I'm teaching a friend of mine to edit with Sony Vegas Pro 9.

He just bought a new Panasonic HDC-TM700 camcorder.

Some questions regarding using this camera and editing material shot with it on Vegas:

1. What video format settings are recommended that he use with the Panny TM700? I've seen different quality settings HE, HA, HX... and so on. I've also read that currently it doesn't make any sense to use the highest setting with Vegas. Can someone please explain this to me?
What would be the recommended settings for highest quality video - while keeping things to a basic non-professional workflow. I mean by this that he has no special hi-end technology available. Only a rather strong PC and a copy of Vegas. He wants to shoot videos, edit them and watch them on his tv set. Nothing more than that.

2. What would be the recommended workflow for getting the material from camera to hard disk and prepared for editing with Vegas? Is there any need for a 3rd party program to capture the clips from the camera? Or does he capture them with Vegas as he did with DV footage? Should he use the software that Panasonic packs with the TM700? Will he need to use some sort of intermediate codec? Or conversion software?

By the way, we are in PAL land and his HDC-TM700 is a PAL model.

Thanks!

I own the TM700 and several others; it's by far the best. Here are the details:

1. Shoot only in the highest progressive mode - the others options on the TM700 are shot at a lower bitrate and not nearly as sharp.

2. I'm working from another computer so I can't be sure, but I believe that only Vegas 9 32-bit can open the files. You don't need to "capture" them like in the old days of DV or HDV - you just drag'n'drop them from the internal memory (or card, if you're shooting to a memory card) through a USB cable onto the Vegas time line. Use Project settings set for progressive, full frame rate, full size (1920x1080), with deinterlace method set for "none."

3. I always render it to an intra-frame codec immediately, then use the rendered clip for much easier, glitch-free editing. Cineform is the best, but a bit expensive at $99 U.S. from Videoguys; but PicVideo is faster, produces smaller file sizes, and is only $30 U.S. for home use from

PicVideo Upgrade Special (http://www.accusoft.com/picvideospecial.htm)

- and it produces nice progressive clips

4. After I create the PicVideo clip, I put it into Vegas 8c-32 bit for editing. If he has paid for Vegas 9x, he's allowed to also download and install 8x. Never a glitch with 8c. while editing. But 8c is no good for rendering unless the project is very simple and not too long. So, after editing is complete, I open the .VEG in 9e-64bit for rendering. 64-bit versions of Vegas will read the PicVideo files by default even though you have not installed a 64-bit version of PicVideo (it's too expensive).

5. Now comes the time for rendering to final delivery format. If going to the web, I choose a smaller image size - maybe 960x540 or even 640x360, and only 24p instead of 60p (try 25 fps for your PAL videos). It'll be a bit jerky, but not too bad (movies are 24 fps).

I use TMPGenc to make interlaced DVDs straight from 60fps progressive files, but DVDA should be able to do the same - or any number of other software packages, including free ones (you might first have to render out to MPEG-2 video from within Vegas). I don't own BluRay, but you can burn interlaced BD from rendered files from Vegas with free software too.

If intended for viewing on a computer, render out to MPG4 using MainConcept or X264.

Hope this helps.

Oh, and a free intermediate that is OK if you don't want to spend money: Sony MXF

Thanks Larry.

Sorry it took some time to respond to your reply post. I've been spending my free hours of the past few days reading stuff on the web about video file formats, wrappers, bit rates and codecs - trying to get a better grip on what is going on...

I think the reading DID in fact help me learn stuff I didn't know before. Also finally understood what has been confusing me for a while - that some codecs and container file formats share the same name...

if anyone stumbling on this thread is interested in some good references. here's a couple:

A gentle introduction to video encoding, part 2: lossy video codecs [dive into mark] (http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/12/19/give-part-2-lossy-video-codecs)

Video Encoding: Codecs, Formats, Containers And Settings Explained (http://www.masternewmedia.org/the-video-encoding-guide-codecs-formats-containers-and-settings-explained/)

Now back to matters - regarding Vegas and TM700 footage...

If I understand you correctly your recommended workflow is:


a. import raw clips into Vegas 9
b. render entire footage using intermediate codec (with i-frame setting)
c. then import the rendered clip into Vegas 8 for editing
d. later, after editing is done, open .veg file in Vegas 9 and render according to final product.

