Sony A7Sii editing in VegasPro

MarkAnthony121 wrote on 10/7/2016, 1:11 AM

Anyone else have good results editing A7Sii footage in VegasPro? I'm wanting to upgrade from my 5Dmkiii but I'm afraid that I'll also have to switch to something like Premiere if I can't easily work with and grade their s-log3 footage. And I know I can apply LUTs using the VisionColor plugin but that's definitely crude and rudimentary. Is this the end of the road doing fast efficent editing through Vegas for me? Or is there another way?? Any ideas are really appreciated.

Comments

Wolfgang S. wrote on 10/7/2016, 2:08 AM

I do not edit A7Sii footage here. But to edit 10bit GH4 ProRes/Cineform v-log l files or even 10bit XAVC I s-log3 files from the FS7 works nice here. I do not use the VisionColor plugin since the playback performance is not great - but with the LUT plugin delivered by either Hitfilm or Looks3 that is much better. And available LUTs can be applied, and adjustments with color curves or color corrections work fine.

Another way would be to use roundtrip workflows with either Resolve or Catalyst Prepare. Works great and alows better adjustments since that are great grading applications. To combine that with Vegas can be done and allows to utilize the strength of both products, but the workflow is more complex then for sure. Depends on your needs what will fit better for you.

MarkAnthony121 wrote on 10/7/2016, 2:13 AM

What is Hitfilm and Looks3? I haven't been able to find what you're referring to? Are they plugins? Standalone apps?

Wolfgang S. wrote on 10/7/2016, 3:37 AM

https://hitfilm.com/

https://www.redgiant.com/products/magic-bullet-looks/

Guy S. wrote on 10/7/2016, 8:57 AM

I evaluated several cameras over the summer and it came down to the A7Sll and GH4. Vegas had such difficulty handling native 4k files from these cameras that I did my evaluations in Premiere Pro and Resolve. Resolve makes it very easy to apply custom LUTs that I was able to create in Photoshop, but learning their interface is like learning to speak Klingon. Premiere also does LUTs - at least they say they do; their Help system was not very helpful in figuring out how.

I'm currently evaluating plugins by Boris and Hitfilm and - at least for chroma keying - Hitfilm's performance is much MUCH better. With native GH3 1080-24p footage at Full/Best quality, Boris is 6fps with Open CL turned on and 7fps with GPU acceleration turned off, whereas Hitfilm plays 24fps seamlessly with GPU acceleration turned on (Radeon R9 200 series GPU).

I don't know how 4k will affect these plugins, but my guess is that Hitfilm will perform better.

Wolfgang - I'm picking up a GH4 today and will be shooting with a Ninja 2 at 1080-24p ProRes 4:2:2. What settings/workflow do you use with Vegas? Is it possible to get Good/Full playback?

set wrote on 10/7/2016, 9:31 AM

Resolve is extremely powerful if you do a lot of color grading. Indeed the 'FX workflow' is very different than most other editors. You are using Node to do grading, while in Vegas/Premiere/Hitfilm you are still doing FX by layer / layer chain. But you can do I followed this book to understand Resolve - Recommended by DaVinci Resolve user group. But Vegas Pro now have the ability to export the timeline to XML format, and recognized by Resolve. You just need to experiment and know the limitations of doing these workaround trip between editing/cutting in Vegas and color grading in Resolve. More of workflow topics are discussed in:

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/vegas-pro-edit-and-davinci-resolve-workflow--103771/

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/vegas-and-davinci-resolve--103876/

HitFilm is useful if you need a lot of layer-based compositing FXs, and can be linked to Vegas Pro if needed.

Reference previous discussion of HitFilm 4 Pro : https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/new-hitfilm-4-pro--103328/

As for integration note: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/timeline-integration-of-hitfilm-3-pro-and-magix-vegas-pro-14--103776/

I personally don't use Boris MBL - so can't comment a lot of it.

monoparadox wrote on 10/7/2016, 11:52 AM

I have a Sony RX10ii. Grading XAVC 4k 100mpb Slog2 in Vegas 13. Set up a filter package with Sony 1)Levels 2)Color Curves 3)Brightness/Contrast 4)Saturation Adjust 5)LAB Adjust

Using any combination of the above I get good results and maintain 30fps preview. The levels fX is the key to getting started correctly.