I have experimented with the XDCAM codec as a proxy for editing RED camera footage. It looks great and plays back well in Vegas. My concern is that as it is a long GOP format it may not stand up as a proxy codec. Anyone have any thoughts on this.

OK, can I from within Vegas Pro 9 today render out 5D2 MOV footage to XD cam codec? And from uncompressed AVIs to XD cam footage? How?

Best / thanks for ideas...
Lars

From memory, drop your footage on to the timeline and render as a Sony .MXF file using the XDCAM template. There are a few options, you may need to experiment to match your original footage.

I tried it with some full frame fast motion stuff, nothing too extreme mind you. Comparing source with original by subtraction I could not find a pixel out of place.
For use as a proxy it should be just fine. Not certain about using it as an intermediate but that's another question entirely.

Bob.

OK, I'll try it right away.... thanks...

Only minor issue I could find when I just tried it again was there's no 25p template but it's a piece of cake to roll your own.

Bob.

Hi again,

After some initial playing around with that Sony codec it looks very promising! Seems the PC is playing it back real well. I'll have to do some more tests of course and see how it fits my workflow etc.

1920x1080 playing back the XDCAM codec in Pro9 plays it back *slightly* better than Cineform plays in Pro 8. I'm playing two streams and involve a dissolve. It plays fine at full fram rate 30 fps or 29.97. During the dissolve the frame rate goes down to around 25-28 fps if its a long dissolve.

Which is what happens with the Cineform fils too at 1920x1080

**********************

So then what are the drawbacks with using this Sony XDCAM codec instead of Cineform? Are there any?

My 10 minute test here showed that Sony's codec was surprisingly fast. Transcoding from 5D2 MOV files was also fast.

So can I use this instead of Cineform?

Lars

PS. If I render out to 1280x720 MXF's (from my 1920x1080 footage)that I could use for editing, then dissolves playes back at full frame rate all the time. I tried that in Cineform and 1280x720 actually slowed down a little bit during dissolves there.

****************************************


PS....

It makes me think about the possible advantages of trying to do it all from within ONE application from ONE software manufacturer:

Relying on third party companies and their products being compatible with updates etc. isn't totally risk free.

Having too many third party apps involved just for your basic workflow feels risky.

When something fails and you need quick advice... Sony Creative Software seems very accessible over the phone. And very nice and helpful guys indeed! Its easy to phone them. And when writing, you get a reply quickly!

Many other third party plugin manufacturers can't be reached at all by phone and e-mail answers are responded to after 3-5 days... if a reply at all.

What I mean is that having a workflow that assumes a series of third party stuff to always work doesn't *feel* so good... And then for these to make it through updates seems exposing yourself to a great risk. As we can see in this particular case.

If I can convert my 5D2 footage from within Vegas and that will give me the right quality and a comfortable editing session, then that's a good thing!

Again, any drawbacks at all with XDCAM codec instead of CIneform?



------------------------------------------------------
System:
Asus P5KR mobo
Q6600 CPU
8 Gb RAM
2 x 10000 RPM Raid-0 for streaming
Vista 64
XP 32
------------------------------------------------------

"Again, any drawbacks at all with XDCAM codec instead of CIneform?" Since XDCAM codec is well entrenched Sony's BT camera line, one can expect reasonable support long term for this codec. Since Sony is directing editing XDCAM codec on the "timeline", I expect that Sony's goal is to reduce conversions to other format codecs. I'm guessing, but I don't think Sony is against Cineform, just that Sony trying to reduce the number of steps in shooting XDCAM to final render. This would be a big step forward for infield reporting and archiving footage.

Which is best? In general? For long term projects, Cineform in the past has done well and probably will again once fixed for V9. But XDCAM direct editing for quick turn around projects can't be beat.

I agree with Lars that 9 is better than 8 for large format jpg's. I do a lot of pan and scan with images from my Nikon D70 (3008 pixels wide) and have had to Photoshop them first in 8 to get the kind of results I got from 9.0 in this Vimeo clip (rendered to mp4 from 9.0 32 bit). This even looks good in full screen.

http://vimeo.com/4814468

Once I started using VASST Upshift to convert Canon AVCHD, I had no more troubles with 9.0.

Q6600
3MB RAM
XP 32 SP 2 and then SP3

"Again, any drawbacks at all with XDCAM codec instead of CIneform?"