Is that correct?

I just have some questions - for yourself, or for anyone else who might have some experience with these matters...

Why are you editing in Vegas 8? Is there some problem with Vegas 9? I've had some experience editing HDV 1080/50i footage from a Sony Sony Z-1U on Vegas 9 and it was fine. But no experience with AVCHD. Is Vegas 9 not handling those files well?

2. Although reading through several posts, I don't remember coming across PicVideo.
I've heard about: Huffyuv, Avid DNxHD and a couple of others - experiences of Vegas users with these (free) codecs were mixed.
Then there's the option of the more expensive Cineform Neo Scene. Most seem to recommend it. Yet I came across a kind of confusing thread in a forum... something to do with Sony not purchasing a license for Cineform.... or something like that.
here's the link: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/what-happens-vegas/393433-where-cineform-codec-vegas-9-a.html

Looking forward to your replies. THX!

You've got it pretty much right, I believe - but I refreshed my memory now that I'm back on my video-editing computer and I see that I can open the TM700 files in all 3: Vegas 8c, 9c-32 bit, and 9e-64 bit (it's the .MP4 clips from my Sanyo cams that must be opened in Vegas 9).

And, yes, I have found that only 8c is quirk-free always - when editing. But, for rendering, it often fails. For that reason, I always render in 64-bit unless I must de-interlace a clip (for which I use the fields-only setting of Mike Crash Smart Deinterlace), or must render a clip that uses a 32-bit codec (such as Cinepak, the default output, and sometimes only possible output, of Google's free Sketchup).

In such cases, I render using 9c-32: Unclick everything under the View menu, set rendering threads to 1, click Clean Project Media under the Tools menu, and generally it can render the .VEGs produced by 8c. You can watch the performance tab of the Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) so that you can be sure that rendering hasn't aborted prematurely (rendering is much more reliable in 9c-32 than in 8c, but not as iron-clad as 9c-64).

If that doesn't work, I delete half the timeline, save to a new .VEG in 9c-32, then render as above, using Cineform or PicVideo; then render the other half with another .VEG; then put the two resultant rendered clips onto a new project TL in 9e-64 and render to a final .AVI - again, usually using Cineform or, if quality need not be the best, PicVideo.

As mentioned, I keep all in progressive rather than interlaced, because then I have a final output file that is progressive and can always be downgraded to interlaced, or with 24 fps instead of 60fps (25/50 for PAL).

As implied, Cineform is best. Once it came free with Vegas, but no longer. Generally, Vegas seems to be more stable if just one video codec is on the TL. So, if you start with, say, PicVideo, then all the clips also should use that codec - don't mix in Cineform, .MP4, MJPEG (such as PicVideo), etc.

Okay. Thanks for your input!
Today we downloaded NeoScene and tried it out. things went rather well, although i should mention that we didn't do any hardcore editing, no large number of video tracks and no effects.

I'd like to give you a rundown of how we did things and questions that came up as we went along...

1) We set the Panasonic HDC-TM700 to 1080/50p and shot some footage with it.
First question: Is 1080/50p the ONLY progressive recording mode the TM700 has? Can it shoot 25p?

2) We started up NeoScene and plugged in the Panny TM700 (via usb). NeoScene has two tabs - Capture and Convert. The Capture tab seemed irrelevant, since it failed to recognize that any sort of device had been connected. Also, the camera doesn't record to tape... so I'm guessing there's no need for "capturing".

3) Next step was to copy the video files from camera to the hard drive.
Second question: During earlier tests with the camera we shot in HG mode (not 1080/50p). We used the Panasonic software that came packaged with the camera to copy the files to the computer's hard drive. We noticed that the file format suffix was m2ts.
Today we shot in 1080/50p and we didn't use the software that came with the camera. Rather, we manually browsed through the camera's internal memory till we eventually found the material in one of the folders there. Curiously, the files there had a different suffix - MTS. Is this due to the different shooting modes? or is it because of not using the Panasonic software? What does this mean?

