I tackled this same problem a while ago and found the answer.
I hope this helps:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=50033&highlight=architect

Hi All

What do you guys think is better FCP or Vegas ? So far ive only used Vegas and Premiere and for me Vegas wins out of those 2, hands down.

Im only going by what i saw when Premiere was on version 6 but things like mixing PAL and NTSC in Vegas and also the ability to edit VOB files off a DVD and the ease of the interface just blows Premiere out of the water i think.. Not to mention the audio benefits of Vegas!! Which are phenominal.

Ive mixed many 24 to 32 track audio projects and run my cpu up with plugins to literally 100% capacity and i cant recall ever having a crash or a real failure.. It might stutter a bit when your cpu chokes but never looses responsivness or crashes, its a total pleasure..

For audio i dont see myself leaving Vegas at all.. But for video im curious about FCP.. I like the multicam editing feature that ive read about on the web page.. Also its a lot more standard than Vegas but ive found many examples where what is standard isnt necessarily the best or most intuitive to use..

One of the things that makes a good program i think is quick access to options.. In Vegas you locate the spot where you want to split a clip and hit S and its done.. To fade betwen clips you just drag them together etc.. I find that really easy..

In Premiere to split a clip you had to change your tool to the cut tool, then line it up and click, then go back and change to your original tool... Its not that its hard but its a few steps more than vegas and when you do it often it slows you down etc..

Anyhow im thinking about shifting to FCP but its gotta be worth my while to spend the $$'s.. Appreciate any feedback..

you can set your project properties to either PAL or NTSC it will only affect your preview, it wont truncate your clip.. If you right click on the clip and change its individual propeties then you will affect your clip..

Just load up a project at the same settings as your original footage and then render to NTSC.. easy.. You can even load the VOB files off your PAL DVD and render off those if you have already edited a sequence etc.. Your best bet for that though would be extract the DVD as one large VOB file with something like DVD Decrypter and import it as 1 file, the VOB files on the DVD will be 1gig chunks..

Bare in mind using the VOB files will be re encoding already compressed footage and not the best idea quality wise.

Yeah thanks.I work on that.Lucily my footage is in PAL.avi No problems with the quality.Only thing is it is taking 20mins longer to render as compared to PAL. I suppose this is due to the extra 5fps...

Hi Randy. I've made the switch recently from Vegas to FCP and have done a couple of smallish projects, so I'll offer what advice and opinions I can.

FCP has a razor command like Premiere, but it also has an Add Edit command (Control-V by default) so you can work both ways. Actually, if you're chopping up some footage in numerous places, the razor tool is actuallt very quick. Just hit 'b' to switch to it and then point and click at the cut points.

I haven't yet found an auto-transition mode/method that works when you drag a clip in the timeline over another one but there is a way to insert new clips from the Viewer (Trimmer in Vegas) and add the default transition.

The audio envelope tweaking in FCP is more fiddly and less friendly than Vegas, but FCP does have the advantage that you generally don't have to do the old "Apply non-realtime FX" that you have to in Vegas for some things.

FCP is more anal about having video and audio that matches your Sequence (.veg). While it can take some differing file formats it works best if they are all the same as your sequence. A little annoying (Especially if I'm given something like an MPG file, but not impossible to work around - I just render it out)

FCP's multicam editing is pretty nice. It took a while to get my head around it at first, but once I did I liked it. It's more integrated than the Vegas options. Clips themselves can be multicamera and are used just like normal clips.

Throwing basic text over your edit in FCP seems to be quite slow when playing back (Dropped frames on render) and I haven't found a simply way to make this faster.

Project based media management in FCP is a little better. Bin handling, information etc is a little less flaky than what I've experienced in Vegas.

I personally hated how vegas auto selects when you drag on the timeline ruler. FCP is a simple scrub playhead like Premiere.

Logging of clips to capture allows you to specify more information to keep track of your clips (Angle, Shot etc)

General interface responsiveness in FCP is worse than Vegas by quite a bit. It's not unusable, but you do notice it.

I have yet (Please someone tell me there is one) find a colour curves tool in FCP. There are correctors and tonnes of filters, but I can't find one like the Vegas curves.

One thing, and it's a small but nice thing, that I like in FCP is that if you've cut (split) a clip at some point and then later want to join that point again, FCP has a command for that. In Vegas you have to use a script.

Also in FCP, I've noticed that there millions of keyboard short cuts for just about everything, and if I got to know them all, I'd imagine that my editing would be lightning fast. A simple thing like nudging a clip to the left 20 frames (where using arrow keys would be tedious) only requires you to start typing numbers and then hit enter.

