Vegas over FCP?
- Thread starter NO CA$H
- Start date
DVD Architect and the Dolby Digital AC-3 encoder.
thisiswells
Retired
Jubal28 said:
Hi David,
Maybe this thread got a little warm a few days back, but I'm wondering if you ever got the answer you needed?
After reading the entire thread, I am still unclear on exactly what "pre-rendering" is doing in the Sony Vegas software? I have not seen its' equal in the FCP software. In FCP, to "export to tape" you just play it from the timeline out to your deck, no rendering needed. Is Sony Vegas required to "export" a single clip to export to tape? Why not just play it off the timeline? Always worked for me, but perhaps I don't fully understand the implications of "only" playing from the timeline.
Could you elaborate on the capability of Sony Vegas to perform this operation: Say, capture one hours worth of 24PN (2:3:2:3) footage, then immediately export the clip with a 2:3:3:2 pulldown to MiniDV tape. Is it as simple as capturing the tape (which is riddled with timecode breaks, mind you) dropping it on any timeline, selecting the output pulldown style, and (without any rendering...) outputting to tape? If so, then I'm impressed.
Also, I am curious if Sony Vegas can "extract" individual clips based on the DV Start/Stop Detection feature. Can it do this for any pulldown or framerate? To be specific, can it "extract" individual clips ACCURATELY from an hour long 24PA tape without hiccup? If so, then I'm impressed.
LMK if there are any uncovered Q's and I'll be glad to provide reliable answers for you.
Brian
thisiswells said:
I don't really want to go through that whole thing again, but I'm pretty sure we got it settled. FCP and Vegas apparently take slightly different approaches to printing to tape, but both involve rendering effects, etc., prior to doing it. My question was why slower machines can't use 2:3 or 2:3:3:2 pulldown; that question was never answered other than "it's just the way FCP was designed." So be it.
Pretty much. As for timecode breaks, not sure what you mean -- I'm careful to avoid them, so I guess I've never tested that out. Do you just mean starts and stops? If so, then no sweat.
Or do you mean actually starting again at 00:00:00:00? If so, dunno.
I have had no problems with auto scene detection with any pulldown or framerate, capturing entire tapes -- including those with mixed 24p and 60i (these mistakes do happen, especially when someone else is handling the camera). In fact, I count on it, because I begin each take with a frame of the slate, and what I then end up with, in Windows Explorer, is a folder full of thumbnails consisting of the slate frame for each take.
Norm Sanders
Script Wrangler
NO CA$H said:
I personally think I edit "fairly" quickly, and I have none of the things mentioned above. For me, I would at least initially be slowed down, as I'd be getting used to the learning curve of figuring out the short cuts on the keyboard (and remembering to use them), and believe it or not, even remembering to look over to the second monitor, when I'm used to looking in just one space.
I've successfully used Vegas for nearly two years now, and am happy to say I've even got people hiring me at my bid price now ... vs. when I first started I was begging to do work for free just to get the experience & build a portfolio.
Barry_Green
Moderator
Pre-rendering is something that you can choose to do when the section of video you're working on has too many video effects on it to allow it to play back at full real-time. So pre-rendering lets you render it down to an internal, hidden file, so that it then plays back at full realtime on the timeline. That hidden file will stay "current" until you change something on the timeline where the "pre-rendered" file was generated.thisiswells said:
You can. But if you have color correction and cropping and stretching and all that going on, it's possible the system won't be able to maintain a full 29.97 playback speed -- so in those cases you may need to pre-render.
Be impressed. That's exactly what it does.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
You are impressed.
Norm Sanders
Script Wrangler
So how 'bout it, Brian, did Barry get you convinced to run out, switch to PC, and pick up your copy of Vegas?! :beer:
thisiswells
Retired
Wow, I am impressed. FCP cannot do any of those things.
Unfortunately, I just bought another Mac yesterday. What can I say? I'm entrenched.
Sure wish I knew about this forum three years ago before I picked up the first one....
Unfortunately, I just bought another Mac yesterday. What can I say? I'm entrenched.
Sure wish I knew about this forum three years ago before I picked up the first one....
thisiswells said:
If it makes you feel any better, I went out and built a PC ($3-4k) strictly for HDV & Vegas editing last Oct (almost a year ago - went through Vegas 5 and 6 & DVD Arch purchases) and ultimately sold the parted out system on eBay this past May-June.
Vegas is good.
FCP is good.
