QUestions regarding Vegas Pro 8 and Neo
 

I'm using Vegas Pro 8.0b. I've been runnning into performance issue with Vegas Pro 8 recently and others on the Vegas Forums are having issues it seems with editing native m2t files (the every present black frame issue, crashes with the Main Concept Mpeg codec, etc)

I'm currently developing a long form doc project that I will be doing all production and all post production work as well.

Before I commit to editing in Vegas Pro 8.0, I decided I wanted to try and head off any potential issues with editing native m2t files and I installed the trial of Neo and have some questions regarding preferences for HDLink.

Specifically for the Pre-compression Filters (Advanced) section

Should I check the "Deinterlace 1080i and DV sources" box or leave it unchecked? Will checking it degrade the quality of the footage?

Is there any reason to "Resize Video" to anything other than the original aspect ratio (for me, that's 1440x1080i from my HC7's)?

With the "Cineform Encoder Options":

Is there a significant advantage to checking the Enable Smart Rendering Box for Vegas?

I think the smart rendering feature is what lets Vegas avoid rendering things that haven't changed - for example if you have two events and set them to crossfade, only the actual crossfaded region will need to be re-rendered. Seems like a good thing to me.

Cliff,
I've seen your Vegas postings on this issue and understand your concerns. But my experience with Vegas via Cineform has been outstanding. Here are some responses to your questions from my opinion:

Re-sizing: I can't picture a situation where I would use that, as I Pan/Crop anything I need in Vegas and then render to the size/format during rendering, not capturing.

De-interlace: if you want your 1080i footage de-interlaced during capture, I've used this. I saw that someone on the Vegas forum noted that DVFilmMaker does a better job de-interlacing... I don't have a comparison but have been very pleased with Cineform de-interlacing, and it's all in the same capturing process and thus one less thing to do during post-production/rendering.

Enable Smart Render: when I've done projects with straight cuts, this function is awesome. It works in conjunction with the Vegas smart-rendering, and it CRUISES through footage when rendering. Seeing frames move so fast you can't read the numbers (just like filling up on gas these days at the pump!) is a delight. I've found that this option doesn't work when doing dissolves/fades.

Interesting - I just did a project with lots of crossfades and most of the time it said rendering not required - until it got to the crossfade and re-rendered that section

Jim,
I haven't done it in a while with Smart Render... perhaps I'm either remembering incorrectly or trying to say the same thing but not clearly. I seem to recall that when it got to a clip with a crossfade that it slowed down to regular render speed, re-rendered that section, and sort of came and went with the Smart Render option. When it hit an area with straight cuts, it Smart Renders. When you have two clips with a cross fade between them, both of the entire clips are not able to be smart rendered... even if the clips are very long.

Now you have me wondering if I missed something so I'll play with it some more.

I THOUGHT I saw it smart render both clips except for the parts that overlapped, which you're saying it doesn't do.

I'll be traveling over the weekend but will try to play with this if I get a few minutes to be surwe I'm not mis-reporting what happened.

An oddball artifact from capturing via HDLink
 

I've got a weird artifact that seems to have occurred in a test clip I captured with Cineform Neo. The 640x360 mp4 clip can be downloaded here.

As of today - I just became another casualty of the native m2t Red Frame bug in Vegas Pro 8 and so I'm now left with Cineform Neo as being my only alternative to continue working in Vegas Pro.

If David or anyone else could look at this clip and tell me if it is just one of those things or if this is an issue that needs to be considered before going with Neo.

that is a source artifact, not related to CineForm compression. Basically a tape dropout can cause that.

That's my very first one - glad to know it wasn't Neo.

David - when working with VP8 and Neo - do you have guidelines for improving performance when working on the timeline? I'm trying to improve my workflow and wondered if you could give some recommendations. Since Vegas doesn't make use of the GPU of graphics cards, I'm wondering if NEO would improve more if I upgraded my CPU to a quad core since I'm already working with a RAID0 array

Vegas does really use our threading so much, so clock speed and memory bandwidth will win over the number of cores. i.e 3.2Ghz Dual Core is better than 2.4 Ghz Quad for CineForm under Vegas (I don't know why.)

David - maybe I misunderstood your response - you said "Vegas does really use our threading so much..."

Did you mean Vegas doesn't really use our threading so much...?

So if I understand what you're saying - getting a faster clock speed dual core processor will see better performance over a slower clocked quad core when working with Vegas Pro and Cineform Neo.

I currently have an AMD 3800X2 AM2 dual core processor with 4GB matched Corsair PC6400 XMS Dual Channel RAM. If I went with a faster dual core over one of the Phenoms or Barcelona's, I would see better performance? Or if I needed to, swapping out to a faster Intel Core2Duo and mobo? The kind of work I shoot and edit aren't intensive - I use cuts, dissolves, light to moderate color correction if needed and basic titling - hence why I use Vegas Pro in the first place. It does this kind of editing very well. I shoot along the lines of documentary style work.

In addition, I'm making more use of my laptop - a Dell D620 with an Intel 2.0ghz Core2Duo and 4GB RAM (I run x64 XP Pro on both machines currently). Boot drive is 60GB sata and video drive is a single 250GB in the second drive bay. Should I be working with a firewire RAID setup when field editing? I've thought about using something like the g-raid mini for field editing and wondered if you felt that would be necessary for working with the Cineform AVI files since they seem to take up about 3x the amount of space compared to m2t files - or would working with a larger single 500GB - 1TB drive be sufficient?

What would you recommend based upon Cineform Neo being your product.

Hi Cliff,
I've been trying to get adequate performance out of Cineform files on the Vegas 8 timeline off and on for a long time now and continually find Vegas unable to use my system's resources adequately while trying to play back Cineform files on the editorial timeline.

I have found that performance improves when upgrading my processor (I went from an Athlon X2 4200+ to a Q6600 along with corresponding memory upgrades) and when reading Neo files from a raid (250MB/s) rather than a lone SATA drive (55MB/s).

Best of luck and please keep us all apprised of your efforts and gains.

-Robert