First attempt at HDV editing...

newmediarules wrote on 4/1/2006, 9:00 AM
Basic question:

If I place an HDV file in my time line, and render it as an "HD 1080-60i YUV", is the rendered file an HDV file?

If so, why do I keep hearing about Cineform? Is Cineform a necessary component software?

Also, it seems that the "dissolve" transition is sometimes enabled even when I place shots together "bump to bump". I've never seen that happen with SD.

Lastly, I have an Athlon 64 3000+ with 1G RAM. It's pretty clear that I could use more strength. In terms of an adequate upgrade, what's the most inexpensive route?

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 4/1/2006, 9:19 AM
I asked a lot of the same questions, which resulted in a few threads that may help. Also, I'm providing a link to an HD forum:

HDV

HDV Questions

My workflow for HDV to SD projects

Sony HDVinfo.com

High Def Forum

If I place an HDV file in my time line, and render it as an "HD 1080-60i YUV", is the rendered file an HDV file?

Yes. [Edit] Actually, the correct answer is No -- see Spot's post below, and my brief response to that post.

If so, why do I keep hearing about Cineform? Is Cineform a necessary component software?

No. However, the m2t files that are captured from your HDV camera are compressed using inter-frame compression. This means that in order to recreate a given frame, Vegas must look at as many as fifteen previous frames. This makes the timeline sluggish beyond belief (as you may have noticed). No big deal when playing back the video on the proper player that has the decoding built-in, but horrible on a general purpose computer. The solution is either to render to a high-resolution format that is similar to good 'ol DV where each frame is compressed, but doesn't require information from on any other frame (Cineform), or to render to a low-resolution format (like regular DV) that can easily be edited, and then, just before creating the final render, switch all the files back to your original m2t files. This method is called the proxy method ("proxy" means substitute) and is done automatically by a plugin called Gearshift.


Spot|DSE wrote on 4/1/2006, 9:45 AM
There is also HDVInfo.net where you'll find most of the manufacturers and developers of the HDV world congregating. There is the only forum specifically for Vegas/HDV there.
You don't want to render as 60iYUV unless you've got a BlackMagic Design card.
You *can* edit the native .m2t files, but the best workflow is to use the CineForm codec (which comes with Vegas6). You can also purchase CineForm's capture utility, which is faster than converting, but your computer isn't quite fast enough for CineForm's capture tool and real-time conversion.
You can use the Vegas Batch Converter (tools>scripting>batch converter) and convert to the CineForm codec via the HDIntermediate found in the avi templates. Convert to 60i in most instances. You can also use GearShift to convert groups/batches.
This is what you'll edit with. If you're going for a DVD output, I'd strongly urge you to stay in an HD timeline all the way to the end, creating a master from the CineForm file. The CineForm render is perfect for a final output, and may be repurposed easily. You can also drop the CineForm codec files into a DV timeline and crop there, but I sure wouldn't recommend doing this with native .m2t files.
The HDV Portal will answer more of your questions. Also, StudioMonthly lays out the conversion/workflow.
Additionally, since your machine is slower, you can choose to edit with DV widescreen proxies, and when you're done editing replace the proxies with the original .m2t files, or with the CineForm files. This is how many folks with slower computers are managing HDV right now. GearShift can do this for you, creating the proxies and "shifting" out the proxies for all the original .m2t files or CineForm files.
No matter what, you really don't want to be editing/converting to the 1080YUV. Those are huge, and only efficient if you have a large/capable RAID and plenty of RAM and CPU.

The reason you're seeing the dissolve could be that you used it somewhere in the project, and Vegas is remembering it. Vegas always remembers the last transition used on an event.HTH
johnmeyer wrote on 4/1/2006, 10:28 AM
Spot, thanks for correcting my answer. I didn't read his post carefully enough, and when he said "HD 1080-60i YUV," I read it as "HDV 1080-60i Intermediate." That, of course is what he SHOULD render to, since this is the way for him to create the CineForem HD Intermediate.
newmediarules wrote on 4/1/2006, 11:08 AM
resources and info. I'll definitely look into all of it. But if you guys could indulge for another moment, I'm trying feverishly to get past one little part of my journey, and I thinkyou guys can get me there pretty quickly.

This is what I'm dealing with, right now, specifically:

My client handed me a big hard drive with about 1.5hrs of HDV footage. I edit the footage in the Vegas timeline. I'm using the "Project Setting" called "HD 1080-60i (1920x1080, 29.970 fps)", "Upper Field First", "1.000 (Square)", etc.

I rendered the edited piece as an MPEG-2 (HD 1080-60i, Audio: 224 Kbps, 48,000 Hz, Layer 2, Video: 29.97 fps, 1920x1080,"Use this setting to create an HD 1080-60i MPEG-2 file.")

The rendered file is an .m2t file, which is what, apparently, the client's camera records in. The image looks great - I see no problem with it. And the file size, while still "huge", is, as was suggested, nothing like the original HDV file).

My question: Is it considered professionally acceptable to deliver the final product in an .m2t file? Is it considered a degradated image?
Spot|DSE wrote on 4/1/2006, 12:06 PM
That's the wrong template.
You should be working with the HDV template/1440 x 1080, PAR of 1.333
You can deliver to the client in an .m2t format, but the question is "what is he going to do with it?" If it's just for tape playback from his cam, that's the correct format. If it's going to DVD, then you'll currently need to render it to an SD format, 720 x 480, at the framerate you'd prefer to work with. The file is actually quite small. HDV is the same footprint almost exactly, as DV. 13 gig an hour. If you convert that to CineForm, you'll be working with 40 to 60 GB per hour, which also seems "large" but in the scheme of things, is very small compared to most any other HD format.