How to add tabs to videos?

Hi,

Was wondering if anybody can tell me how to add instructional tablatures to videos. Like these:



or this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6fqABle09E&list=PLUvyNv7Kq0adNXvGugc-1Kj-ZhUs3Vtfp

I'd appreciate any help. I am using sony vegas for editing.

Rick

I am not familiar with Vegas (I'm on a Mac), but you could do that in Adobe After Effects (available for PC and Mac). You need to composite different elements together, and perhaps have an animated mask to change the tab from black to red. After Effects is a pro app, so you would have to really want to learn this to make it worth your effort.
–Lori

Okay, thanks for the info Lori. It sounds a little too high tech for me. I will try and figure something else out. What if the tab didn't change colors or highlight? Just standard tab onscreen that doesn't really move? Maybe i could just insert a jpeg. of the tab at various sections.

Rick

I don't know what Vegas can do, but if you could bring in a narrow sized jpeg for the tab, and composite it over the video, then you could do something similar. I did this in After Effects (although iMovie might work too). The trick is to make the tab part big enough to read comfortably. Do a test first on the first line of the song before you do the whole thing. YouTube compresses the video, and the numbers can get blurry.

The UU video with the animating string diagrams is very complicated to do. It would take me many days to get do a whole song like that.
–Lori

–Lori

I was fiddling around with it a bit and came up with the same idea you did. I never considered the YouTube conversion though. I will keep that in mind. Thanks for the advice.

Rick