I hadn't heard of Gearshift until you mentioned it, but looking at what it does, and that you said it's working fine, why do you want to get Upshift?

Do they do different things, or is Upshift better?

Well, UpShift seems to work just fine except for a couple things--and these are mentioned in the review "forum" on the product page at the VASST website.

First, when you run a batch conversion, the last file seems to hang into perpetuity. I am not sure why this is, as when I transcode one or two files at a time...it seems to work perfectly. But the way it is now, things just never end and you can't really seem to get the app to end. So you almost need to Ctrl + Alt + Del your way out of it...or use End-It-All to get out of it, otherwise I get the wonderful "Program Not Responding" message when I try to exit.

Next, the UI is not really all that great. Once you understand how things work, then it's OK--but even still, if you have a large number of files you are transcoding, the scroll bar doesn't seem to work when the application is running. So you cannot scroll down below the end of the page to see how many files you have remaining, because the scroll bar is useless.

The final piece of advice I would give is not to try to import files into the Project Manager by Shift Clicking on a whole long list of files. It will take forever, and may not work at all. Instead, I would recommend you import the files (if they are any size at all) in increments of no more than 5 files. It certainly works to import more files than that but it takes forever--and you're never sure if Vegas has hung up or not! If you accidentally do this, just wait... Chances are that things will be fine if you just give it enough time, although I have had it fail and blow out of the application, leaving me to start all over. It takes much longer than SD files to import, and even longer than importing the native m2ts AVCHD files! But the extra time you spend importing HDV files will more than be made up by the time you save editing HDV instead of AVCHD files.

But otherwise, the result of the transcode seems to be just fine--the m2t files it creates seem to work great on the timeline (at least at the 20Mbps I transcode to), and my frame rate barely budges from 29.97. At 15Mbps, the frame rate doesn't budge at all. The minimum frame rate UpShift will transcode to is 10Mbps, but I haven't tried this yet.

But I can definitely understand the complaints the folks left on the VASST website. However if you transcode a few files at a time, the application seems to work just fine and the resulting HDV files are far superior to my native AVCHD files when it comes to editing on the timeline. So at least for my first project, I think I like the application. More thoughts to follow as I get more experience with it...

TB

I had an issue the other day with UpShift...still can't figure out what happened.

I converted a bunch of AVCHD files - loaded them up on the Vegas timeline and the audio was nasty. Very distorted and crackling. Ended up bypassing UpShift altogether and just loading the AVCHD files directly on the timeline. It was a litlte more difficult to edit but I couldn't figure out why UpShift destroyed the audio - still haven't figured it out :(

Oh JEEZ... I just had the same issue!!! After messing around with UpShift for 2-3 hours trying to determine the best way to get things done--it screws up my audio. So I am going to try to grab the audio from the AVCHD file, and see how that works. But that'll have to be later, so I will report the results.

But I need to amend my earlier post about transcoding batchfiles. As far as I can tell, I don't think you should do this *at all* with UpShift. I know that it's supposed to be able to do so, and in fact it nicely allows you to add an entire folder for processing. But for whatever reason, it's been hanging on me on the last file. Sometimes it even hangs on the first file when I have selected multiple files to transcode. It's got weird and unpredictable behavior sometimes, it seems

For example... I just transcoded the last of 38 clips in my current project, and had loaded them both into UpShift to be converted. As the first clip was just finishing being transcoded, it hung. I waited for about 10 minutes, and finally had to CTRL + ALT + DEL my way out of UpShift, because it froze. But then I went back into the application and loaded that same file by itself, and it got converted without a problem. I then transcoded the second file without incident.

But it does indeed appear that there some bug-a-boos in the UpShift application, and thus I need to give these folks an email to advise them of this thread. Maybe this information will help them work on these issues, if they aren't already aware of them.

TB

OK...audio issue worked out, very quickly I might add. Here's what I did:

1) Just make two bins in the "Media Bins" section--one for AVCHD files, and one for HDV files.

2) Import all the HDV & AVCHD files into the project, and put them in their respective bins just to keep them separate. This isn't such a big deal if you only have a few clips in your project--but I had 38 clips, and they had awkward names with about 14 digits each. (You gotta love Sony's file naming system, lol.)

