Agreed, this is the way I'm going to approach my projects.

you can't just switch it to 32 bit for the render unless you are doing no coloring or color correction to your work. Otherwise you need to turn on 32 bit after the cutting but before the coloring.

(that's my workflow) and actually I just do my coloring while working on it, and just toggle the effects off and on at the preview window for the entire screen.

Dave

Eh? Dave . .please put it another way? Please?

Grazie

32 bit is required for best quality color correction. So while you may cut and paste and all that stuff in 8 bit you must move to 32 bit BEFORE you apply FX if you want the benefit of the 32 bit color.

It's the same old problem. Cineform gets better, Vegas get better, frame rates get worse..................

Mike

"It's the same old problem. Cineform gets better, Vegas get better, frame rates get worse.................."

Part of the beauty of Vegas is that it is entirely CPU-based. As CPUs get faster, Sony is able to introduce new features that would otherwise require a large investment in hardware, which becomes obsolete pretty quickly. Vegas introduced HDV editing when there were still quite a few machines in use that didn't quite have the horsepower to pull it off smoothly. When I built my Quad-core machine, all of a sudden editing HDV was as fast as editing DV was on my old machine.

It's not surprising that editing in the 32-bit mode will slow things down since you're processing more data per frame than 8-bit. As machines get faster, which they always do, this will become less of an issue. While 32-bit editing isn't fully integrated into Vegas just yet as not all the filters are 32-bit, it was a giant step in the right direction. If I want blazing speed, I have 8-bit. If I want ultimate quality and I'm willing to take the time, I have 32-bit. Just being able to edit 10-bit video in my beloved Vegas was well worth the $135 upgrade price. All the rest of the new stuff was just icing on the cake.

I expect that version 8.0a will fix a lot of the issues with a new x.0 release, by v8.0b, I expect it to be as solid all all the other previous releases and maybe the media generator and all the filters will be fully 32-bit. Vegas is, and apparently will continue to be, my preferred NLE.

John

Can I perhaps chime in here?

I'd strongly suggest reading the The DV Rebels Guide, last chapter.
Stu does an excellent job of explaining the right way to handle the process of color grading and timing and how to get some of those really 'out there' effects. I'd never really thought this through properly and was kind of amazed to learn that the process can start right back at the art and wardrobe departments.

Now, that chapter and much of the book is devoted to the PPro / AE workflow, even though Vegas gets a mention in the book. Now I am NOT singing the praises of PPro and AE here but once you get your head around what he's saying, in other words you understand the workflow that working in that environment kind of forces you into you might realise the logic of it, it's a better way to work with less risks of getting things messed up. However you can do this in Vegas, you just need to accept the discipline and stick to it, you don't HAVE to in Vegas but there's good reasons why you SHOULD. The good news should be that with the new 32bit FP linear pipeline there's now no technical reason not to adopt the same workflow, and keep it all in Vegas.

Let me borrow an example from Stu's book, The Matrix. In that movie there's two distinct 'looks'. The real world and the matrix. The real world looks real, the matrix is pushed to green so you feel something is just a bit wierd in that place. How to do this in Vegas, what's the way to work so everything flows easily?

Step 1) Edit. You really cannot edit without real time preview. Took me a long time to grasp the importance of this. Without real time preview you just cannot get the rhythm of the visual dance. This is not the time to worry about how a shot looks color wise unless it's totally whacked in which case you just don't use it.
Now if using Vegas here's a tip. Use tracks, one for the real world and one for the matrix. You'll see why later.

Step 2) Grade. Get all your clips looking the same i.e. correct errors, could be things like the sun going down. Do this at the clip / event level. Ignore how you want the final thing to look, you just want it to cut without jarring color shifts.

Step 3) Time. So far your movie looks pretty boring but cuts correctly.
Now you've got all your 'real world' and 'matrix' clips on their own tracks, right. Now at the track level adjust the look of each place. The advantage here is everything tracks together. If you'd applied the color offsets at the event level and want to change the final look of the matrix you're going to have a lot of work on your hands.

