Vegas and XDCAM

farss wrote on 6/9/2005, 6:32 AM

Sony in their infinite generosity are offering the use of a XDCAM to my client for his next shoot. If I tell him to jump at the offer and I'll handle the edit is Vegas going to work with this baby?
I seem to recall some unhappy chappy who'd just bought an XDCAM only to discover it and Vegas were not a good combination. I'm hoping this situation has improved but if not then I'm in a bit of a quandary as to what to say to the guy.
As I understand it XDCAM records 4.2.2 in IMX which isn't that easy to edit being mpeg-2, however the camera also records a DV proxy. Now thinking a bit laterally here, I know (read hope) I can just drag the files off the XDCAM disk over a network connection from the 'VCR', now using GearShift I can switch between the proxies and the 4.2.2 originals and switch back to render to the Sony YUV codec and PTT to DigiBeta via SDI out of a BMD card for broadcast.
This all sounds like it should fly but I'd really hate to get him, me and Sony heavily commited to this and have the wheels fall off.
Bob.

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 6/9/2005, 6:44 AM

Bob, in Theory, you should be able to do this. I've asked for some XDCAM footage, but haven't rec'd it yet. I'd like to play with it a bit myself, and have very little experience outside of NAB, and I think you saw most of what I've seen when you were in Vegas.
One of the Sony guys is likely the best answer candidate to say much more.

Marco. wrote on 6/9/2005, 8:00 AM

>> As I understand it XDCAM records 4.2.2 in IMX which isn't that easy to edit being mpeg-2,

Should be no problem because IMX is an I-frame only format.

Marco

farss wrote on 6/9/2005, 2:04 PM

Thanks guys,
Probably the editing part shouldn't be that hard, couldn't be any worse than HDV as the GOP is shorter (much shorter) and as it's not a tape based system nothing needs to happen in real time, apart from if we PTT back to say DB.
Maybe the previous issue was limited to reading the EDL type file off the disks, that'd hardly be a show stopper in this case.
If Sony are good for a camera for nix, I could try for a deck for a few days to see how it flies.
Bob.

farss wrote on 6/16/2005, 4:57 AM

Just to dredge this up again, I'm hoping to get a loan of a deck from the local Sony guys. I'll report back if they come through.
Bob.

ForumAdmin wrote on 6/16/2005, 7:18 AM

Our product line does not currently (today is 6/16/05) support import of MXF files from XDCAM. We have announced that we will support opening these files "in the future", we showed a technology demo of this in the Sony booth at NAB, but an official date for public release has not been set.

In the interim, you can use XDCAM as if it were a deck. In DVCAM mode, you can capture and print over 1394. In IMX mode, data xfer can be done over SDI using any Decklink card.

farss wrote on 6/16/2005, 2:36 PM

Thanks for the info, I missed that demo, did see Xpri working with XDCAM, awesome stuff, need to talk to bank manager for that one though.
In this case though client already has top line Sony DVCAM (709) so ingesting from XDCAM in DVCAM mode gains us nothing. Ingesting over SDI means a quality hit from the little that I know though.
I was kind of hoping just to drag the files over a network connection, guess we'll just have to wait.
Bob.