Compositing modes are not built into the tracks in FCP, you need to apply an arithmetic filter. Likewise, I have not found a way to apply audio filters to a track as a whole (Like a Bus or some such)

Basically, Vegas is great. Really good audio tools, responsive interface lots of stuff packed into one unit. FCP is also great, lots of professional features, and a little more 'AVID' like in it's interface, if you're looking for some sort of standard. If you were doing midrange projects (Corporate vids etc) where you weren't going out to/in from film, I think it'd be a toss up although I'd probably go FCP, just because it does offer a little more and it can do everything that I needed from Vegas.

For the me the choice was basically that I wanted to move to the Mac platform, I HATE my past experiences with Avid, and felt that for the price Vegas 6 upgrade was a let down and that Sony missed the boat a bit on it re it's media management.

Anyone want to buy Vegas 6 from me? :)

Hallo Troy,

for printig HDV back to tape you should chose "save as mpg". And than You will find the right template. The template will be labeled as "creating a m2t- file..."
For making a DVD I would first downconvert to SD und then use one of DVD -templates which meets Your demands.

Greetings Richard

yes the format conversion will add to your render time

Only thing is it is taking 20mins longer to render as compared to PAL. I suppose this is due to the extra 5fps...

Be thankful you're not going the other way. I did a 2 hr. project recently that took about 3 hr. to render (NTSC). The same file took around 30 hr. to render to PAL :-(
I know that I could have sent them an NTSC DVD but I wasn't taking any chances that their player would handle it.

Mike

Take a look at Vol 2 #6 of my newsletters. It explains masked menus in DVDA.

Thanks,

I'll give it a shot!

I don't bother with the media manager, so I turn it off to improve performance and take paper notes. I also put down markers into the Vegas clips. It works well enough for me.

For pure editing, FCP has some nice shortcuts like being able to type numbers into the keypad. Vegas has like half of those shortcuts- try holding the crtl, alt, and shift modifiers when you are over clips.
FCP is better for pure editing, cuts and dissolves.

As far as the other tools go, I find that Vegas is a lot better.

2- Vegas has multicam tools from third parties. I haven't compared it to FCP's, but I don't expect things to be all that much different.

I have yet (Please someone tell me there is one) find a colour curves tool in FCP. There are correctors and tonnes of filters, but I can't find one like the Vegas curves.
Nattress Film Effects. They're the best value in filters around (other than buying Vegas :D ).

They don't behave exactly like the color curves in Vegas however.

You can get Magic Bullet or Color Finesse, but I wouldn't bother.

I don't bother with the media manager, so I turn it off to improve performance and take paper notes. I also put down markers into the Vegas clips. It works well enough for me.

Glen - I agree regarding the media manager - can you refresh our minds on how to be sure that this is in fact turned off/disabled? tks

I actually just go done selling my G5. I tried FCP to see if it would interest me enough to switch...here's my take...

FCP Pros:
- TRUE nestable timelines unlike the often unstable nestable VEG files offered in Vegas.
- Trimmer window trumps Vegas's half-hearted "trimmer" plus I love the ability to drag it into the track view window and choose what kind of drop in edit to choose!
- It has a way of visually telling you if levels are outside of broadcast range (a'la zebra patern) not a big deal to many but I thought it was slick!
- Better use of space; the layout is more effient for fitting more on the screen however at the price of some text sizes no larger than grains of Philly Pretzel salt!


FCP Cons:
- Transitions require more keystrokes and pre-planing. While in Vegas you overlap two clips and your done. Your video transitions are set ALONG with your audio. In FCP you have to butt two clips together and then add your video transitions, and THEN go down and add your audio transitions. Not to mention you have to make SURE you have enough footage on either side of each clip to MAKE a transition. I understand you can "insert with transition" when dragging media out of the viewer but what about when you have all your money shots ont he timeline...in order to use that function you have to drag it up into the viewer, move the cursor the the edit point, then drag it over into the timeline viewer and choose insert with transition.
- No way of restoring audio. You delete the audio- poof it's gone. However gotta thank Excalibur for that in regards to this function in Vegas.
- Slower when drawing waveforms. Anytime I zoom into the timeline or make the tracks larger it pauses to redraw the waveform. Vegas does this without redraw making it smoother and lag free.
- More difficult to scoot around zooming in and out. The scroll wheel utilized as zoom in and out on Vegas works wonders for efficiency in this regard.
- No way to turn off rippling. I like that Vegas give you several options of how a ripple occurs.
- Speed controls FCP has 3. Dial in the % or use something that looks similar to a Vegas Velocity envelope but does so through wrestling with what I felt was an ackward interface outside of the timeline. When you change the percentage of a clip it'll ripple everything in your timeline as it stretches to it's new length. The third is fit to fill (if I have that named correctly) where you have to add 4 points and it stretches the video to fill a specified gap in the timeline- something that can be done with a single mouse stroke in Vegas. Nothing beats the ease and efficiency of 1) Velocity Envelopes and 2) Ctrl+Drag method of changing the speed of a clip and quickly and easily filling a gap in the timeline.

