FCP or Vegas?
 

I'm in a dilemma now as I like to get into some compositing work with something like AE or Apple Motion but I do not know both yet. I'm thinking of picking up AE but the thought of jumping to FCP+motion popped up. The main temptation for the jump is I have seen quite a couple of very sharp web videos with FCP out there. Somehow or rather I have not been able to perform this with Vegas. 2 things I need to figure out to make a decision is:

1. How can Vegas produce nice H264.mov files? If this can be fulfilled I would be glad to stay with Vegas. I'm working with 1440x1080-50i
2. Is After Effects able to produce m2t files for use in Vegas? Or Vegas is able to work on multi formats on the same timeline? I normally leave my settings as 1440x1080-50i. Another thing is a lot of royalty free stuff comes in HD mov format!! I have no idea how to work this with m2t...

Uh oh
 

You might get some blood on you from this fight!

I think this is as much about which computer system you use as anything.

For the money, tough to beat Vegas....

But if I had the loot, I'd go FCP. But I don't :)

john

evilgeniusentertainment.com

Vegas has an open timeline so yes, you can put different format on it.

i tried putting a 1920x1080 mov file but it didnt work!

re: 1920x1080 mov
It is possible that the file uses a codec that is not available on the PC platform. Prores, uncompressed 4:2:2, DVCPRO HD (but that is not 1920x1080; there might be 3rd party workarounds), etc.

2- making H.264
You could export a uncompressed quicktime (or photoJPEG at 100% quality) and then open that in QT Pro to export. (Try exporting small chunks first to get a hang of how to get the final file size you want, with reasonable quality.)

There might be an easier way... Satish' frameserver might be faster.

from what i hear i don't think motion is a replacement for AE

and after working in vegas i think you would be very disappointed with FCP - it's a very clunky bit of software that will make you feel like you've gone back in time

and to respond to your questions

1. for some unknow reason that is not possible.

however, depending on what you are doing with the file, you can output quicktime using the mpeg4 codec - which is almost the same as h264 - and the difference in quality at a given data rate is almost unnoticeable.

also you can export as mp4 directly using the sony mpeg4 codec - which is really good and very very fast (i would say 10-100 faster than h264 encoding in quick time - on the PC)

2. i don't know why you would ever render anything out in HDV (m2t) unless you wanted to print back to tape. it's a very lossy format. Just export as quicktime with photo-jpeg or animation codec. this imports fine in vegas.