> The Gearshift renders took ages+.
Gearshift is a scripting tool. Vegas still does all the work. Gearshift just tells Vegas what to do. So, as long as Vegas reads m2ts files as is, I saw no point in converting the original files, instead I keep them unchanged and use them for the final render.

When I tell Gearshift to render only the proxy files, the total time spent on rendering should be less, even if the final rendering of a project based on m2ts files takes longer than rendering a project based on AVI files.

When you "shift gear", Gearshift iterates through the project and replaces all links to the proxy files with links to the original files. This is how I understand it.

I am a programmer, and I want to look at the Vegas scripting SDK, and see if I can make something similar myself, and then have options to render much smaller proxy files to decrease the time this operation takes, and also with the benefit of reducing the overall project size.
As it is now, Gearshift multiplies the disk space my project needs by a factor of 4,5 even as much as 10. If I have not misunderstood something, corrections are velcome!

Ingvarai

I must have been unclear on my comment, when Gearshift told VP8 what to render, its instructions resulted in a HUGE file that took beyond ages to render, so I don't use it. If I remember correctly, even the site where you get Gearshift says "take a break" when the render starts.
It just caught my attention the original post stated the same issues that I encountered.

I use GearShift all the time for projects that involve more than just throwing a dozen m2t clips up on the timeline.

It is set up so that it allows me to switch between m2t and dv clips effortlessly. A dv clip is about the same size as an m2t clip (very slightly larger, in fact) but the whole reason for working in dv is that it is trivial for the PC to decode and therefore the frame rate in dissolves, color corrections, etc. is much faster. And dv is plenty good enough, quality-wise, to make critical judgments during editing. Then, when my project is finished and ready for render to Mpeg2, I just GearShift back to the m2t clips and render from them. Encoding to Mpeg2 from m2t files rather than from dv files makes a huge difference in quality in many instances. For example, reds look awful if you source with dv, bleeding out horizontally. Encoding from m2t clips, however, delivers reds that fit within their boundaries.

To use GearShift, here's what I do:

(1) Pull all the m2t clips into the PC from the camera.

(2) Open Gearshift, set the Proxy Media to "DV Widescreen." Make sure the HD Media window says "None."

(3) Load all the m2t clips into the left-hand GearShift window and then click Okay. Vegas and Gearshift will render identical copies of every m2t clip into a reduced-resolution DV clip. The new clips will be put into the same folder as the original m2t clips, and will have "GSP_" appended to their names.

(4) From that point on I forget about the m2t world entirely and just work with the GSP clips as though this were a DV project (which it now, in fact, is).

(5) When the project is completed I call up GearShift for the last time, this time hitting the "Shift Gears" button. GearShift will automatically swap all the DV clips for their m2t originals, keeping all the editing decisions identical. Then I can render to Mpeg2 using the built-in MainConcept encoder, or use my installed CinemaCraft encoder via Frameserver.

> daryl said: I must have been unclear on my comment, when Gearshift told VP8 what to render, its instructions resulted in a HUGE file that took beyond ages to render, so I don't use it.

This is because you probably took the default and were generating BOTH the intermediaries AND the DV proxies. If you don't want the huge intermediary files then, as riredale said, just make sure HD Media is set to "None". All you will get is the DV proxies which are exactly the same size as the m2t files. That's why we gave you all these options in GearShift.

~jr

> ingvarai said: I am a programmer, and I want to look at the Vegas scripting SDK, and see if I can make something similar myself, and then have options to render much smaller proxy files to decrease the time this operation takes, and also with the benefit of reducing the overall project size.

GearShift already does this. If you read the User's Guide on page 12 it shows you that ANY rendering template can be used by GearShift simply by naming it starting with "GSP " as the prefix. (that's "G", "S", "P", "<space>") and GearShift will list it as a proxy template in the Proxy downdown box. You can make your templates as "mean and lean" as you'd like.

I know, I know... no one read the manual :(

> Given this brilliant product concept, I wonder why I cannot make "real" proxy files = small files rendered to WMV for example. The proxy AVI files generated become 12-15 times larger than the original footage (m2ts files) - and - take ages to render.

It sounds like you were generating the intermediaries and the proxies. I will change the default to not generate the intermediaries since it seems to be confusing everyone. As I said above, the DV proxies are the same size as the m2t files and you can create new templates to make them as small as you'd like.