Cineform is a wavelet based visually lossless codec.
XDCAM is mpeg-2, a very lossy codec that's visually quite bad when it breaks.
The Cineform codecs can be had in 10bit 4:4:4, MPEG-2 is limited to 8 bit and the codec you're working with is 4:2:2, I think you need to hit 100Mbps in mpeg-2 to get 4:4:4. Cineform's codecs are cross platform compatible or soon will be. Once FCP rewraps XDCAM I don't think you can open it outside of FCP.

How much any of this matters you have to decide, it either makes the Cineform codecs clear winners with XDCAM eating serious dust or it matters not a bit. Do your own tests in your workflow. Also keep in mind that different codecs are optimised for different purposes.

As for it being a problem because it's third party, there's not many codecs in Vegas that are not 3rd party. The ones you get with Vegas stay in Vegas too. The ones you buy you can usually use in any application you desire.

Bob.

"Cineform is a wavelet based visually lossless codec"


Well, Cineform shows artefacts. XDCAM shows artefact. Both are compressed and both have to deal with how to handle the situation that any compression involves. If you compare the Cineform file with the orginal text signal source you will see that it isn't the same. Artefacts have been introduced and the smalle file size comes at a price. An uncompressed AVI is clearly better in quality than a Cineform file.

Now viewing the file with moving images etc is another story. And Cineform has done a magnificent job.

But XDCAM is here, exsists for VP9 use and works. And I'm not so sure yet that there is a visual difference between the two...

Further testing may reveal more and I may change my mind but so far I'm pretty impressed with XD.


Lars

"I think you need to hit 100Mbps in mpeg-2 to get 4:4:4" Bob, I think you are referring to 4:4:4 output data streaming from a 1K~2K camera head. Once on the "timeline", every pixel in every frame /s would have to change to reach that "100M" for a single pass. But the colorspace of 10b vs 8b can be big issue for many projects. But that issue is really secondary until we are sure about the vegas 32b pipe, linear.vs.log per track conversion.....etc...

I was hoping Bob or DSE or Cline or one of many clever editors here, would tackle that issue more in depth

"But that issue is really secondary until we are sure about the vegas 32b pipe, linear.vs.log per track conversion.....etc..."

Hope I don't sound too dismissive but I thought Glenn had already covered this very well. Is there a specific question? The bigger picture is pretty huge, the answers very long winded and covered in considerable depth elsewhere. I've done my own tests on Vegas's 32 bit float in V8, it works as advertised. V9 adds a new 32bit mode which is much less confusing to use. Linear light processing is covered by Glenn and in many articles on the web. Unless you know you need any of these they can be ignored. If you or your clients are seeing a problem that's the time to call in the technical stuff.

For myself I use what gets the job done and keep doing it until I have a compelling reason to change. Yes I look after a SI-2K camera which has caused me to loose a lot of hair learning a whole lot of new "stuff". When Vegas came out with 32bit I simply chose to ignore it mostly because I had no compelling reason to use it. The quality of my work was far more influenced by lighting, my ability to use a camera etc.

The only real nugget of wisdom I can contribute comes from something Spot said years ago, "You can't polish a turd". My version of it is: S**t goes downhill, the less s**tty what goes into the process is, the slower it goes downhill.

Bob.

"V9 adds a new 32bit mode which is much less confusing to use" I was referring to this. I thought there was question about the 10b not being converted correctly for the 32f pipe. I have received my "BOX" from Sony but have not installed V9 yet, not sure why.

Glenn has posted some info on the V8 32pipe, especially about gamma issues. I'll have to look a little deeper for more information. I wish Sony would just publish a nice logic diagram ( with math ) of the 32f pipe.

What about Panasonic's AVC-Intra. Is there anyway to implement that in Vegas?

It defniitely looks cool here:
http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/p2-hd/avcintra.asp

If not, then perhaps Sony could license the specs and build their own codec to read/write similar to the way they built their own DV codec, back in the day.

AVC-Intra will be supported by Raylight sometime this year. It does look like a pretty sweet codec, but probably most people who use Vegas don't need that kind of quality. I sure wish I was doing projects at that level though...maybe someday...

As for Sony implementing their own version, I don't think that would happen. They seem to be preferring MPEG-2 for their higher end cameras.

kairosmatt

Has anyone tried DNxHD? It's free now from Avid, though it's wrapped in quicktime. They seem to have bitrates/depths comparable to Apple Pro-res HQ.

Does Mpeg2 support 10bit 4:2:2 color space?

"Once I started using VASST Upshift to convert Canon AVCHD, I had no more troubles with 9.0."

Thanks for the tip dxdy. I have the Canon HG10 and really jerky playback in VP9. I'll give Upshift a try.