Vegas to Avid export question

[Marcia Janine Galles]

Hello all. Haven't been around for awhile. Nice to reconnect. Listen, does anyone know if Vegas 6 can export to an Avid? Vegas 5 and Avid were not on the best of terms. But I want to help someone out by doing a quick rough cut on Vegas for a handoff to his Avid Symphony. Is there a way to pull this off? Specific questions include: 1) can an Avid read a Vegas 6 EDL; 2) can the media itself which is brought in via Vegas 6 (and firewire) be taken in on a drive and used by an Avid; 3) is there a way to make the media and/or the EDL compatible? Everything was shot 60i/30 fps, standard 4x3 miniDV.

The short down and dirty is that I don't have time to do a full edit on this material myself, and the actual editor on the project (that I'm trying to lend a hand) only has acess to the Avid he works on, at night, after he's done with his "real" work. Basically, we're all trying to help out a non-profit trying to put out a DVD, but we need to be able to share stuff relatively seemlessly or there's no point in my trying to help him with what time I can.

Also, one last thing, is there any harm in having both Vegas 5 and 6 on the same machine? I haven't upgraded to 6 because I'm not done with a Vegas 5 project, but if Vegas 6 will play nice with Avid's (where Vegas 5 did not) I'll go ahead and load it on my machine for this project, and still cut on 5 for my old project.

Any feedback or direction would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Marcia

[Devin Eskew]

1. The EDL tends to be Veg specific, I've never had luck moving it to Avid Express Pro. We use both here at the College.

2. Yes!! I've had no issues from V-5 or V-6 when bringing the clip over. Usually this tends to be a one-way trip as Avid dosn't like to share very well, usually we have to "export" to get back to Vegas if we really needed to.

3. The media should be fine, did you capture using Vegas? Is it AVI Type 1 or 2?
As for the EDL, I do not know of any way but that dosen't mean there isn't one.

4. V5 and V6 work just fine on the same system. Heck I even still have V4 on mine. BE AWARE...... if you take a project into V6 from V5 and save it, you will not be able to re-open that project in V5. I will select "save as" and then add a 1.0 or the like to have a copy in V6 that way I can go back to V5 if things get weird. Which has not really happened yet, but luck favors the prepared!

[Devin Eskew]

I forgot to mention, Avid loves Quicktime, so when possible use that as your file transfer between Vegas and Avid. Just be mindful not to use heavy compression.

[Mike Kujbida]

1. You might want to get the trial download of Veggie Toolkit to see if the Media Manager portion of it will do what you want.
http://www.peachrock.com/software/veggie-toolkit.html

2. Avid has some codecs at http://tinyurl.com/brexm or http://tinyurl.com/carl4 that you could try installing to render out with (specifically the Meridien codec) and see if Avid likes them better than regular DV.

3. See #2 for compatibility.


Mike

[Marcia Janine Galles]

Thanks for responding guys. Couple of quick questions...

Devin, what do you mean AVI Type 1 or 2? I noticed that under general preferences you can select such things as "use Microsoft DV codec" and "strictly conform to AVI2 specification." Does that have any bearing on what you're talking about? When and why would I use 1 vs. 2?

Mike, if (as Devin says) I can just hand off the drive with the media captured in Vegas to the guy using an Avid bay, why do I need a codec to render it (I'm assuming "it" is the media) out? What's to be gained/lost by doing it that way? How complicated are the options for the Meridien codec?

Thanks again,
Marcia

[Richard Alvarez]

The only way a drive will be read immediately by an AVID is if the files are in OMFI wrappers.

I don't believe Vegas uses OMFI files.

[Glenn Chan]

Maybe if there's some way to get the timecodes into Avid (AAF export from Vegas??), you could just batch capture off your original tapes?

[Mike Kujbida]

Marcia, it's my understanding that Avids prefer to deal with Quicktime files.
I have no idea if Symphony will handle DV-AVI files so I was suggesting the Meridien codec because it creates (apparently) native Symphony files.

I've never used it but I can tell you what it looks like when you select it.

Choose QuickTime in the "Save As" box and then "Custom - Video".
In the Video Format box, select either "Avid Meridien Uncompressed" or "Avid Meridien Compressed" and then "Configure".

Selecting "Uncompressed" brings up another box that allows you to select from the following options:
Color Input - ITU-R 601 (16-235) or RGB Levels (0-255)
Type - Meridien Interlace or Meridien Progressive
Video Format - NTSC or PAL

Selecting "Compressed" brings up another box that allows you to select from the following options:
Color Input - ITU-R 601 (16-235) or RGB Levels (0-255)
Video Format - NTSC or PAL
Resolutions: This is a drop-down box that ranges from 2:1 Interlaced up to 10:1 Multi-Camera Interlaced.

I'm assuming that your Avid editor would be able to tell you what settings to use. I sure hope so because I have no idea :-)
If you're considering this route, I'd try some short test renders to see if this will work.

Mike

[Greg Boston]

Thanks for that info Mike. I needed to transfer some footage to a local tv station for a news story. They have Avid Newscutter but the guy on the phone didn't know much about file formats. I spoke with someone else who also suggested downloading the codecs from Avid's website. Now you have provided great information on what to do with the footage going into that codec. Even though I'm editing on FCP, I suspect the export options are the same.

Thanks again,

-gb-

[Marcia Janine Galles]

Wow, Mike. Great detailed info. Thanks for taking the time to respond. I'll download the codec and run some tests this weekend.

Much appreciated!
Marcia

[Mike Kujbida]

Marcia, just wondering if the Meridien codec tip worked out for you or not.

Mike

[Richard Alvarez]

"Automatic Duck" for transferring between FCP and Avid.