I need someone to export some HD clips from Final Cut so that I can edit them in Vegas. Does anyone know what they should export to (other than Cineform) that will work in Vegas, preserve quality and not take forever for Final Cut to render?
Both you and they should install the free Avid DNxHD codec and render to that. It will also save you from the gamma shift that happens when going between Mac and PC. You can download the codec from the Avid web site.
Thank you. In regards to rendering out from Final Cut using the Avid codec, the guy helping me was having trouble figuring out how to do it. Should he use compressor or does he have to render from the FC timeline? He's more of a Vegas user.
It's OK to use a Reference file for input to the Compressor conversion, but the output going to Vegas must of course be Self-Contained.
There is often confusion between gamma issues and "RGB vs. YUV" codec issues.
This has to do with the interpretation, just like Vegas Computer RGB vs. Studio RGB.
Using DNxHD, there are some easy gotchas, like what to do with footage shot at frame rates that are seemingly not supported by DNxHD. Holler if that's the case.
Use Pro Res. Seriously. It imports easily and cuts easily as well. You may need to add the Computer to studio RGB filter from the Color Corrector, but otherwise you should see exactly what you see in FCP.
DNxHD is good but I always get Gamma shifts when working cross-platform.
AFAIK the mac folk only have made the prores 'read' codec available for use on PC's, so if you're running Vegas on a PC, you wouldn't be able to write prores.
Of course the original question was just trying to get some footage from FCP for use in Vegas, not trying to round-trip it back.
Must've been a barrel of fun for Apple programmers in the early days with FCP and a gamma of 1.8. Apple made their choice with a print oriented gamma long ago, but modern color-profiled devices and the ubuiquity of of the internet and its sRGB images finally relieved them of that notion.
Apple was behind MS in the earliest days of the internet, that is true (it made me switch from Mac to Windows at the time), but I think the 1.8 choice may possibly have had less to do with print than with the limitations of the CRTs of the day (on which the sRGB standard was based, btw). The same text & graphics shown on a Mac at that time just looked better for some reason.