workflow with Vegas 12 and HD files on a long project

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pjwoodside

Member
Hi all,
I'm an award winning editor -- in fact, we'll be appearing in the Sony Creative Software newsletter in January, but the technical aspects sometimes hang me up.

We've been working with Vegas on SD projects, but we recently switched to HD -- P2 files (.mxf) and acquired Sony Vegas 12. I've done a rough cut for our next feature-length movie, and I'm giving some consideration to the best workflow at this point. Here are my issues:

--There are at least 123 scenes in this movie. It's about dreaming, so there's a lot of jumping.
--Many of the scenes are from the same location and will need the same types of adjustments with color correcting and sound editing
--I like to sound edit initially from files in the same batch of takes

What I've done initially is pulled ALL the files for a set of scenes into a vegas track and organized them and labeled them with markers so if I need one I can find it easily. This worked great for rough-cutting and will possibly work fine for sound editing and color grading.

However, when I get to the point where I want to pull pieces together, what's the best way for me to do this?

--pull the rough pieces all into one vegas file and work with numerous tracks in that file?
--divide the movie into sections and work with something similar to the above but in smaller chunks?
--OR, render the pieces into .mxf files and pull them onto a track together and then add score and sound effects (taking them back to their original files and re-rendering when necessary for changes)
--OR, do the same as above except in a different format?

I am worried that rendering already rendered pieces somehow loses quality, but it sure makes the workflow a lot easier toward the end.

If you have any insights or resources, please post links for me. Thanks in advance!
pj
 
If you have numerous shots that will all need the same filters (colour correction or whatever), shoving them all onto their own track (labelled with that location) is a good idea, as the filters can then be applied to the track instead of the individual shots, which saves a lot of work (and sanity). But be prepared for a few awkward exceptions where the lighting or whatever unexpectedly didn't match - they'll need additional filters on the individual event, or at worst to be put onto a different track to avoid the main track's default filters.

I don't personally recommend the prerendering method, as it's too easy to get confused re which what work was done at which level, and/or waste a lot of time on pointless rerenders. The exception where it works great is any 'self-contained' bits - e.g. one of my films included some scenes of fake TV footage, so I finished those as an individual mini-project then dropped the rendered output into my larger project.

Some people have good results using subprojects, i.e. the master project timeline comprises of other Vegas projects (not the rendered output), but that can also hurt the brain.
 
Thanks!

I've done the subproject thing before but it turned out to be a hassle. I used the pre-rendering method for our last movie (this is our 7th), so I know what the issues are and so far this seems like the most efficient to me. What I DON'T know is if I lose quality that way.

If I try to put all the tracks for the movie on one file, unrendered, it will be crazy. I can do it. I just wondered what others found as far as workflow. I use two monitors but neither is huge, and I'm finding that to be an issue.
 
It's P2 footage, but what is it specifically? 720 24pN? 1080 24p? DVCPRO HD? AVC-Intra?

You can't export to P2 format from Vegas 12. You can export to MXF, but that's Sony MXF and will be in a Sony format (HDCAM SR 422 or 444 will be the best bet), but what you would choose would depend on what you shot.

So, details.
 
There's no Panasonic HDV. What camera did you use?

Go to the clip properties -- it'll tell you the codec and also the frame rate. What are they?
 
OK, that's good news. Otherwise, I would suggest not using Vegas 12, because it can't remove pulldown from P2 footage yet.

But as far as your question goes, if it were me doing this, I'd edit in Vegas 11 with Raylight so that I can render out mixdowns to the same codec and format -- DVCPRO HD 720 24pN. Vegas 12 just isn't quite there yet for P2 projects.
 
pjwoodside said:
Ok, I have Vegas 11 and Raylight so that's no problem. Can you explain that workflow step by step?
Click to expand...

If you want to do scenes separately and then bring them into a master timeline, then exporting to Raylight DVCPRO HD 720/24p (23.976) will retain your footage quality; it's quite robust and I've observed no loss when I've done mixdowns with it.

But depending on how complex your edit is -- and by this I mean the number of tracks you employ and what you do in the tracks, like track motion, envelopes, parenting, etc. -- it may be a simple matter of copy/pasting your whole edit into a single timeline.

As for keeping color correction and other FX consistent among similar footage, you can do this in a number of ways. You can create FX chains and save all the FX you apply to a clip as a package, and then apply it to other clips. You can also have several (how many will depend on your system) instances of Vegas open at the same time, and you can copy/paste between them -- including to "Paste event attributes" from one clip to another.

Of course, CC and FX are usually the last thing you should be doing to the video; cuts first, get the final edit, then apply FX.
 
Thanks, Dave! I'm doing all of the above. The workflow is a bit slower with Raylight but I had begun to get used to it. If I edit in 12 and then copy and paste over into 11, will 11 accept the work as long as I haven't applied any FX? I ask because being able to see the thumbnails is useful at this point.
 
You can copy clips over, no problem. FX parameters tend not to survive, though. (Thumbnails? Raylight should show you thumbnails as long as your Project Media window is in that display mode.)

I assume you're editing in a 720p-24p timeline? That's what you want.
 
I meant the thumbnails in the Explorer window of the p2 files, which is new to Vegas 12, but maybe I'm doing something wrong. What settings do I need to use in Raylight Ultra, and what will my properties look like on Vegas 11? I can't seem to find the timeline you mentioned above.
 
For the timeline:

Untitled.jpg

(It doesn't matter that it says "HDV" -- only the dimensions and the frame rate matter. You may want to check the ruler, though, and make sure it's 23.976.)

There are no particular settings in Raylight to worry about, other than the 60i/60p default system.
 
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