If not Vegas for 4k then what?

cal79 wrote on 4/20/2015, 12:20 PM

Catalyst Edit? details are sketchy though

Wolfgang S. wrote on 4/20/2015, 12:45 PM

"Common comments seems to be Vegas is not cutting it for 4k. So if not Vegas then what. I would want something than can output H.265 natively."

Why should Vegas be not for UHD/4K? Who says so??

For me it works quite well.

Chaotica wrote on 4/20/2015, 1:36 PM

I have also found Vegas Pro to perform admirably for working with 4K footage from GH4. And my current system build is 3 years old & has a partially hamstrung GPU due to less than full PCI-E bus-link speed.

With Debugmode Frameserving, rendering out to a third-party encoder capable of h.265 is adequate.

It would be nice if Vegas Pro had native frameserving rendering output capability.

wwjd wrote on 4/20/2015, 3:47 PM

where are these common comments? 4k works fine in vegas

John_Cline wrote on 4/20/2015, 6:17 PM

Camera recording formats have always led the editing hardware. Computers at the time DV was released struggled with editing the DV format, same thing with HDV, then AVCHD and now 4K. Given the CPU horsepower, Vegas will edit 4K just fine.

set wrote on 4/20/2015, 6:33 PM

Vegas currently was made to work with maximum editing workspace resolution up to 4096x4096.

Set

Spectralis wrote on 4/20/2015, 7:19 PM

Maybe Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve 12 free version (when it's released) might be an alternative for those who are having difficulties with 4k in VP?

astar wrote on 4/20/2015, 7:59 PM

I doubt you will be able to edit 4k for free with blackmagic. BM has always done the carrot software thing, and put the real functionality behind a paid license.

If you can not edit 4k in vegas, my guess the problem is the end user, and not software. Most do not understand the system requirements for actual 4k editing. Camera 4k codecs are not edit friendly, and if you think that is the way you edit 4k you are wrong.

winrockpost wrote on 4/20/2015, 8:28 PM

love to be ahead of the curve..was ready to buy .looked at many sub 15k cams..as is ready to shoot.....not worried about the edit until a decent cam comes out...just an opinion

videoITguy wrote on 4/20/2015, 8:38 PM

I am not too concerned about the OP of this thread - whether that be a lack of overall experience or even understanding the context of his question.

There are several issues that most subsequent posts ignore in this thread that do pertain to editing 4k codecs from sources.
1) Generally you will want a system that creates edits from proxies - and that facility is built-in Vegas or can be added by plug-in manipulation
2) Not all 4k codecs are alike and that is certainly true of Sony introduced codecs - they will not all be equally manageable
3)When you create real-world editing timelines you have to create from multiple streams concurrently - the performance of this aspect will not only be tied to the codec but to subsystems like harddrives and RAID
4)Can 4k 8bit 4.2.0 work equally well as 4k 8bit 4.2.2 or ? IN Vegas NO!
5)Generally the entire question continues to beg what are the intended outcomes. We are still awaiting the standard of creating optical disk (Blu-ray) at 4k res. Media device delivery is still out of the question. So what will you use 4k to create in Vegas? A slightly better looking Blu-ray burn disc than you would have gotten from an equally good HD camera source.

PeterWright wrote on 4/20/2015, 8:47 PM

The first thing I am looking forward to with 4k is when videoing stage shows - I use up to seven cameras, six of them fixed and unattended.

With a 4k camera either side of stage. I shall be able to zoom in quite a way and select the best shots, and still have full HD resolution.

Now the way to do this with Vegas may be either directly to timeline, via clips processed with Catalyst or Proxies - I am still waiting to see how this unfolds ......

farss wrote on 4/20/2015, 9:42 PM

[I]"With a 4k camera either side of stage. I shall be able to zoom in quite a way and select the best shots, and still have full HD resolution."[/I]

Being able to do that depends on the quality of the image and that involves more than the resolution.

