Okay then. You know full well that the few people here who have talked about doing matchback have said it can't be done. That means that you can't use vegas as if you were cutting "workprint" and then using the timecode or perhaps frame count to go back and make a matching film edit. Vegas isn't made for that. Wrong tool. Sorry.

So let's look at scenario 2. Maybe you want to shoot in film and then finish in Vegas. Final output would be either tape or digital media to be printed to film. Within reason, you can do that. However, there are limitations of resolution, of hardware, of speed. Just for starters, Vegas calculates color in 8 bits per channel. Fine for DV. Fine for SD. Not as fine for HD or film. Most film processing tools seem to work at 16bits per channel. Still, you can edit in Vegas and you could print to HD or Film. It's just not the best way to do it. But it's perfectly possible. You'll need to do some research if you want to do the film transfers. You'll need to get prices and make a busget. You need to find out what sort of tape the transfer house will work with. DLT? Then you may need to get a tape drive. You may also need to spring for SCSI, a new computer with a PCI-X slot, a large scsi array, maybe a quite cabinet to put it in (ours sounds like a hovercraft at close range).

So go do some research. But for the moment you can give up on matchback.

Rob Mack

Yes thats true if it were true But the statement was about if vegas is to compete with real (As in 35mm Film editing) In the big league many times I have heard it here why is Vegas not taken seriously by professionals Well I dont know whether it is or it isent But I would simply say In Vegas Favour That perhaps If that is the Direction Vegas wants to go in then In order to compete it would have to have matchback capabilities. Now whether it does or doesent then that is a matter for the decision makers. I Dont always agree with what the government do and sometimes I have an opinion Although I dont expect to be a Political leader because I have an Opinion, Or even Listened to. But rightly or wrongly I can have an opinion do you realise how boring this world would be if we all new one truth,, No Differences,, Our uniqueness makes us what we are. And If we are to get along then we have to tolerate and moderate our behaviour to each other.

DELETED

Now there might be something more attainable.

The way Avid does it is to scale up and down within their suite of applications. Higher end tools understand the files from the low end tools.

These higher end tools aren't all that uniform so for Vegas to create an output file that these will understand...Probably Vegas has to focus on output for a few specific high end tools. You can imagine that Sony would like to sell that tool...

Now, maybe if you could take your Vegas project to a higher end tool at a post facility then THAT tool could do matchback.

I just don't think that this path is availble right now. You might want to ask the question again in a month or so.

Rob Mack

Kind of. Wll, maybe it's a half truth. I guess it just depends.

Rob Mack

You know, I've worked for an awfull lot of people who only work in video. No film. Not ever. The edit systems they use are quite real and quite professional.

Being able to use a video system to work with film really isn't the hallmark of a professional system. Rather, a professional system is one that you can use in your "Profession".

The shop I work at has used Media100 for many years. I'd say it's a "Middleweight" system with a lot of hardware requirements. It only works in SD and as far as I know can't do mathchback. It has almost no interoperability with other systems and yet it's a very professional system.

Don't get too wound up on the idea that film makes the system professional.

Rob Mack

Rob Great Info ! I reckon One day Matchback could be a part of vegas For No extra Money ! MY Opinion From what My limited Information Is and probably wrong..

Also Film Stock could become cheaper perhaps using alternative Materials Allowing you to Film in analogue and still edit in Vegas so go on I will have a guestamate TEN to FIFTEEN Years I reckon

