How to convert MKV to AVI format and import into Sony Vegas to edit

When you got a MKV video and want to edit it with Sony Vegas, you will find that this professional video editor does not support MKV video. As wen know, Sony Vegas is a professional video editing software package for non-linear editing systems (NLE) originally published by Sonic Foundry, with video file formats supported including AVI/DIVX/XVID/WMV/MPEG. That means if you want to import MKV video files to to Sony Vegas for editing, you need to convert MKV to Sony Vegas video with a MKV to Vegas Converter first. Next I will introduce a reliable method to convert MKV to AVI format easily so that you can edit your video.

At first, you need to download a great Video Converter. I recommend you to use Leawo MKV to AVI Converter. This video converter could not only convert MKV to Sony Vegas AVI/ DIVX/XVID/WMV/MPEG, but also convert other video files to Sony Vegas videos for easy editing.

So, let's get this tutorial start.

Step1: Import MKV video
Launch this MKV to AVI converter to import MKV video for converting. Preview source MKV video files to make sure you import the right MKV files you want to process.

Step 2: Select the output profile and video quality.
Select the output profile as AVI video and click "settings" to set the output video quality.

Step 3: Start Conversion
Click the big button on the left to start convert MKV to Sony Vegas video format.

10 Insider Tips for Getting the Most out of Sony Vegas Pro 11

Have you upgraded to Sony Vegas Pro 11? Use these tips to get the most out of the new features.

1.    To deliver a high-quality video file for posting on sites like YouTube, Vimeo, or your own website, render to the MainConcept AVC format and use the Internet HD 1080p template. This provides a  high-quality video, and if you have an OpenCL-enabled graphics card in your render computer, the render will draw on the card’s GPU to render significantly faster than other formats.

2.    To render a file for Web streaming, render to the MainConcept AVC format and select the Enable Progressive Download checkbox in the Video tab of the Custom Settings dialog box. This results in a file that users can seek through even before the entire file has finished downloading from the streaming server.

3.    In the Render As dialog box, select the Add this render template to your favorites button for each template that you frequently use. Then, when you want to find those templates in the future, select the Show favorites only checkbox. This sorts your list of file formats and templates down to just those you’ve marked as favorites. Instead of looking through dozens of formats and scores of templates, you now only need to browse through your few favorites to find the one you want.

4.    If you have several events on your timeline that are related (for example, as part of a sequence), you’ll probably want to be able to control their position on the timeline as a related pack of events. The Grouping function is great for this. However, if you know that you may also need to tweak the placement or trimming of individual events within the related pack (e.g., making minor adjustments to the position of a sound effect event), grouping can be too restrictive. In such cases, use the new Sync Link feature to create a relationship between the events. Sync Link works much like Grouping in that you can move the entire pack by moving the control event, but offers more flexibility to adjust individual members of the pack without adjusting the others.

5.    The new OFX implementation for video filters, transitions, and media generators, provides you with greater control over parameter animation. To animate any parameter in these plug-ins, click the individual Animate button for that parameter. If you’ve animated several plug-ins in the same chain or several parameters of the same plug-in, click the Curves button to view and work on the resulting automation envelopes separately. Click the tag for the effect and parameter you want to adjust in order to sort the envelope view and make it very easy to find the envelope you need for the parameter you’re adjusting.

6.    To quickly add animated text to your project, click the Media Generators tab and select the new Titles & Text generator from the list. Point to the various presets to find the animation you like, and drag that preset into your timeline. If you decide you want a different animation, choose the new one from the Animation drop-down list in the Video Media Generator window.

7.    When using the new Titles & Text generator, use the text box that appears in the Video Preview window to adjust the size and position of your text. This makes it extremely easy to place your text into your video in a way that is most appropriate relative to the content of your video. If the position box does not appear in the Video Preview window, click the Generated Media button for the event that holds your text on the timeline. This opens the Video Media Generators window with the text controls in it, and also opens the position box in the Video Preview window.

8.    If you experience an edge violation in your 3D video clips, the viewer’s brain will have trouble making sense out of the placement of objects in the foreground of your scene. To avoid this problem, use the Floating Windows controls in the Stereoscopic 3D Adjust filter to mask the appropriate video stream, thus eliminating the conflicting visual signals caused by the edge violation.

9.    When you use the Cookie Cutter filter or the Iris or Cross Effect transitions on 3D footage, the cutout created by these plug-ins can conflict with the 3D placement of objects in your video. To correct such conflicts, use the new Stereoscopic 3D Depth Control to move the cutout behind or in front of screen depth so that it works more effectively with other objects in the video.