From my quick hands on, the cheaper 4K cameras leave me pretty cold, the (as expected) noise in the shadows will only get more obvious if you zoom into the image. I haven't tried the X70 as we don't have one as yet, I would expect it to perform better than the AXP35. The thing to keep in mind though with the X70 for stage work is the shallower DoF and lower zoom range.

Bob.

PeterWright wrote on 4/20/2015, 10:08 PM

Thanks Bob - yes, there will be many things to watch out for.

I'm also eyeing the soon to arrive Sony 4k Action Cam, the X1000V - about $500.

Wolfgang S. wrote on 4/21/2015, 1:00 AM

Sure we see some limitations with UHD/4K editing in Vegas - many professional codecs like ProRes or DNxHR will not be decoded as 10bit or higher, but as 8bit only. But with other codecs like XAVC or Cineform that works great. The 32bit floating point delivers a great quality - but shows a poor playback performance. So it is a nice idea to edit in 8bit and switch to 32bit floating point for rendering only, especially if you work on a older PC. Rendering in the 32bit floating point mode does not work without errors if cuda for the preview is enabled.

A lot of points is true - but beside that it is possible to run an UHD/4K workflow in Vegas today. The question is more about the future - will we see additional features that become more and more pressing for those who will switch to UHD/4K, for example the implementation of c-log or v-log? Will we see that other LUTs in addition to what is availablt today? And what about the ProRes issues that are well-known?

And for the upcoming 4K-Blu-ray nobody has been able to implement that by now, since the specification is not finalized yet at all.

So a 4K/UHD workflow is possible today. But it should be developed further in the future.

bigrock wrote on 4/21/2015, 1:38 PM

For clarification I have not started editing 4k but I will get a 4k cam or two soon, and I was considering where to edit it. I was surprised when reading all the threads on Catalyst that say Vegas is broke for 4k or works poorly, which is why I asked the question. In particular the claim that Vegas is based on ancient technology that can't handle it give me pause. Quite frankly I don't want a new product, I would rather use Vegas.

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 4/21/2015, 2:05 PM

Where on earth have you gotten all this incorrect and misinformation from bigrock?
Nothing is wrong with Vegas handling 4K Content, who has issues are those who
have underpowered hardware systems and configurations to correctly handle that
much data!

OldSmoke wrote on 4/21/2015, 2:38 PM

+1 Steve!

Good hardware is important. With lower hardware you can use proxies to work with 4K, even on the OP's system.

astar wrote on 4/21/2015, 3:33 PM

Correct my math if I am wrong, Vegas does all its dissolves, color correction, and compositing is RGB uncompressed space. Codecs are deliver from HHD, decompressed, converted to RGB, and then the work begins. All this done in real time for smooth playback. Your PC (laptop or desktop) needs to be capable of handling the computations to all this data, sling some over to the GPU and back again, only to be converted to display format and sent to the GPU again for display to your monitor. Most hardware that people are running do not meet the needs that the software engine is capable of. Vegas will be abandoned before the hardware exceeds the software capabilities which I think is what is happening with Catalyst. The Catalyst engine is most likely dealing with the large resolutions of 4K-12K in a new way to handle things on limited hardware. Vegas's engine was really sweet back when Standard Def was king, but the devs are probably seeing issues with scaling that performance as resolution increases. Clearly.

Resolution RGB Uncompressed Gb/s GB/s
1920x1080x32@29.97 1.989 0.249
3840x2160x32@29.97 7.955 0.994
4096x2160x32@29.97 8.485 1.061
4096x4096x32@29.97 16.090 2.011
1920x1080x128@29.97 7.955 0.994
4096x2160x128@29.97 33.940 4.242
4096x4096x128@29.97 64.360 8.045

You can see that if you double these numbers for a dissolve, or 4x for 60p and a dissolve, you can exceed the CPU, and PCIe limits of the hardware connectivity. Laptops especially suffer from this, with weaker hardware selected for reduced heat and power. The numbers above also explain why proxy files are needed to work smoothly. One guy with a shovel can move a large pile of dirt, it just will not happen in real time.

My math is probably wrong, but in the ball park of logical thinking. :)