HDV .mov Files do not work in Vegas, thanks to MAC

Switchvert wrote on 2/23/2009, 6:15 AM
OK, so I have spent a couple weeks searching and so far no one has had an answer for me.

I have 75 tapes, which were shot on the Sony Z7 and captured by another production house using Final Cup Pro. They captured the .hdv footage as .mov files. When I drag the foogate onto my Vegas 8 timeline all I can see is audio and no video. I can play all other .mov files except the .hdv ones... anyone have a clue of a codec I could use to fix this? I would rather not have to convert all the footage if at all possible!

Joel

Comments

Marco. wrote on 2/23/2009, 7:02 AM
This is an Apple Quicktime restriction. You cannot playback MPEG-2 Quicktime without having the Quicktime MPEG-2 plugin installed. You need to buy the plugin from Apple.

Marco
Cheno wrote on 2/23/2009, 7:05 AM
Once captured to the Apple .mov codec, the clips will not be editable on PC. Conversion is the key on both sides which, if you know ahead what platform these will be captured on and what platform they'll be edited on, is crucial information to have.

For the HDV files to play on the PC, they'll have to be converted to a codec found on both machines. I encoded most of my FCP footage to ProRes and use the QT ProRes decoder. These edit very well in Vegas and it allows me cross platform use of the footage when needed. Some have also had great success with the Avid DNxHD codec as well which is free on the Avid site.

Regardless, you'll have to convert. 75 tapes is going to be a chore. Either that or you'll want to learn FCP, which in 75 hours or so of training, you'll probably be whiz bang!

cheno
mtntvguy wrote on 2/23/2009, 7:41 AM
Do you have Quicktime for Windows installed on your machine? Doing that ended the .mov problems I had in Vegas. It's free, but they'll try to see you the $30 upgrade.

I guess if all else failed you could recapture the tapes as .avi files.
rs170a wrote on 2/23/2009, 7:49 AM
The latest version of QuickTime for the PC has the ProRes codec built into it so if they used this codec, you should be able to read it.

Mike
Switchvert wrote on 2/23/2009, 9:56 AM
damn... looks like I'm learning FCP... I have tried all these other options...


Thanks everyone for chiming in!
JoeMess wrote on 2/23/2009, 10:24 AM
Spend the thirty bucks and go Qiocktime Pro. When you playback MPEG-II encapsulated in .MOV on a MAC the "high-quality" setting is turned on by default. The same file on a PC has "high-quality" turned off by default. Yes, you need to open each file select high-quality and save. I don't think the options are selectable in the non-pro version. With High-quality not selected, the video quality is horrendous.

Joe
[r]Evolution wrote on 2/23/2009, 11:54 AM
Can you play these files in QT?

If so:
Window>ShowMovieInspector

What Audio & Video CoDecs are the files?
Switchvert wrote on 2/23/2009, 12:24 PM
OK, how do I do that? Open the file in Vegas or in QT Pro? Then, if I edit in "low quality" will it be possible to render out a high res version of the final product?
Former user wrote on 2/23/2009, 12:42 PM
The High Quality/Low Quality is for display only. Any exporting you do with QT pro will be in the requested resolution and quality.

Dave T2
LJA wrote on 2/23/2009, 2:24 PM
I have the Quicktime MPEG-2 plugin (on my MacBook) but it rejects all M2T and M2V files from Vegas that I have given it. MPG files work OK.
JoeMess wrote on 2/23/2009, 9:47 PM
DaveD2,

Not true! I had to re-render a bunch of work for a localization project because the re-exported clips were in fact not high quality. I then went in and reset each source native language clip to High quality and re-render to get decent final output. It was a nightmare because the project included many, over a hundred, short clips. I have confirmed this behavior in other projects as well.

Joe
Coursedesign wrote on 2/23/2009, 9:51 PM
Is true.

It's just a flag.

Marco. wrote on 2/24/2009, 12:44 AM
The plugin is meant for Quicktime MPEG-2 only. So you need to render as .mov.

Marco