4) After copying files to the hard drive, we just loaded them into NeoScene Converter tab and hit START. NeoScene made a cineform encoded avi file of each MTS file.
Two questions here: a) Since NeoScene does the conversion, we didn't quite understand why we would need to first load the clips into Vegas and render the clips into cineform encoded files through Vegas. Is there something here I'm missing? Also converting the files via NeoScene keeps them as a collection of numbered clips. If we were to render them all from the Vegas timeline, we'd end up with one long file which seems kind of awkward to me. b) the avi files that NeoScene made were many times larger than the MTS files we originally threw at it for conversion. Is that normal? I thought that the files would actually be smaller... hence easier editing. What is going on?

5) Anyway, as mentioned, the cineform encoded avi files played back a bit clunky in Vegas, but in general it was fine. Cutting, moving, pasting... it all went smoothly. No crashes or anything like that. We only used Vegas 9 Pro throughout the whole process.

So that's how far we got today. We'd like to better understand what is going on and be sure we're doing this right before we attempt to take it a step further.

Thanks!

"Can it shoot 25p?"

It has something called "Cinema mode" - which is 24p in NTSC-land, probably 25p in PAL-land; but don't use it - the resolution is lower . . . stick to 50p.

". . . different suffix - MTS" - that's how I see them too - just drag and drop them onto the vegas timeline or onto your hard disk. I've never used the Panasonic software, so can't comment on it.

" . . . we didn't quite understand why we would need to first load the clips into Vegas and render the clips into cineform encoded files through Vegas." - either way is fine. I use vegas because I'm more likely to have it open, and I use a plugin from Peachrock (Veggie Toolbox) to batch render each individual clip, if that's what I want to do.

"avi files that NeoScene made were many times larger than the MTS files" - that's right. Cineform is an INTRAframe codec, not an INTERframe codec, like the .MTS files. The latter type of codec re-uses info from previous frames if the data for those pixels has not changed, making for smaller files. But in order to de-compress, the CPU/RAM must search back through the frames to find the orginal data for each pixel that has been re-using data, and all this searching consumes lots of CPU cycles as the individual pixels are calculated to reconstruct the entire frame.

The larger files from Cineform do demand a fast hard disk (I use a pair of ordinary SATA disks in a RAID 0 box that I got for $27 U.S. on ebay, incl. shipping), but the load on the CPU/RAM is quite low (because each compressed frame contains the entire set of data for every pixel), making the editing process much more efficient - you may even have enough CPU capability left over to process some effects in real time.

If you use a RAID 0 disk array using 2 or 4 disks for holding Cineform 50p files, editing will be very smooth. If you don't want to buy a RAID box, you can use software RAID with 2 ordinary SATA disks by right-clicking My Computer, then clicking Manage (search Google for software RAID instructions).

It's possible that you might be able to avoid RAID by using PicVideo (= smaller files) and 50p on a single SATA disk. I can't quite get smooth playback at 60p, but - not having a PAL cam - I haven't tried it with 50p. You might try it.

After I re-rendered the same scene 6 times, I could see a slight superiority in the Cineform over the PicVideo; but in every day work, you'd probably be hard pressed to ever see any difference. PicVideo might be the way to go for you.

Hi. Good news and bad news...

The good news is that editing is perfect in Vegas 9 using the cineform avi files (converted with the trial version of NeoScene). Preview is smooth, no stalls or crashes.

The bad news hit when we tried rendering some video. We tried rendering 15 minutes on the timeline to mpg-2 video stream. Nothing out of the ordinary, just one track of video and three tracks of sound, a bit of effects. The render process crashed at about the 10 minute point. We got a message: "Not enough virtual memory" (or something along those lines...).

Windows and Programs (including Vegas) reside on a 80 GB system dedicated drive. There is about 40GB available on it.

The .veg file is on a different drive - E:. The .avi files are also stored on the E: drive. It is a 500GB drive and currently has 170GB availible.
I know that it is reccommended to have a separate dedicated drive for storing the original footage. If this is the culprit, he'll get a new drive for video material. But could there be another reason? Is there a way to increase virtual memory for Vegas to access?

Other than that, his computer is rather new and from what I've read, it meets the requirements for this sort of task.

If anyone has any ideas, I'd really appreciate help with this.

By the way, Larry, I really want to thank you for sticking with me on this issue and for your advice. We've decided to test out NeoScene till the trial period runs out. Then we'll give PicVideo a try. It may very well be that PicVideo could be better for his needs.... we'll see.

THX!

