Sony Vegas: How to create a multi-screen channel trailer?

Recently a friend asked me to create a trailer for his Let's Play Gaming Channel. So I got the idea to create a wall of TVs where each screen shows a different game he is playing with the camera moving around from one screen to another...

Even though I'm quite familiar with Sony Vegas, I haven't done something like that before. That's why the whole process was so interesting and the result so satisfying. That's how the final version looks like:

Not too bad, right? So let's go step by step explaining on how to make such a trailer.

1) Creating a TV wall

For doing that you either look for a fitting image online or create your own one. Make sure you can it has about as many screens as video clips you want to use. Once you've chosen a picture you put at the bottom of your project. 2) Put the clips on the screens

I downloaded like 12 videos of different games from my friend's channel. Then I started one by one, putting a video file above the TV wall template and minimized them by clicking on the icon at the edge of the clip in the timeline to open a window. Then you can accurately adapt the size of the clip and move it around to match on one of the TVs of your template.

That step you do with every clip until your TV wall is finished. That wall full of screen may looks like this.

3) Rendering the TV wall video
Following that I rendered like a 30 second clip of that wall. This new file I copied into my project.

4) Let the "virtual camera" run Now you work with your newly created TV wall clip in your project. Click again on the small icon at the bottom of your clip (see first screenshot in Step 1).

At the bottom of that menu you see a timeline where you can set time markers. Now you can decide where to place the "F" window at each second.

You can zoom in, zoom out. Experiment a bit which works the best for you. In my case it worked best not to leave the gaps too big as moved the "F" window slowly from right to left to show the channel logo at the end.

And that way you can create this kind of trailer video. For music I chose to use a fitting track in the YouTube Audio Library.

I hope I could help or inspire you to create a nice channel trailer.

Btw. I also made a tutorial video about it, if you wanna see a deeper explanation:

Sony Vegas: How to Use Speech Bubbles

Is there a proper way to create speech bubbles with Sony Vegas? Not really, but there's a quite simple way doing it in combination with GIMP.

Surely, you can also just download pictures from a Google image search, but if you wanna create a customized speech balloon, I'd recommend using the free GIMP software. So, step by step:

1) Open GIMP, and create a new project with an empty layer. Ensure that the layer is transparent.

2) Use the pencil to draw a speech bubble. Alternately, you can create by using the circle form.

3) Fill the inner part of the bubble with white color

4) Save the file as png to keep the background transparent.

5) Go back to your Sony Vegas project

6) Add the png file into the project

7) Adapt the file to the same ratio as the video you are making (e.g. 16:9)

8) Adjust the speech bubble to the size you need it

9) Add an extra text box with the text for the speech bubble

And that's it. Also check out the corresponding video below:

PS2: Reaction Time Issues while Recording "Burnout Revenge" footage

In the classic PS2 game Burnout Revenge reaction is quite crucial, be it to avoid other cars or making a proper start in the mode "Crash Party". However, when you record footage it may raises the difficulty level in an interesting way...

As a friend and me have our Crash Party battle from time to time, we decided to now finally record it. Also, he started doing "Let's Plays" on Twitch and YouTube, so it would be appropriate footage for his channel.

For doing that, I used my old Sony RDR HX 680 B DVD and HDD recorder. So I connected the PS2 with a SCART cable to the input slot of the recorder and another SCART cable for the output from the recorder to the TV.

YouTube: Tankh

After a recording test we started playing. A Crash Party with 9 rounds and two players. To quickly explain the starting procedure:
You hit the X button once to start the engine, and as the RPM go higher (seen through a line of fire) you have to press X again (to avoid explosion). Then the line goes down again and you have to press X a third time. Depending on how accurately you press X the second and third time determines how good you start is going to be.

However, as the recording device was between the PS2 and the TV, the screen was probably a few milliseconds behind, causing us players being unable to hit X an the right moment, making the cars either explode and stalling the engine.

As we were first surprised on what happened there, it took as a bit the figure out what's the issue. Ultimately we could adapt to the situation and I even got a score of around 10 million for like three times in a row (see video above).

Quite interesting situation, right? Someone seen that before? I guess the issue is either the SCART cable, the device, or both...

Unrelated, but worth to mention:  How about getting the footage to a PC? There's no other way than burning it on a DVD and then convert the files from the DVD on your PC. I usually use HandBrake for that. The audio was recorded separately and later merged together with the video file.

The YouTube Editor is gone - what now?