10.  You can specify whether you want Vegas Pro to process event video effects in your project either before or after any cropping adjustments to the event. Depending on the effect you’re using and the pan/crop adjustments you’re making, this can have a big impact on the final appearance of your video. Event pan/cropping is simply a part of the video event FX chain and you can place it anywhere within that chain. If you want to pan/crop before any video effects, you don’t need to change anything — this is the “Pre-Effect Mode” and is the default state. If you want to pan/cropping after the effects are applied (Post-Effect Mode), drag the “Pan/Crop“ button from the beginning of the effects chain and drop it after the button for the effect. You can set pan/cropping into post-effects mode for some effects in the chain while it remains in pre-effects mode for others.

Source is
http://www.onlinevideo.net/2011/11/10-insider-tips-for-getting-the-most-out-of-sony-vegas-pro-11/

Sony Vegas Pro 11 review

It’s a little disconcerting when a software publisher releases an update but doesn’t bother to put a list of new features on its website. We half expected Vegas Pro 11 to be a damp squib, but the truth is quite the opposite.

Many of the new features stem from a move to a new effects plugin architecture called OFX. This first appeared in version 10 but only for a solitary new effect. This time, 36 of the 57 existing effects – including all our most commonly used ones – have been ported to OFX, along with one new in-house effect and eight third-party effects from NewBlue.

OFX enables a feature we’ve been requesting for years: keyframe lanes. Previously, each effect had a single string of keyframes, and this made it tricky to automate multiple parameters because the timeline became clogged with redundant keyframes. For the OFX effects, each parameter has its own keyframe lane, which is enabled as required.

It’s also possible to create curved paths between keyframes using Bézier handles. These are features that Adobe Premiere Pro has offered for years, and it’s great to see Vegas Pro finally catch up.

Sadly, Bézier curves and keyframe lanes haven’t found their way to the Pan/Crop or Track Motion editors, which is where they’d be most useful. As a result, moving videos and graphics around the frame remains clumsy compared to Premiere Pro. Position keyframes get in the way of Rotation keyframes, for example, and there’s only basic control over the speed and trajectory.

OFX also introduces another, even bigger, new development, however: GPU acceleration. Sony has wisely chosen the OpenCL framework, which means you should see benefits from a wide variety of graphics hardware. Testing with our Intel Core i7-870 PC and Nvidia GTX 275 graphics card, the improvements over Vegas Pro 10 were immense.

With the preview window set to 1,920 x 1,080 and a light Gaussian Blur effect applied to an AVCHD clip, version 10’s preview frame rate dropped to 7fps. With version 11 it hovered just below 25fps with two instances of the same effect applied.

In another test, we stacked eight demanding effects on top of each other. Vegas Pro 10’s previews fell to 1fps, but version 11 managed 21fps. Rendering these same effects showed a 65% performance improvement.

These tests were designed to highlight speed improvements, so we also opened an old project created in version 10, and saw a 46% improvement in render speed. Basic decoding performance was up, too, with version 11 previewing six simultaneous AVCHD streams at 1080p whereas version 10 could only manage four.

Source is

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/software/371086/sony-vegas-pro-11

How to Edit Video with Sony Vegas?

1.    Go to: File - New. This will bring up a new project where you will select your desired options. It will also ask you where you want your prerecorded files saved. Be organized! (If you ever need to work on something in the future, but you've move these files somewhere else in the meantime, Vegas won't be able to find them.) Make a new folder for your items. For learning purposes, keep the default settings: NTSC DV (720x480, 29.970 fps). This is for your standard aspect ratio (4x3) and a standard frame rate. You'll notice other tabs such as Audio, Ruler, Summary and Audio CD. Just stick with Video for now. This is all you will need to get started.

2.    Select your options and decide what folder you're placing your data in. Then import your video to edit. To import you can select File, Capture Video. Or, if your video footage is already on the computer, just go to File, Import, Media. You also have the ability to just drag and drop media into Vegas from a folder.

3.    Click Capture Video. The program will ask if it's DV or HDV. Select what applies to your camera. A window called Sony Video Capture will pop up. This gives you the options to Capture, Advance Capture, and Print to Tape. After plugging in your camera with the appropriate method, the program will automatically recognize your device. Proceed to capture the video, which will import into Vegas.

