Comments

mbryant wrote on 10/5/2006, 1:20 AM
It’s kind of a comparing “apples and oranges” thing.

The first thing to say is that with Vegas 7 you may find you are happy editing native HDV directly, and don’t need either.

If that isn’t the case, you have 2 options for editing:

- Use a Cineform intermediate
- Use a DV proxy

You can work either of those methods in Vegas without any additional software. If you go the proxy route (fastest editing.. but preview is only standard def) then I would recommend Gearshift – it makes this much easier.

If you go the Cineform intermediate route, then Gearshift can also help (you can select just which regions you want to create an intermediate for). But if Cineform intermediates is your main way of working, then Connect HD would help more (in my view), as you can capture directly to the intermediate format and save time.

So really the question you need to answer first is what flow/method is best for you. What version of Vegas will you be using, and what is your PC spec?

Mark
JohnnyRoy wrote on 10/5/2006, 4:17 AM
Just to add to what Mark said, if your PC isn’t powerful enough to edit M2T files in Vegas 7 or CineForm files in Vegas 6 then GearShift gives you the option of working with DV Proxies and working at the same speed you do today. Understand that you still need a fairly powerful PC to use CineForm as well, so GearShift provides an option that Connect HD doesn’t which is light-weight DV proxies.

If you want to use CineForm intermediaries GearShift can build those too because Vegas ships with the CineForm codec and GearShift is significantly less expensive. What Connect HD offers over GearShift are other options like removing 3:2 pulldown from CineForm24 during capture, or flipping RedRock files, conversion to CineForm during capture (although this also depends on how powerful your PC is) so both have their uses.

If you have an older PC, GearShift is the only option to get your editing speed back up to what it was with DV files.

~jr
riredale wrote on 10/5/2006, 10:19 AM
What I'm discovering is that I STILL prefer to work with DV proxies via GearShift, even though my new PC is a relatively powerful one. I like that fact that playback is always 29.97, even with multiple multitrack operations. The power of the PC also means that conversion to DV proxy is relatively painless. Finally, in a pinch one can use the proxies to build a DVD. Color resolution is not quite as good as going from m2t to mpeg2 directly, but lots of times you have to look hard to notice.

If you want to work in Intermediates instead, it makes sense to get the ConnectHD product, since it renders a lot faster than the stock codec and the resulting file size is significantly smaller.
Steve Mann wrote on 10/5/2006, 5:17 PM
Thanks for the replies. My PC is probably underpowered at 2Ghz, so an upgrade is in the near future anyway.

So, please tell me if I understand the two products correctly: With Gearshift, I'll be making an intermediate within Vegas, and with HD-Connect, the intermediate is made at capture time. Either way, I will be editing uncompressed AVI in Vegas.

For the immediate future I'll be delivering SD-Widescreen just as I am today with my PD-150 footage. (Hopefully at better quality, though).

Thanks again
Steve M.
mbryant wrote on 10/6/2006, 3:16 AM
Yes, pretty much.

Vegas comes with a version of the Cineform codec. Gearshift just makes using it easier. And Gearshift or not, you would need to capture the m2t and have a second step to render to Cineform.

If you get HD Connect, it provides a different version of the Cineform codec, which creates small files, renders faster, and also provides the ability to create the Cineform intermediate at capture time.

One small detail, the Cineform intermediates are not uncompressed, they are compressed (but far less so than HDV m2t files).
JohnnyRoy wrote on 10/6/2006, 10:04 AM
> So, please tell me if I understand the two products correctly: With Gearshift, I'll be making an intermediate within Vegas, and with HD-Connect, the intermediate is made at capture time.

No. GearShift allows you to make a DV Proxy (720x480 Widescreen), a CineForm HDV intermediate (1440x1080i), and/or a Sony YUV HD (1920x1080i) file. It has the ability to work on DV Proxies while editing and then swap out the proxies for the full M2T / CineForm / YUV version. This means you can use your 2.0Ghz PC today and still render in hi-def.

Connect HD will convert to CineForm during capture but it is not going to happen in “real-time” on your 2.0GHz PC. So when the capture is complete, you will still have to wait for the conversion to CineForm to take place. It’s a case of wait now or wait later but you will have to wait for the conversion. But your PC is not powerful enough to edit with CineForm anyway so I’m not sure this is the best approach for you.

