What format to shoot in for HD in Vegas ?

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plainman007

Well-known member
Hi,

For my next project i need to render finally into Mpeg2 HD 1280x720. Now what format should i shoot in to get the best in clarity and colour depth in the final product. My options are

1. SONY Z1u (HDV).
2. Panasonic HVX200 using Firestore 100 gb harddrive instead of p2 cards.
3. Varicam (DVC Pro HD).
4. HDX (DVC Pro HD).

Which of these cams will give me the best clarity and color given my final output size.
Which of these is most compatible with Vegas 7.
I have worked with the Z1 but not with the others. Even if the others will outperform the Z1. Given that the final is going to be 1280x720p, will the others even make a difference in percievable quality considering the final output ?
 
The Varicam is going to give you the best image quality, easily. You won't be able to caputre the footage through Vegas, though, unless you use a Decklink card, and using straight DVCPRO-HD in Vegas requires additional software. Raylight alone won't do it.

Which HDX? The 900? Same issue.
 
Then am i understanding correct that raylight helps only with HVX200 material. The HVX they say can record as MXF or QT.

I knew capture was going to be a problem so my workaround was to take the footage to a studio that does capture DVC Pro Hd and get them to just convert the raw footage into Uncompressed AVI 24 bit. Im surprised that my system loves uncompressed for some strange reason. Playback is in real time etc. So this was my workaround.

But on a quality grading of 1 to 10 how would you rate HDV, HVX, DVC Pro, so i may know how much difference there is going to be between these formats. For example if there is going to be a marginal 'percievable' difference between HDV and HVX footage. I think ill go with HDV for the straightforward workflow. Please let me know your thoughts.
 
plainman007 said:
Then am i understanding correct that raylight helps only with HVX200 material. The HVX they say can record as MXF or QT.

I knew capture was going to be a problem so my workaround was to take the footage to a studio that does capture DVC Pro Hd and get them to just convert the raw footage into Uncompressed AVI 24 bit. Im surprised that my system loves uncompressed for some strange reason. Playback is in real time etc. So this was my workaround.

But on a quality grading of 1 to 10 how would you rate HDV, HVX, DVC Pro, so i may know how much difference there is going to be between these formats. For example if there is going to be a marginal 'percievable' difference between HDV and HVX footage. I think ill go with HDV for the straightforward workflow. Please let me know your thoughts.
Click to expand...

You can also use Raylight Decoder ($95 http://dvfilm.com/raylight/decoder) to edit DVCPROHD quicktimes in Vegas. I have customers that edit Varicam footage in Vegas using this method. The capture is done by a post house from a Panasonic deck. The main advantage of DVCProHD over uncompressed is disk space, (about 10 times less space) but if the footage originated on DVCProHD tape there is no difference in quality. The workflow is simple, drop your quicktimes into Vegas and start cutting.

We also have a new product, Raylight Encoder Pro, that will encode DVCProHD quicktimes as well, from any Windows application. See http://dvfilm.com/raylight/EncoderPro
 
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