Step 4) Print. OK, you're more than likely not going to be printing to film however you might want to impart the look of certain print stocks or more... The place to do this is on the video bus. You want to change print stocks, only need to change one FX. You really do want to print to film, well you don't want that look of the stock applied twice or things will go really whacky but now it's a doodle to switch one FX off on the video buss. But wait there's more.

You take your finished work along to a venue and preview it through their video projector and it looks like crud, yikes, what to do. Well in this workflow it's pretty easy, adjust the FX(s) in the video buss master. Heck one can even have a number of presets for different venues / projectors. Now ain't that simple. Take along a still camera and shoot some shots off the screen as a reference for when you get back would help too.

Now getting back to what I think Dave was saying. Vegas has yet another way to help us. Adding FX(s) to the preview monitor!

Remember in Step 4 we applied FX(s) to correct for how our 'print' ended up looking. Well you can apply the reverse FX(s) to the preview monitor to see how your masterpiece will look in that venue. There's many uses for that little icon in the preview window. Maybe you want to just do a quick check how something will look after you grade or time it, that's the place to do it, you can switch the FX on/off easily. This way you can do quick checks without disrupting where your head should be in step 1), editing.

Oh and still buy the book, the guy seriously deserves the money, there's heaps more good stuff in there, even on this narrow part of the process, even if you don't plan on making action thrillers.

Now I don't have V8 as yet, maybe the above workflow really will not fly in V8 but it should or it once the wrinkles get ironed out it will. We should be able to do in Vegas what could cost you $100Ks to do. But don't get all cocky, those $100Ks do buy a heck of a lot more than I suspect Vegas will ever be able to offer but if you don't need RT HD playback with stacks of CC then you can save a bundle and probably get more bang for your buck in fact. Reality is the only time YOU need RT playback is when editing, and you should have locked the edit before you started worrying about CCing anything.

Bob.

Bob.

Thanks Bob!

I can now see the beginning of a workflow I could use - maybe. . .

OK ( and without getting TOO "cocky" - lol) - here is my feedback. It IS to do with the artistry and those kinda feeble-minded tantalizing things/ideas I have, from time to time. And no, I don't have 100k to spend and no, I really kinda DO understand that Vegas may not be in there - but I really appreciate your candour when you pointed it out to me - thanks!

Step 1) I have ALWAYS signed up to the need to real-time editing - as you say - to get the dance, I like that! I think I even remember your particular "Road-To-Damascus" happening - wasn't so long ago - yeah? OK, might I also add, colour grading, for me, is ALSO part of that dance/narrative. Personally, I think CSI would be lost without it! Take away the CGrading and what is left? "Horatio" looking wistfully pale against an even paler and even more wistful, overexposed sky line? C Grading is part of the narrative too. In the generic CSI example I gave, I'd say it is crucial. I just want that available too - but let's park that, next to the utility and my Ferrari. - So, for me, it IS the time to, you say "worry" - I'd say have a view/open-mind/greater-palette/understanding of layers awareness and so on . . . I'll hold off until I read your tracks option . .I can't wait . .

Step 2) 100%! Not what I'm getting at, Bob? I understand the need for "ironing-out” CC issues at event level - really I do! Honest!

Step 3) Ahah! So, as to be clear that I understand what you are saying, is that there ARE places, and selective places, where 32 bit are/is to be used? Those places are pre-planned by having "parked" ideas for having a go at - at sometime down the track, as it were? OK - I buy that. If I have got this wrong, please explain. But I do like what you are saying.

Step 4) This is most commendable. The Presets thing and a further interpretation of what you believe Dave is saying - yup, I go along with that. Yup, adding FX at the Preview window - I don't often use that one, but am willing to go back and experiment with it.

