422 control would be nice but not the real show stopper on this one.
SDI capture only makes sense if you intend working uncompressed. You can capture and edit in that in VV at the moment.
Try it out for yourself. Render out some DV as uncompressed and try editing it, try getting realtime preview, then you'll get a feel for just how much grunt you're going to need to make this a realist proposition.

Don' be fooled either, a lot of the stuff that's around that claims it can do this is only 8 bit, that reduces the data rate to 25% for starters.

If you just want to capture form an SDI based source but are happy enough with DV compression there's several boxes that will do that for you, you can even go the other way, straight out from VV to a Digi Betacam deck. You'll even get machine control, the box will convert the DV control to 422.

As always, we don't comment on future plans... but we'd like to hear more about what you need in this (or any other) area.

What are you shooting on? How are you delivering the master? What SDI-capable deck are you using?

also:

Did you know that right now you can use either Matrox Digisuite or Decklink to bring SDI in and out of Vegas? Both cards have basic standalone capture/print to tape apps with deck control, clips load on the Vegas timeline no prob, both Matrox and BMD codecs are exposed so you can render back out. Print back to SDI deck is done with the card's capture app. You HAVE to have a beefy, well tweaked system to work with uncompressed of course.

Bluefish444 also has a beta driver and capture app, apparently pretty close to release. As mentioned earlier, if you don't mind downconverting to DV you can use the Promax DA-max for I/O. This works really well with beta & sp beta decks.

So far we have been working with DPS Perception.
We find that for most of our work uncompressed is unnecessary.
There is a price to pay for uncompressed in terms of storage, backup time and expensive Raid configurations. For our purposes it makes a lot of sense to use a 50 Mbps format. This works well with our D9 machines.

So what is lacking right now is batch capture and print to tape from the timeline with Vegas, preferrably through SDI or at least component.

The Decklink card is on the right path and I believe they are even planning capture to any AVI codec. However I don't see any signs that will be supporting Vegas, plus they are dragging their feet with writing software for PC.

George

I think there needs to be some kind of hardware in and out board similar to that of the Toaster 2 (probably not as many ins and outs though). I doubt we will ever get "real time" output like the toaster system, but a set of analog input and output would be great. A lot of the stuff we edit comes on Beta SP, or Digi Beta and we usually have to run it through a MiniDV or DV Cam deck in order to get the video in and out of the system, it would be nice if there was just a breakout box that we could use for Analog stuff, and yes, SDI for the Digi Beta.

SonyEPM:

May I suggest a look at what I would like to call "Proxy" Editing.

Since HD sources are quite large and will tend to drag down even the best of computers to-date, it would make sense to, during capture, or perhaps after, create a full definition and also a reduced definition set of clips. Editing the reduced definition set would allow the user to litterally zip through the editing process at high speeds. MUCH faster than using full definition.

Then, when the edit is finished, and a FINAL render is required, the system would use the instructions already created (.veg), but this time, apply them to the very large, full defintion originals. If it could be done accurately, it would be a vast improvement in time and computer power needed to edit and create the .veg.

Worth a few thoughts, and perhaps a few suggestions from other members of the forum. Don't you think?

Assuming that the SDI bitstream is captured via the Digisuite or Decklink, does Vegas actually then process the video in DigBeta's native 10-bit format?

John

Several users have already done the 'proxy' thing working with HD.
It's certainly a very logical solution.

Yep, i've done that. I've rendered out very very tiny (160x120 8 bit 15fps) versions of the clips, using identical names, and storing them in a different directory. When i finish all the editing and have a final .veg file, i exit Vegas, swap the directory names, then restart and render using the full size original clips. Works a treat!

The project involved enormous amounts of tweaking on a relatively weak computer with limited drive space, so this approach made it possible. More normal editing using less tweaking and done on my more powerful computer probably wouldn't have benefitted as much and rendering the small clips would have been more of a waste of time. Then again, this is all considering standard DV .avi files. With Hi Def material this approach would probably be useful in many situations.

I'm interested in this as well.

I've just gone to Vegas at home where I've been using Premiere for years with a DPS Perception, but I'm switching over to DV there and love Vegas.

Here at work we have a Digisuite LE with a DVCPro50 and SP Betacam. I'm annoyed with Matrox not supporting the Digisuite into Premiere Pro so am looking at alternative applications for editing with the Matrox.

I don't want to use proxy clips and I do want to see my output from the Digisuite, not my computer screen ...

