vegas and P2???
 

anyone using P2 and vegas? is there anything I should know about? I have a project coming up that will require me to edit ex3 video, beta sx and P2, am I going to be ok?


also, my laptop is old, about 3 years, its running 2gb of ram, and a 1.60ghz processor. I wont be editing a TON of the ex3 and P2 video, mostly beta, so should I be ok? or do I need to step up the laptop?

vegas 8.0c is what I am running.

thanks!

You're going to need Raylight to get the P2 files into Vegas. Other than that, you should be ok. Are you working in SD?

I forgot to use the search function before I posted, so I just came across the raylight thing.

dont know if I really want to drop 200 bucks though....does a mac need raylight as well to edit P2 files?

and yes, the ultimate product will be SD, but there are so many shooters with HD cams that they want to borrow footage from.

I'm not sure about the Mac/P2 workflow, but I am sure the answers are here in the forum. My question about whether this was an HD or SD project really just was concerned about the speed of the machine.

You're going to be hurting with a machine that old, so I'd suggest if you can't move to something more modern, that you cut with SD proxy files instead of trying to muscle around those large HD files.

heres another question, if P2's format is MXF, how come vegas cant read it, seeing as we have to transfer our ex video TO mxf for vegas to play it. so confusing!

i thought mxf meant material exchange format, ie exchange material (footage) from one nle to another.

So it's not exactly living up to it's name of mxf then is it.

Paul.

Sony's MXF and Avid's MXF don't play well together at ALL. And I have no IDEA what Panasonic is doing. There is divergence in the spec that allows the materials inside (audio, video, metadata) to all exist interleaved or seperately. Some prefer the data all separate like Avid. Some want it interleaved like Sony. Thus the divergence.

Apparently there is a new Zero Divergence initiative, but I am not sure how far along that is. I believe that's a part of the AAF spec that we are hearing about, but I need to research it further.

For Vegas, on a shoot last year, I convert HVX 200 MXF files using Cineform's NeoHDV. If NeoScene (the newest Cineform product) will do that, that's $129.00

the solution I have for now: we have a mac book coming on the trail with us, so the P2 video will get dumped to that, converted to a file for vegas and then transfered over to my computer to edit. I dont feel like spending any more money on a codec I might only use once.

we've been ingesting P2 MXF's for months now. It is no problem at all in Vegas with Raylight. All other "little tricks" to avoid the cost of Raylight ended in fragmented files and audio issues. FCP and AVID automatically handle Panny's MXF's. Remember also that the original MXF files have to be on the same drive as the converted Raylight files or you will not get access to the files. When the P2 particians and dumps to a drive from the camera, that same dump drive must be the folder location for the re-wrapped AVI's from Raylight. It is a bit confusing at first. What we do, is dump all the MXF's onto a drive. Copy and paste ALL contents of the P2 content folder into the working drive location (or storage drive). Then run all the MXF's through Raymaker and place the Raylight folder in the same drive as the MXF's. You cant delete or move the MXF's...EVER. They must be able to link to eachother from the original locations. Not sure what the w'flow is using Cineform... If you have some trouble processing the AVI's from Raylight they give you 4 different settings to lessen the blow on your laptop. We work all day long in HD on maximum resolution (blue) on quad cores pegged at 29.97fps.

Hope that helps, we love Raylight, its worth the money.

I'm sure its worth it if you use P2 a lot. but I dont. I honestly can say, this will probably be the first and last time I use it with a laptop. if I was the one shooting everything, I wouldnt have any issues, but seeing as I am getting video from like 5 different shooters, plus myself, and everyone has a different camera, its making it difficult to track down the best work flow for all of this.

I am fairly sure that just dumping them to a mac and rendering it to a format for vegas is my best bet (I just found out we will probably only have like 10 shots from the P2 anyway). I dont need to keep the HD version, as its going to be an SD final product. the client can deal with archiving the HD version when they get back from the trail.