Hi, and welcome to my little corner of the web. This site, at least for now, is devoted to video editing, primarily with Sonic Foundry's Vegas. I've used Vegas for about two years now and find it to be not only very powerful, but easy to use as well and quite intuitive. If you're use to using Premiere or another video editor, you'll find Vegas does some things somewhat differently, however after a short while you'll discover the differences are different for a reason... Vegas does it smarter, faster and more intuitively which means you spend less time discovering how to do specific tasks and more time actually thinking about your video project.

The section to the right takes you to some tutorials I've written (the buttons are rollovers which show what the tutorial is about) and I've also provided links to other people's sites that have shared their experiences and also provide tips, more tutorials while Chienworks site offers a depository for Vegas users to share their videos which demonstrate some of many things you can do with Vegas. If you have or plan to write a Vegas support site and wish to have it linked from my site drop me an email or post in the Vegas forum.

Have trouble finding your images, your videos, not happy with Vegas bins? Consider the method I use for recordkeeping.

Some interesting sites related to Video Editing and Related Topics

Other Vegas Help sites:

DVD Demystified If you're new to the world of DVD or really want to get into the nuts and bolts, this extensive FAQ will answer most of your questions.

DVD Formats Explained DVD Format Compatibility Chart, much more. If seeing all the various DVD formats, DVD-R DVD-RW DVD-RAM DVD+R DVD+RW makes your head spin, this site explains it.

DVD+RW Alliance Deciding on which DVD format to use can be tricky. Since I have a +RW drive I'm linking to this site which covers the whole universe on DVD-RW, brands, features, advantages, etc..

DVD +RW Forum Having trouble with your DVD drive? If its a DVD+R/RW this forum may have the answer.

DVD/VCD Help is a very busy site that covers a broad range of topics on everything from basic how-to to which media works best, creating, authoring, editing videos and DVD's, plus a very extensive list of which set top DVD players support which format, and on top of all that there is a collection of forums.

DVD Video Format & Features Fairly detailed PDF format document that explains the various DVD formats with an overview of the DVD specifications.

Media College A nice site primarily aimed at the newbie. Gives some nice tips on how to use cameras, explains a lot of the jargon, in depth how-to, tutorials, like how to set easily set white balance, frame the shot and more

MPEG (Moving Picture Expert Group) Tends to be on the very technical side but a good source for the nuts and bolts behind this popular file format.

Scanning Tips If I were to rate this extensive how-to on scanning, I'd give five stars for sure. Allow several hours at least to absorb the treasure chest of information.

XML FAQ OK, you've been meaning to learn XML (so you can make custom DVD-A templates) this site won't make you an excellent coder overnight, but it will at least give you a taste of what's involved. If some of you thought HTML was tough... If you're not ready to take the plunge, and are still into HTML this W3C site gives enough details to choke a horse. Index of HTML Elements in mind numbing details.

Some of my favorite none video sites

Broadband Reports This site has absolutely nothing to due with video editing, but it a useful site if you have a broadband Internet connection or have been thinking about getting one.

Camp Chaos What's that they say about all work and no play? Well if you got a few minutes this is one site that may make you laugh. A series of very well done Flash cartoons. The author is rumored to be a Vegas user, don't know about that, but like me, he has a somewhat weird sense of humor. While very well done, many of the cartoons are for sure on the rough side in content and especially language.

Computer Case Reviews OK, you got to be a computer junkie to visit this site, good place to start if you're planning on building your own system from the ground up. Over 100 different cases reviewed by users.

Computer Crash? Just through this in for those of you that use Windows XP. Hope you never corrupt your Registry, but if you think you did, this is the details how-to recover right from Microsoft's Knowledgebase

Heatsinks and stuff Rendering videos, which can takes hours, overnight or longer can put your PC under a lot of stress. Cooling is important. The number one enemy of computers is heat. If you're into building your own system, several nice how-to articles.

Midis Songs This site has several fairly well done popular songs in MIDI format.

Microsoft's Knowledgebase If it has anything to do with Windows, you'll probably find it in one of the most extensive computer databases on the Internet.

Motherboards Org If you're thinking about building your own computer from the ground up it starts with picking a motherboard. This site has a wealth of information worth checking.

Motherboard Review Another site that has scores of reviews of popular models. Great to check out the pros and cons of the model you were thinking about.

Monitor Reviews Your monitor is one of the most important parts of your computer system, after all you spend hour after hour looking at it. This site reviews many of the models plus has a lot of useful information on picking between CRT and LCD, and deciphering the various measurements used to judge sharpness, etc..

Tom's Hardware Reviews, how-to, tips and plenty of articles on systems, components, CPU's, chipsets.

W3C The W3C Consortium site is a loose groups of experts that make recommendations to HTML, XML and other Web related topics. While their site is sometimes very technical it does contain a wealth of useful information on Web authoring and related topics.

 

 

 

 

BillyBoy's Vegas Video Tutorials

DVD Architect Tutorial

NEW! DVD Menu Effects Tutorial
Calibration and Adjustment User friendly how-to for calibrating your external monitor and televisions to NTSC standards. A very important and often overlooked first step to successfully making level and color adjustments to videos.
Images too dark or washed out Two common problems with detailed how-to fixes using levels and color curves filters. Includes expanded section on Demystifying the "S" Curve. See Tutorial 10 for step-by-step on using Color Curves to correct your images.
Removing Unwanted Color Shading Expands on the first tutorial using separate color channel and overlay to fine tune colors and remove unwanted color casts.
Color Adjustments by the Numbers Building on the principles of the first two tutorials we go a step further learning how to make more accurate color corrections by applying complement filters and a semitransparent overlay.
It is very easy to make slide shows with Vegas Video, but why settle for a ho-hum presentation, when with a little extra effort you can add advanced effects that go far beyond simple transitions. This tutorial is designed to be a hands-on exercise. Feel free to copy the image files link from the tutorial page, then work through the tutorial step by step as you build the mini video.
A few exercises on masking plus adding/removing the color from images.
Improving the audio portion of your videos is important too. This tutorial gives you some interesting tips on how to turn a flat sounding and boring mono source file into a dramatically improved fully separated right and left channel production.
Get rid of annoying sounds your video camera makes. Learn how to make a simple noise profile that can eliminate them and other background noise.
Using Scopes and Color Corrector Exciting powerful new features in version four of Vegas. Now you have much more power adjust colors and levels, plus Vegas now comes with Scopes showing real time changes in your video.
Using Scopes and Color Corrector Wheels Using Color Curves and Color Corrector and Color Corrector Secondary to match videos from different cameras, altering levels, removing color casts, balancing hues.
Advanced Color Curves. A detailed step-by-step to understanding how to use this powerful filter to improve your images by adjusting the three key regions of all images, shadows, midtones and highlights.

Advanced Color Correction Part One Using Color Corrector and Color Corrector secondary to finish up the image started in previous tutorial.

Advanced Color Correction Part Two Using Color Correcotr Secondary to change the color of one or more parts of your image continued from previous tutorial.
Finding White/Black points with Color Cast Videos Using a combination of Color Corrector and Threshold filters to easily set black and white points in a video that suffers from a color cast.
Panning-Zooming and Cropping How to automate your still images. Details on simple panning/zooming plus more advanced methods complete with video demos.

Special Effects A continuation of tutorial #14 with four more effects for panning a image.