Vegas Pro 11 Best practice workflow

travtek wrote on 10/25/2011, 3:55 AM

Hello All. While I'm not new to Vegas either in Movie Studio Versions or Pro since version 9, I am curious as to what is the fastest workflow possible. Currently I'm working with wedding footage from my kid's on DV tape that was captured to Xvid .avi file. The footage is about 90 min total with half of that being salvagable. The footage is also from two camcorders.

I use a combo of FXs from NewBlue FX and Sony's stock for color correction, tint, white balance, contrast and some stabilizer control. I also clean up the audio with plugins as well.

When using the composite feature, my playback is absolutely a crawl. If I 'mute' the 2nd video track everything runs in the the first video track (Camera A) is nearly seamless in flow (even with effects).

I constantly have to 'pre-render' a looped section just to see if the two cameras blend in sync with standard transistions. This is taking forever and becoming a real killjoy.

So to all you seasoned pros who make a living with this software and have real professional deadlines, what is the 'very best practice' to maximize speed of workflow especially with camera A and camera B?

The burning thought I have in question: Do I perform all splits and transitions first, then add effects last? If so, there will be a huge amount of manually inserting and tweaking of the FX for each cut.

I do have VASST's Ultimate S Pro but have not really played with it yet other than the audit tool.

Here's my rig's specs as well:
ASUS 5 PN-D MOBO (Firmware up to date)

Super Talent 8 GB RAM 800 MHz (max onboard)

Intel Core 2 Quad 2.83 GHz, Overclocked to 3.3 GHz

EVGA Nvidia GTX 480 - Overclocked by EGVA - Drivers up to date

EVGA Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT for 3 monitor (to check status of temps and performance percentages.) Drivers up to date

Windows 7 Professional 64 bit SP1 up to date

Corsair HX-620 Power Supply

Corsair H-100 CPU Water Cooler

3 HP W2207 LCD Monitors

3 x 1 TB SATA II internal 7200 rpm 8 mb cache drives

Antec 1200 Case

12 Fans mostly on the casing but fans on GPUs and NorthBridge as well

JR: I'm curious of your feedback as well.

EDIT:

Sorry for confusion folks. I must learn to articulate on the forum better in the future.

I could not 'capture' with the Sony capture method via firewire because it did not 'see' the DV camcorder.
Not sure if this was due to Sony software in Vegas 9 or Windows VISTA. So I had to make three lefts in order to make a right turn...so to speak.

I captured the DV tape to DVD on a standalone Panasonic VHS/DVD hybrid burner.

Then I took that burned DVD into my desktop. I searched around for something (anything) that would convert the DVD into a workable .avi file format.

This is very telling for me as I have not read anywhere that not all avi file formats are created equal. So now that I have Windows 7, I supposed I should re-capture the media via firewire and Sony capture tool. Or should I just use the sony cap tool for the DVD? The goal is of course to get as pristine audio/video quality.

So it appears I have that capture issue. But my original questions still begs to be answered as well. Please advise. Thanks again in advance.

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travtek wrote on 11/11/2011, 6:20 PM

EPILOGUE

As promised for the sake of readers of this thread I'm conluding my results. I was recommended to invest in a Canopus ADVC-55. There is two schools of thought about the optional power supply needed. In my case, my desktop features the 6 pin 1394 firewire connection. If you have a laptop you will most likely need the power supply which is just under $40.00 currently online.

I hooked up the dinosaur Super 8 Samsung camcorder, said a little prayer and began capturing. My results were impressive.

1. No dropped frames

2. High quality capture in terms of both picture and sound, way better than capturing from an already compressed DVD to AVI codec 'solution' (read: problem)

3. Performance. If what Bruce Lee used to teach is valid (strength plus speed equals power) than capturing with the Sony video capture version 6 is powerful. Here's why. I never had to keep re-looping or rendering a small section to see transitions in real time like I did with DVD to AVI codecs. Even with working with composite mode weaving from one camera to the second, everything played in BEST: AUTO quality. Even with track/clip video and audio effects, everything worked faster and no crash of the PC or Vegas Pro 11 (Build 424).

For 50 minutes of final edited footage it only took 2 hours and 20 minutes to render the entire project. It used to be double that in prior versions of Vegas Pro. Here's the best part. Since I've overclocked my PC stable from 2.83 GHz to 3.30 GHz (16 % gain in speed) and also since I upgraded an NVIDIA GT9500 to a NVIDIA GTX 480 graphics card, I monitor everything from CPU and GPU load and temperatures so nothing fries.

To my pleasant surprise, under the heaviest chunks of Vegas processing the max CPU load was 33% and the GPU load was never over 8%. Gone are the days when the CPU load was pegged at 100% for 5 hours rendering, and thereby prematurely killing a perfectly good standard clocked CPU long before it needed to.

My temps under full sustained load are now for the CPU 32 degrees C being water-cooled by a Corsair H-100 (used to be 70 degrees C stock fan running idle!) and the GPU is cooled using the stock fan only because I use three monitors and need two GPUs and there is no room for a water block. But my PC case is an Antec 1200 and it has 12 fans all over the place inside and out for maximum push/pull air flow. The motherboard temp (NorthBridge) never exceeds 50 degrees C. But even with the GPU stock fan it stays right about mid 60's degrees C. It sits right next to my other NVIDIA GT-9500 for the third monitor's support.

Conclusion
In my humble opinion, Sony has created a major upgrade over the prior releases in terms of real-word application of media editing. The workflow is tolerable especially since I now have a better understanding of codecs. But I think it's key to keep in mind the software is just one ingredient that makes up the recipe of a successful editor's arsenal of tools. Overclocking is more mainstream now so consider it. Performing maintenance on your PC is paramount. I hope this helps others who are on this journey for the Holy Grail of editing.

Cheers.