Whilst you can encode to HDV with Vegas in general this is not recommended. Think of HDV as an acquisition only format. Quite apart from the issues with the vision the compression on the audio is none too flash. Although good enough for recording dialogue in the field, I certainly wouldn't be trusting a movie soundtrack to it.
If your target is the silver screen DVCPro HD is pretty good, HDCAM better, HDCAM SR MUCH better. Plus I don't know about DVCPro HD but HDCAM gives you plenty of nice fat juicy audio tracks.

Don't be put off by the astronomic cost of those decks. You can render everything to uncomp HD and get a dub house to transfer it or else use the Sony YUV codec at HD res, all off affordable HDDs.

Bob.

Bob -
Be gentle with me... it's my first time.

Now when you say the "silver screen" do you mean transfer to 35mm film for projection? If so, I'm not there as yet.

No - I took some of my original footage (Sony Z1 - what a camera !), popped it into a Sony HC3, and went to my buddy's house for a viewing on his 50" Plasma HD monitor. WOW!

Now I've edited that footage w/o any intermediates (no problems there) in Vegas 7 (of course) - and I want to go back to my buddy's house. BTW - aside from how fabulous the HDV footage LOOKS - it really responded about the same as what I'm used to with SD in Vegas 6. I did some simple dissolves, a few zoom in's (whole NEW story here!), color corrections, and velocity changes, plus a title or two. Sometimes the footage stutters on playback with those effects in place, but by and large - it's about the same process. Yippee...
On the other hand, HDV is spectacular - now if I can just TAKE it places to show... (that little HC3 camera is the most portable playback deck imaginable).

So how do I get the edited video onto tape (or better) or disc?
Step by step, pleeezze....

v

Vic,

I render my footage back to m2t file or Cineform. I then load that for my print to tape. I don't want my FX1 connected to the PTT for hours for the rendering process.

m2t, I use HDV 1080 60i template.

OK - I was doing that (and a bunch of others included in Vegas), as well.

Will report later tonight - looks like now I've got to buy a HD monitor, as well. (Cheapo me - resists spending on equipment that doesn't have an immediate payback written all over it. But this is all part of the new "New Media", and I've got to bite the bullet.)

The good news is that I'm selling my SD equipment as fast as I can and am still getting good bucks for it. You guys here on the forum should start considering doing the same. I predict that by this time next year a lot of your SD equipment will take a serious dive in resale value. And once you've shot in HDV, you're basically ruined for SD.


Meanwhile, I'm totally retracting any negatives I had about HDV/HD.
The 16:9 format isn't nearly as incorrigable as the Cinemascope that I had to shoot a number of years ago. Now that I've shot some stuff in HDV, I actually LIKE the widescreen BETTER (welcome to the '90s Vic).

Anyway - it's always exciting to venture into new media and having a resource like this forum with helping hands all around is SO comforting.

v

Cineform will also print to D-VHS. I love Cinemascope. To me 16 x 9 is just temporary. Why screw around and not go to 2.35 x 1 at the start?
It's like upgrading your processor every 3 months.

JJK

It's a bear to shoot.

Impossible to do a close-up of a human head - you've ALWAYS got all this SPACE around to fill.

On a big screen you can do it. On tv it's brutal. And even on the big screen you NEED extras. Otherwise your movie takes place in a vacant desert.

That's just my opinion, though.

v

Sometimes you have to do an "Italian Director shot", like in "A little Town Out West" with Jack Elam catching the fly in the gun barrel. Kind of like two great big eyeballs filling the screen.

JJK

Victor,
if you want some portable way to show shall we say dailies or rushes then encoding to WMV HD at 720p and playing that off a laptop isn't a bad idea.
Vegas will do the encoding for you and the latest batch of laptops will have no problem playing 720p. The new laptops have 16:9 screens and you've got everything in the one device, no need to futz around trying to hookup to other peoples gear. Of ourse if you can hook the laptop upto a bigger display device so much the better.

When I said silver screen I wasn't necessarily referring to a 35mm print, simply to any situation where you were going to show the footage on a large screen, could be from a 35mm print or more likely through a large video projector i.e. D Cinema.

Bob.

Vic, I expect extremely beautifully HDV clips from your work! Maybe "Cowboys in HD" in HDV, use some adv blocking in some scenes, etc,,, using your "camera eye" for imagery...some lens correction.... maybe the boys downstate will talk about distr.

Actually we already started shooting the additional footage necessary to expand my 36 minute (award winning) short to a full hour and a quarter feature, last weekend.
I assembled 50 people on an old ranch in Wauchula, FL, all dressed to the nines in turn of the century (1900's) costumes. We pulled off 15 setups in one day. Everything from milking a cow, to pulling a 1923 Ford out of the mud with 8 men pushing, and a horse pulling. Smoke machines, reflectors and a grillion kids running around, barefoot and all looking like Tom Sawyer.
SO MUCH FUN!!
At the same time we also shot 16mm BW reversal film to assure the "old time" effect. I'll be making side by side comparisons of the video with old timey film FX to actual film. Should be interesting.

But what I hadn't even considered was how beautiful the Z1 HDV footage would look. I am knocked OUT.

Tuesday I start shooting helicopter aerials of the prairie.

Oh yeah - good times, fer sure.
And yes - I'd MUCH rather do this kind of production in HDV vs 35mm - film is such a pain in the butt vs the beauty, speed and economy of HDV. No it's not the same - buy it sho do look good!!

v

Curious, Vic. What Z1 setting, 50i to go to 24p?

I have an FX1, so I'm kind of stuck with the rate, but the images are (can be) fabulous.

Its great news that about the additional footage! Please, don't forgot about doing a documentary the extra scenes.