HDV Question(s)

Larry Rutledge

Larry Rutledge

Fest Master
I just completed a shoot where the DP used an XL-H1. He captured the footage on his Mac using Final Cut which produced a series of quicktime files. However, when I attempted to drop them into the Vegas timeline I got both a video and audio event, but only the audio event contained anything. I could hear the audio no problem, but the video was blank.

I then spent the next hour and a half capturing the footage from his camera directly into Vegas using the internal capture utility (Vegas 8 Pro). When I attempted to drop any of the resulting .m2t files into the timeline I get the following error:

"None of the files dropped on Vegas Pro could be opened."


I then opened Vegas 7 and it has no problem accepting the m2t files, however, it appears that the capture utility created a single file for each frame of footage. Also, the overall quality of the footage is mediocre at best, no where near the quality of what I saw when the DP showed me the footage within Final Cut.

From what limited research I've been able to do this morning I see references to HDVSplit and Cineform. Should I use one of these and re-capture? Or even better, is there any way to make Vegas properly utilize the QT files created by the original Final Cut capture?

Thanks for any help/ideas/advice...
Larry
 
If the original files are in AIC (Apple Intermediate Codec) you're hosed. I had that problem myself.

Do you have a utility like GSpot to tell you what video codec the quicktime files are in?
 
No, since I couldn't access the files I wiped the drive and did a capture using Vegas. Then I ran into the other issues.

Guess I'll go try to re-capture using HDVSplit or Cineform.
 
Well, the problem with CineForm is that it costs around $250 and unfortunately I already spent more money than I had just to get the film shot. They say they have a 15 day full functioning trial ... my question is, can I use this trial to get my footage captured/converted and then still be able to work with the converted footage once the trial expires?

I'm not trying to circumvent CineForm, and if it works well will purchase it for the next project. But I am on a critical time crunch on this project, so I need something that will work now, but hopefully not cost me anything at the moment. (I know that sounds really bad ... but honestly, if it works right I'll have a definitely need to pick this product up very soon).
 
I hear ya. What is boggling me, is that plenty of people capture into Vegas without Cineform and it does just fine. Hopefully, someone can get your more info on solving the problem.

I'd help more but I don't capture HDV. I just post it.
 
Larry, have you checked to see if Canon has some plug-in/patch to work with Vegas? For P2 data from the HVX, I use Raylight, and it works beautifully with Vegas.

Oh, and once that Cineform trial expired, I'm pretty sure you'd be dead in the water.
 
Larry R said:
Well, the problem with CineForm is that it costs around $250 and unfortunately I already spent more money than I had just to get the film shot. They say they have a 15 day full functioning trial ... my question is, can I use this trial to get my footage captured/converted and then still be able to work with the converted footage once the trial expires?

I'm not trying to circumvent CineForm, and if it works well will purchase it for the next project. But I am on a critical time crunch on this project, so I need something that will work now, but hopefully not cost me anything at the moment. (I know that sounds really bad ... but honestly, if it works right I'll have a definitely need to pick this product up very soon).
Click to expand...

Once the trial expires, you will still be able to read the Cineform encoded files, but you won't be able to render using Cineform's codec anymore.
 
You should be able to capture and edit native 24F m2t files in Vegas 7. The reason you can't edit the FCP HDV files is because Final Cut "wraps" the m2t stream into a mac-only QT HDV format, which is essentially the same as native m2t (doesn't recompress), but is recognized as a QT file that only FCP can edit.

You might've had trouble with the m2t files captured in Vegas 8 because you're using Vegas 7. (no ability to open Vegas 8 files in older version of the app)

Try capturing in Vegas 7 or HDV split.
 
Well, here's the update ... Vegas 8 captures the footage but I can't view it in Vegas 8 timeline. I think the problem is that I was using the demo (hoping I could take advantage of the newest version for this small short).

I tried dropping the captured clips into Vegas 7 (the one's captured with Vegas 8) and they drop in fine. Well, except that each frame of footage is its own clip and there is no audio.

So I met up with the DP again and using Vegas 7's capture utility re-captured the footage and it worked perfectly. And I can drop it into the Vegas 7 time line without issue.

Now I have to deal with the issues that arose because either the gain was turned too high on the camera, or it's AGC was turned on so all the night footage has serious noise in them.

Fortunately, msconce's (Matt Sconce's) technique he worked out for STRICKEN (during horror fest) seems to remove most of the "noise" though it leave the footage a little soft. BUt I have to downres for the DVD anyway, so it should be fine.

Thanks for all the help/input.
 
By the way, Using the Cineform trial program to convert footage works and as long as you have the free decoder on your system you will be able to do anything you want with them, except export back out to the Cineform codec. I did this for my lovefest entry and it worked just fine.

First chance I get (after a new camera) is to by the Cineform codec, it is excellent.
 
Wow! I agree William ... first chance I get I'm buying Cineform. I fought and struggled for days with Vegas and the original m2t files that it captured from the camera. Constantly causing exception failures that would shut Vegas down. It was a nightmare.

Then on a whim I decided to see if the Cineform codec would help. I downloaded the trial (Neo for HDV) and installed it.

I then opened my project and scene by scene rendered out from Vegas to Cineform AVIs. I then used the Cineform HDLink tool to convert those files to Cineform QT movie files (I couldn't get it render direct to mov from Vegas, and AE didn't like the AVI files).

I then pulled the QT files into AE, did my color correction, color grading then rendered out to uncompressed AVI files. I pulled those AVI files into Vegas and it ran without issue.

I completed my final cut/mix/etc and am now rendering the MPEG-2 file for the DVD :)
 
HDV with no video?

HDV with no video?

So, if I have HDV Quicktimes, captured in FCP, which I am now trying to play on a PC, only to discover that the files have no Video whatsoever, but they have sound, is it safe to say that the files were captured with the AIC codec? And hence will be useless to me for editing in Vegas?
 
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