Glen - I agree regarding the media manager - can you refresh our minds on how to be sure that this is in fact turned off/disabled? tks

Under Options Preferences uncheck the box.

What choice do I need to choose to output to the same format (*.m2t) So I can send the footage back to tape?The MainConcept MPEG-2 template in Vegas for rendering HDV back to tape is HDV 1080-60i.

Secondly what choices do i choose to render to a format to make a dvd ??There are lots of choices that work. If you want to preserve the 16:9 aspect and 60i cadence of the original footage you would use the DVD Architect PAL Widescreen video stream followed by an AC3 Stereo render for the audio. (assuming you shot PAL in Australia).

~jr

817. That sounds right. Thank you!

Thanks for you help guys !

Cheers

Thanks for you help guys !

Cheers

Just remember that you are in a PAL zone...

So; the 60i frame rate mentioned by the above responders becomes 50i. (Unless you bought a NTSC 30p/60i camera off-shore, as all Aussie sold HD/HDV cams must be PAL 25p/50i)

Not that it'll really kill any DVD or project in Vegas if you wrote 60i, because pretty well every TV and DVD player here in Oz, can handle multi-synch/multi format.

These forums are excellent resources - just be aware that there are regional differences even in HD, and the appropriate frame rate for the region one lives in, is one thing that should be tatooed onto the consciousness of any person getting into this stuff.

You might be the sort of person who gets a kick out of seeing strange things happening with your video though...

what about DV?

Hello all,

Thanks for the input Ed & Matt.

Doug, here's what I was hoping to do.

I wanted the menu selector to be like a cursor, only appearing beside the selection you want to activate.

I am using PSP 8 and the images I'm utilizing are .png with transparencies.

I've tried various combinations of thumbnail and masks along with custom highlights but it was all for naught.

I can manipulate the fill colour, anti-alias & the outline but they're monochromatic.

I was hoping for a nice, vibrant, colourful toy soldier to appear beside whichever menu option you want (like the above mentioned cursor) but after fiddling with various settings and checking out various forums it would appear that this option isn't yet available. If that's the case, OK. I'll make do but it seems like such a simple thing I'm not sure why it couldn't be done.

Am I missing something?

*ian waits for the large, stinky salmon to strike him in the head*

sincerely,


ian

PS. I followed the directions in Ed's newsletter he recommended Vol 2 #6 and it's nice to have some clarification on masks but it still doesn't give me the "cursor" look I was seeking.

ah ok
yeah, I investigated that thoroughly and there's just no way to do it in dvd architect.
sorry

Thanks, I got it working already!!

The Vegas 6.0c update has caused many plugins such as Noise Reduction to revert to demo mode when it was installed over older versions. Any fixes available yet?

Beyond trying to reinstall Noise Reduction from the original source, I would contact Sony Tech Support.

Another option might be to totally uninstall everything Sony, delete the folders, and then reinstall everything.

Thanks for the feedback.. It sounds like theres positives and negatives in making the switch.. One thing im really curious of, will FCP edit both PAL and NTSC on the same timeline ? I use this feature a fair bit with Vegas and id rather not loose that or find myself switching back to Vegas all the time.. Also whats the stability of FCP like ? Does it crash at all ? Im not sure about everyone else but Vegas is so rock solid for me..

Beyond trying to reinstall Noise Reduction from the original source, I would contact Sony Tech Support.

Another option might be to totally uninstall everything Sony, delete the folders, and then reinstall everything.

It's not just NR that's affected - it virtually everything in Vegas, Sound Forge, AFAIK Acid, etc. According to what I've read on the Sony forum, delete and reinstall doesn't fix it - it's something about the "c" update.

What do I do?
What are my options and solutions?

David Newman/Cineform? Anything? DSE/Vasst? Anything?

I AM NOT changing my editing platform...that's not an option. SO what can I do....

Also...for those projects where I won't be in charge of Post-Production, it is safe to say it will probably be cut on Apple FCP....What are the options there as of now?

lay it on me!