~jr

Thanks for the tip on rendering templates, JR. (Yeah, I didn't read the manual - the online tutorial was fine for me).

Gearshift is da bomb! Thanks for the good work.

JohnnyRoy:

As a matter of fact - I can not.
From the user manual:
Any

I want my proxies av WMV, not AVI.
As I understand, the proxies are limited to the AVI format. Right?

Ingvarai

> IMHO, this is not intuitive enough. And the information belonngs on page 10 IMO.

Agreed. I will move it to page 10 where I'm talking about the proxies. Good point.

> I really vbener understood the need for an intermediate render for each footage, since Vegas will read the original footages just fine.

Ahhh... when GearShift was first created back in the days of Vegas 5/6, you could not really play the m2t files on the timeline. It was a slide show at best. This was before QuadCores existed and DualCores had just come out and not many people had them and Sony had not tuned their m2t playback yet (that didn't come until Vegas 7) and there was no smart render of MPEG2 (that wasn't until Vegas Pro 8). So GearShift served it's purpose back then and allowed the editing of HDV on systems that could not have edited it any other way. It is still useful for laptop users where hard drives and cpu's are not quite as fast and powerful.

Sitting here now in 2008, GearShift is less of a need for HDV shooters because of improvements in Vegas and QuadCores... BUT... it has taken on a new life for AVCHD shooters because AVCHD has stressed the hardware once again and set us back to slide-show like previews so we added AVCHD support. We've also added MXF support. So it continues to be a useful tool and we have continued to add features and release them as free updates for existing customers.

Getting back to your comment about why you need intermediaries. They are still needed if you are doing post production in other applications. If you want to use Ultra, or After Effects or any application that will modify the footage, you'll see the MPEG2 falls apart quickly with many re-renders where the CineForm intermediary does not. You can re-render CineForm several times without visible degradation. So depending on how many applications you have in your post production pipeline, you may or may not need high quality intermediaries.

~jr

> I want my proxies av WMV, not AVI. As I understand, the proxies are limited to the AVI format. Right?

That's right it is limited to AVI so you would have to use DivX or some other codec that support AVI. I will take WMV proxies as a feature request. ;-)

~jr

It's ENCODE, not render.....

You need a frame-accurate file to use as a proxy, i.e. avi. Compression of any kind (wmv, mov, mpg) does not provide full-frames of images.

Steve

> Compression of any kind (wmv, mov, mpg) does not provide full-frames of images.

I guess this does not apply to AVI using xvid or Cineform compression?

Ingvarai

> I guess this does not apply to AVI using xvid or Cineform compression?

It does apply to xvid but it does NOT apply to CineForm. The CineForm codec compresses full frames which is why the files are so much larger than the MPEG2 Transport Streams that you encode them from.

What Steve Mann is pointing out is the fact that predictive frames are just that... a prediction... a guess... I have done motion tracking on MPEG files only to see misalignment in my final render due to differences in prediction. So if you are doing any work that involves keyframing or tracking, you'd be better off doing that will a full frame codec. Otherwise it's a gamble at best and an embarrassment at worst.

~jr

JR,

Regarding your comment awhile back about doing post production in other applications - could you confirm how I would use GearShift and the cineform intermediate if my source is AVCHD and I am doing most of my editing in Vegas, but wanted to take one clip to AE for (let's say) chromakeying via keylight. I think what you are saying is I would create all my proxies, then load the proxy for the clip to be chromakeyed into AE, do the chromakey, and render back to cineform which would become the new proxy for this clip in Vegas. Am I on the right track here?

Jerry

Getting back to your comment about why you need intermediaries. They are still needed if you are doing post production in other applications. If you want to use Ultra, or After Effects or any application that will modify the footage, you'll see the MPEG2 falls apart quickly with many re-renders where the CineForm intermediary does not. You can re-render CineForm several times without visible degradation. So depending on how many applications you have in your post production pipeline, you may or may not need high quality intermediaries.

"I wonder why I cannot make "real" proxy files = small files rendered to WMV for example"

Ingvarai, you should have a look at my script ProxyStream.

>"I will take WMV proxies as a feature request. ;-)"

I would so love to see WMV proxies!! :-)
--
Mike

Mike, on my pc WMV renders slower than other codecs. The render seems to pause for a long breath every 20 or so frames. Do you experience that on your faster PC?

What is it that appeals to YOU about WMV? For me, they seem to always look great, just slow to render.

I would so love to see WMV proxies!! :-)

Jerry