32-bit versions of Vegas crash during rendering, but I'm surprised that your simple project crashed. Were you using a 32-bit version of Vegas?

yes. vegas 9 pro 32-bit on windows xp.

are you saying that there is no way to work with the cineform clips with this version of vegas?

are there any work-arounds?

I try to avoid 32-bit versions of Vegas when rendering. However, as mentioned above, it can be done:

"In such cases, I render using 9c-32: Unclick everything under the View menu; set rendering threads to 1 (under the Video tab in Preferences); click Clean Project Media under the Tools menu, and generally it can render the .VEGs produced by 8c. You can watch the performance tab of the Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) so that you can be sure that rendering hasn't aborted prematurely (rendering is much more reliable in 9c-32 than in 8c, but not as iron-clad as 9c-64).

If that doesn't work, I delete half the timeline, save to a new .VEG in 9c-32, then render as above, using Cineform or PicVideo; then render the other half with another .VEG; then put the two resultant rendered clips onto a new project TL in 9e-64 and render to a final .AVI - again, usually using Cineform or, if quality need not be the best, PicVideo."

I also should mention that it helps to start rendering immediately after a reboot. Also, note where the rendering stops. If it stops on a really large still, decrease the dimensions; but this rarely is needed with Vegas 9x.

It does help to render to a separate disk, but shouldn't be necessary.

Are you using WinXP-32 . . . is that why you're trying to render with the 32-bit version of Vegas?

Are you using WinXP-32 . . . is that why you're trying to render with the 32-bit version of Vegas?

Yes. 32-bit WinXP.
Currently 64-bit is not an option. I'll need to deal with it somehow using the 32-bit.
By the way - everything I described above was done with Vegas 9c only. We did not use Vegas 8 at all.

If you're having rendering issues, the two biggest things to try:

1. Reduce the RAM preview amount to a very small number - like 16. I would NOT go to zero but it won't hurt if you want to try it at zero.

2. Reduce the number of rendering threads to 1.

I have never heard a tip to close extra open windows in the Vegas GUI. I'm unsure how much, if any, that would help. It can't hurt to stop extraneous programs from running in the background, though. But I'd try the two steps above first.

yes, I forgot to mention set RAM preview to 0 (that works best for me). But most important is to set rendering threads to 1 (in the Video tab of Preferences).

Vegas 9 at least usually does us the favor of leaving a partially rendered clip that is usable. Reboot, then put that Cineform clip on a new track above the original, then hold the left mouse button as you wipe across the timeline to select the remainder. Then render, but with a checkmark in the "render looped area only" box. If it fails again, put the second clip on the TL and go at it again . . . etc. until all the timeline is full of Cineform renders. Then render the entire project to a final Cineform clip. then you can put that clip on a new top track and render to whatever format desired (.MP4 for the web, MPEG2 for DVD, etc.)

If worse comes to worst, you can increase the RAM available to Vegas from 2GB up to a bit more than that even in WinXP-32. . . see

Sony Creative Software - Forums - Vegas Pro - Video Messages (http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=698029)

(I'm presuming that you have 4GB RAM in the computer.) I haven't needed to do that, but you might give it a try. It is said to help a lot in Win7-64, but also seems to help some in 32-bit OS too.

Personally, I haven't had much luck turning off background services, but if you're running an antivirus program, etc., it can't hurt.

Thank Larry and thanks Edward for the advice.

So this is what we did:

1. Reduced RAM preview to 16.
2. Set rendering threads to 1.
3. Quit all unnecessary running processes.

This seems to have improved things slightly but not quite a working solution yet. Rendering 10 minutes succeeded. Rendering 15 minutes failed at around the 12 minute point.

Larry, I read the thread from the link you posted. While most of the technical stuff they write about is beyond what I can understand - it seems to be a good solution that works for some. If this were my own computer - I'd probably give it a try, but since I'm helping this dude out on HIS computer - I'd rather not go into that kind of teaking without knowing exactly what I'm doing.
My girlfriend who is a photographer just bought a Canon 5D mark ii just a few weeks ago and I'm planning on trying out its HD video. So I'm guessing that I'll be running into much of the same problems discussed here in this thread, since I'm running Vegas 9 on 32-bit WinXP as well. So I might be trying this out pretty soon.