I guess it is probably more up to Matrox to write the codec for Vegas than the other way around?

Sony: any word on whether this will become possible? I'll probably hear towards Speed Razor if there isn't an option here.

Cheers

Just a few things that may be of intrest. I have made informal requests for EDL support which would allow for offline/online editing but mostly I am met with "Who does that anymore?" answers. Yet here I see "proxy" being tossed out and, in a sense, this is the same thing - you just would capture an "offline" resolution file for the edit and when you are finished do the "online" capture and output at the higher res. Both offer the same end result, just that with the EDL and online support you wouldn't have to have both the hi-rez and lo-rez files on a hard drive(s).

Now having said that - I just found a nice little tool called "DvConverter" and what it does is takes DV footage and will convert it to any other "lo-rez" format you choose (it will also convert to other DV formats). But here is the really neat thing - before you convert it will read all the time code info and, provided the file name starts with the tape number (i.e: 001-car stunt master.avi), retain the tape number info as well. it creates a little file with all this info in it. Now you do your conversion and when that is done you re-add all the time code and tape info. Now you edit with all the lo-rez files and when you are done you can just delete all of those files and, using the EDL, re-capture the hi-res. Now the downside is it seems to only work with Premiere, not VV. I captured a file with VV and converted it with DV Convertor, and reinserted the Time Code and tape info into the lo-rez. I opened the files in Premiere and all info read and matched. I opened both files in Scenalyzer and all the informaiton was there as well. I opened both files in VV and only the DV file info read. The low rez file came up with no tape info and no time code info. Also the option to "recapture" was greyed out - this only seems to work with DV files.

I zipped an email off to the author to see if he had any plans to make a version that would not only work with VV but also with HD files - the whole "proxy" thing if you will. That was a week ago, no response at all yet. I see this all as a two fold issue - you have one being lack of EDL/Time Code support with VV and the other is lack of hardware support. Yes you can simply have a low resolution file that matches the name of the hi-rez file and simply replace the lo with the hi at the final render stage but that does nothing for EDL support if you need one at a later date. VV does not do online so simply editing DV and than doing an "online" with the HD/SDI material wouldn't work either. Doing a "batch" capture type of solution wouldn't seem to work either because unless the file is DV you don't have any tape numbers or time code info and the "recapture offline media" option does nothing.

So as I see it VV needs to impliment more robust EDL support. Also the ability to read time code info from all size files, including DV files captured with other programs (other than SClive which it will read info from), and that should lead to better "online" support. Beyond that - Hardware support would be nice, I get the impression from SonyEPM's post that BlueFish is working on VV drivers so that is a good thing. right now many users simply dump a full one hour DV tape onto their hard drive and "log" that material with the trimmer. Now if you do that for 30 or more tapes you have a lot or material. Now if that material is all HD or umcompressed - well, I think a lot of people would start to crave the whole offline/online scenario and see where EDL support would be needed.

I'd like to see SDI as well, we use the Sony J3 Digi-Betacam deck as well as the Sony DSR-2000 DVCam, and finally a Sony DVW-500 DigiBeta.

Also a breakout box for analog in and out would be nice.

The proxy issue would be an unnecessary extra step for me here.

I work for an animation house (www.blue-rocket.com.au) and am basically rendering, compiling and editing the final cartoons together. I want that to happen at full resolution on a TV monitor not at a proxy level. The Digisuite does that very well and I would love to see Vegas handle the DS. I downloaded Speed Razor demo but don't like it. I'm comfortable with Premiere even with its limitations.

We do however occasionally do more traditional edit jobs here and I'd like to get something better working. We are also likely to have to work HD later next year (not that the Digisuite is going to be any good for that) and Vegas seems as it will handle that given the right hardware being thrown at it...

Cheers

Just putting this back up the list :-)

What I would like to see is the ability to never leave Vegas (except for 3rd party things like AE and Boris) for editing HD or film originated material. Sounds like HD is on the way, but I understand that Vegas has issues editing material designed for film negatives.
In my opinion this is one reason some people shy away from Vegas- if you ever want to make a film print of your material you're pretty much out of luck- so why invest in it and learn it?
If you can get Vegas sorted out in this way, add Hardware for things like SDI, and allow better integration with 3rd paty stuff, and when 64 bit processing comes in, then there will be no reason to leave Vegas to do pretty much anything.
Macs, I believe, with FCP can do all this. The other day when I went to a production house they told me they had an Avid machine, but they rarely use it as they have a Mac that will do all the same things and people prefer it. Why not make Vegas into something like this?