Look, I understand and agree with most of what you are saying. But sometimes, sometimes, I see a result and want THAT to be part of my realtime experience. Seeing 32-bit bash me in the retina was a simple WOW factor for me. How I fit, retain, include and experience this as PART of my realtime narrative creation was all what I was after? Nothing more, and nothing less.

OK, maybe we should have a checklist as to when 32bit SHOULD be used. Is it to reduce "banding"? Do I use it to discover greater depth of layering ( that's what reeeeally got to me Bob!). Now that would help me.

Thanks for your patience,

Off to the book store . . .

Best regards,

Grazie

Thanks Bob. Once again showing how adaptable Vegas is and what a time saving easy way to CC. I had been doing it at the event level previously.

I was waiting for you to say something!!

Look I really should have added a rider to what I was saying. That workflow is more, if not solely, applicable to longform narratives. In that space you're mostly shooting to a script, storyboard, shot list. You have a lot of coverage of the scene under changing light etc, etc.
Traditionally this has been done in an offline -> online workflow as well. The CC part is all left to the online as well.
In Stu's book the Offline is done in PPro and the Online is done in AE, simply because it has the 32 bit linear pipeline. Why do it there, well it's optimised for that (PPro doesn't do linear light) and it sure isn't realtime either. The downside to using AE apart from the lack of realtime is you're very unlikely to have one of those smick uber expensive control surfaces. They're not just to impress the client either, you can twiddle more than one dial at a time! Yeah you can get the same result in AE but you have to do multiple fiddles of the color wheels, offset one against the other, push the blacks one way while you push the highlights the other.
The point I was getting at is that by my understanding you just can't work this traditional way in Vegas prior to V8. The errors from multiple stacked CCs add up. Having that linear light pipeline through the whole process enables this kind of approach and the really good news should be you don't have to bounce it from PPro to AE, we get to do it all in one application. All we need is discipline. The PPro -> AE workflow forces the discipline, we just need to be a bit more alert.

Now of course not everyone is doing longform narratives!
Some of us like to throw lots of clips and ideas onto the timeline and let the beast meld into something, just like the potter with his wheel and clay.
And this is where I think I hit a wall with advice. That very fat pipeline is very processor intensive, so much so that many uber expensive grading systems don't offer as much control as AE or Vegas. They have to limit the amount of number crunching just to keep the real time playback going. Traditionally though their input files are uncompressed frames that are already linear light. That means less number crunching but fat data pipes. Now maybe there's a clue there for how Grazie likes to work. I don't know if that would fly or not, converting all your assets to a linear light format first. Only really big downside would be gobbling up TBytes of disk space!
So maybe we need to wait a few years until the cost of the ultimate all in one throw it all into the Vegas blender and see what comes out while tweaking anything to our hearts content with realtime playback system becomes a possibility, at any price point. And then wait until it gets cheap enough.
Or maybe the thing is quite different, maybe, we need a vision, the equivalent of a script that uses a metaphor other than words but describes color. We develop this color script in this new language and then "cut" to that. Probably way out of my depth now, time for the real artists to speak.

Bob.

Previously I would have used AE to CC Now Im wondering is it better to CC in Vegas

Vegas doesnt have a setting for 16 bit? In AE I can using MB at this setting I dont know whether the MB presets in Vegas could be used at 16bits in Vegas if it had this ability would it? However many of Vegas Plugins seem to work with its 32 bit so maybe any problems might be minimal In 32 bit. OR if MB in Vegas is inferior. because the presets are using Vegas CC tools.

One thing I do know that is AE has a large range of plug ins Synthetic aperture colour finesse being a great tool.

How well does colour correction in Vegas stack up to AE I would be interested to see a comparison.

I reckon AE is still the way to go for better CC but then thats based on perception. I might be wrong.

Bob

Thanks for taking the time to spell out a very helpful and efficient CC process. It will improve my workflow.