3) Now deactivate "Ignore Event Grouping" and delete the faulty audio from the UpShift clips. The other alternative is to ungroup that faulty audio and move it down onto another audio track, and add the AVCHD audio in its place--just to have a guide, as you're going to have to regroup the AVCHD audio with the HDV video in order to edit it conveniently...

4) Now, since the audio from your AVCHD files is not corrupt, simply RIGHT click on all the clips and drag them onto the time line in the same order as the HDV files.

5) Finally, select Audio Only > Add Audio Across Time and you'll have the "proxy" audio from your AVCHD files and the HDV video transcoded by UpShift.

Someone has undoubtedly figured this out already, and probably posted it. If so, I apologize for the duplication--but I didn't take the time to go through all of the forum archives to dig it out. This is a workaround that I came up with here right after I posted my last post.

All that being said, I just wanted to finish by saying that I have some BIG clips (several are 15-20 minutes long), and the HDV format is indeed handled much better on the time line than the AVCHD files. Of course we all knew that, but the point is that even though UpShift takes some gyrations to get to work well, once you know the limitations, it should be a huge time-saver.

TB

Well dayum, what a bunch of hoops to jump thru to be able to use UpShift. I just sent UpShift an email describing my/our issues....and I also sent them a link to this thread. Hopefully somebody will jump in and help us out with this.

Are you using Vegas Pro 7 or below, and that's why you have trouble with the AVCHD files and need Upshift or Gearshift?

Vegas Pro 8 handles them fine, right? or not?

I have Vegas Pro 7, waiting to upgrade whenever version 9 comes out. I think I can wait...

Version 8c here. And, ah no...it doesn't *exactly* handle them correctly. Well, it's not so much that it doesn't handle them correctly, as much as the frame rates go into the single digits for me--and I have a late-model quad core CPU, running XP with 4gb ram. But even then, if the project isn't too long (less than an hour, I'd say) then I will simply edit the AVCHD files and render them out to MPEG-2 and burn a disk. It works fine; unless you try to to play it a lot on the time line. HDV simply works better.

But my current project is 3.5 hours of a volleyball tournament, with 5 matches at three games each. Some of my clips are 22-24 minutes long, and Vegas really bogs down with AVCHD files of that length, in my experience here. The HDV files simply work better, but I did not want a camera with miniDV format...so I get to deal with the AVCHD format. The way I figure it though, at some point SCS will get the AVCHD-handling bugs out of v8, and life will be good. I suppose it might take v9 to get there, but then I will have a nice Sony SR11 with a hard drive that allows me relatively fast transfer times--and I just prefer the camera.

TB

EDIT: By the way--thanks Deanster...that saves me the trouble of emailing them!

8c for me as well.

I can edit AVCHD but it's not a fun experience. I would prefer to convert using Upshift and then edit. For my purposes I can't see any degradation and the m2t files are so much easier to edit and runs fine in Vegas.

Hopefull the Upshift folks will have a fix for this audio issue. I had an issue once before and they took care of it right away!

One thing that I just discovered that is very interesting.....when I load the m2t files that Upshift generated onto the Vegas timeline, the audio is scratchy & distorted. But when I just click on one of the m2t files and play it with windows media player - it sounds perfect. Ya' think this is some kind of Vegas issue? This is the first time I've used Upshift since I upgraded to 8c - hmmmmmmmm.

Are you delivering HD or SD?
If you're only delivering SD this seems like a lot of grief for little return. I'd suspect downconverting to the Sony 8 bit YUV codec and editing that would vanquish all the problems. File sizes are big, CPU load is around the same as for DV but with no loss of chroma data.

Bob.

I suppose that's worth a try Bob--you are saying to just downconvert each clip in turn and put it back on the timeline? All of the stuff I am doing right is indeed delivered in SD, so this would probably work for me. But never having done it, I am not sure if I understand you correctly--so I thought I'd ask.

But Deanster, you might be onto something...and here's why I think so. Vegas will load the AVCHD m2ts files onto the time line pretty quickly. In fact, I can normally load all of the 12-15 clips in a one hour project without any real delay--it takes maybe 15-20 seconds per file...something like that. But after UpShift has created the m2t files from these same m2ts files, it takes almost 20 seconds just for the file name to even *appear* in the file name window of the Import Media text box, after I select it from the list of available files in a certain directory. So that suggests that there could indeed be something funky (at least to Vegas) about the files created by UpShift.

