Sizes of HD video for editing...
 

I was curious as to the file sizes after converting to edit in Vegas6.

Ie.

MT2 converted to Cineform Codec: Is the file size double that of the Mt2 or Dv file.

Proxy file from Gearshift: Is the Mt2 file converted to a proxy video for use of editing in Vegas and then swaped for the Mt2 file and redered to MPEG2 for DVD? If Mt2 files is converted to proxy video, how large is it?

Thanks,
Michael

Responses in text.

DSE, thanks for the info.

I have one more question.

I will eventually be upgrading my system for HD in the next year or two, but monies will be going towards DH camera till then, soit's not in the budget until then.

How would my system specs be for HD on my current editing system, with no upgrades.

P4 3.4 Ghz. HT Processor
Asus P4P800 E Deluxe motherboard
2 GB 3200 DDR RAM 9this I will probably upgrade to 4GB total.
3 hard drives: WD 80 GB (OS)/WD 2 X 250GB 7200 RMP
GEForce 5900XT Dual Head Video Card
M-Audio Revolution 5.1 Sound Card

I Run Vegas 6.0c/DVDA3 and am looking into getting either GearShift or Connect HD.

I know you might be biased a bit, but which software would be faster and easier to work with.

Does Connect HD, convert the HD video on the fly via firewire to Cineform Codec to avoid the additional step of capturing Mt2 file and then converting?
Or is it the same as GearShift, where I would have to capture first and then convert?

With my system specs, as they are, would it be better, when using GearShift, to capture Mt2 HD video via Vegas, Convert to Cineform Imtermidate codec, or capture Mt2 HD files and work with DV Proxy.

I mainly do event videography, so speed is definitely essential to start and finish editing.

Converting on the fly is the default mode for Connect HD captures. This simplifies captures a lot, however the speed of the capture conversion depends all on your CPU and memory speed (faster systems help) and on the resolution and video format your are encoding. The "roughly quadruple" file size numbers only applies to interlaced 1080 content, this mode is also the most compute heavy. On single CPU single core systems a 10 minute sequence may take around 15 to 17 minutes to complete the capture conversion. Note: the two step approach would take 10+17 minutes -- even on slower PCs the one step approach is faster. Progressive encoding of the CineFrame 24, 25 or 30 modes from the Sony camera will result in smaller files and mildly faster encoding speeds. Capturing JVC's 1280x720p24/30 is very easy, produce files only 2X-2.5X in size and completely realtime on most PCs. All this changes greatly with the dual-core CPUs which allow our threaded encoding components to make capture-converision effectively real-time for all HDV sources.

David, thank you very much for that informative reply.

One question though. I hope this makes sense.

If my final desstination would be video for standard DVD, then would I capture HD footage from let's say (FX1 or A1) in 1080i, or in downresed for DV widescreen size.

I only ask this, as if I am working with 1080i (to maintain higher pixel count, for better footage) in Vegas, to edit, and my final output size would be standard widescreen for DVD, then wouldn't Vegas have to resize the entire video footage to a smaller size, so I would loose the beneft of smartresampling from the captured footage?

This is user preference. The down convert to DV will be faster on most PCs, however the chroma resolution is halved (in the final DVD) if you use that workflow (DV is only 4:1:1 -- DVD is 4:2:0 -- this causes a mismatch so your DVD will only have 4:1:0 effective color.) Also working with the full 1080i allows image cropping, which I think can be very handy.

So you're saying that it would be best to capture in pure 1080i format and downconvert when ready to encode for DVD.
I would loose the benefit of Smartresampling in this case correct?

Yes.

However, what is "Smartresampling"?

I thin the term was smart sampling, which meant that once the video was captured in it's converted format, then anywhere where the video had no major changes would render quicker.

I believe that Larry Kingston had mentioned something about that in the H threads.

CineForm support this, in some cases. Generally if quality is your concern go with 1080i using CineForm Intermediate.

I just answered a similar question the other day on the DMN forums and I did some testing to answer it so I thought I’d share that with you here. These are the measurements that I took using the CineForm 2.3 codec from my copy of Connect HD:

Computer: P4 3.0Ghz, 1GB memory.
Source: 1 minute of HDV from Sony Z1U
Payback FPS: measured in Vegas 6.0c at Preview (Good/Auto) 720x540x32 size.

Original M2T:
Filesize: 201MB
Capture Time: 1:00
Payback FPS: 3

Connect HD CineForm (Medium):
Filesize: 768MB
Render Time: 01:35
Payback FPS: 8

Vegas 6.0c CineForm:
Filesize: 995MB
Render Time: 3:51
Payback FPS: 12

Vegas DV Widescreen Proxy (GearShift)
Filesize: 233MB
Render Time: 4:15
Payback FPS: 29.97

As you can see the file generated from Connect HD in Medium mode is 3.8x as large as the original and rendered slightly slower (1.5x) than real-time. The same CineForm codec file rendered from Vegas is 4.9x the size of the original and took almost 4x real-time to encode.

So it is very clear that while you can encode CineForm files using the codec shipped with Vegas 6, you can encode them faster and smaller when using Connect HD. It was also interesting that the CineForm file rendered in Vegas performed slightly better on the Vegas timeline (12 fps vs 8 fps) than the Connect HD file at that preview quality and resolution.

The DV proxy from GearShift was almost the same size as the original file and was the only file that playback at the full 29.97 frame rate at Good/Auto. It should be noted that both CineForm and DV proxy played back at 29.97 at the normal Preview (Auto) 360x270x32 mode.

You can draw your own conclusions. This is just what I measured. IMHO, if you want to work with CineForm files, it pays to buy Connect HD and get quicker smaller render files. Otherwise use DV proxies with GearShift and edit at DV playback speed.

~jr

PS gearshift DV proxy is only $50 i think vs. other more expensive solutions.