Rob I dont But when I was fourteen I got a Film Projector for Xmas a Eumig 9 something D... It was sound and played standard or super 8mm. The color the picture it was stunningI used to go up to petticoat lane in london every sunday and buy new films there. I also got a cine Camera I cant remember the name Although later I got a very good Chinon anyway right now I still have a viewer and can watch some of my old Films. Now let me assure you that the quality of those old films surpasses any video High Defination ect. that I have seen I was splicing Editing /Making film in the seventies. A member of the school film club that used to show 16mm Fims And we had a Music teacher who One day decided he was going to write a song and perform On our top Music show top of the pops. All this was quite exciting and influential in my Life. I used to own Numerous 8mm Films and the quality. The smell the whole hobby was great .Then along came Video.. Yes I bought Into It.. But soon realised that editing in this format was next to useless On VHS. So unless you could afford The professional formats then this was a no go. Anyway now we have DV And its really good But in no way does it even come close to the quality you get on Film I love Film. The color the quality the mechanics But its also very time consuming splicing and waiting for films to be developed I do know about film I just wish people would stop making assumptions Vegas has given me the oportunity to edit fast track and its THE BEST For editing but I could also envisage using vegas to edit 8mm oNE DAY OR its equivelent :)

Mark, could you do us all a favor and use a little punctuation. My heart is racing by the end of your posts. Sorry to complain. Now on to talking about things I don't know enough about...

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Sure, film can look great. It's a fantastic medium. But the question Zippy was asking was how to use Vegas with Film, HD, and SD.

For SD, this isn't much of a problem. You can edit and create a final render in other formats besides DV. It might be a little slower but you can do it. And given just a little hardware it would be no trouble to output the render to tape. The biggest stumbling block will be HD throughput and storage space. You would probably be forced to use a scsi array of 4 disks.

For HD, you need a lot more infrastructure in storage, HD decks, monitors, etc. It's big bucks.

What Zippy was asking was whether you can offline HD at DV res on Vegas and then take the EDL somewhere to get the render done in HD. The answer seems to be "No" because the EDL won't really translate well to other systems. And Vegas can't really do it by itself although it comes pretty close. There's a bit of promise here, and evidently lots and lots of promise for HDV which falls in between SD and HD.

For film you have to get it digitized at a house that does this. I included a link to Monaco film in SF because they're local to me. You will have to arrange to get the files put onto a medium and into a format that you can use. Most likey you will have to buy hardware beyond what most vegas users are likely to have or willing to pay for but in a sense it's probably cheaper than rigging for HD.

Putting aside how you're going to edit this footage in Vegas, there's the question of output. If you are outputting from Vegas the info needed to cut the film then you are looking at cuts, fades, dissolves and that's about it. You can't just toss off a page peel in film. Effects and titles would have to be printed and then they can also be cut, faded, dissolved, and superimposed.

Vegas does output an EDL. In theory you ought to be able to use this but in practice it isn't enough. So you can't use vegas to edit film. And so you end up with no way to do matchback in film. Your next choice is to render the video and then print it back to film. If you started with flmm in the first place you probably should have used a system designed for the job.

Remember, you don't have to use Vegas for everything. It's a great tool but not the right tool for every job.

Rob Mack

Doing HD edited with DV is quite easy. Look on the DMN, or look in my book. There is a tutorial there.
Not many people will be editing HD in the near future. The FCP rig you are talking about for instance, is a 50K investment by the time it's started. Cheap in comparison to the Avid route, but then again, it can't do what Avid can.
Next, HD on a PC is a very expensive process if you want to do 10 bit, uncompressed 4:4:4 vid. Again, Vegas isn't optimized for this. Vegas can do it, i'll be showing it at NAB. Framerate is around 5 frames per.
HD ain't gonna get too much less expensive for now, but HDV on the other hand, I predict will replace DV in 24 months or slightly more. HDV is gonna be the buzz at NAB next month, just wait and see. Cineform already has a Vegas plug, Ulead, Adobe, and others have all either announced or shipped an HDV plug. Who knows what cams will be there...And it's affordable.
Zippy, we still haven't seen your studio setup, nor equipment specs...I only ask because it seems like you want to be a provocateur all the time. If you are doing real work, then fine...
The point that I tried to make, and VideoCurmudgeon caught, is that someone said that "for Vegas to be professional.... et al" and that's simply a farcical concept.

