V1 / NLE Thread

[Justin Zimmerman]

I'd very much like to have a thread devoted to all the issues surrounding editing V1 footage, from both the hard drive and from tape. My personal interest is in FCP, but I've had interesting questions, comments and thoughts from friends editing on Vegas, Avid DVExpress, etc.

I'm going to kick it off with a project I'll be shooting and editing next month. I'll be traveling to several cities in two countries and shooting extensively with the V1. I'll also be getting footage shot from Panasonic's P2 720P and an as yet unnamed HD 1080i camera from several OTHER countries. I'll be editing all the footage together in FCP using the Pro Res HQ CODEC.

I'll be posting versions on YouTube. Thanks to YouTube's adoption of H.264, high resolution pieces look great for review. I'll also be upgrading past V1 projects as well.

Let's talk editing and post, and try to keep it together. More soon.

[Ken Campbell]

Well, with Vegas Pro 8 there are no issues that I have come across. I previously used Premiere Pro 2 but the rendering problems and occasional crashes made me shop around. Before investing a lot of money into FCP plus the Mac dongle, I tried Vegas and Liquid and quickly fell in love with the power and ease of Vegas. Again, it is super stable and I never have any problerms with the Sony footage inside Vegas. Note, I am in Europe and shoot mostly 25p.

As for codecs for the web, I don't see any difference in quality yet between H264 and VP6, but using FlixPro and two pass encoding I do get smaller file sizes. Clients that pay for bandwidth usage appreciate little things like that!

[Leslie Wand]

agree with ken entirely - having used avid / edius, and a little time on fcp. be aware there ARE some problems floating around, but all workaroundable apparently. from my pov vegas is rock solid, and intuitive (or counter depending where you're coming from), that using it is a joy compared to the rest.

shooting pal 50i - haven't felt any desire to go 25p when the pics in 50i are so beautiful and tweakable.

leslie

[Sherif Choudhry]

I would be interested in your experience of using the V1 with FCP. I use Vegas on Win XP but am going to move to the Mac platform. Nothing against Vegas but i see advantages on the Mac because of tight integration with specific h/w products, eg, they specify which graphics cards work with Matrox MXO/colour calibration on the Apple 23" cinema display. FCP also comes with Color, nuff said. However, I do think Vegas drop on timeline approach and mixing of all kinds of footage very easy to use.
One thing Vegas 8 still does on my machine is crash with no warning or error pop-up at all - just disappears. But lets not forget it is WAY cheaper than FCP.

Post us any feedback Justin.

[Justin Zimmerman]

Next week I'll be shooting in LA, San Fran and British Columbia. I'll be using the 30P setting at 3 sharpness. It's my personal fave on the VU1...though I might be different from many of you in this circumstance.

I'll also be integrating footage from P2 Panasonic rigs.

I plan on using the Pro Res HQ CODEC.

I'll be finishing to a variety of different formats using Mac's Compressor.

This client loves seeing everything on YouTube HI - RES, so as I go I'll post versions there...and let you know too.

Feel free to bookmark now: www.youtube.com/zimfilm

[Justin Zimmerman]

Ken, if you use the H.264 CODEC with YouTube, you'll get the option of watching your piece in "high quality." At least on YouTube, H.264 rules the day.

Here's an invaluable link (and an introduction to Compressor for thse non MAC users...)

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage...edux_gary.html

[Luigi Beverelli]

Hi Justin,
me too, I could use The V1U with footage from a Panasonic HVX200A.

Do you think they can match in FCP ?
Which is the best frame rate to use ?

[Ken Campbell]

Hey Justin, thanks for the link. Very informative!

[John Bosco Jr.]

Originally Posted by Ken Campbell

Hey Justin, thanks for the link. Very informative!