4.   Importing from a file is as easy as drag and drop, or File, Import, Media. Either way the media will fall into the Vegas Timeline ready for editing. Just select what media you want to drop, either from the Import menu or using drag and drop, and you're ready to begin your edit. (Note: Import Media or drag and drop also works on pictures and audio.)

5.    Begin some basic edits, now that you have your media in place.

Basic Edits

1.   Hit Ctrl A and drag your media to the beginning of the time line, if necessary. Use the Up and Down arrows to zoom in and out of the frames. If you use the Up arrow as far as it goes, you will see all of the frames. Use the side-to-side arrows to rewind and fast-forward through the timeline. You can select and use the trimmer, but it isn't necessary. That's getting a little more technical.

2.    Delete visual or audio clips by selecting the undesired and simply hitting Delete on the keyboard. If you want to shorten the length of a clip, simply click on the end or beginning of the clip with your mouse, and drag it to the middle to your desired length. If you want to cut (or splice) a clip in two, simply zoom in with the Up arrow, scrub through with the side arrow, and hit S to splice exactly where you want.

3.    Apply simply effects. If you look at the end of each frame, you will see there are two buttons: Event Pan/Crop and Event FX. You can also step things up with plug-ins, although out of the box Vegas has a lot of plug-ins ready to go. Select all of the frames you want to have the same effect: group them by right-clicking and going to Group. Then when you apply anything to one frame, it will do it to them all.

4.    Speed up or slow down a scene using Velocity Envelope, which many call Motion Control. Just go to the desire section you want to add slow-motion to. Splice exactly the scene desired, then right-click the scene and select Insert/Remove Envelope; Velocity. This will make a green line appear in the middle of the scene. You can move it down for slow motion, or speed things up by moving it up. Right-click the line to assign markers. With markers, you can gradually speed things up or down.

5.    Render your video. Just take your loop region at the top of the time line right above the times. Make sure you're at the beginning of the video. Drag it to the end of your video. Go to File, Render As and select an option. You can render your video in many formats, such as .mov or .wmv.

Sony Launches Vegas Pro 11 Editing Software With New Titler Pro 3D Titles Tool

Award-winning NLE software provides comprehensive GPU acceleration, NVIDIA 3D vision support and new titling technology

Sony Creative Software, a leading global provider of professional editing and authoring applications, today announces the latest upgrade to its Vegas™ editing technology. Vegas Pro 11 adds significant performance improvements to the award-winning NLE, courtesy of OpenCL™ and highly optimised GPU hardware acceleration for video processing and rendering.

Vegas Pro 11 is the world’s first Windows based OpenCL NLE, broadly supporting the open standard for core video editing operations, video FX, and rendering. New features include NVIDIA 3D Vision support for single-display 3D computers such as the VAIO F Series 3D laptops and L Series 3D desktops, an enhanced video stabiliser tool and new software tools for creating animated titles.

“Sony continues to be a leader in developing professional content-creation applications that are extremely powerful, yet easy to use,” said Dave Chaimson, vice president of global marketing for Sony Creative Software. “With the addition of GPU acceleration, Vegas Pro 11 streamlines the video editing experience by providing smoother previews and faster rendering times, ideal for industry professionals who work on tight deadlines where every second counts. Utilising the OpenCL standard, customers will find that even very affordable GPU solutions from AMD and NVIDIA offer workflow enhancements that provide between 2 and 4 times faster rendering speeds, with equally as impressive performance gains during video playback.”

Vegas Pro 11 Feature Highlights:

GPU Accelerated Video Processing – Working with OpenCL-supported devices from AMD and NVIDIA, Vegas Pro 11 uses GPU acceleration for the core video processing engine, video FX, transitions, compositing, pan/crop, track motion, and encoding, providing a significantly faster workflow.

· Sync Link – More powerful than Event Grouping, this comprehensive editing feature enables users to easily organise and synchronise events on the timeline. Secondary audio and B-roll video clips can be edited independently of each other while remaining in sync with the primary clip.

· 2D and 3D Text Tools – Quickly create dynamic and visually stunning text animations and effects within Vegas Pro 11. Add 3D titles with the new Titler Pro from NewBlueFX; a great addition to the stereoscopic 3D workflow. Users can manipulate text, down to the character level, on the X, Y, and Z axes. Stylised 2D motion can be applied to text events using the Titles and Text tool or with the improved ProType titler.

