Vegas - WOW

Ok, now tell me why people would want to screw around with Premiere?

Seriously folks.

I just made the "jump to lightspeed" with Vegas+DVD in the "full" version, and my God, how nice.

Its just plain intuitive. The MPEG encoding is extraordinary. I can take stereo source files (or lots of mono and stereo tracks) and place them anywhere I want in a 5.1 AC3 soundscape in minutes, which is an AWESOME enhancement to a DVD presentation. Its reasonably fast, and previews are instantaneous. Color correction, FX, etc are simple. Integration with DVDA and ACID is tight and simple.

Now exactly why, again, may I ask, would I want to screw around with a product that makes no sense?

Me thinks I'll be staying with this one....

Yeah, I wish its asset management was better. Well, its not with the others either, so what do you want?

I'm sold so far......

Well, here is one thing you might want to do that Vegas doesn't allow without sucky intermediate rendering and manual updating.

Let's say you want to import your assets into a parent project that lots of individual projects share. I don't know how to do that in Vegas but Premiere 6 does it. PPro saw fit to delete that that capability. I find managing assets in Vegas clunky compared to Premiere.

Vegas has better integrated color tools than Premiere but not as good as Video Finesse. Premiere has the best 3rd party plugin support in the industry.

Premiere offers more comprehensive professional editing capabilitites than Vegas. I'm not an editing pro so I can't enumerate these, but it's easy to find with a little searching. This wouldn't matter to most of us.

Vegas offers a much easier way to do automated crossfades (but it makes simple cuts harder in the process). As far as I can tell, that's about it. It allows transitions on all video tracks but PPro matches that feature. It lacks virtual clips or multiple timelines and it lacks garbage mattes, two features I use occasionally. Vegas tries to be more forward thinking regarding HiDef and I appreciate that.

I don't know how the MPEG export compares between the two since I haven't looked at it, but the Adobe DVD authoring package is quite good and easily surpasses the Sonic Foundry one. As a package, I think the Adobe combination is easily better that the SF one, although there's no reason not to mix and match. So far I haven't figured out how Premiere Pro is easier to use for me than Premiere 6. I've tenatively decided to focus on Vegas, but it's by no means a slam dunk. If Vegas would improve their clip management and added multiple timelines I'd agree it is better than Premiere Pro.

Uh, I don't know.

I just tried playing with Vegas to replicate what was shown using Adobe in that clip - the zoom/crop to get rid of the other diver is more difficult to do seamlessly, but fixing the flash problem doesn't look like it would be hard at all. I don't have a source DV file that has that precise problem, but I tried playing around with inserting a single frame "on top" of the timeline, and had no trouble doing it.

The garbage matte is indeed missing, but that's not all that big of a deal to me. I'd like to have it, but I suspect VV will pick this one up next time around, given that they're pretty much neck-and-neck competitors with Premiere.

The authoring package isn't the best in the world, I'll give you that. But it DOES handle AC-3 5.1 imports just fine, and while the rest isn't wonderful, does the rest of the stuff really do much for me? Not at present. Might it in the future? Yes, but if it does I'll deal with that then, and I can do so with a dedicated authoring product if I really need to. If I get THAT serious I probably need to cut DLT masters for pressing purposes

There is also the cost issue. Vegas+DVD can be had for under $400 for a legitimate, non-academic license. Try THAT trick with Premiere and its DVD authoring add-on!

As for the rendering quality, its top-drawer. The Main Concept CODEC is very, very nice. Its also very adjustable if you need it to be, which can be a big deal in certain (non-DVD) circumstances.

One of my big complaints with Premiere is that it simply doesn't make sense. Figuring out how to make things work the way you want is NOT trivial, nor logical in a lot of cases. Vegas doesn't have that problem.