Rob I will try to make some kinda sense to you This time round, OK.. First off

1

My comment about Vegas competing for Film Editing Pertains to Vegas can not edit Film 35mm 16mm 8mm. It can not do it. A lot of Hollywood Films ARE still made in 35mm. Therefore Vegas cannot Compete If it wanted to it would have to have Matchback Capability. It dosent This is not a Critisism merely an observation. My line of thinking was the way car manufacturers sponser racing cars then sell ordinary cars to the consumer using the race cars as there Pedigree. This was what I meant. Not that Matchback should be included in Vegas. But maybe a higher end version or as you said. A plugin perhaps.

2 My post about My involvement with Film was a response to your Post about Film. And had nothing to do with my desire to want matchback which I have clearly said I dont.

I do not currently want to edit using 8mm or film of any type. I want to be creative and film slows this process down.

I am very happy with Vegas as it is.

My not including punctuation is a direct response to the disapointment I feel at the way I have had words put into my mouth the way my Posts have been misinterpreted, And even once I have cleared up what Im Saying. Not a word of acknowledgement or Understanding. But then human nature BEING what it is. I can expect no less

Thanks Tom

FAITH RESTORED

While very new to this game, I would love to see EDL and film matchback capability in Vegas. I'm taking a course right now on editing for feature films and it uses FCP. Vegas was the first program I've used for editing (after trying Premiere and nearly jumping off of a bridge) and I have to say, FCP has been torturous to use by comparison.

I'll go out on a limb here because I know someone will get spooled up after saying this, but I really don't understand why matchback would be so difficult for vegas. The vast majority of what I've seen so far (and I admit that I am VERY new to film editing) in editing for film is simple cuts and fades. Neither seems as though it should be terribly difficult for vegas to deal with in terms of keeping track of the film frames. Certainly there are other issues (titling, effects, etc.) that would require more work to get on the film (and probably a different system) but I guess I'm just saying that I would love to be able to use vegas to cut the basics, which I think would be the bulk of the film anyway.

Oh well, please don't kill me... I admit, in the immortal words of SGT. Schultz, "I know nothing! NOTHING!!!"

While it wouldn't be easy..(boy, does that get said a lot. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it) Vegas could indeed be programmed to manage this information, and maybe someday will be. But the bigger point is, for the .05% that would use this feature, vs the 99.5% who would use other features developed with those same dev dollars, should be the beneficiaries. I'll make a fairly educated guess about FCP....of all the users, less than 2% are using the high end hardware capabilities for their cutting tools. Not many people spend 100K on total end to end systems, and those that do, invested in Avid long ago. Will that change? Surely.
But if you sell pies, and you want as many people to have it as can buy a piece, you bake it for the most demanded flavor. That's the point. The pie tastes great to everyone, but there are those that prefer monkeybrains to cherry pie. Because it's a 'special' offering, it needs to cost more. Maybe Vegas should be the same price as FCP without hardware, plus DVDA, and then start adding the hardware support as buy-in options like FCP is. This list would shrink in a heartbeat because a lot of people wouldn't spend 1K on just the software. Then you buy the 24P. Then you buy Compressor, then you buy Shake, then you buy....ad nauseum.
BTW, fades, dissolves, etc are all very different in film than in digital media. Much more color involvement, a lot of different algorithms needed. It ain't easy.

DELETED

Mark,

I'm not trying to get on your case.

I like the car analogy and was thinking along those lines today. So how about this. Compare various NLE packages to cars and the sorts of loads they're designed to pull, carry, tow.

On that kind of scale Vegas really is in the personal vehicle range-maybe like a mid sized truck. By comparison, the sort of systems that are built for HD or film are a lot more in the tractor/trailer range.

Vegas is really great for what it does and it can actually pull some fairly heavy loads. Better than that, it works in a lot of terrains and can get into a lot of tight spots. It's agile and nimble but it isn't a long haul, heavy load sort of system.

Vegas doesn't have to edit film. It isn't the only game in town.

Rob Mack

I'm a bit behind the times, I guess. What is HDV and will the tapes play in my DVCAM decks? Sorry if this question has been answered already.

Peter