Musman,
there is absolutely no problem printing the output from VV to film, I'm sure someone has done it already.

It does seem a rather odd thing to do to me IF you had originated on film though. I'd also suggest if you want to show your work in a cinema and it's already video show it in the cinema as video, there are plenty of good video projectors around today more than suitable to the task. Its certainly not going to look any better printed back to film. Not only that but film is at about the end of its life, there'll be a few decades left for it but even as a distribution medium its days are number, the only question remaining is not if but when it will disappear.

Bit to get back to what you were talking about. As I understand the problem with neg matching the frame rates a very slightly different. Film runs at exactly 24 fps, the underlying frame rate of film converted to video is 0.1% lower for some technical reason. So if you take the video, lay down audio, match each frame of neg film to each frame of video and then layback the audio onto the resulting film you'll slowly but surely loose sync. No doubt you could speed up the audio by that small amount to keep it in sync I guess.

I understand however that Avid have a system designed from the ground up for doing this kind of work.I'm not aware if any of the systems running on Macs can do it either. But all this rather depends on the precise details of exactly what you are trying to achieve. You need to understand that woriking in fim introduces a whole new set of issues that are much harder to control than video.

If all you're trying to do is something that has the look and feel of film I'd suggest going down the DVX100 path and if you want print to film, I'm told it looks pretty good printed to 35mm. Bear in mind just that part of the process is around $350 per minute.

>>>there is absolutely no problem printing the output from VV to film, I'm sure someone has done it already.<<<

making a print from mini-dv is not the same as doing a match back for a neagative cut. VV does not allow for this. VV barely allows for basic EDL export/import.

>>>It does seem a rather odd thing to do to me If you had originated on film though. [SNIP] Not only that but film is at about the end of its life, there'll be a few decades left for it but even as a distribution medium its days are number, the only question remaining is not if but when it will disappear.<<<

When you shoot on film you end up with a negative. you can have film workpints made or you can have video workprints made. If you have a video workprint made it is common to not only have SMPTE TC placed on the tapes but also to have a windows burn done *AND* have the edge numbers placed on the screen. This allows for the matchback when you do your NLE edit. In other words - this is not an "odd" thing at all - to shoot on film and edit on video/computer. It is done all the time, every day 24/7...just not with Vegas.

As for the "film is dead" thought. Old argument, new methods. Yeah when TV came out and started to hit it's 'golden age' there were naysayers - "Film is dead. Who wants to go out and pay money when you can see TV?" Than cable brought things like HBO and again - "Who wants to go out when you can see it on TV?" Than we had video tapes and, more important, video rentals - "Who wants to go out when you can rent it/buy it and watch it at home...on the TV?" Film has never been killed off, going to see a film in a darkend theatre has not been killed off. The style in which films are presented has changed but I don't know too many people who would choose a little shoebox multi-plex over seeing a film in Mann's Chinese on the main screen. Certianly video projection is coming more into play - and if you were sitting in a shoebox multiplex theatre it isn't that much of a hard thing to imagine. However thinking that film, as in motion picture film, is going to be replaced with tape/digital on the whole anytime soon is silly. Yeah you said "not if but when" but anyone could say the same thing about anything - such as "DVD's will decay over time, not if but when..." or "AOL/Time Warner/Clear Channel will take over more radio and tv staions as well the live concert industry, not if but when..." or "more US troops will die in Iraq, not if but when..." or "the earth will implode, not if but when..." See what I mean? Some things are very obvious (US troops being killed in Iraq) others have been said for years and years (the end is near). WIll motion picture film change? Yes, Kodak introduce some new stock again this year (I think it was this year) just the same way that new video technologies were introduced. Will the methods that motion picture film is stored/archived change? Yes. It is forever changing. But the same is said for tape, and even digital. Will motion picture film vanish alltogether? I don't think so. because the process of archiving films will always continue. The process of restoration will always continue. I think for indy films and low budget film shooting digital will probably replace motion picture film that same way that video replace film for shooting the daily news. ABC Shows like 20/20 and Primetime now arm their producers with PD-150's so they can be a crew of one to do stories. "Dp's and Camera operators will not be needed anymore, not if but when...."