I'm less sold on the DVDA part of the Vegas package, but the video editing portion is IMHO simply outstanding. DVDA could use some help, but even so, its very usable, and I've found something remarkable out about it - it produces disks that, on the same media, will read on set-top boxes that my OTHER authoring packages will not! Apparently some of those authoring packages play just a bit fast and loose with the rules in terms of how they actually lay out and burn the disks....

I love Photoshop and have been a loyal Adobe still picture manipulation customer for YEARS. I'm a LOT less sold on their video products; IMHO they simply don't make much sense in terms of how they are laid out and operate.

I think you miss the important part of the exercise. In the tutorial, a virtual clip is used so that subsequent operations on the clip, be they speed, motion or color, can be done as if the fix were not there. I have no doubt you can remove the flash itself in Vegas but how do you apply subsequent effects once and only once? You can't. Instead you have to create a separate project and render an intermediate file (or use a frame server, yuck!).

If you try to do a quick and dirty composite you'll find garbage mattes extremely useful. That's what they are made for and I've used them in the past.

Cost is also not an argument. Last time I had this argument with a Vegas advocate I easily found Premiere 6 on the internet cheaper than Vegas. I can't speak to your specific bundle or the fact that Premiere is no longer version 6, but the fact is that these two packages have similar enough street prices.

I used the MainConcept codec with Premiere 5, 6, and now Pro. It is not just for Vegas.

The original question is why you'd ever consider Premiere and I believe I gave some good reasons. I like Vegas and think people in the market should consider it, but Premiere is viable competition.

Sure you can Craig.

Fix the flash, then render it back out to DV. There is no transcoding involved so its extremely fast to do this. You now have a new asset which is the "fixed" clip, which then can be manipulated further as a single entity without problems.

The only time this doesn't work is if you'd want to back out the change you made. But why would you? And if you really need that, go back to the source media.

Yes, Premier appears to give you one step less in this kind of instance. But how often do you need or want that when you will also need the option to back it out later?

BTW there may be another way to do this but I haven't investigated it sufficiently. Intuitively it appears that linking the two video clips using VV's "compositing" function MAY be able to accomplish this, and should give you "one" correction point. I will need to see if I can create a test DV file with a flash in it that has this "defect" to play with and see if I can actually make it work.

(Actually, now that I think about it, I think I have a source file that I can do this with - a choral concert I shot about a month ago that had some idgits doing flash photography. I'll have to play with this later.... will let 'ya know what I come up with )

Street prices may indeed be similar if you go through all the "big name" places to buy, but I found an authorized Vegas dealer with the full package (VV+DVDA) for under $400, and I've not been able to get anywhere near that with Premiere Pro. Vegas alone was about $240! Never mind that Adobe has a really horrible "demo" system that expired my demo before I could get a reasonable amount of time with the package.

The time I DID get with it though led me to believe that it was going to have an absolutely enormous learning curve. And that's coming from someone who USES and generally likes Adobe products and has since the first of them showed up on Windows 3.1!

I believe I mentioned you could use a separate project and render an intermediate file. Rerendering would be required, though. You could do that with any solution but why would you want to? I thought this was a discussion of why you would consider using Premiere? You aren't suggesting that technique is just as good, are you? Joining two clips together isn't useful unless you can subsequently include the result somewhere else in the same timeline.

You don't actually need a source clip with a flash in it to test this! You don't even need a source clip.

When I priced Premiere 6.5 shortly before the PPro introduction I found it for less than $200 non-educational.

I've taught total computer amateurs how to edit easily in Premiere. I just can't see how one package, no matter what it is, is easy and intuitive while the other has an enormous learning curve. They have essentially the same level of ability and very similar editing models. Just what is so hard about sequencing clips in Premiere that is somehow easy in Vegas? Drag and drop? Works better in Premiere. Importing and sorting? Works better in Premiere. What is it that is essential to you that you can't figure out how to do in Premiere?

All I'm saying Craig is that I had no learning curve with VV, and everything worked the way I expected. I needed no manual to figure it out and be productive with it.