V1 users... Is anyone editing on premiere pro CS3? I'm currently editing with Liquid which is driving me crazy with its poor media management. I'm surprised AVID didn't improve on that aspect of Liquid, considering AVID has one of the best media management iin its media composer line. Plus, its going to be another year before AVID introduces its upgrade to Liquid (or I should say replacement), and I can't wait that long. I mentioned premiere pro CS3 because I still own an old copy of premiere, which would enable me to get it for the upgrade price. I was just wondering if anyone is using premiere pro CS3 and if its any better than its previous versions. What I'm after is this: Is it more stable than previous versions, and how well does it work with the V1 HDV flavors (1080i 60 and 1080p 24)?

[Mike Beckett]

Based on a sample size of one (i.e. me!) I find CS3 ultra-reliable. That is, it hasn't crashed once for me in the three months I've been using it.

CS2 crashed regularly, and Premiere Elements 4 crashes at the blink of an eye on the same PC as this. All I have to do there is open titler and press a button and it may or may not die, depending how lucky I am.

I still end up pressing CTRL+S all the time in CS3 to save every couple of minutes, but it hasn't been needed yet. I do have the latest service pack installed, which may have helped.

That's just me - I can't guarantee anyone else will be as crash-free!

[Leslie Wand]

every man to his own poison. mine's vegas, having worked with avid, premiere, and a little on fcp (not versed enough to comment other than i prefer vegas when working on the same sort of edit / material i usually work with).

but since the first drink is on the house, well, 30 day trial, give them all a whirl - (let's face it, there's nothing worse than someone trying to defend / sell / bitch about / praise their nle cause that's the one THEY bought).

leslie

[David Kirshner]

This may or may not be on topic, but how many of you use Cineform in your workflow and how has this affected the speed/reliability of your NLE?

[Leslie Wand]

Originally Posted by David Kirshner

This may or may not be on topic, but how many of you use Cineform in your workflow and how has this affected the speed/reliability of your NLE?

interesting question. vegas comes with a 'cut-down' cineform intermediary, which i've never used. i did think about neo, but so far have ben editing m2t's on the t/l quite happily without any problem. then again, most of my work is doco, so i'm not pushing the envelope too much.

just did a chromakey presentation (green screen), and was pleasantly surprised with the ease and quality of the result without 'bumping' the original m2t's.

leslie

[Justin Zimmerman]

Okay, just got back.

I shot 30P on the VU1 with a sharpness of 3 100% manually and captured into FCP using the new ProRes Codec (not HQ). I'm editing in a ProRes 1080i timeline as I'm going to be mixing in VX100 SD and Panasonic 720P from other sites.

I did a number of tests with this pipeline and then found this, which confirmed everything I'd discovered, which was nice.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage..._fw_balis.html

In any event I'm very impressed with the initial footage. it takes up a heck of a lot more room on the old hard drive, but is smooth and looks great. I shot in LA, San Fran and Vancouver under a variety of conditions.

As soon as I have something to show, I'll let you know and you can comment and critique.

[John Bosco Jr.]

Originally Posted by Justin Zimmerman

Okay, just got back.

I shot 30P on the VU1 with a sharpness of 3 100% manually and captured into FCP using the new ProRes Codec (not HQ). I'm editing in a ProRes 1080i timeline as I'm going to be mixing in VX100 SD and Panasonic 720P from other sites.

I did a number of tests with this pipeline and then found this, which confirmed everything I'd discovered, which was nice.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage..._fw_balis.html

In any event I'm very impressed with the initial footage. it takes up a heck of a lot more room on the old hard drive, but is smooth and looks great. I shot in LA, San Fran and Vancouver under a variety of conditions.

As soon as I have something to show, I'll let you know and you can comment and critique.

Very interesting article, but I have a question. The article mentions that apple pro-res codec automatically chooses what the HDV flavor is based on the content. Is the codec able to recognize the V1's 24p/25p/30p, or is it going to capture it only 1080i and not convert. In other words, will pro-res work with the V1's progressive modes, considering the V1 wraps them in a 1080i envelope.