At this point I think we'll download a trial version of PicVideo and see how that works for us.

Just a few questions:

1. With PicVideo are there also some rendering issues to overcome? Is setting RAM preview to 16 and rendering threads to 1, etc. also necessary?

2. When rendering an HD project in Vegas to PAL DVD - is it better to first render to .avi and then rendering that .avi to mpg2 video stream and AC-3 audio? or can we just render to mpg2 and AC-3 straight from the edited project?

Thanks!

"1. With PicVideo are there also some rendering issues to overcome? Is setting RAM preview to 16 and rendering threads to 1, etc. also necessary?"

yes; but as I mentioned, I get better results with Preview RAM set for 0. And under the View menu, the Waveforms and Frames, especially, is a RAM-bytes thief. I've often been able to render stubborn projects just by clearing the checkmark for that one.

Turning off background TSRs, such as antivirus programs, probably won't make any difference unless you use the utility to set Vegas.exe to use more than 2GB RAM - usually there still will be plenty left over after the 2GB used by Vegas for WinXP OS and whatever background services are running. But if you do set Vegas.exe to use more than 2GB, then it should help to turn off all TSRs.

If you watch the Memory in the Performance tab of Windows Task Monitor (Ctrl-Alt-Del), you'll know when rendering is about to stop on your computer if you catch it a few times at the point of failure and note the number (shown in Green color font).

Again: Does the computer have 4GB of RAM? WinXP can't use that much, but it can use 3.? GB - and every byte helps - up to 3.? GB; 2GB is certainly not as good as 3GB; but 4GB gives a fraction more.

You can learn how much RAM is in the computer here:

Programs - Accessories - System Tools - System Information

"2. When rendering an HD project in Vegas to PAL DVD - is it better to first render to .avi and then rendering that .avi to mpg2 video stream and AC-3 audio? or can we just render to mpg2 and AC-3 straight from the edited project?"

Only if it works.

If you have trouble getting a complete render:

Rendering first to Cineform probably is more likely to complete than would be the case for rendering to any inter-frame codec, such as MPEG2. Then, with all the hard work imposed by editing choices (color corrections, masks, etc.) already having been done while rendering to Cineform, the resultant clip then should render to MPEG2 with no problem.

Remember, that (usually) any failed renders will leave behind a file that can be put on the TL if you use Cineform, or (with some loss in quality) PicVideo. But if you try to put a partial MPEG2 clip on the TL, you'll certainly see some artifacts after rendering again all such clips on the top track to a final MPEG2 file.

I used 32-bit versions of Vegas for several years after I started editing HD (HDV, actually) and I never failed to finish a project. It's tedious, but certainly it can be done on any normal WinXP computer (I only switched to Win7-64 late last year). And, as I mentioned, I never felt the need to try to get past the 2GB limit for Vegas.exe.

Another tip: try to keep the number of codecs on the TL to a minimum - use only Cineform video files, and only .WAV audio files - plus .PNG (ideal) or JPEG (OK) stills. Just last week I failed to obey my own good resolution and had quirks because of 3 MPG3 files I had put on their own separate audio tracks. I always put .AVIs from Cam1 on one hard disk, .AVIs from Cam2 on another, audio on a third, etc. Probably excessive, but maybe it helps some. Certainly it's a good idea to render to a separate disk that holds no project files.

Just last night, as a test I rendered out a project based on thousands of files (lots of .PNG animations with alpha), with lots of blue screen chromakey and many other special effects, using Vegas 9c-32. This morning my Cineform file was complete. Prior to that, I tried using MPEG2 and it failed early on the TL.

But don't fret - almost all of us early adopters of HD found the way to complete every project with 32-bit versions of Vegas.

Earlier versions of Vegas were so bad that I used Veggie Toolkit (I believe it was created by Edward Troxel) to batch render 2-min. segments. I routinely did that for every project, knowing that every long render would fail. Even so, I'd have to reboot after every 6 renders, then work on the remaining 2-min. segments. Even then, sometimes I'd have to cut the 2-min. segment in half, or even down to just a few seconds. We should be thankful that 9x works so much better than earlier versions for rendering (but I don't recommend that you edit in 9x - you'll get 100% glitch-free editing only from 8c, in my experience).