Premiere just plain pizzed me off. I'm sure its quite capable of great results, but it was aggrevating. It also was FAR more resource-hungry than VV; I can capture a tape on VV and go do something else with the computer without dropping any frames - Premiere threw up all over that attempt. While I don't have the biggest, baddest machine out there, 2.4Ghz P4s with 512mb of RAM and half a terabyte of disk, including dedicated video drives, ought to be enough!

In fact, right now I have an audio render out to AC-3 on a project running in the background on VV, and while I know its there, its not a big deal in terms of impacting the use of the machine otherwise.

(BTW, Ulead's products "take over" enough of the system and play not-nice with resources sufficiently to behave badly if you don't walk away and leave the machine alone while they're working, so Adobe is hardly alone on that account!)

For me, at least, Premiere just wasn't the right product. Some day if I get the chance to play with it in an "unrestricted" format on a machine for a few days, I might decide that its worth having. As it stands right now I just don't see the utility above and beyond what VV provides, and the resource constraints are a real consideration - particularly since all the software people seem to have a hiss about the idea of you running on multiple systems (without buying multiple licenses) which means that from a legal perspective I'm not supposed to load it on my laptop, for example, and run a render out on there while I do other work on my desktop machine.

(Never mind that NONE of the packages integrate well in that kind of environment - none are designed for "workgroup" type editing...)

VV and PPro have the same attitude toward multiple licenses.

I've always found 512MB to be enough for Premiere although that changes with HD. I've never captured within Premiere because it has traditionally sucked. Scenalyzer is tremendously better and I'd use it regardless of the Vegas/Premiere choice. It has no problem running in the background. I'm not aware of any other "resources" other than memory and memory is cheap these days. VV and Premiere makes the same demands on disk.

Since I use the MainConcept codec, I haven't noticed the big boost in performance that people claim for Vegas, either. A 2.4GHz P4 is entirely adequate for Premiere. My first editing project on the road was Premiere 5.1 on a 500MHz P3. These days, machines (even notebooks) run Premiere extremely well.

I never said VV wasn't a nice package but I disagree that there's a night-and-day difference between it and Premiere. If you already own VV and like it I can think of no compelling reason for you to switch. I would say the same for Premiere owners.

BTW, I figured out how to get rid of the flash without having to re-render in VV, and without disturbing any subsequent (or present!) video effects.

Go to the point in the clip where it is. Drill down to frame level. Select the individual frame, and delete it. Then copy the previous or next frame and paste it back in (making a second copy); this prevents disturbing the video/audio sync (the frame count does not change.)

You've now "fixed" the flash by replacing the frame where it occurred with its next-door-neighbor; assuming it involves only one frame (a flash should only involve one frame) you haven't disturbed the timeline, nor do you need to overlay anything.

I found a place where there was a camera flash in the choral concert that I taped, and successfully removed it with this technique. I can't see the glitch that the doubled frame creates on playback.....

If you did this more than once sequentially you might well be able to detect it.

Now, can you apply color correction to the original clip and have it also apply to the replaced frame? If you slomo the clip to half-speed does the replaced frame automatically become two frames? It's clear you can "razor" a sequence and replace a frame in the middle. Have you done while retaining the logical integrity of the sequence?

Yep. The cut/paste insert is seamless, and a correction applied to the timeline appears to run with the cut/paste.

I've not been able to detect the glitch on close examination; I'll play with some pretty radical effects (which should make it stick out like a sore thumb) and see if I can detect it that way. As near as I can tell the clip is still treated as "intact" for purposes of effects applied to it.

You can also remove the frame entirely (and not replace it with anything!) but that risks upsetting the timing between the audio and video tracks - at least I would expect it to, as you'd be contracting the timeline by that one frame, and thus would now be permanently out of sync by one frame.

I found a better way.

Split at the bad frame.

Split immediately following the bad frame.

Ungroup the audio (if any) so you don't glitch the audio track associated with it.