Google decided to remove the YouTube Editor from its platform - a tool which I used quite often and now is unfortunately another way needed. Let's see what's possible now!

Usually my main purpose to use the YT Editor was to put footage from my GoPro together to cut it correctly afterwards. Therefore I could easily just upload everything to YouTube, set the videos to 'private' and then put them together as I needed them. After the new clips were created, the uploads could be removed.

It helped me to avoid long rendering processes with Sony Vegas and using YouTube for that saved me lots of time! Now I need to find a way to do it offline in a similar less time consuming way...

So I tried combining these mp4 files via command:

copy/b V1.mp4 +V2.mp4

The size of the file changed, but it did not actually append the second file - although it worked with other files before, maybe the GoPro file is too big.

Following that I was looking for another tool which could do that and I found 'MP4 Joiner'. With that tool I could put the mp4 files together which was done in a few minutes before I can upload the new created file to YouTube.

Luckily it's still possible to cut single videos on YouTube by going to 'Video Manager', 'Videos', select the video, dropdown 'Enhancements' and then use 'Trim' as seen in screenshot above.

So to summarize: Create a big video file and cut in on YouTube - but of course only if it's for files which should just be on YouTube in raw format. 

That's the workaround which works for me. If you have a better idea, just leave a comment and let me know :) 

Repair damaged videos from your Android phone

I was recording a few videos recently and during the recording I could no longer press 'Stop'. Video wasn't saved properly and couldn't be played at all. But there was a *.tmp file left...

Using my old Galaxy S3 mini my recording ended up with having no more space on the internal SD card and that's why the video couldn't be finalized and the phone also started rebooting afterwards.

At first, I couldn't really see if there was a temporary file or not, but the phone indeed created a 'mp4.tmp' file. From that point on I was sure I could save the video...

Some research...

At first I tried putting the file into video editing software, but no chance! Using Internet search engines you'll find a lot of software with that feature. I tested an app in Google PlayStore called 'MP4Fix': You first chose the damaged file and then another undamaged video file in order that the app can take the video header from it to repair the corrupted mp4 file.

The process was successful and then the app offered the option to 'Play' the video. It worked, it had the actual length and also the sound was working. But now the downside: If you chose 'Save' you'll get the offer to upgrade the app to 'Premium' for 3.99€. Of course that's an option and an easy an quick solution, but for me it was rather a challenge to find a free solution.

Some Windows software were using the same 'freemium' model like a software called 'Remo'. Fixing and watchng within the software works, but no free way to save or export it. Through further researching I actually saw a few times the same good solution by 'cheating a bit' while using a demo version of another repairing tool...

A little workaround...

Here's how it goes: Google for 'Video Repair tool Grau' and you'll find a demo version of that useful piece of software. The thing is that you can save 50% of your video with the free demo version! And if you cheat a bit, you can even save 100% of your video by converting 50% of two copies of your damaged file. But let's put into an order:

1) Download the tool
2) Copy your damaged file into an 'easy-to-reach' folder
3) Rename it simple (it chose just 'V1.mp4')
4) Copy 'V1.mp4' and name it 'V2.mp4'. Now you have two files with the same size.

5) Open command ('cmd') as administrator and go the folder with these two video files
6) Use this command to merge the two files:

copy/b V1.mp4 +V2.mp4

7) V1.mp4 is now twice as big as before. 

8) Open the 'video repair tool'

9) Select the new 'V1.mp4' file and another reference video file from copied your phone. Click 'Scan' and the video will be created (because of the trick even in full length) in the 'repaired' folder as seen in the screenshot.

It's a quite simple workaround, but it works perfectly. My video was saved and I hope yours will be, too!

Sony Vegas: Rendering in portrait format

Many videos from mobile phones are recorded in portrait format. If you edit such a clip the basic settings for rendering are offering you the video in landscape format - but what if you don't want it?

Like if you want to share such an edited video on WhatsApp. Rendering from a video in portrait format to landscape is pretty impractical for a phone.

In my case it was a video in portrait format where I added some subtitles in order to resent it.

Luckily in Sony Vegas (my description is about Sony Vegas 13) there's a way to solve that problem in order to render a video in the correct aspect ratio.

So what to do?

• Edit your video in portrait format
• Go to 'File', 'Render as'.
• Click 'More filter options' and select 'Match project video aspect ratio'
• Now you can chose between 720p, 480p and 360p
• Click 'Render' and the process will finish your video in portrait format

So that's all. Have fun sending edited videos to your friends. And take advantage of WhatsApp Web.