The only detail I might add is to apply the event fx at the project media level, so that all instances of that media are tweaked at once. Perhaps that was what you intended.

Mark

"The only detail I might add is to do apply the event fx at the project media level"
Yes, good call.

"The only detail I might add is to do apply the event fx at the project media level"
----------------------------------------------------
Would that actually work very well? You would have to capture your scenes individually and add your FX be almost the same as adding fx to the event on the timeline? Or have I overlooked something?

Can anyone tell me what 32-bit floating point color actually means?
I understand with traditional video 8 bits means 8 bits per color channel, so for RGB images that is 24 bits per pixel.

In the new Vegas 32 bit float mode, are we looking at 32 bits per pixel or 32 bits per color channel (which would be 96 bits for RGB color images and 128 bits if you have an alpha channel) ? Or is it something else?

I'm guessing that 96 bits per pixel can't be right, since it is such a huge leap from the previous version (?)

I always capture with Cineform's HDLink and scene detection turned on. Some of the scenes can be quite long. I cut them into a number of shorter events and place them at different points in the production. So for me, applying FX at the project media level works well and saves me a little time (and avoids the possibility of forgetting to apply the same FX to one or more instances of the scene). You're quite right that it wouldn't work well if capturing without scene detection.

Mark

In the new Vegas 32 bit float mode, are we looking at 32 bits per pixel or 32 bits per color channel (which would be 96 bits for RGB color images and 128 bits if you have an alpha channel) ? Or is it something else?

I thought 32bit color was in comparison to 24bit color, so it would be like 10 bits per pixel color channel (with a little left over) vs. 8 bits per pixel color channel, but I could be way off.

edit: Yeah I think I'm way off because judging by the preview performance, it seems more like it's dealing with 32 bits per channel plus I'm assuming a 32 bit alpha channel for a total of 128bpp... yikes...

My limited knowledge it means better more professional colours. No hit on quality and when the new EX1 Camera is available taking the whole show up to the same standards as many films. It means editing in Vegas can now turn out professional results.

Years ago when the only way to make films was using film cameras. Many amatuers did and were able to compete with the pros. I would say technology has now balanced the books and given amatuers a fair crack at competing with professionals in todays digital world and about time too.

Of course applying Media FX has it's own problem in Vegas in that you can't see what you're doing in the trimmer (you have to put the clip on the timeline to see what you're doing) and clips have no way of indicating that they have MediaFX applied to them-no color change to the icon or anything like that. Maybe it shows up in event details?

I think its a glaring oversight in Vegas' design.

Rob Mack

32-bit floating point means 32 bits *per channel*.

So for a pixel with RGB and an alpha channel, that is 128 bits per pixel.

Yes this is why RAM previews last a quarter as long in 32-bit.

It means editing in Vegas can now turn out professional results.

I find this a funny statement, I've seen some incredible results from Vegas when there was no 32bit. Listen, 32bit is great, gives better latitude in your post work, but it's no exception for simply making sure you shoot better to begin with, light better from the start, and plan better from before you start.

And if you want really "professional" results, shoot through something that isn't garbage. Sounds like EX1 might be a very nice cam to work with, and a decent lens to boot, but you gotta realize that professional results come from before the light ever passes through the lens.

(my .02 at least)

Dave

I think the EX1 sounds like a brilliant camera and one I would love to own. My goodness with that Baby you could make a feature film cut in Vegas and copied onto 35mm film ready to be shown at the cinema.

NOW thats professional and pretty darned amazin!

Just a quick response to those who said or implied that real-time preview is a luxury that sometimes has to be sacrificed, as when using 32-bit. To me real-time is not a luxury at all, it is 100% necessary to be a part of the art I'm creating. Unless I "feel" my work as well as "see it" I can't give it all I have to give.

I know there are limitations set by our hardware, but even with Core2Duos and much fast ram and Raid 0 drives full resolution and full frame rate monitoring with HDV still is not a reality.