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Vegas Movie Studio 9.0a 
AK1200 + GRIDLOK remix contest 
IBC 2008 
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 IBC Sneak Preview The Sony Creative Software team is jetting off to Amsterdam this week for the IBC 2008 tradeshow (International Broadcasters Conference). At the show we will be featuring Vegas Pro 8, DVD Architect Pro 5, Cinescore, and Blu-print software, as well as other Sony software applications. Additionally, Sony Creative Software will be showcasing the new Vegas Pro 8.0c and 8.1 updates, which will be available for download later this month. Vegas Pro 8.0c update:
Vegas Pro 8.1 update: Ready for 64-bit Vegas Pro? The advantages of running Vegas Pro 8.1 on a 64-bit PC with a 64-bit compatible operating system include increased computer memory and editing power, more files open on the timeline, more filters and effects, more cached frames, and faster rendering performance. Stay tuned for information on the availability of both updates — FREE to registered users of Vegas Pro 8 soon!  ACID Pro 6 meets MIDI by Craig Anderton (Before getting into this issue's column, the August column on using Sound Forge to stretch audio in Vegas needs some clarification. That column gave the impression you can't stretch audio in Vegas, but you can by Ctrl-dragging the end of the audio file to the desired length; you can also Ctrl-drag the end of a video file to stretch it without having to use the velocity envelope. However, the method described in the column of opening the audio file in Sound Forge is more flexible, as Sound Forge offers several stretching algorithms that are optimized for processing specific types of audio. These optimized algorithms can often give higher fidelity compared to using Vegas' general-purpose stretching algorithm.)  A MIDI Track's output is driving Native Instruments' FM8 soft synth. Data has been recorded into the track; "Inline MIDI Editing" is enabled so data can be edited within the track itself. Note that the mixer includes a channel for the FM8's audio output. MIDI was created in the mid-80s to answer the need for a "computer data language" that could "talk" to the new generation of digital music gear. For example, you could record data representing a musical performance into a computer, then play back the MIDI data into a MIDI-compatible keyboard capable of converting the data into music (conceptually, think "player piano"). However, when hard disk audio recording became affordable, MIDI lost some appeal because musicians could simply record audio directly to the hard drive, rather than using the more roundabout approach of recording data, which could then drive a synthesizer to create audio. Click here to continue Author/musician Craig Anderton is Editor in Chief of www.harmony-central.com and Executive Editor for EQ magazine. He not only maintains an active musical career, but has also lectured on technology and the arts in 37 states, 10 countries, and three languages.  13-year old filmmaker (and Vegas user) Ben Kadie Award-winning young filmmaker, Ben Kadie—now 13—grew up playing with video editing software and working on projects with his father. By age 12, he and a friend launched their own film production company, "Slugco Inc." and had picked up multiple awards, including twice winning the Seattle Times Three-Minute Masterpiece Youth Award. His films have screened at the Seattle International Film Festival and at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth. At these festivals he has often been the youngest filmmaker. Switching to Sony Vegas After upgrading from an older program called ULead, Kadie became hooked on Sony Vegas. "Sony Vegas was just the next step up with editing," says Kadie. "I found that Vegas is just so much quicker to use." Ben made "A Friendly Game" with his school friend Dylan Forbes. "A Friendly Game" was filmed in HD and edited in the HD-ready Sony Vegas. But "A Friendly Game" wasn't Kadie's first editing project as a Sony Vegas producer. "I used it on a 24-minute movie I made called '009' — it is a James Bond spoof," he explains. He learned the ins and outs of Sony Vegas while working on that film. The film "009" stars Kadie and his friend Noah Hirsch. David Hovel composed the score using Sony ACID Pro. Editing in Sony Vegas The "Friendly Game" project took just four days to edit. "I really like Sony Vegas," says Kadie. "There are just so many shortcuts and it's much quicker to use. And you can edit the film while you watch it in real time." Kadie edited both "009" and "A Friendly Game" on a single-processor eMachine with an external drive, but recently upgraded to a quad-processor Dell with 3GB of memory for the work he is doing on his next film. Click here to continue Tech tip: Scripting in Vegas Pro and Sound Forge by Gary Rebholz  One feature that sets Sony Creative Software applications apart from all others is a robust support for scripting. Both Vegas Pro and Sound Forge support scripting technology. In this article, we're going to explore scripting and gain an understanding of just how powerful this feature is. I'll talk in mostly general terms about scripting in Vegas Pro, but for the most part scripts work in a similar fashion in Sound Forge.First things first; what exactly is scripting? Basically, we've opened up the functionality in these applications to you so that you can streamline repetitive tasks, customize your application and workflow, and more. Think about things that you find yourself doing over and over when you're editing. Think about those times when you've thought, "Man, I wish there was a faster way to get this repetitive process done!" Those are the times that scripting was invented for! Here's an example. Say you've got 300 video events in your timeline and they all have straight cuts from one to the next. You show the project to the client for review and she says, "This is fantastic!" Your heart soars with your accomplishment and you can already feel that check in your hands. Then she says, "The only thing I want you to do is create a fade out of 15 frames at the end of each clip and a fade in of 15 frames at the beginning of each so that they all fade to black before the next one fades in. And I need that done in 15 minutes, because the CEO is stopping by to see it." Your heart sinks and that paycheck just flew out of reach. Even though we all know that working in Vegas Pro is faster than working anywhere else, that's a total of 600 different fades you have to create! Even if you had all the time in the world to do it, the task would numb your mind with repetition. Here's where scripting can help. You can run a script—think of it as a mini program that runs inside Vegas Pro—to automate the job for you and get it done in a fraction of the time it would take to do it by hand. That's powerful. Let's take a look at a script to see exactly how you can use them. Several scripts are installed on your system when you install Vegas Pro. One of these adds a timecode filter to every piece of media in your project. This can be helpful for a number of situations during the review process. Open a project that contains several events that use different clips. Place your cursor within the different events and notice in the Video Preview window that none of your events show timecode, as you see in Figure 1.  The Video Preview window shows that the currently selected clip displays no timecode information. To get the significance of how much time the script will save, let's add timecode to one clip manually and count the steps along the way: Click here to continue Gary Rebholz is the training manager for Sony Creative Software. Gary produces the popular Seminar Series training packages for Vegas Pro, ACID Pro, and Sound Forge software. He is also co-author of the book Digital Video & Audio Production. Gary has conducted countless hands-on classes in the Sony Creative Software training center, as well as at tradeshows such as the National Association of Broadcasters show. |
