Editing HD

jmpatrick wrote on 4/2/2008, 8:28 AM

The machine I've been using to run Vegas is several years old. It's a dual 1-gig P3 with 1 GIG of RAM. The latest version of Vegas runs fine when I edit SD video. I'm wondering if I would be able to do any HD work with this setup. I'd be doing basic stuff, cuts and fades with maybe some simple CG stuff. The HD would be shot HDV, if that matters.

What do you think?

jp

Comments

Kennymusicman wrote on 4/2/2008, 8:33 AM

Use proxies and play away!

Terry Esslinger wrote on 4/2/2008, 9:13 AM

KMM,
Do you mean something like Gearshift?
I have heard that if you have a decent computer (not sure what that means) that you can edit the the m2t files directly (if you have the time) without going the extra steps toa proxy. How does that work?

fldave wrote on 4/2/2008, 10:16 AM

I used my dual P3 1 Ghz for a long time with HDV. It was slow, and SD proxies really helped, but HD did work. Editing m2t was very grueling, but V7-8 probably will help in that area.

Create your own m2ts using generated media and see for yourself how it responds and if it is acceptable to you.

PCs are so cheap now, my wife's $600 laptop works great with Vegas. Consider a basic $400 PC also.

jazzmaster wrote on 4/2/2008, 10:33 AM

What's a proxy?

Kennymusicman wrote on 4/2/2008, 11:00 AM

Ok...
A proxy, is effectively a temporary version of your source material, that you use to edit with, instead of your original source. It's length is the same, but you choose it's fornat, and in this case, you make it a SD (or sim) file, which is much less taxing on the computer resources. This allows you to edit your 'HD' material, by using SD material. The transitions, edits etc are applied as though you were really working on your source material. THen, just before final render, you switch the temporary proxy for the real HD originals. All your edits and transitions remain intact, but now work the HD originals instead.

So if you have a low spec machine, you either manually render each file into a SD (or sim) version, without any edits. This becomes your proxy. The sort of thing that you leave doing overnight, and return next day ready to edit at full speed. Gearshift is just a program that facilitates the switching from original to prroxy automatically, and allows a simplified way of working with many files. (ie - does all the dokney work for you).

Using proxies is a really great thing. Even on a high spec machine, a few effects, and transitions @ HD will make the machine stumble. (when set to best). Also, if you work as a team, you can 'ship' the proxies to the team, and this means file transfer is much smaller. The possibilites go on and on.

Terry Esslinger wrote on 4/2/2008, 11:10 AM

For a videro demo of using proxies check here:
http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/media/GearShiftdemo.wmv

InterceptPoint wrote on 4/2/2008, 11:21 AM

I'm editing HD from my CX7 on a 1.9 GHz machine with 1 GB of RAM and it works fine as long as I use GearShift to edit with proxies. I was going to buy a new machine but found that my 5 year old PC is good enough for now. The machine will just have to wait until the 64 bit version of Vegas shows up along with, hopefully, a robust operating system. That will probably be Vista64 but who knows.

Dan Sherman wrote on 4/2/2008, 11:25 AM

Yeah, that clears it up!

johnmeyer wrote on 4/2/2008, 1:34 PM

I edit native HDV files on my P4 single CPU, single thread computer that I purchased over five years ago. I can get full frame-rate preview in "Preview" resolution. Things do slow down if I use lots of fX, but that's true, to a lesser degree, even with DV.

The one MAJOR improvement I look forward to when I finally get a new computer, will be render times. It takes about 4-6 times longer to render HDV compared to doing the same thing from DV.

But, back to the main point: the editing performance (I use Vegas 7.0d) with native m2t files (or Cineform intermediates) is quite good. For most projects (and most of my projects are cuts, color correction, titles, dissolves, and other simple things), I don't feel any need whatsoever for intermediates.

Finally, just to complete the picture, here are the three main workflow choices for editing HD (in my case HDV) in Vegas:

1. Edit native (m2t files in the case of HDV). Advantage: no additional rendering. Ready to edit as soon as capture completes.

2. Generate Cineform intermediates. Advantage: very little loss when doing multiple generation renders; better results when doing 32-bit and when doing "high-end" color corrections; fast timeline performance. Downside: must generate these intermediates from m2t files -- takes hours, or must purchase full version of Cineform and have fast computer to capture directly to intermediates, and often you still have to wait for the conversion to complete. Also, intermediates are about 4-5 times larger (disk space) than native m2t files.

3. Generate proxies. Similar to intermediates, you must generate these files. They are low-resolution (DV can be used) versions of the high-res originals. You do all your editing, and then just before render, you substitute the original high-res files for your proxies. The downside is the extra time and space required for the proxies, and the complication of making sure you get all the originals substituted back for the proxies before you render. However, there are various scripts (like Gearshift) that make it extremely simple to do all this, so this last objection pretty much goes away if your purchase and use the script.

One of the reasons Vegas is such an amazing, fantastic application is its ability to offer these multiple choices for workflows, depending on what works for you.