Not long ago, the storage demands of digital audio, combined with the processor power required to carry out the task, had computers struggling to output the necessary horsepower. Computer makers have since tackled the even larger demands of digital video – and they’ve done it with aplomb. By today’s standards, even a relatively modest computer has the power and storage necessary to edit digital video. With FireWire ports and DVD burners growing increasingly common, the modern computer is truly becoming a one-box video production house.
Hardware is only half the story, however; software also
needs to be powerful, nimble and fast for digital video production. A small
handful of consumer-level
editing packages have fit this description in the past, one of the most established
being Adobe Premiere. Sonic Foundry’s Vegas software ($489 U.S. downloaded
from www.sonicfoundry.com) has been challenging Premiere on the PC platform
for several years, and has built up quite a loyal following among both consumers
and professionals. We tested the new Vegas 4.0 version, which is easily the
software’s most powerful and refined release to date.
A Line in Time
As with most video editing packages, Vegas uses
a timeline to organize and combine audio and video “events”. You
can stack up an unlimited number of audio and video tracks on the timeline.
Video tracks
affect others
that lie beneath, and there is a wealth of compositing options to control the
interaction of these layered tracks. A parent-child overlay effect, new to
Vegas 4.0, opens up many possibilities for creating video effects that range
from subtle (even organic) to downright wild.
Luckily, you don’t have to understand darken, bump map or source alpha compositing modes to use Vegas. You can get started by simply dragging clips from Vegas’ flexible media bins and arranging them on the timeline. Butt two audio/ video clips together with a slight overlap, for example, and Vegas creates an automatic crossfade. Drag one of the program’s excellent video transitions from the transition bin, and Vegas applies it between a pair of layered clips.
Controlling how layered clips affect each other is only part of the Vegas story—the software also gives you access to a generous supply of video and audio plug-in effects. You can apply these to all clips on a given track, all clips from the same media file, or to individual clips on the timeline. These plug-ins cover the gamut from engineer-style video correctors to more creative effects like “film grain,” “audio reverb,” and “TV simulator.”
As with most aspects of Vegas, you can choose a simple way to apply effects or one that offers more control. For ultimate ease, just drag an effects preset icon (animated to show the effect, no less) from Vegas’ plug-in folder and drop it onto your clip. The effect is applied, at which point you can make any adjustments required. To start with default settings and maximum control, just apply the plug-in directly. You can continue to cascade plug-ins onto the same event until you’re satisfied with the look (or sound) of the clip.
Most folks would be happy with this degree of control over a project, but Vegas is just getting started. One of the most powerful aspects of the software is its ability to automate many of its video and audio effects. This automation is also accomplished on a timeline, with keyframes storing plug-in settings for discrete moments in time. Between keyframes, Vegas smoothly automates plug-in parameters to achieve seamless changes in the look or sound of your project.
Want more automation? Each video or audio event can have “envelopes” (or control lines) superimposed, the height of which changes some parameters of the clip. Add points to the line, angle the line segments up and down, and you’re controlling video opacity, audio pan, reverb level or some other parameter over time.
One of the more impressive envelopes Vegas offers is the “velocity” envelope. With a range of +300% to –300% (reverse playback), the velocity envelope lets you automate the speed and direction of playback of a given clip. Imagine video of an object falling, coming to rest in mid-air, then smoothly reversing to fly back up again. Velocity envelopes allow you to control time in this fashion with fluid, naturallooking results.
At the risk of sounding like an infomercial, there’s more. A pan/crop feature allows you to “zoom in” on moving video or still image events (among other things), enlarging a smaller portion to fill the screen. You can rotate or tilt the image, smoothly adjusting its perceived size or location on the screen. Again, keyframes are “key” to the automation of the pan/crop tool. Motion path smoothing and motion blur make for silky-smooth, professional results. With pan/crop, still images can become engaging, visually interesting moving images. Similar controls allow pan, crop and animation of a full video track as well as individual events.
In addition to video and audio events, Vegas has “generated media” events you can add to your production. These include textures, test patterns, text, scrolling credits, gradients, solid colors and more. You can place these elements in your video as backgrounds, float them on top of other clips, or composite them with images for more dramatic effect. For example, take a random wavy line texture and place it over a video clip in parent/child relationship. Animate the texture in height map mode, and voilà: your video looks like it’s underneath shallow, rippling water. The possibilities are endless.