Delete the bad frame. You now have a "hole", but ONLY for the video; the audio is undisturbed.

Now either (1) split AGAIN on the "good" frame following it and copy THAT, which will put the good frame into the media pool (from which you can "insert" it), or just CTRL-drag (stretch) either end to close the gap (one frame's worth); the audio again remains undisturbed.

If you have an effect (e.g. color correction) applied to the track, it remains seamlessly applied. I did some RADICAL FX to the track and there was no glitch visible, and selecting the replacement frame individually showed the effect properly applied.

Doesn't appear to be a problem and its undetectable to my eye, both on preview and when renderedo out to a DVD on a hidef set.

(Sorry about the delay - I was out diving today! )

Can use subsequently adjust the effects in one location? Can you add new effects just once? It's not surprising that you can edit it on the timeline. The goal is to treat the result as though it were one clip.

Effects can be applied to either a track or to segment(s) within a track, at your option.

In short, yes, it changes nothing in terms of being able to apply effects or to effects that were previously applied. Any former ones still apply and any you add later apply to all as well, unless (of course) you don't want them to. You can also keyframe effects if you wish.

(You can also, if you want, "split" a timeline arbitrarily if you would prefer to treat "pieces" differently for some reason, but you don't have to.)

Basically, you can apply an effect (or any "stack" of effects) to EITHER a clip or a track - if you apply them to a track then editing things within the track does not disturb the effects. If you split a track (which can be done an arbitrary number of times) then you may apply effects to the track or to any portion of the split(s) within the track, as you wish.

The effects that I applied pre-removal of the glitch are seamlessly applied to the "fixed" track, and any that I apply after the fix also seamlessly apply to all the components - including the fix to the glitch.

Can you select portions of the track by clip or only by time range? You need to be able to apply the effect to a combination of clips so that corrections work properly through fades.

Also, this substitute is not quite as good. If the fix occurs near and endpoint you may trim it in and out as you make your editing adjustments. With this technique you have to wait until later in the cycle, then not changes the overall edit.

You can segment a track any way you'd like. If you want to split it into multiple segments you are free to do so, and you may apply effects either to the entire track or to any set of segment(s) (which my be one or more than one clip) as you wish. I usually don't do that, instead relying on keyframes to change effects at various points within a clip if I want to, but you split the clip and then apply the effect(s) only to the segment(s) you wish. Its a "six of one, half-dozen of the other" thing. Splitting the clips makes it easier to determine from quick examination of the timeline exactly where the transition point is as it is clearly indicated on the timeline; otherwise you have to either insert a marker on the timeline (which you might want to do anyway to import a chapter stop on a DVD, for example), or look at where the keyframes are to figure out where things change.

If the trim occurs near an endpoint of a clip the best option is to replace the offending frame with its neighbor, thereby not requiring a stretch to fill the "hole". This way you avoid possible sync issues that could arise if you have a small amount of the clip available to stretch. The potential issue that arises with doing that is that if you adjust playback speed (particularly applying a "slow-motion" effect) you might be able to visually detect the edit, as you have effectively doubled the frame. Another possible option would be to extract the offending frame, "fix it" with some combination of video filters and then insert it back into the timeline! If you did that you'd have to be VERY careful so that whatever you had as a "base" in terms of color and exposure balance in the rest of the timeline was identical to the frame you modified; the FX you put on the line as a whole will apply to that frame, and if the match is not near-exact you will be able to see the glitch.

The "flash" that I removed as a test from the choral concert occurred right at the end during the audience applause - I replaced the offending frames with their neighbors, since there was more than one flash within a few seconds' time and I didn't want to play stretch games with short segments lest it be very visible when rendered out, and I had no intention of doing any slow-mo on the timeline at all (its a choral concert, after all - why would you want to slow that down?)

I had also applied some rather subtle effects to the timeline previously; to insure that your concern was addressed I went in and adjusted some of those parameters to make the effects VERY noticable, so that if the inserted frames did not get the same treatment it'd stick out like a sore thumb.

