From DVCPRO to Vegas. Easiest path?

ddm wrote on 8/1/2008, 9:36 PM
I am in the middle of a conversion of a doc that is finished in SD and it is being sold as an HD feature. I have replaced most of the SD footage with HD and now I just got word that the remainder of the footage has been transferred to DVCPro 100, 1080/60i, I need to get this footage into my Vegas Pro 8 timeline. I have Avid Media Composer and Final Cut Studio here and I will have the DVCPro deck here tomorrow. I know I can capture the hour of footage into either the Avid or FCS but it will require rendering it out of either of those into some Vegas friendly format. Any suggestions on what format might be the smoothest to move to? I was thinking of outputting an m2t file from the Avid, as I've done that before with good results into Vegas. The color space issue with HDV compression doesn't bother me in this instance as the footage is old 16mm NASA footage that for the most part is monotone. I would have to convert the m2t to an intermediate (cineform) as for some reason, the m2t's that the avid creates are just unbearably slow to process in Vegas (unplayable in almost any other application, btw) and take upwards of 10 minutes to read the file every time you as much as click on it in the file manager. So if there's another way I'd love to try it. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

Comments

peter-sieben wrote on 8/1/2008, 10:11 PM
You are able to work in DVCPRO(HD) format in Vegas, using a tool from http://www.dvfilm.com/products.htm (checkout Raylight).
ddm wrote on 8/1/2008, 11:11 PM
Ok, so I spent a bit of time on the Raylight website and I'm a little confused. The feature descriptions really focus on the ability to edit dvcpro footage from P2 cards. I suspect that it's just marketing that they dwell on this so singularly, but I'm not sure what exactly my workflow would be, since what I'm trying to import is HDCAM footage that has been dubbed to DVCPro 1080/60i. With Raylight, can I ingest the dvcpro footage directly into Vegas from a DVCPro firewire deck? All the examples I read referred to converting mxf files into raylight avi's. So I'm guessing that I have to ingest on my mac from the dvcpro deck. Does that give me an mxf file? (like hdv cams generate an m2t file) Sorry for the confusion, and thanks for the info.
kairosmatt wrote on 8/2/2008, 6:21 AM
Raylight is good once you already have DVCPro MXF files on the harddrive. You can convert them to AVIs that Vegas can read, or you can edit natively in Vegas using the Raylight plugin. Both options are included when you purchase raylight.

I don't know about DVCPro100 tapes and using the deck, but it would be easier to capture straight to a PC if thats what your editing with. I don't think that raylight works with tape decks but I could be wrong. If you post on the dvfilm forums, the staff there answers pretty quickly, and they should be able to help with your workflow.

kairosmatt
farss wrote on 8/2/2008, 7:53 AM
I would think you could capture from a DVCPro HD VCR into a PC using the HD SDI output and a BMD card. You would need a moderately fast PC and disk array. Last I heard the BMD codec was working OK with Vegas but only reports were relative to the Intensity.

That does open another possibility though. The BMD codecs are free, work on both Macs and PCs and the QT files should open in both FCP and Vegas, well they sure seem to work OK in SD.

Bob.

<edit> Just one heads up. Panny VCRs don't normally embed audio in their SDI output. You need another gizmo to embed it or else you have to capture the audio though an audio card.
ddm wrote on 8/2/2008, 11:21 AM
I know I can capture into Final Cut from this deck (1200a panasonic). I've done that before. I was just trying to get a handle on the workflow before I did everything twice. Does anyone know, once you capture into Final Cut, can I then use Raylight to convert whatever Final Cut captures into a useable avi for Vegas. Of. does anyone know, does Final cut create an mxf file (like from a p2 card) that I can run in Vegas directly with the Raylight plugin?