.........Stability was the main reason I came to Vegas and if stability doesn't come back it will be the reason I leave...........
that is it exactly,, ..Vegas was rock solid!! not sure if the stability issue is strictly trying to digest hdv, but its a factor,, seems to me stability started to get a little shakey with the intro of the 3d stuff,, vegas 5 or 6 I think,, was still ok but not rock solid as pre 3d, but now with hdv ,solid and vegas don't go together.
IMO

Michael - I hear ya - I may be revisiting Adobe Products after some frustrating experiences with trying to understand how Avid works.

As a one man shop, I don't have time or resources to hand off projects to others since the city I live in doesn't have that kind of services available. I need something that I can cut with on both my desktop and laptop - and my choices are dwindling down to either Vegas getting fixed, or Adobe's products - but I need stability and ease of use - something I'm discovering neither Avid nor Edius brings to the table.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

...and is it me, but did the black frame issue slip back in somewhere? All of the sudden, a couple days ago, after a capture in HDV, I had a few black frames. I thought this problem was solved and to tell you the truth this crap is completely inexcusable. COMPLETELY.

All Cineform products are available as free, fully functional, time limited downloads. I'd suggest trying to capture HDV and then convert to CF, don't try to capture directly to the CF codec.

Unfortunately it looks to me like Vegas has multiple serious issues, converting to CF may cure one of them. That might get you out of trouble. Suggest you try it before spending your money.

Bob.

Media Composer 3.0 is really rock stable.

If you have use for ScriptSync and some of the other unique features, there is no other choice.

It takes some commitment to learn Avid editing, but for raw editing (think "trimming" that is far far beyond Vegas, FCP, or PP) it can't be beat, and it is the only way if you need to work closely with other Avid editors.

FCS has immense support for training and plug-ins, etc. that can't be beat in that area.

PP has the Dynamic Links to After Effects, can't beat that, but the NLE isn't that stable, and it's no Photoshop yet (many things are clunky still).

Btw, Automatic Duck's ProImport products provide a fairly seamless interface between FCP and AE (or between FCP and Combustion), just passing references across, to use the same media files without rendering.

You have to look at your personal needs though, and I can't argue with Bob's suggestion to stay with Vegas if you know it well and can find a way to use it..

maybe i'm old fashion but editing raw m2t files makes no sense to me... I convert everything to easy to understand (for the software) QTs. SO yeah give Cineform a shot (though i prefer TMPGEnc for my projects).

Maybe I've missed something here but TMPGEnc isn't a codec!
Nor is QT, it's a wrapper and one that can contain the Cineform codec.
In general the easiest codec for software to understand is uncompressed in either an AVI or QT wrapper. For HD however that'll give you a lot of data to deal with.

Bob.

Cineform Neo works just fine for me but in reality I don't do much editing anymore. I use it in Vista 64 as it does have some GUI problems (have to open it a few times before it will function) but it does function well. I always convert to DV-AVI separately without scene detection. My only gripe (V8.0b) is the importing of DVD's (burned by DVD-A4.5) loosing the one frame of sound at every scene change.
JJK

@farss
"I'd suggest trying to capture HDV and then convert to CF, don't try to capture directly to the CF codec."

I'm interested in an explanation of the why you does this. No matter how you capture with Neo HDV, the Firewire stream is copied verbatim to a temporary m2t file. Depending on what capture options you have chosen. the temporary m2t file is then encoded to CFHD and the various filters are applied (resizing, deinterlacing, etc.). If you chose to save both file formats, the temporary m2t file is copied to the final file name that you picked in the options dialog. If you only want the save the Cineform avi, the temporary m2t file is deleted. On dual core and slower machines, the structure of the entire capture and conversion process is obvious, because even though the capture completes, the conversion lags behind and you get a "timer" dialog box until the conversion is done. On most quad core machines, the process is done in RT.

If you just want to capture the m2t stream, the process only involves the direct Firewire copy. A subsequent conversion to CFHD is identical to the remaining steps described above. I'm not sure why you suggest to separate the two steps.

"Don't try to capture directly to the CF codec."

When asked http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=103609&page=10Here[/link] "Is the quality the same if I capture directly from the camera thru cineform into an avi file compared to capturing a m2t file into vegas and then converting it thru cineform into an avi file," David Newman's response was, "Slightly higher quality through CineForm HDLink directly as Vegas will introduce unnecessary colorspace conversions. Vegas is RGB, source files are YUV, HDlink converts preserving the YUV colorspace (which is also much faster.).'

When asked http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=121681Here[/link], "Have I lost any quality by converting the MPEG-2 files directly versus if I had captured from the XL H1 with Cineform capture?," David's response was, "Using direct capture or conversion of existing files the quality is the same."

David is almost always right on top of things, so he may have misunderstood one or the other of the questions, but either way, it's either equal or better to capture directly to the CF codec... at least in the perspective Cineform's CTO.