Film has co-existed with video for a long time, now it will co-exist with digital technology as well. Probably VHS will "phase out" as more PVR's and Desktop DVD recordables come out and the prices drop. My mother, who is in her 70's, was looking into getting a new VCR/DVD combo but she got a little advert for a TIVO/DSS system - "Oh, if I got this I wouldn't need a VCR at all. I wouldn't have to buy any more tapes" she said. But she has never, ever picked up a motion picture camera of any type and shot anything - certianly that alone should have been an indicator of the impending death of motion picture film should it not? :)

I first heard "film is dead" in 1975. I had just taken a job installing and repairing movie theatre projection equipment and my co-worker infromed me that Video would replace film in the next 5 years. 35mm film still provides a better image than Hi Def video. I have seen 70 mm go away because of cost . No one would shoot the 65 mm film stock but they still released 70mm prints because of the sound quality (6 magnetic tracks). This stopped with the arrival of Dolby Digital, DTS and Sony SDDS sound formats on 35 mm. Video will replace film as the release format because of the ease of use. No one has to thread the video. There is no need for a projectionist. Think of the exhibitors bottom line. Quality only counts for so much.

Film will certainly remain as special venue media for many years. IMAX cannot be replaced with video technology today.

Video projection has made tremendous strides in recent years. I just replace a projector at work with one that is 8 times brighter, 6 times the contrast and one third the price. The old one had been in use for 6 years.

Back to the original topic, the more professional uses that can be added to vegas the better the product will be for all of us. EDL seem like a no-brainer. They should be fully implemented in the system. Better hardware support will bring more people to the platform, and raise the awareness for this wonderful product.

Sony, keep it growing!

Filmy,
i wasn't for a minute suggesting that the end of cinema is nigh, quite the contrary. I think digital mastering and projection will revive it although the capital costs need to come down dramatically.It's going to be a major hurdle for the independant cinemas who mostly make do with second hand prints.

What annoys me about film is there is no control over the degradation of the prints. I've several movies twice at different times and cinemas, one of them you'd be hard pressed to realise it was the same movie.

I've also been lucky enough to see a movie projected on the latest Christie DLP projector setup by Christie. The result is pretty stunning. Mayb it's not as good as film CAN be. The problem for film is it's looks a damn sight better than most film as it ends up in our cinemas.

With regard to your other comments you've obviously got a better grasp of the process than me, I had seen a post from the SoFo engineers advising against going down this path even with film frame numbers in the transfered video. Maybe I misunderstood what they were saying but i understood the issue was although you could match the film frames to the frame numbers in the video you then ahd a problem with the audio sync due to very small difference in frame rate.

Last time I worked with film was over 30 years ago and the audio was on 16mm mag tape.

(THis is long - sorry. I just typed away.)

>>>What annoys me about film is there is no control over the degradation of the prints. I've several movies twice at different times and cinemas, one of them you'd be hard pressed to realise it was the same movie.<<<

This is true in the sense of prints that you see. Theater to theater the projectors will be different, the screen will be different, the sound system will be different and so on - there simply is not any form of quality control on the screening end. When a release print comes out of the lab there is a form of quality control - there has to be. I won't go into the lab process but having sat in enough screenings and making notes for the lab I can say it isn't as simple as looking at the first print and going "yeah,ok - whatever" and letting the lab start making release prints. For the low end indy film this is close to the case, you maybe can afford to have 'major' color work done but not for every shot in the film. If the color suddenly shifts mid scene from normal to a blue tint than the lab will fix it and as long as they are fixing that they would probably fix some other things...on that reel. Anyhow - my point is that once those prints get out there that is when all the issues start. It might look great on one screen and than see it somewhere else and it will look horrid. And it is not always the print, as I said. Once the film gets out of first release and gets into the sceondary house you will start to see things too - dirt and splices being the 2 main ones. Again - quality control. Also a reflecion on how well the theatre (or prior theatre) takes care of the prints they have.

