Studio file formats for Vegas

Video_flaneur wrote on 1/29/2017, 5:17 PM

I am about to shop around for a professional studio to shoot
some footage for me to use in coming projects. I would appreciate advice about
the best suggested file formats to require of them for my later editing in
Vegas Pro.

A little background. Shots will include green screen with
actors, some live acoustic music, and numbers of controlled crane and tracking
shots, etc. These will later be intercut or composited with field footage shot
by me on a (yet to be purchased) Sony AX53 4K but also some legacy HD footage
from a Sony HX 50. The resultant small projects will initially be embedded on
my website and other websites, but I want to hold open the possibility of them
being used for higher resolution purposes as well. Each project will be updated
and republished, sometimes on a weekly or monthly basis, as embedded
information changes.

So I would appreciate any advice from Vegas gurus about the
type of file formats I should be asking of the studio.

Comments

ushere wrote on 1/29/2017, 10:10 PM

obviously depends what they're shooting with.... and whether they give you raw files from camera, etc.,

for green screen you really want 4:4:4 in some format that's vegas friendly or easily convertible to one, eg. xavc-i, sr444, dnxhr, etc., don't think 13 handles prores though.

somewhat overkill for web, but at least you'll be future proofed with the footage. that said, there's going to be quite a difference between pro footage and that off the cameras you're contemplating.

Wolfgang S. wrote on 1/30/2017, 5:27 AM

To achieve good greenscreen effects you should apply (10bit) 422 or even better. The color subsampling is critical. Is your camera 422 ready? Maybe with an external recorder? I do not know that but maybe you need another camera?

High-quality formats for 10bit and VP14 can be XAVC I or ProRes. I would not take DNxHR/HD since decoded as 8bit only in Vegas. But all these formats are not delivered by your camcorder I think?

astar wrote on 1/30/2017, 1:10 PM

Vegas works extremely well with RedCode directly on the time too. Redcode is an intra frame 12bit color format beyond beyond any 10-bit 422 format. Just make sure to have them record your stuff to the res you want, and use Redone color profiles. If you use the latest profiles, you will have to grade outside vegas.

Video_flaneur wrote on 1/30/2017, 4:05 PM

Thank you all for your advice. Several local studios have high end BlackMagic kit (Black Magic is based here in Melbourne) so I don't expect quality to be an issue. My humble equipment is currently limited by budget and by the fact that I often have to shoot in conditions where filming with anything much larger than a mobile phone attracts suspicion. I will go away and do my homework on the formats you have suggested.