- ShannonRawls.com

I just tried it. Stuck a PAL clip on an NTSC timeline and the thing played back fine. I haven't yet done a render out and visual check to see how it looks though.

Stability wise - FCP is pretty good for me so far. If vegas was a 10, I'd currently give this an 8.5, maybe a 9. After a few more projects I'll have more of a sample.

You'll just have to ask in person tonight at the HDV course, Shannon!
:-)

Hi - What happens if I try to add some 30p footage to a 24p project. Moreover, can it be done?

Vegas will probably try to resample it, converting it from 30p to 24p. It may not look so great?

You can go into the clip properties and disable resampling I believe. I think Vegas would then just drop some frames.

2- If you did NOT shoot 24p advanced, you can mix the two frame rates in a 60i project fine.

MIchael,
Don't worry about it, you *might* notice some artifacts on fine horizontal lines, but that's about it. Vegas can down convert it just fine. I'd recommend leaving resampling on, actually. This is one of the things we show in the HDV training course, so I do this fairly regularly.

Spot's probably right here. I don't play around with different frame rates in the same project at all.

Connect HD 2.1 should be available by the end of the day tomorrow. This adds Canon XL-H1 support, just like Aspect HD 3.4 did last week.

Fantastic! Thanks so much - Just some old clips from last summer were thinking about putting just a couple quick shots in a music video, no one would ever notice anything. Thanks again and Happy Holidays..

Hey PAL, guys and gals,

I am shooting a project with my PD -170. My client wants the final copies to be in NTSC and PAL format. NTSC-no problem.

If I want this same project to be played back in PAL land,

Can I render as MPEG-2 DVD PAL or DVDA PAL video stream in Vegas,
Open this project in DVDA-create menu,
Burn to a standard DVD+R ,
And ship to PAL land for proper playback?

Or do I need other hardware for this? What if my client wants a VHS tape to be sent to PAL land? Do I need special hardware for this?

Or can I...

In Vegas, print to dv tape using PAL DV setting to a standard mini-dv tape, and then copy from this mini-dv tape to a regular VHS tape on a regular (NTSC) VCR?

Or do I need special hardware for this? Do I need a PAL VCR?


The client wants the tape to be sent to a country in Africa for viewing.

Your help will be greatly appreciated.

i think we really should make this a "sticky" or a reference somewhere on DVI.

aspect ratio vs. pixel crop size for the final results. both a chart of common aspect ratios and its pixel sizes and formulas on howto do it.

OH SNAP....Lemme see if I can make it over there....My Palm reminded me, but I hit snooze.

- shan

Hi. I've just sold my Canon GL2 (XM2) and will be upgrading to the HDR-FX1.

I currently use Sony Vegas 6.0c & DVD Architect 3 for editing and compiling DVDs. I have a 3 Gig AMD 64+ processor with 300gig hard drive, with 960MB of RAM - all operating off Windows XP Prof. 64 Bit platform.

I have never used HD camcorders before and have never edited HD format. I have done some research, so have a basic understanding. I believe the advice is to try and avoid editing .mt2 directly in the timeline, as this is heavy on system resources.

So I have a few questions, if anyone can help, would be extremely grateful:

1. Is it better to allow Sony Vegas to downconvert HD video, or to get the HDR-FX1 to do this?
2. Do I require any additional codecs to allow this, or to allow for improved video quality and if so, which codecs? I've heard talk of CineForm and Gearshift??? Are these must haves?
3. Is the video quality of downcoverted HD 3CCD video better than that captured off a standard definition 3CCD camcorder, like the CANON GL2 (XM2)?

Thanks in advance.

Sean,

Wow you are in for a treat when your FX1 arrives. Prepare to be blown away by the quality of HD. ;-)

1. Is it better to allow Sony Vegas to downconvert HD video, or to get the HDR-FX1 to do this?Technically, Vegas does a better job at downconverting, but practically speaking, you have to judge for yourself. I have done it both ways and these ole' tired eyes can’t tell the difference so I downconvert in the camera which is much faster (i.e., real-time capture) Do a test and see for yourself, if you can’t tell the difference, you have your answer.

2. Do I require any additional codecs to allow this, or to allow for improved video quality and if so, which codecs? I've heard talk of CineForm and Gearshift??? Are these must haves?No, Vegas has everything you need so you don’t “require” anything else. Cineform and Gearshift are productivity tools that are great to have though. Gearshift will convert your M2T files to DV proxies and/or Cineform intermediaries and allow you to work at DV speed on the proxies, then swap the original M2T files for the final render at high quality. Cineform will allow you to capture directly to its intermediary codec so that saves you time instead of converting later as a second step. (it also has a nice 24p capture and other tools, if you’re into that)

I use both at different times. Obviously, I wrote Gearshift so I use that, :) but there are times I want to go straight to Cineform intermediary and don’t have time for the double render so I use Connect HD.

