Seems like it's been answered quite a few times already but people are having a hard time figuring out how to put it into practice with Vegas. Never noticed this sort of trouble with other software that uses 32-bit processing...

I don't think it's been implemented very well. You don't want to add a feature that generates support calls.

Off to lunch now.

Rob Mack

Okay then, I'll take a stab at this.

32-bit processing should not affect your shooting at all. You don't need to shoot differently just because your edit system uses 32-bit internal processing. This is not to say that different cameras might not encourage different practices, but 32bit internal processing at the NLE doesn't dictate different lighting, color palette, or exposure.

Acquistion, editing, and delivery are another matter. If you have an SDI card and are taking in all your media at 10bit color depths, then you ought to use an NLE that can handle it. Vegas is one of the last to be able to do this and it's 32bit internal processing that allows it.

Why 32bit instead of just 10bit processing? I really don't know the answer but would assume that it's easier for the cpu and more flexible for the NLE to just go for 32-bit float and then save the media in 8 or 10bit mode after processing.

So what about working with 8bit formats? Well, the common wisdom here is that doing calculations in 32-bit mode should reduce rounding errors, especially when using chains of filters where the output of one becomes the input of the next and so on until the chain is processed and reduced back down to an 8-bit result.

Things that are unclear to me are when the to 32-bit gamma settings are appropriate, and how this relates to REC.601 color and REC.709 color, things like that.

I've yet to have a chance to get into the manual. Maybe it's all explained-but I doubt it. It does seem like the 32-bit switch implies that you really need to pick a setting and stick with it. I think there's a big need for clarification about just what you should be doing with it, and I suspect that Vegas is offering too many choices.

Some things I've noticed in PPro. DV that was taken in over SDI into 10bit projects tends to have the same sort of color change that people were noticing on renders in Vegas when it was set to 32-bit with linear gamma. Comparing the same footage captured over firewire into Vegas, it was obvious that PPro was changing the color mapping of the image. The other thing of course is that PPro can play back DV in real time even though it's supposedly using a variant of 32-bit processing. Vegas can't do that with DV on the computer in front of me, but PPro can.

And then of course PPro makes you choose the type of project your going to edit in more strict ways than Vegas does. That probably works to it's advantage when it comes to preview performance.

Rob Mack

Well Rob I'm just monitoring what folks like you have to say while I wait for the 1st update, which hopefully will be before the 10/31 cut-off. Had the trial crashing in Vista, so backed it out -- dual boot system so ghost files to restore only work until I go back to XP to get something done. ;?P

Hopefully you'll get it sorted out, and tell everyone else so I know what to test! Then I can compare some frames with video filtered in the much faster avisynth. Personally I'm a bit skittish with the 1st Vista version of anything, but then every Vista app I've bought or tried since January except Ofc had more than their fair share of problems. That DVDA hasn't gotten any improvements doesn't thrill me.

Off to dinner
mike

Ahhh, mealtimes.

I think that if you're not working with 10bit media you could probably not fret too much about 32-bit processing. Just leave it turned off except to play with. I'm definitely just at a point where I'm reading people's posts, playing with the tool, and looking for other things to read. I don't need the feature just yet.

Since the price is good, if you want VP8 I'd just get it before the cutoff. Whether you want to use it right away is another matter but I think I'd make a backup of all your Veg files first since V7 can't read VP8 files.

No need to be a guinea pig if you're relying on V7 for income.

Rob Mack

just so you know, part of being 100% approved by Vista by MS is crashing if something goes wrong. So Vegas may be able to handle the issue in XP but Vista forces it to crash so an error report could be sent.

EDIT: I looked in the PDF manual about 32-bit. There's some in the section about project properties & somewhere else dealing with 10-bit files, but that's it. Nothing that says what happens if you switch between 8/32-bit on the fly

All plugins that have a blue icon next to them in the plugin viewer are 8-bit only. The say the gamma for 8-bit files change so they're more compatible with previous version of vegas pro (i assume they mean vegas 2-7) Not sure about the chains, that would be nice to clear up.

The most obvious difference between 32-bit float versus 8-bit is that you can do linear light processing. Things like overlays and cross dissolves will look better.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=547412&Replies=1

As far as dealing with levels in 32-bit projects
http://glennchan.info/articles/vegas/v8color/v8color.htm