Sonic Foundry began as a maker of audio production tools, and the company is still best known for its ACID loop-based music software. This audio savvy rubs off on Vegas, giving the software some impressive sound-sculpting capabilities. The suite of audio plug-ins provided with Vegas 4.0 is comprehensive, and many can be automated on the timeline. Throw in pro-caliber 5.1 surround mixing capabilities, multiple busses, support for low-latency ASIO drivers and good integration of external Direct-X effects, and you’ve got the power to make a video that sounds as good as it looks. About the only thing missing from Vegas 4.0 on the audio side is a wave editor.
Living in Vegas
Vegas has a learning curve, but it’s not nearly as steep as one might
expect for such a powerful package. Control layout is intuitive overall, and
pop-up labels on most every button are a real help. Speaking of help, the Vegas
online manual is well written and comprehensive. Many interface screens and
windows offer context-sensitive help, which is a real plus. Too bad one of
the software’s least-intuitive functions—event pan/crop—doesn’t
feature its own help window.
In use, Vegas is crisp and efficient. Getting around the timeline is simple, thanks to well conceived zoom, scroll and preview functions. Many event and track parameters are a single click away, and Vegas uses the right mouse button (and subsequent pop-up window) to great effect.
Power users will love Vegas’ efficient keyboard commands for quick trimming and adjusting of clips on the timeline. Coupled with an intelligent auto-ripple feature to adjust all clips following an edit, these key commands mean far less reaching for the mouse. As an editing session stretches into the wee hours of the night (as they often do), such timesavers become all the more beneficial.
Speaking of time, plan to have plenty of it on-hand when rendering the final output of a very complex video production. Even with a fast machine, the nearly unlimited layers of effects, transitions, compositing and automation you can build up in Vegas really tax the computer’s CPU.
Though Vegas will run on a relatively modest Windows computer (400 MHz Pentium, 128 MB RAM), the time it takes to render previews and finished productions is directly affected by the computer’s speed. Computer shoppers take note: Vegas takes full advantage of HyperThreading, a speed-boosting chip architecture found on the latest and fastest Intel Pentium processors (Xeon or Pentium 4 at 3.06 GHz).
Stability of Vegas was quite good during the testing period, though I did have some sluggishness when task-switching between Vegas 4.0 and other applications (Microsoft Word, in this case). Turns out Vegas closes out all media files when you switch to another application, a file integrity feature that you can disable if desired. Other lengthy delays may have been due to a corrupt video project, as Vegas would lock up for a short time when opening the project and initially rendering thumbnail images in the media bins.
Final Output
Vegas offers an impressive balance of power and ease-ofuse,
two goals that often compete in software applications. Stick to the basics,
and a person can
trim, place, transition and render their way to a completed video production
in a relatively small amount of time and with little expertise. Click a few
more buttons in Vegas, and curious editors can find themselves at the helm
of an almost dizzyingly powerful production system. I got sucked so deep into
this software— and had so much fun along the way—that it was tough
to pull away and actually write this review.
Because it puts a friendly face on some serious editing power, Vegas 4.0 is a good choice for churches looking to get into video editing. If your church has at least one person with technical acumen and a desire to learn, the implementation of a video production system might be easier than you think.
BUYING A COMPUTER FOR VIDEO EDITING
Though most any modern computer can handle digital video, skimping on the hardware will only cost you in rendering time. For that reason, plan on purchasing the fastest computer out there with lots of hard drive space. Sound expensive? Not necessarily—any church should be able to set up a basic video/stereo audio editing system with fast computer, software and audio/video monitors for under $5,000 (U.S.).
Here’s one possible video editing workstation (prices are approximate and quoted in U.S. dollars):
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Editor’s Note: This past May, Sony Pictures Digital purchased Sonic
Foundry’s desktop audio and music production product family, including
the Vegas audio and video production software.“Sonic Foundry will continue
operations, focusing on Web-based, rich-media presentation and database software,” says Rimas Buinevicius, chair and chief executive officer of Sonic Foundry in an
article for PCWorld.com.
