Several changes to Sony Vegas have been seen since NAB this year. At NAB, Sony previewed Vegas Pro 10.0d and a couple months later, 10.0e is now available. So what has changed this year in Vegas? Let’s take a look at the changes introduced in both of these new releases. To read about the initial new features added in Vegas Pro 10, see the previous article here: http://www.dvinfo.net/article/post/preview-sony-vegas-pro-10.html.
As Sony releases new updates to Vegas, they continue to add support for more cameras and file formats. The “d” and “e” releases added support for .MVC (multiview video coding) which is the format used by cameras such as the Sony HDR-TD10, NX3D1, TD300, and the Alpha and NEX series camcorders, .MPO (multiple picture option) which is used bye Sony Cyber-shot 3D Sweep Panorama and other 3D still cameras, auto detection of the 3D format used by Sony 3D Bloggie cameras, Omneon Spectrum RDD9 MXF files, LPCM audio support in MVC files, and more formats being supported and improved reading speeds with every release.
The “Burn Blu-ray Disc” option can now properly burn 3D projects to a 3D Disc image file (.iso). If you are producing a commercial 3D project, this can let you easily send test files to your replication company.
Rendering speeds are also being improved by adding more options for GPU support. Both NVIDIA and ATI video cards that support CUDA can be used to help with rendering speeds. However, I still recommend simply using a faster system to get addition speed increases in rendering, editing, decoding files, previewing, and all other tasks required to finish a project.
Closed Captioning has also been improved. Captions can now be automatically read from MPEG2 files and written back to MPEG2 files upon rendering. To do this, simply load the MPEG2 file with captioning on the timeline and the captions will be automatically pulled in with the clip. Next you need to run the “Promote Media Closed Captioning” script to get the caption markers on the timeline. Once done, you can then edit the captions as desired and render back out to a new file with captions included. Now anyone can create standard DVDs containing closed captioning with no extra software required. Several scripts are also available to export the captions into many different formats.
A few more usability features include reading/writing higher color depths when using the Cineform codec, rendering multi-channel audio to Quicktime format, and new mute/solo options on track groups in addition to individual tracks. Each new update continues to add more features keeping Vegas the leader in abilities and ease of use.
About the Author
Edward Troxel owns Jetdv Scripts which writes scripts and custom commands for Sony Vegas Pro. Edward wrote the first commercial script for Sony Vegas called Excalibur which was first released in April of 2003. Since then, Edward has written many other private and commercial scripts including the recently released Montage Magic. Edward has a Vegas forum containing many “Tips, Tricks, and Scripts” newsletters explaining many techniques in Vegas. Edward also works for NewBlue, Inc, a maker of video effects, video transitions, and audio effects which work with all major NLE’s.
