all the talk about better during generational loss being a vote for CF...what IS a generation?

adding 1 plug-in = 1 ?
adding 2 = 2 ?
now add a cross fade = 3 ?
place a psd logo over it = 4 ?

or is it just when you render?

I hate to jump in here with all this complex tech talk, and burst balloons, but most everyone I know uses AviDemux to change container, color correct, resize, change fps, etc. in one shot and it's free.

I have a brand new Win7/64bit machine that today imported AVCHD files from my Sony camera and played them beautifully using VP9c. Previously, I had a dual core 32bit machine which forced me to use NeoScene all the time. Now it seems, I don't need to use NeoScene with such smooth play back with the native AVCHD. I'm not sure that MXF will improve what I have either, so perhaps NeoScene is not that necessary now with VP9c and 64bit machines. Am I correct, or have I missed something here?

I've been using Neo HD for a while and the quality is very good. I like really the ability to upsize the HDV footage to full HD and First light is powerful.

I have however been bitten on two important projects by a phantom bug. For some reason during capture/conversion with HD Link the video and audio will sometimes end up slightly out of sync. There are a few others that have also reported this problem on the DV info net site. Cineform has asked for sample clips from those affected and their tech support is very good but at this point I'm a little gunshy and have reverted back to using straight HDV.

Here's the out of sync thread: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/cineform-software-showcase/467979-clips-out-sync.html

> You can write that script (DOS, vbs, whatever,) it not designed for user friendliness. I'm a lazy script writer

Hey David, for someone who is lazy you are doing far too much work. ;-) Just change into the directory with the AVI files and type this command:

for %i in (*.avi) do rewrap %i %~ni.mov

That will rewrap all of your avi files to mov.

~jr

I don't think anyone else mentioned this: even if you can handle native AVCHD, cineform is still good for converting 60p files. AVCHD 60p in Vegas has some weird glitches that Cineform 60p doesn't.

kairosmatt

It should also be noted that CineForm is an outstanding intermediary codec for going between applications like Vegas and After Effects CS4. One of the primary purposes that I purchased NeoScene was to keep my workflow with After Effects as high quality as possible.

~jr

> One of the primary purposes that I purchased NeoScene was to keep my workflow with After Effects as high quality as possible.

Will not uncompressed AVI or Lagarith AVI still be better? (Focusing only on quality)

Ingvar

"Will not uncompressed AVI or Lagarith AVI still be better?"

Yes.

Tried it and I can't register the dlls. Does this work in Windows 7 64 bit?

For shooting with Canon5D - well - I LOVE NeoScene.

Makes the editing in Vegas 9 a breeze - whoopee.

v

Yes MXF works perfectly fr me. Ultra fast transcoding, fluid editing and very low quality loss. Altough AVCHD works without a hitch, MXS are much more fluid.

I use the Ultimate s4 plugin to transcode everything and easily swap back original MTS files if needed.

For my HDV stuff, I'm still just putting the m2t footage on the timeline, but for my Canon footage, Cineform does the 30 to 29.97 frame rate correction and the cRGB to sRGB correction during the conversion. I love that. Plus, I'm falling in love with using First Light for color correction.

Sorry for this newby question:

My Panasonic camera stores HD video as MTS, which I believe is AVCHD. It comes with a capture utility, or I can simply copy these files to my hard drive. Assuming I'm correct about these files being AVCHD, how do these files become the MXF format that several folks have suggested is a good format for editing within Vegas Pro 9?

Yes, those MTS files are AVCHD.

Here's how I do it. Put the MTS files on the Vegas timeline and then render them out to Sony MXF's.

You can also do psuedo-batch processing of MTS files using Vegas if you want (without an add-on app) and if you don't want to retain the original MTS files you don't even need to copy them to your pc to do this. I only keep the original MTS files for certain shoots because I've found the MXF's to be of high quality and basically indistinguishable from the originals for most of what I do.

To do psuedo-batch processing without xfering the original mts's to your pc (I'm using 8.0c for this), just connect your camera to the pc and then use the Vegas explorer window to drag a file to the timeline. Vegas will treat your camera just like another disc drive.

After dragging several MTS's onto the timeline (yes they can be butted up against each other end to end), make each one a Region. You do this by double-clicking on the clip and then hitting R. A region name is not important since Vegas will not use it when you render to MFX.

Last step is to run the batch processing script that comes with Vegas. I'm not at my editing pc right now, but I believe it's found under Tools and then Scripting. You should see it on a list with other scripts. Start it up, select a location using Browse where you want to save your new files to, change the Save As file name to something you want (this will be used for every file and Vegas will add a different number to the end of each file), find & select the Sony MFX file type from the file output list, check the button at the bottom of the screen to Render Regions, and run it. Each region will be output as a seperate file one after the other while you sit back and relax while sipping a Pina Colada (note: Pina Colada not included with Sony Vegas Pro).

Good luck
Steve

Thanks Steve, that is very helpful!

I wonder if FCP provides the Pina Colada.....? :-)

You're welcome. By the way, I like to use the Sony MXF 35 Mbs codec. There's also one for rendering out to 50Mbs MXF's and it creates 4:2:2 files rather than 4:2:0. As far as I know (and I'm not a highly technical resource for this), the codec has to duplicate some of a 4:2:0 file's info (the chroma part) to make it 4:2:2. I don't think there's any advantage to applying the 50Mbs 4:2:2 codec to a 4:2:0 original (I could be wrong though) so I've just stuck with the 35Mbs 4:2:0 codec since the AVCHD's I use are originally 4:2:0.

And if it turns out Apple is providing Pina Coladas with FCP then Sony better get it in gear, that's all I can say.

Steve

I understand that Cineform uses 4:2:2 and it is claimed that there is less accumulated degradation after multiple colour effects using this colour space than 4:2:0.

I wouldn't know.