On the digital side this will surely come into play as well. If you take a project that you have worked on and dump it out to tape and bring it over to various places, stores, schools - where ever - you will surely find massive amounts of varients. And it is not the tapes fault.
I doubt you will see any sort of national/international "rules" that could be enforced as to the set up of either film projection or video projection. Just because the film is "THX Certified" or has a "color by Delux" stamp on it does not mean that the viewing circumstances will be the same as when the film got those "stamps". (Which brings up things like "Filmed in panavision" "DTS" "Dolby" "Filed with Zeiss lenses" - none of this matter when you sit in a third run theater that has mono sound and a 50 year old screen and a 30 year old projector with a 1 year old bulb and a print that has been around for 6 months)

>>>I had seen a post from the SoFo engineers advising against going down this path even with film frame numbers in the transfered video. Maybe I misunderstood what they were saying but i understood the issue was although you could match the film frames to the frame numbers in the video you then ahd a problem with the audio sync due to very small difference in frame rate.<<<

I did not see this post. I did see a post when someone wanted to use Vegas to do a film matchback and SoFo advised agaist it because, simply, Vegas could not do it. As for sync issues - I cut several features with D/Vision, exporting an edl for the negative cutter. The negative cuts were fine, no issues. I than cut the sound on an Amiga 2000 using Studio 16. That audio was dumped out to DAT and taken to a transfer house for transfer to 35 mag. That was taken to the film lab where an optical was printed and it was put in sync with the cut negative and a release print was made. Never any issues with audio. This is multi layerd process - You need a program that will acurtately do the SMPTE TC/EDL > Film Edge number matchback. You need a negative cutter who can cut negative. You need an audio lab that will transfer your audio correctly. You need a film lab that will sync up your audio correctly. (And I am being simple here)

Problems arise in a few areas - Germany has very strict requiremnts when taking delivery of films. They always want a 35mm release print and a PAL 1' master - but they want their audio on 16mm mag ready to go for dubbing amd PAL transfer. Now this adds a sync issue because you need an audio house that can take your 24 fps film master and transfer it to specs set up by the German distributor. 35mm > 16mm is one issue. NTSC > PAL is another. We had an issue with one film where they returned the audio 5 times for various reasons - this was an M&E track, not the full mix. 3 of those time it was because they insisted the audio was out of sync. On the last refusal we demanded they supply new transfer notes for the audio house. The notes were exaclty the same as we already had. So one final transfer was made with the message "This is all you get. Everything checks out here. The transfer has been done to your exact specs several times. If you wish you cancel the deal you will be required to pay for all transfers" They were not happy but they accepted it and kept the film. This was the only film there was an issue with - we never found out anything specif because all they would ever say is "REFUSED" With the Reason being "Sync issues" and that was too wide of an area to pinpoint. Considering everything was done to their specs it was even more pointless to simply say that.

Another issue is the pulldown issues involved. If you edit in 24p, which was not something you did years ago, and you cut audio to 24p - yeah there would be some sysnc issues when going back to the negative cut. Keep in mind the formula used for doing matchback was based on some important things. It was based on drop or non drop frame time code, based on video that was 30 interlaced and having the pulldown in it diring the telecine process, that the TC window was accurate and the edge numbers were accurate. Any variatons in that would first mess up the negative cut and second mess up the audio transfer.

But it can be done, as I say I did it many times with gear that you would probably consider 'primative" to what can be done now with software. the bottom line is really to not count on what your software vendor tells you - count on what your negative cutter tells you. Start there. Get their specs and work backword than you will know what to tell your film lab - how to have your dailies transfered, what TC to use, where to place the windows and so forth. They may also tell you how to set up your software for the best matchback and what kind of EDL to export. A copmany I worked with were one of the first to have matchback done in the US - at the time a new company brought over their newly developed software from austraila and were looking for feature films to cut negative with. Our negative cutters were always at Magic Film and Video so we consulted with them at first. At the time they could not do a match back in the same way as they were still developing it. (They actually were one of the first to offer video dailies - but things were still edited on film) (And FWIW Magic Film and Video helped to further the concept with the DVCAM-Apple-FilmLogic off-line editing concept in 2000. The films I am talking baout were done in the mid-90's) The end result was we had very good results and used this "new technolgy", and the company, for 4 feature films. I believe their software was eventually morphed into FilmScribe, or something like that. Now it is common place to do this sort of thing. ..and you and I can even do it. But..again...say it with me...Vegas currently does not support this type of work. Bummer.

Hello,

For my part, I shoot on Digi Beta, and would love to be able to capture at low res then take an EDL to Sony Xpri for an online edit. I know Avid have Mojo and FCP have an AJA I/O deck, whats stopping Sony with Vegas?? ....Go on you know it makes sense. ( Even more so since Sony have released the new XDCam)

Cheers

Phil

Phil

I think we're all hoping that is the way it will go with Sony acquiring the software...

Fingers crossed. Make a boody good product a world beater ...

Cheers

Kevin