No problem with that.

From what I can determine doing this stuff is non-destructive to the original source clips as well - I went back and loaded that clip into a new project, and the flash was still there with the original clip unaltered.

I found a better way.

 

Split at the bad frame.

Split immediately following the bad frame.

Ungroup the audio (if any) so you don't glitch the audio track associated with it.

Delete the bad frame. You now have a "hole", but ONLY for the video; the audio is undisturbed.

 

Now either (1) split AGAIN on the "good" frame following it and copy THAT, which will put the good frame into the media pool (from which you can "insert" it), or just CTRL-drag (stretch) either end to close the gap (one frame's worth); the audio again remains undisturbed.

 

If you have an effect (e.g. color correction) applied to the track, it remains seamlessly applied. I did some RADICAL FX to the track and there was no glitch visible, and selecting the replacement frame individually showed the effect properly applied.

 

Doesn't appear to be a problem and its undetectable to my eye, both on preview and when renderedo out to a DVD on a hidef set.

 

(Sorry about the delay - I was out diving today! )

OK, I tried this and it doesn't work. Effects subsequently applied to the set of clips are not adjustable as one.

The answer appears to be in creating an "event group" but as far as I can tell, groups don't work. My version functions as though "ignore event groups" is permanently set to on.

According to the documentation, you can select a set of events and create a group. All subsequent effects will operate on the group. Sounds perfect (if it would work). Must figure out how to do that.

I had no trouble doing this. I had effects applied BEFORE and also applied them AFTER, and all was well.

Try applying the effect to the track rather than to a clip. That's how I did it originally.

I just tried it again on a different clip. Here's the exact sequence I used.

1. Zoom to the offending frame.

2. Hit "S" (split)

3. Move to the next (ok) frame, hit "S" again. You now have the offending frame isolated.

4. Select the audio track, right click, select "UNGROUP" (to avoid buggering the audio)

5. Select the single frame you isolated, and hit "CUT". There is now a "hole" in the video (the audio remains unmolested.)

6. Select the frame to the right (or left, your choice) which is ok and hit "COPY".

7. Point to the hole, hit "PASTE".

8. To re-group the audio and video, select both tracks and all components of the video track, right click and select "GROUP"->ALL ("G"), or just use -A to select all (if that's ok in this instance.)

You can take an effect, subsequent to this, and drop it on the video track (on the left of the timeline) and it will apply to all the pieces of that timeline, including the doctoring you did. I just tried it again and it not only went through just fine on the fixed clip, but also went through on the credit roll at the end! That's what I'd expect since I dropped the effect on the TRACK (and not a clip or subsection.)

I may not be understanding what you're trying to do that is failing subsequent to the fix, but it doesn't fail in this sequence.... what are you attempting that doesn't work?

I don't want to do that. I want it to apply only to the "fixed" clip. Do you understand what the whole point is?

You fix a clip (event) that has one bad frame in it. The frame is entirely white so you fix it with the adjacent frame. The "fixed" event should subsequently function exactly and in every conceivable way like every other event. Later you will trim it, adjust its speed, motion, etc, add transitions and color correction. You should not have to treat it piecemeal. That's the whole point.

In your example, you applied the correction beforehand. That may work but it doesn't matter. If you have to edit the correction later, which you definitely will, you will have to do it three times instead of once. That doesn't cut it.

The key is to create a group out of the three pieces. That is clearly what the group concept is for and the trick is to understand why it doesn't work as documented.

Ok, I see what you're trying to do.

Why can't you drop the effect on the track - and if you need logical separation between elements, use multiple tracks?

Update: I posted the query over on SF's web board and was given a suggestion that might do what you're looking for Craig - if you drop an effect on a MEDIA POOL CLIP, it applies to everything derived from it (!) So that would do what you're looking for I believe.... (tried it, and indeed it does.)