Earlier in the weekend, I found some HDV m2t files on the internet and downloaded them to see how well Vegas handled them compared to my native m2ts files. (Basically I was trying to determine if it would be worthwhile to buy UpShift.) Well Vegas loaded the m2t files I found with no hesitancy at all--simply hit the Import button, find the file in the proper directory and select it. The name instantly appeared in the file name field of the Import Media textbox, and away it went when I hit OK. I should add that these files were native HDV files from a Canon HV20--in other words...not files created by UpShift.

So I am going to agree with Deanster here--there's something about files created by UpShift that Vegas just does not like. Again, it takes almost 20-30 seconds for me just to get Vegas to display an m2t file name in the correct field of the Import Media window. In fact, it's faster to import an AVCHD file than it is to simply load the file NAME of an HDV file, if it was created by UpShift. And the HDV file was created from the corresponding AVCHD file! So it certainly isn't the AVCHD file. Ane these m2t files were created at a slightly smaller bit rate (15 Mbps) than the native 16Mbps m2ts files from my Sony SR11.

Therefore I concur--there's an issue with UpShift, and it took a few hours yesterday to work this out. I am glad that you emailed them! Now let's hope that they will take some steps to do fix these issues...

TB

Well you guys have convinced me on the UpShift vs. GearShift issue. I'm going to stick with GearShift. I'm using it with 8.0c and it works for me.

I downconvert to lower resolution with GearShift, edit with reasonable performance on my very, very old Pentium 4 and then swap back to the AVCHD to render. This works like a charm even on my ancient (hopefully soon to be replaced) PC.

Well, maybe that's what the UpShift people will suggest that we do while they are working on this issue. But I don't think I want to buy Gearshift though--they can give me that "on loan" while my version of UpShift is in the shop. Then I'll give it back when UpShift is all tuned up...

Funny thing is, that I looked at GearShift before buying UpShift, but decided against it. After all, UpShift does just what I need it to do--but it still needs some tweaking. When it's fixed I bet it'll be the cat's meow for dealing with the AVCHD file issue.

TB

Any word back from the VASST people on these problems, Deanster? I wonder what they think of these issues?

And Bob, about that YUV codec... I presume you are recommending that I render to .avi format using that codec? I apologize, I guess I am not sure exactly which format I should use with that. Assuming that in fact I should use .avi, I am currently downcoding a 23 minute M2TS file to AVI, using the YUV codec. It's a 40 minute project on my quad core, but a small file I tested prior to this bigger file seemed to turn out real nice. So we'll see what happens here.

Sorry, but I am still learning which formats are more desirable in certain situations--so if you didn't intend for an AVI target, then all this is for naught.

Thanks.

TB

Well the NewBlueFX people emailed me a link to download a beta version hoping that it would solve my issue but that does not appear to be the case. The converted m2t file plays fine in Windows Media Player but on the Vegas timeline it sounds horrible. Distorted and cutting in and out. I'll keep communicating with NewBlueFX and see if we can figure it out. I'll let you guys know as soon as I know :)

Thanks. Did they acknowledge that they knew of these issues? You'd think if they had a beta of a new version, then there were known issues with the *old* version.

It's good to hear things are in the works anyway--let's hope they fix it ASAP. There are an awful lot of gyrations to go through to get their product to work...

TB

TB how can I contact you? Contact info?

tcbetka@hotmail.com

I can give you my phone number and all that via email.

TB

emailing you now...

I'm still working with NewBlueFX to try to figure out what the issue is. They act as if they've never seen this issue before.....could I really be the first one who has reported this?

They make it kinda difficult to communicate with them. You have to go to their website & log in just to communicate with the support department. Would be much easier & faster just to be able to exchange emails but when I get an email from them and I reply to it - it bounces. Just noticed their return email addy is noreply@newbluefx.com. This of course forces you to go to their site & log in just to exchange messages :(

I'll keep you guys posted!

I'm really a little surprised that JohnnyRoy hasn't jumped into the conversation on this thread. He is generally "Johnny on the spot".