Can Vegas Handle FCP's Uncompressed MOV files?

TheThe

Well-known member
I'm trying to send two commercials to a small tv station that only uses Sony Vegas (probably latest version). They want AVI files (which come out highly compressed out of my Final Cut Pro system). I have a feeling that their Vegas can handle Uncompressed NTSC 10-bit .mov files... Am I wrong? What do they have to do to import it into their system? They are obviously using a PC while I'm on a Mac. Any help is greatly appreciated.
 
ProRes 422 beats out AVI any day.

Only if you don't understand AVI. You can do pretty much anything in an AVI container that you can do in a MOV container. Apple just makes it exceedingly difficult. On the PC, you can create exceptional encodes in either container with equal ease.
 
... Apple just makes it exceedingly difficult.

That's what I meant. On my FCP system AVI has about two options only... sucky and suckier ... I'm going from widescreen HD material to SD. In Final Cut Pro there is no direct route from a DVCpro HD timeline to go to 4:3 SD avi without the widescreen source getting somehow screwed up. I had to create another NTSC timeline first and then from there went to the AVI export. The final size of the file got squished to a very small size file even though I put the slider to the 'best' setting.
 
I had a project where I was editing uncompressed quicktimes in Vegas 8 and then 9 and it was a nightmare. My 9 minute project had to be broken up into 1 minute or less sections to get Vegas to not crash. Vegas really does not like having a lot of quicktimes in one project.

I eventually had to export the projects as uncompressed quicktimes and assemble them in After Effects.

You could try exporting from the uncompressed quicktimes through Quicktime Pro on the PC to uncompressed AVI's so that you can work in Vegas and not have to worry about the Mac messing up the Avi's quality.

Another alternative would be to give DVFilm Epic I a try. It's main purpose is for editing Dslr H.264 quicktimes in real time by creating Epic files, but it also will work the same way with Uncompressed Quicktimes as long as the audio is uncompressed too. I actually used this workflow for a small bit of my project and it worked well.

You can get more info and try out the demo here: http://dvfilm.com/epic/index.htm

Hope this helps,
Andy
 
I've been experimenting with the DNXHD codec in a .mov wrapper in Vegas with positive results so far, saying that its just tests, short time lines, layered clips, etc, I've heard don't use .mov's but is it the container or just the codec that people are using?
 
I've been experimenting with the DNXHD codec in a .mov wrapper in Vegas with positive results so far, saying that its just tests, short time lines, layered clips, etc, I've heard don't use .mov's but is it the container or just the codec that people are using?

It's the container. There may be some improvements in the newest versions of Vegas for MOV handling from what I hear.
 
It's the container. There may be some improvements in the newest versions of Vegas for MOV handling from what I hear.

Interesting, ever since purchasing Vegas I've been looking for a good, free, intermediate codec and thought that I had found it, now I probably won't know until I start a large project to and see if I sink or swim.
 
Interesting, ever since purchasing Vegas I've been looking for a good, free, intermediate codec and thought that I had found it, now I probably won't know until I start a large project to and see if I sink or swim.

On Vegas, the current best option is the Matrox VfW codecs. Free, excellent, and in the AVI container.
 
Cool had a bit of a play with them, What is the best codec to use from Matrox? I'm guessing a compressed codec for the Offline and the uncompressed for the online?

I found that the codec called Offline only seems to import or at least render from Vegas with the audio and no image.

I've been googling and can't find any details on how lossy each of the codecs are and which one is best suited for an intermediate, or whether this codec base is better suited for an offline/online. Personally I would prefer to find a lossless or very low loss codec, render to that, and use it throughout.
 
Cool had a bit of a play with them, What is the best codec to use from Matrox? I'm guessing a compressed codec for the Offline and the uncompressed for the online?

I found that the codec called Offline only seems to import or at least render from Vegas with the audio and no image.

I've been googling and can't find any details on how lossy each of the codecs are and which one is best suited for an intermediate, or whether this codec base is better suited for an offline/online. Personally I would prefer to find a lossless or very low loss codec, render to that, and use it throughout.

No, use the i-frame HD and specify a bit rate. I tend to use between 75 and 150 Mbps. At 100Mbps the codec looks very, very good. Using it at 150Mbps is close enough to lossless for anything but VFX work.
 
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