> Either way, I will be editing uncompressed AVI in Vegas.

No, either way you will be editing video compressed with their respective codecs (DV25, CineForm, Sony YUV).

For you, the advantage of using GearShift is that you don’t have to make CineForm intermediaries at all. You capture to M2T in Vegas. Convert to DV Proxies in Vegas. Then edit as usual. You can render your SD Widescreen directly from the DV proxies, or you can use GearShift to swap the proxies out for the M2T files and render your MPEG2 directly from the original source. You never have to make CineForm intermediaries.

I strongly advise that you download the trial of both products and see for yourself. I have both and there are projects I use Cineform Connect HD for and there are projects I use GearShift for. Each has their place but only you can decide which fits best into your workflow with your equipment. That’s what the trials are for.

~jr
jaegersing wrote on 10/6/2006, 6:22 PM
Hi Johnny. Thanks for the info on Gearshift. I'm also looking for the "best" workflow for myself so this is very interesting. Another couple of questions if you don't mind.

1. How do you actually use Gearshift to make the DV proxies? E.g. is it an operation on the clips in the media pool?

2. How do you swap the "real" files for the proxies before final rendering?

3. If you need to go back and edit the project again, how easy is it to switch back to the proxies version?

Appreciate your time.

Richard Hunter
PeterWright wrote on 10/6/2006, 6:48 PM
It's probably nighttime for Johnny so I'll try and help ...

I have Gearshift as a button above the timeline. Clicking opens it and I can browse to wherever the files I want to convert are, and then select the format(s) I want to convert to.

Swapping from "real" to Proxies is a matter of clicking to open Gearshift, clicking the "Shift Gears: button and specifying which way (m2t > proxy or vice cersa) I want to go.

Changing back the other way is exactly the same - takes seconds.
Steve Mann wrote on 10/6/2006, 9:23 PM
I think I understand...

If my delivery is SD Widescreen then the 740x480 DV Proxy is my work file. I edit and render and encode in 740x480 DV, make the DVD then I'm done.

If I want to encode in WMV-HD, then I still edit in 740x480 DV but use gearshift to replace the edited footage with Cineform HDV or Sony YUV for the final encode.

Which of the HDV proxies would be the recommended one for encoding in WMV-HD or Divx-HD?

Thanks again

Steve M.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 10/7/2006, 6:41 AM
> It's probably nighttime for Johnny so I'll try and help ...

Yea, occasionally I have been know to sleep but I try not to make a habit of it. ;-)

PeterWright has the workflow correct. You can have it operate on the clips in the media pool but the easiest way is to load an empty project, start GearShift, point to your M2T files on you hard drive and have GearShift convert them an populate the media pool for you. When it’s done, you have all of the DV proxies in the media pool ready to start editing.

At any time you can invoke GearShift and select ShiftGears and it will swap out the DV proxies for the HDV source. Press ShiftGears again and it swaps the source back for the proxies. You can do this as often as you like (it only takes a second or two).

~jr
JohnnyRoy wrote on 10/7/2006, 6:45 AM
> If my delivery is SD Widescreen then the 740x480 DV Proxy is my work file. I edit and render and encode in 740x480 DV, make the DVD then I'm done.

Yes, but if you do a lot of color correction, you might want to shift back to the original HDV M2T files to render to DVD. This is because the color space for your M2T source is 4:2:2 and DVD’s are 4:2:0 but DV is only 4:1:1. So you loose a bit of color information going to DV that an MPEG2 for DVD could take advantage of.

> If I want to encode in WMV-HD, then I still edit in 740x480 DV but use gearshift to replace the edited footage with Cineform HDV or Sony YUV for the final encode.

Yes, but don’t forget that with GearShift you don’t need to create CneForm or Sony YUV. You can swap your original M2T source back in and render directly from that.

> Which of the HDV proxies would be the recommended one for encoding in WMV-HD or Divx-HD?

I would just use the M2T source to render to another HD format.