IMO, doesn't really matter one way or the other what you use as long as you aren't using Windows Movie Maker :thumbsup:
Barry_Green
Moderator
While you're at it, you could put a flash animation, a 15fps quicktime, a photoshop document, a .jpg, a .png, an .aif file, a .wav, an MP3, a windows media file, a realplayer stream, an HDV 720p file and a DVCPRO-HD file all on the same timeline and composite them all into the same shot if you wanted. The sources can be at any frame rates, too. You can mix 24p and 30p and 60i and 15fps flash .swf's; you can add 2048x2048 scanned photos, you can put an animated .gif straight on the timeline too. You can put a DVD in the DVD drive, open it in the explorer, and copy the .VOB mpeg files right off the DVD and put 'em straight on the timeline too.
You can mix 16:9 and 4:3 and HD source material all day long. You can custom-set the aspect ratio so you can use 1:1 pixel-accurate graphics, or different pixel aspect ratios, etc.
You can edit in Quicktime mode, or .AVI, or uncompressed.
You can composite layers, do bezier masks, and edit a 5.1 surround-sound soundtrack, all in the same application. You can render out a 24P or 60i DVD, with an AC-3-encoded soundtrack, straight to the DVD Architect program.
You can add different codecs and modes easily; if someone writes a codec, Vegas can edit the footage. Already we've found the Matrox DVCPRO-50 codec and the Avid DVCPRO-HD codecs, installed 'em on the system, and now Vegas can edit DV50 and DV100 footage. It could do that with any format. Want to edit Windows Media HD H.264 files? If you've got the codec installed on your system, Vegas can edit it. Any frame size, any aspect ratio, any resolution, any frame rate.
And, depending on how fast your system is, it'll all play back in real time; you only need to render if your system isn't fast enough to play it. So you could download an animated .GIF and output it to DV tape in real time, if your system is fast enough.
And it does all this with no reliance on any accelerators or hardware cards of any type. The faster your system, the faster it runs, but it's not like Matrox where it relies on a proprietary hardware card.
And it'll also run on a pig of a system. It runs tolerably even on an old 1ghz Pentium III system.
And, if you have multiple computers, it includes the ability to distribute the rendering process through network rendering, so if you have a big job to do, and you have some computers networked together, you can use them all at once to speed up the job.
Of course, you can do the same thing on just one system too. You can run multiple instances of Vegas on your system, set one in the background to rendering and keep editing on the instance in the foreground. If you have hyperthreading or dual-core, you can apparently do this with very little impact on your overall system speed (my main system is neither HT or DC so I can't vouch for that).
Now, let's be clear about something -- those are just the features I know about, because those are the features I use in my everyday work. There's *tons* about the program that I don't know! I haven't dug into all the effects and filters and modes and nested timelines and whatever else it can do. It can do a lot more than this, a whole lot more. I just got to a level of competency where I can do what I need to do with it, and quit exploring after that.
Norm Sanders
Script Wrangler
Um. Wow! Think this last comment of Barry's can be made as a sticky? Pretty solid selling point for Vegas, and I'm sure it will answer a ton of questions for anyone curious in the future ... then again, I'm sure it will also initiate a ton of questions as well. Questions like "How do you do that?! And what about this?!", etc.
Great stuff, Barry, thanks!
Great stuff, Barry, thanks!
Barry_Green
Moderator
Not necessarily meant to sell it against any other program, that's just a list of the type of stuff I've used it for.
If someone could point out whether FCP or Avid or Edius Pro 3 can do all of those things (or specifically any of those things that those programs *can't* do) it'd make my choice of which editor to use going forward (with the HVX) a lot easier!
If someone could point out whether FCP or Avid or Edius Pro 3 can do all of those things (or specifically any of those things that those programs *can't* do) it'd make my choice of which editor to use going forward (with the HVX) a lot easier!
FilmMagic
Active member
I switched Vegas from Premiere about 2 weeks ago and it was actually pretty easy to make the switch. As far as comparing it with FCP, I've got to say that I like Vegas a lot better. It handles 24p the way I used to dream about. I'm also very fond of the amount of effects that it contains. I'm still using AE as well for motion tracking and other effects but overall, as far as editing goes on Vegas, I'm happy.
John_Hudson said:
Anyhow, I've tried all PC software andd I like vegas best
I -for one- dislike changing platform, because I'm not used to it and that won't preserve a fast workflow, it isn't easy to upgrade, it seems slower than the fastest PC's you can construct, but most of all: you lose compatibility to next to everyone. That should be bad for bussiness as well...