Another Newbie Basic Question (sorry)... Workflow.
 

Hi,
I edit with Sony Vegas Pro8c and am a new user to Neo HD. Over the past month I've read about as much as my addled brain can take in about Cineform and think I've a fairly good grasp on it, "think" being the operative word. I've got lots of questions, the answers to I'm sure I can find on this thread. But there lurks one Q/A that I haven't come across. When you're within HDLink and are going through your footage to grab shots, is there an easier way to do this than the way I do: Hit "Play" see the shot, hit "Stop", hit "Rewind (and hope you don't go too far past it)", hit "Stop", hit "Play" (and find that you didn't go back far enough to grab the head of the shot), hit "Stop", hit "Rewind" (and hope you don't go too far past the shot), "hit "Stop", hit "Play" find that you went back way too far... I could go on but hope you see my plodding work flow issue here. I'm aware of scene splitting (scene detection?) but it doesn't really pertain to this.. Please know that I think the product an excellent one and this forum a major help and that no way is the above a complaint, more a very dumb question but one that's driving me nuts.. (Tech support was really good about answering a form of this question for me but I thought I'd try and throw it out to the community).
Thanks in advance for your answer,
Sprague

Try using Batch Capture from within your NLE rather than HDLink. You just mark the rough in and out points of each scene you want, hit Batch Capture and go get a cup of coffee. At least that's how it works in Premiere -- I assume Vegas is the same.

Thanks for getting back to me. If I used Batch Capture from within Vegas, wouldn't I be capturing from my playback unit in the regular manner, not utilizing the Cineform codec? I was under the impression that in order to turn the shots into a Cineform compressed format I had to capture them via HDLink. Maybe someone with Vegas knows?
ST

The only way that you could use the above-described Vegas workflow, would be to follow those instructions, exit Vegas, then use HDLink to convert each captured file to a Cineform AVI file. Then go back to Vegas and work with the Cineform files.

Thanks Jay. I'm not so much curious as to how to do this from within Vegas as I'm trying to figure out if the workflow I described in my original question (Hit "Play" see the shot, hit "Stop", hit "Rewind [and hope you don't go too far past it]", hit "Stop", hit "Play" etc) is the best (only?) way to view and capture with HDLink. Hope I'm not being too confusing.
ST

I always use HDLink in the batch capture mode to capture and "simultaneously" convert to Cineform .avi.
I then go back and check the clips with Windows Media Player and rename each clip (deleting the ones I don't want).
Then I import them into Premiere CS3.

While it is a little cumbersome, at least I only use my camera once to down load instead of going back and forth.

John Rich

Thanks John.
ST

This is where my ignorance about Vegas comes back to bite me. Aren't there Cineform presets in Vegas like there are in Premiere? Once you set up a Cineform project, everything is in the Cineform format.

But perhaps this is only with Aspect, not Neo. Might be a good reason to upgrade.

Hi Adam,
I don't think there's a Cineform preset (but will hunt for more info) but I do think that once you get all your shots onto the timeline in Vegas, and before you start working with them, you can then render them all to Cineform from within Vegas, I think. I'm away from my machines for a few days but will post this on a Vegas board to find out. If indeed this is the case, then after I were to render the timelne into the Cineform format, then it would be a simple matter of editing the piece, rendering to MPEG2 (or whatever format was needed) and burning a DVD?
Thanks again,
Sprague

Hi Adam,

HDLInk has the ability to batch convert all our clips. Open up HDLink and click on the convert tab. That will let you add which files you want to convert.

You can also batch convert within Vegas if you have all the clips on the timeline. You have to set up regions for each clip then go to batch render them into the Cineform Codec.

Hope that helps,
Garrett

Interesting. A little different workflow than Aspect with Premiere.

Good to know.

Yes, the workflow for Vegas differs from that in Premiere because we don't have an SDK interface into Vegas. For PPro we use the SDK offered by Adobe to "take over" when we're inside PPro. So we can do native capture inside PPro to CineForm files, and of course we have our RT engine.

With all other applications (Vegas, FCP, etc) we're mostly outside, so we don't have as much direct control. That's also why there is a price difference between the Aspect/Prospect products (PPro) than for Neo (all other apps).

Back on topic, I like Garrett's suggestion. Capture/convert everything at once using HD Link then review the footage on your PC after capture. But that's personal preference - there's no right or wrong way to do this.

Hi David and Garrett,
Many thanks for that! This clears up my question tremendously!
ST