~jr
jaegersing wrote on 10/7/2006, 8:03 PM
Hi Peter and Johnny. Thanks guys, you make it sound easy!

Richard
DGrob wrote on 10/8/2006, 6:48 AM
A consideration in my workflow is the use of 3rd party processing. For examples, I use the DeShaker filter in VirtualDub regularly, and Particle Illusion occasionally. Both apps see and work with Cineform 2.7, neither even see m2ts. VirtualDub outputs its processed file back into Cineform 2.7, and the resulting file drops on the timeline visually indistinguishable from the adjoining m2ts.

Darryl
riredale wrote on 10/8/2006, 10:17 AM
Since I don't have the "pay" version of Cineform installed, I had to look around for an alternate codec to use for my DeShaker stuff. For now I've settled with HuffYUV, which takes somewhat longer to encode and is 3x larger in filesize. Still, it's free, transparent, and does the job.

EDIT:
Still another option is to use Cineform to get the video into VirtualDub, then use HuffYUV to get it out and back over to Vegas. This way you get the benefit of faster encoding and smaller file size with Cineform at least in the path from Vegas to VirtualDub.
Steve Mann wrote on 11/14/2006, 9:19 PM
Johnny - my head is spinning.... I thought I understood this better.

I am SOL on testing Gearshift because I got distracted with a new project after I loaded the demo, and when I got back to test it, the demo had already expired. Awfully short demo period.

Here's what I have tried so far to make an SD Widescreen from my m2t footage:

First, viewing the m2t from tape on a deck into a pro monitor looks absolutely awesome. Colors and saturation are dead on beautiful.

Test one - capture the m2t file to the PC then render an AVI file using the "HDV 1080-60i intermediate" template. Do some light editing and encode an SD DVD (MPG and AC3 files). The image on the DVD looks like crap. No detail, blown out highlights - looks like my worst single-chip DV stuff.

Test two - Set the deck to output "DV-squeeze" and capture an SD AVI file. Light editing, encode, view. It still looks like crap.

My PC is too slow to edit the m2t files on the timeline.

Am I using the wrong intermediate file?

Should I go ahead and buy Gearshift and encode the SD Mpeg file from the HDV on the timeline?

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,

Steve M.
MH_Stevens wrote on 11/14/2006, 11:31 PM
You may be partly experiencing what has been discussed under the "washed-out" thread. Playing the m2ts directly always looks better than when they are rendered to a DVD format. Did you have your project settings set to the source media you imported into Vegas?

Try this: I know your PC is not up to editing m2t files, but you can easily capture one. Do so and then render it unedited to mpeg and put it on a DVD (use the render for DVD Architect if you have this). Now compare this to the quality you got in your Test 1. If it is better then you know you have done something wrong in your conversions.
Laurence wrote on 11/15/2006, 5:30 AM
I use (and feel like I need) both Gearshift and Cineform ConnectHD. My computer ( 3.06 P4) can edit a simple stream of native HDV m2t video at 30fps, but doing this is really pushing it. By the time I add music, narration, transitions and an overlay or two, I am dropping too many frames to get any real sense of the timing. On the other hand, my system can breeze through Gearshift proxies run through my Canopus ADVC 100 with full screen preview on an external firewire monitor. So why do I need Cineform then?

A couple of reasons:

First, ConnectHD gives me access to the Cineform codec outside of Vegas. I can deshake and do all sorts of outside manipulations because of this.

Second, I always render and prerender into Cineform. Yeah I could use Huffy, but the files would be a lot bigger and pre-rendered sections wouldn't smart-render into the final project. I can't preview Huffy renders from WMP. Huffy doesn't play back from a Vegas timeline smoothly either. I do prerenders all the time. I prerender titles, graphics and complete tricky sections. The fact that Cineform smart-renders means that I am saving render time as well as hard disc space when I do this.

Cineform is a great mastering format. It's high quality, plays back well (albiet at half resolution) from WMP, can be used (only if you have ConnectHD) in other video software, and can be re-edited in Vegas quickly and without loosing another generation.

As a ConnectHD user, I can take my Cineform masters, load them into VirtualDub and easily convert them into whatever format I need.

ConnectHD or Gearshift? Until I get a faster PC, I need them both.