Which NLE for HDV?

M

Metrolens

Well-known member
I'd like to appeal to the wisdom of you all for some much needed help.

I have a videography project to be shot in HD. I recently bought a Canon A1, and am trying to decide whether to get the latest version of Vegas or PPro. I'm currently running PPro 1.5, which can't handle the A1's 24F and 30F modes, which is what I'd like to shoot in. So I'm clearly going to have to upgrage to something.

I've downloaded the Vegas trial, and have played with it. Coming from FCP and PPro I find it a little counterintuitive.

Questions:

1. Will I have to buy Cineform? So far the HDV editing in the Vegas trial has been very choppy and slow (I'm running a Core 2 Duo 6300, 1.5 Gigs Ram, no Raid).

2. Ideally I would love to just get Adobe CS3 and Cineform, because I'm most familiar with PPro. But the total cost of that comes out to $700 ($199 to upgrade from PPro 1.5, and $499 for Aspect HD). But unless I'm mistaken, the total cost of getting Vegas 7+DVD and Cineform NEO seems to be only $500 (B&H has Vegas 7 for $250 here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...=462195&is=REG
And, if I buy Vegas, wouldn't I be able to avoid buying Cineform NEO altogether, and just use Vegas's included Cineform codec, thus dropping the Vegas total down to $250? Would Gearshift do the trick for another $50, a $300 total?

3. Is Pinnacle Studio 11 (an additional $94) going to be a good option to output to HD-DVD using an SD DVD burner, no matter which NLE I choose?

Thanks in advance.
 
Last edited:
the cineform that comes with is vegas 7.0 is a watered down version of connect HD or NEO. I use both vegas 7.0e and NEOHD. If found that you can edit it without the NEO it is rather sluggish vs using with the NEO as the capture codec. If you're looking at comparing it with FCP or PP, it is comparing apples and oranges. I just comes down to you're own preference and price.
 
Thanks. I've been playing around with Vegas this afternoon, and it's much better than I thought. Much of the timeline functionality is superior to FCP or PPro, it seems.

So is the $249 B&H price I list above the least expensive way to get the full version of Vegas 7? It seems to be the full version of Vegas 6+DVD Studio, plus a Vegas 7 upgrade CD, minus the manual?

Do you use NEO HD, and not NEO HDV? What's ideal for the A1? Would Gearshift be a great addition too?
 
I just upgraded from connectHD to NEO HDV...as for the BH price to upgrade to 7..i believe there is a time limit to do it but the price isn't bad..and 7 is to me much better in handling HDV footage than 6 ever was. The good thing about Vegas...you don't get nickeled and dimed to death for upgrades...it is usually free until they upgrade to version 8.
 
Thanks again, a few more questions:

Would NEO HD allow for better results than NEO HDV from the A1? NEO HD uses 10 bit files and does 1920x1080.

Do you know when Vegas 8 is due for release? How much do you think would it cost to upgrade from that B&H $249 package to Vegas 8?

Can anyone comment on Pinnacle 11 and Gearshift?
 
These are all good questions, sorry that I can't give good answers!

But I will say, we're running XH-A1s using NEO HDV on ingest .. ie. capture direct to cineform AVIs using the HDLink app ... It is a very, very nice workflow. You should definitely try the NEO HDV trial, capture a bunch of cineform files from your A1, and try cutting them in the Vegas trial ... We were sold on this workflow as soon as tried it.

Cam -> M2T -> Vegas/Gearshift -> etc sounds far too much hassle to be honest.

PPro+Cineform I'd imagine is pretty solid, but I've no personal experience with that setup. Can you give this a go with trial versions ...? We switched from Premiere to Vegas a couple years back, no regrets.
 
I cant vouch for HDV but when I convert dvcprohd to cineform and edit in PP2.0 with Aspect HD its fantastic. There's a slight bit of lag when compared to editing DV, but it doesnt bother me a bit. I can usually get 5 or so layers of video going before it needs to render anything. Aspect also comes with some nice real-time CC stuff. Its not color finesse pro, but its great for simple color grading/correction
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top