3. Is the video quality of downcoverted HD 3CCD video better than that captured off a standard definition 3CCD camcorder, like the CANON GL2 (XM2)?ABSOLUTELY! You are acquiring your footage at 1440x1080 in 4:2:0 colorspace and then downconverting to 720x480 4:1:1. This yields a superior image than acquiring at 720x480 4:1:1 to begin with. The difference is very noticeable.

For example: I just shot a play in a venue that I’ve recorded before. The stage has black curtains all around the back and sides. In my SD footage, the back curtains are just a blur of black. This year with my Sony Z1, I could see every fold in the black curtains even when downconverted in camera to SD. There was just more information in the image and it was obvious. Even my wife commented how much better it was when viewing the SD DVD version.

~jr

Sean: for maximum quality it's better not to downsample to SD resolution until you're done editing, so you should plan to use either Cineform or Gearshift for the editing phase and then output to widescreen SD MPEG2 for your DVDs.

I personally prefer solutions like Cineform which allow you to directly edit full-resolution files, but the Cineform codec expands HDV file sizes and hence requires more hard drive space. With a 300 GB hard drive you should be able to handle a few hours of Cineform footage before the drive fills up, but you'll probably quickly find you want a second hard drive so you can keep multiple projects online.

I have just acquired FX1 and still have VX2K. I expected to use FX1 as a second camera in budding media business-- still using DV. Of course you can't help but play with HDV-- in the two weeks I have had camera, I probably sidetracked myself from my main goal because of the excitement about the HDV aspect.

Now, questions arise about editors in HDV- I have PP 1.51, Vegas 6 Plat, and I am even messing with Pinnacle 10 plus. I understand Pinnacle Studio 10 plus is based on Liquid editor now. In the past I have found PInnacle Studio programs easy to use in simple edits.

Ultimately, I assume there are different codecs used in rendering process. I had problems getting Pinnacle going, but finally appear to get a pretty good render out of it. What make the output of a Vegas or PP 1.51 superior to a Pinnacle product, if it does.

Thanks for your responses everyone, appreciated. I can't wait for my HDR-FX1 to arrive so that I can start experimenting. I've got to film a 3 day corporate event in February - I did this in January this year (single handed using a Canon XM2), edited the footage with Vegas and the end result even impressed me!! So to have the ability to further improve the picture quality will be a huge bonus.

Thanks again for the feedback.

On the Amazing Race (and many other shows) an effect is used in which a scene starts at normal speed and then the motion speeds up and then suddenly resumes normal speed. Is it possible to do this in VMS Platinum?

Thanks
Zack S

And, if you go ahead and capture the M2T files you then have an option in your VEG file to output back to tape in HDV or output to mpg for DVD. This is how I am doing it in order to provide more final output options IMHO. phil

The standard way to do this is in Vegas is using the Velocity Envelope. However, it don't believe the Velocity Envelope is in VMS (standard or platinum).

If you don't mind jumps in speeds, you could try splitting and using the CTRL-Resize method.

Connect HD 2.1 is now available. See www.cineform.com for details.

Hi All,

I'm happily editing away and Vegas 6c. I'd like now to add voice over wavs into the mix. could anyone recommend a setup hardware and software wise to record the voice?? I'd like to be able to plug a relevant microphone into the pc and use the recommended software to record to wav.

Cheers

I fyou have Vegas, you already have a great software to record with, now you just need a microphone. More information about budget and type of sound you want are fairly applicable. For instance, you could get a high end USB mic, or get a similar mic with better sound card...it's all about balancing budget and needs.

I found the audio card on my main editing computer to be sadly, very very noisy. To get around this issue, I bought a decent condenser mic, boom type mic stand and a "pop-stopper" from Shure. I run the mic into an M-Audio Mobile-pre. It has phantom power for the mic, xlr and 1/4" ins with direct headphone monitoring and comes out as USB into the PC. I think it works pretty well but I am no expert on audio.

Just a suggestion. Douglas knows his stuff. I was fresh into all this again when I bought my setup to use portable as well as in the home VO studio. I hope I did the right hting and so far, It's worked for me for a few quickie VOs for some minor commercial and industrial pieces.

Sean McHenry