· Advanced Video Stabilisation – Featuring motion analysis on all three camera axes, this new stabilisation technology allows users to reduce jittery or shaky video caused by hand-held recording devices, as well as eliminating rolling shutter problems inherent in most CMOS camera imagers. Stabilisation is now implemented as an OpenFX plug-in which provides greater flexibility and power.

· Improved NVIDIA 3D Vision Support – Users can now edit on single-display 3D computers including VAIO F Series 3D laptops and VAIO L Series All-in-One 3D desktop systems.

New Render Template Filtering –New render dialogs create a more efficient environment for searching and filtering render templates speeding up the workflow for finalising output formats.

Industry-Leading Innovation, Broad Format Support

Sony Creative Software continues to innovate with world-class support for 3D technology and strong integrated video and audio tools through its latest version. Vegas Pro 11 improves on its “no transcode, no re-wrap” heritage by adding native format support for stereoscopic 3D MVC and MPO files from Sony camcorders and DSLRs. By eliminating the transcode and re-wrap process required by other applications, Vegas Pro 11 users can save valuable production time, minimise storage requirements, and preserve the pristine quality of the original source material. Other natively supported codecs and formats include XDCAM, XDCAM EX™, HDCAM-SR™, NXCAM, AVCHD, AVCCAM, RED R3D, RED EPIC, and AVC-based .MOV and RAW files from popular DSLR cameras. Native P2 support is also available with an optional plug-in. Users now have the option to render to the AVC/MP4 file format which includes progressive file download support for streaming purposes.

Vegas Pro 11 easily handles complex projects with multiple formats and mixed resolutions, from standard definition to 4K. The intuitive, integrated stereoscopic workflow in Vegas Pro 11 enables novices as well as experienced editors to produce compelling 3D content without the added expense or complexity of aftermarket plug-ins.

“Vegas Pro meets the high standards required for our films, including managing and processing 4K 3D workflow,” said Jean-Jacques Mantello, director of the acclaimed IMAX theater films “Dolphins and Whales 3D,” “Sharks 3D” and “Ocean Wonderland,” distributed by 3D Entertainment Distribution. “We’ve come to expect a consistent level of quality from Vegas Pro.”

Source is
http://3droundabout.com/2011/10/5232/sony-launches-vegas-pro-11-editing-software-with-new-titler-pro-3d-titles-tool.html

Sony Creative Software Releases Vegas™Movie Studio Visual Effects Suite

Sony announced the availability of Vegas Movie Studio Visual Effects Suite. Combining the high-performance video and audio editing tools found in Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11 with the high-quality special effects of HitFilm Standard, from UK-based experts FXhome. The Vegas Movie Studio Visual Effects Suite provides a comprehensive solution for aspiring filmmakers and video editors to create premium special effects for their creative projects.

"To differentiate productions found on the big or small screen, users require impressive visual effects that go beyond what's included in typical stand-alone software applications," said Dave Chaimson, vice president of global marketing for Sony Creative Software. "Vegas Movie Studio Visual Effects Suite meets the needs of budget-minded filmmakers and hobbyists who desire the capability to create movies with stunning visual effects utilizing world-class applications that are now available at affordable prices. We not only provide an award-winning editing platform, but combine it with a powerful solution that provides an incredible array of animated effects, color grading options and realistic particle generators."
Vegas Movie Studio Visual Effects Suite is an easy-to-use video and audio editing program that enables filmmakers to effortlessly add cinematic effects to their projects. With a robust visual effects toolset – including 3D compositing and green screen capabilities – the Vegas Movie Studio Visual Effects Suite gives users everything they need to produce and distribute high-quality content to popular online services like Vimeo®, YouTube™ and Facebook®.

Key Features in Vegas Movie Studio Visual Effects Suite:

• 2D Layer Compositing – Blend layers together to create visual effects such as invisibility, with intuitive and sophisticated layering tools
• Genuine 3D Compositing – Add pre-designed 3D particle effects like smoke, fire, explosions and shockwaves, plus extra layers of realism with automatic lighting and shadow effects
• Numerous Effects Filters – Choose from a versatile collection of 40 different filters to blur, warp, color-correct and stylize videos to their specific needs
• Green Screen Removal – Remove green screens from difficult source video and replace them with new video backgrounds to create convincing composited shots  
• 3D Gunfire Generator – Safely and inexpensively create fully 3D muzzle flashes to augment action sequences

Source is http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sony-creative-software-releases-vegas-movie-studio-visual-effects-suite-130177558.html