The only reason to separate the capture and conversion processes using Cineform HDLink is to reduce computer workload. Back in time (i.e. many versions ago and on a previous PC) I found the capture process unreliable when doing the processes at the same time. So my workflow was to capture the m2t files (which I stored anyway) and then convert those files. I didn't observe any extra time in doing this. However where your PC is only partially loaded by the capture processes, simultaneous capture/convert is sensible.

So I went ahead and installed a trial of Neo and have some questions regarding preferences for HDLink.

Specifically for the Pre-compression Filters (Advanced) section

Should I check the "Deinterlace 1080i and DV sources" box or leave it unchecked? Will checking it degrade the quality of the footage?

Is there any reason to Resize the Video to anything other than the original aspect ration (for me, that is 1440x1080i from my HC7's)?

With the "Cineform Encoder Options":

Is there a significant advantage to checking the Enable Smart Rendering Box for Vegas?

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

I made that point because of something Darren showed me. The results of an on the fly conversion to CF had trashed frames in it that looked for all the world like uncorrected mpeg-2 errors. If you have dodgy DVB reception you'll know what I'm talking about.

It could well be that doing on the fly conversion would produce the same results and I'm well aware of how CF handles this process.

I'm a great believer in starting with the simplest, lowest stress and hopefully most reliable method first. If that works then ratchet up the complexity.

Bob.

Agree with Bob (farss) on this. Time required to fix capture problems far outweighs other savings of simultaneous operations. I have kept to my old workflow.

Do not de-interlace. The process is well performed but essentially it just merges fields. Use something like DVFilmMaker if you want to turn interlaced into progressive.

Do not resize.

Smart render is useful for reducing time for doing your final render if you have only straight cuts.

Fair enough. But the whole Neo HDV package has a limited number of proprietary Directx filters and whether you construct the media graph in two steps or one shouldn't matter, unless the computer is too slow to do so properly.

I've never seen the problem that you referred to with Cineform, but it could be highly dependent on the specific hardware and software makeup of the computer. Have you reported that problem to Cineform support?

That was back many versions ago and with under-powered CPU. With NEO HD and SxS cards it is no longer of interest for me. Often it is quicker to work around problems than to wait until they're fixed (e.g. Vegas Pro 8); combinations of hardware and software installations can generate difficulties that aren't easy for software originators to reproduce, no matter their efforts. The issue raised by farss is that capture and conversion can be separated, with benefits.

Did a test capture with Neo via HDLink and had a weird artifact occur. Not sure what the issue was capturing direct from the camera with HDlink but Bob is probably on to something. Captured to my 2x160GB Raid0 so it couldn't have been throughput - or could it?

Having more or less done a frustrating look at the alternatives, I still find myself coming back to Vegas - for what it does, and how it does it - it just can't be beat features wise.

So having said that, the issue of captured file format is still in question - do I use SONY HDV VidCap? HDVSplit? Cineform Neo? I'm still undecided. In addition, I'm beginning to think that issues surrounding the red frame, black frame crashes are directly linked to Intel quad core processors. I have no direct proof of that, and it may only be due to AMD processors not being used as greatly as Intel cpu's, but it does seem to be a consistent commonality with those who are experincing these project stopping issues. So I'm looking at the following AMD based upgrades to my desktop:

AMD Opteron 1352 Barcelona 2.1GHz Quad Core
GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H AM2+/AM2 AMD 780G HDMI Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
2x640GB Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS drives in an OWC Mercury Elite Pro -AL Dual SATA Drive Enclosure

I already have an nVidia 7300GT 128MB video card so that's not an issue and will use my existing components as needed.

I'm beginning to think this setup will probably keep me out of trouble surrounding those issues that others may be experiencing.

Any thoughts???

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

Is there evidence here that people are not having trouble with QUAD AMD? Probably I haven't been paying attention! I haven't had those problems on a dual-core AMD and that was fine capturing HDV to internal disks (not to externals, even RAID 0). I've used Vegas and HDLink for capture (the former when having trouble with the latter) and then converted those files using HDLink.

I point out (again) that this staged approach was developed to by-pass problems I did encounter and may have been rendered unnecessary over time by upgrades to Cineform and Vegas, but since I do them in the background I've stuck to my conservative "better safe than sorry" approach.

" Did a test capture with Neo via HDLink and had a weird artifact occur."

Any chance you could put a frame of it up somewhere for us to look at or even email it to me, farssAToptusnetDOTcomDOTau.

Bob.

Anyone wanting to view the clip can download it here.

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | SoloVJ.com

Cliff,

It's frames 15 through 17 that you're referring to, right? I've never seen that kind of problem with Cineform Neo HDV, but that doesn't mean others haven't seen it. I suggest that you post those three frames as an attachment to a new post on the thread that you started at www.dvinfo.net:

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=124513

If that doesn't get a response from David Newman of Cineform, try starting a support ticket at the Cineform website. They are very good about responding, even if you are using the demo versions of their software.