and the whole 93MB download was worth it. Very cool. Other than the software you already mentioned (Vegas, Acid, Photopaint), did you use any other plugins or anything other than the "vanilla" Vegas (i.e. Pixelan Spices, Wax, Ultimate S, Excaliber, etc.)? I'm assuming the "quake" you added was some type of script or something. Seems like I saw one around here about a year ago. Again, sweet creativity, humor, tasteful use of effects, etc. Brian
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Videoon 2/3/2006
NAB Editing with Sony Vegas 4/25?
Okay. You guys are killin' me! Having skipped the Vegas 6 upgrade, I'm committed to the (hopefully) upcoming 7 upgrade. Up until a couple weeks ago I've been just fat, dumb, & happy to wait for NAB. Now you guys are getting me excited for 7 and each day without it drags on and on. Darn you ... Brian
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Videoon 10/3/2005
AMD 64 technology is very good for Vegas 6
bigsole - x2 is the name for the dual core. - Venice is the name of one of AMD's chips. It's a socket 939 chip (versus the older & cheaper 754), 90 nanometer technology (versus the older 130 nanometer), and has less onboard cache (512 KB versus 1 MB, I think). Venice is single core, but runs very cool and overclocks well. That's the extent of what I know. Brian
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Videoon 9/28/2005
DV audio - does the card matter?
Buster, I appreciate the advice. I'll be doing exactly that, but nice to know I can kick that can down the road a couple months if I have to. I'd rather wait for a little to get what I want than settle in the short term. I've been thinking about the Echo Gina3G, but read a thread here that mentioned some conflicts with different chipsets. Now I'm back on the search. Any recommendations in the $200 area? I could go up to $400, but would prefer not to. The M-audio 1010LT looks to fit the bill, except it doesn't appear to have any headphone output. Highly desired, but not required.
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Videoon 7/26/2005
Movie Studio -> Vegas 6
Keyframes are great. However, maybe this post will save you a lot of frustration and a post later on. Vegas defaults to a "smoothness" of 1.0 (or 100 depending on where you're looking (Pan/Crop vs. Track Motion, etc.) instead of 0. This means that if you keyframe movement (or other properties) to track across the screen in a "V" motion (for example), it will inexplicibly move in a smoother, rounder "U" motion. Very frustrating to figure out, but a piece of cake once you know about it. Have fun, Vegas is fantastic. This forum is even better. Very worthwhile to monitor the forum for problems/tips of other users. Some post links to their videos which show what Vegas (and a lot of creativity!) can do. Brian
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Videoon 7/21/2005
Laptop Selection
HP / Compaq also makes A64 laptops. They also make some with the Turion chip, which I believe is the low-power (i.e. laptop) version of the A64. Haven't seen any benchmarks for video on the Turion, though.
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Videoon 7/21/2005
OT: Sony HDR-HC1
Spot- So what's the better buy, this cheapest of HDV cameras or a nice DV camera for around the same price? Given that I don't need HDV, is the overall image quality significantly better than a nice 3 CCD DV camera (like the GL2)? Tattoo
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Videoon 7/18/2005
OT: Sony HDR-HC1
Spot, Nice review. How does the HC1 compare to other cameras in it's sub-$2k price range overall? I know it's the *only* HDV camera for that money, but as a hobby-only, I don't actually NEED HDV. I've been looking to upgrade from my 4-year old Canon Elura camera to something in the $1500 range, like a Canon GL2. Looking for a well balanced camera with great image quality & good (on-board) audio, reasonable size factor, and ability to upgrade with external audio down the road. Since I don't need HDV (although it'd nice!), would I be better to put that money into a higher quality camera, or is the HC1 the smokin' deal in its price range? Thanks, Brian
Tattoo
Offline, Member since 6/20/2004