Hey Larry, thanks for the somewhat reassuring reply. It gives me hope to keep trying :)

The computer has 4GB RAM while XP-32bit recognizes 3.X GB as you said.

We'll keep hacking at it till we get there. Maybe rendering smaller segments of the timeline - each at a time - is the way to go. It just seems so awkward. It's amazing to me that there isn't an easier solution for the consumer-end user with AVCHD becoming so popular with non-professional cameras. I mean it seems to me most of the people buying the Panasonic HDC-700 or the Sony HDR-550 and such, are not expecting to have to get into intermediate codecs, tweaking computer RAM and/or batch rendering their projects. Do you know if other NLE programs such as Premiere face the same difficulties?

Anyway, since I've already convinced this friend of mine to buy Vegas rather than Premiere, I'll try my best to find a working workflow that he can live with.

We'll do some more experimenting in the next couple of days. I'll report back and tell you what came of it.

Thanks again!

I used Premiere for a couple of years, and two others before that; all have their own nest of problems. Vegas is by far the most intuitive to use, and probably the fastest too (requiring fewer mouse clicks, etc.). And, until recently, I believe that Final Cut Pro (the popular NLE for Macs) required all vid files to be first rendered to an intermediate - not just for convenience and smoothness of the experience, but because there was no alternative. At least with Vegas, you can open almost any video file (Vegas was almost the only NLE that could open Sanyo files until recently), edit out any junk that you're sure you'll never use, then create the thus-truncated intermediate instead of having to wade through all the junk forever after.

Vegas made improvements in stability with v9-32, and - as I mentioned - by using 8c for editing and 9x-64 for rendering, many weeks can go by without ever encountering any quirk or glitch. It has become, for me, the very first NLE that lets me concentrate totally on the creative process instead of constantly having to put out glitch-related fires - as long as I follow my self-imposed rules, outlined herein.

Having said that, many Vegas users do edit directly from the .MP4 files if they have fast computers with no stuttering, etc. That's OK.

I immediately convert all files to .AVI Cineform or PicVideo because sometimes I want to bring them into Virtual Dub or some other utility for a little work that can be done better there (like slow motion, which I use fairly often). And, I do it from habit formed back in the day when I had a much slower computer - living with Vegas is just so much easier when the entire TL has only Cineform files or PicVideo files.

But if editing directly from the TM700 files works OK for you and you learn to deal with the rendering problems that are more likely to result when you own neither Cineform or PicVideo, then why not?

Hi Larry. I'm about to go through some testing, but a question came up which I never thought to ask before.

What should the Project Settings be when working with either 1080 50p AVCHD footage? I can't find a template for that format in the pull-down menu. Or must I enter the settings manually? If so, which settings are recommended?

I think I may have read something about it and set my projects accordingly, but I can't remember. And now I'm a bit confused.

Since I'm asking, if you could also tell me which settings are proper for the other formats on the Panasonic hdc-700 - for example 1080(50i) and 1080(25i), that would be great.

I've downloaded PicVideo as well for further testing and will post back results.

Thanks!

Shalom Adi,

I’m not Larry but I can help you selecting the Project Settings for working with 1080 50p AVCHD video.

Please observe the following screenshot.

If you have any questions regarding those settings I can be of assistance further.

Mr. Bolotin - is there a reason why you are using 25p instead of 50p?

Larry,

If you are asking why I use 1080p25 (i.e. 1,080 lines of vertical resolution by 1,920 pixels of horizontal resolution 25 progressive frames per second) video mode instead of 1080p50 mode, my answer is this.

In Europe, 1080p25 signals are the only ones that have been supported by the DVB Full HD suite of broadcasting standards. Even though 1080p50 has been foreseen as a future-proof production format, and eventually a future-broadcasting format, commercially available TV sets capable of showing 1080p50 are still nonexistent.

In the United States, all major networks use either 720p60 or 1080i60 encoded with MPEG-2. Satellite service though has many channels that utilize the 1080p/24-30 format (Direc TV, XstreamHD, Dish Network, to name a few).

Regarding video acquisition, as of year 2010, majority of consumer camcorders and professional video and DSLR photo cameras can capture 1080p24, 1080p25 or 1080p30 signal. Only Panasonic offers a few consumer cameras that can capture 1080p50 and 1080p60 picture.

Obviously, among high-end professional digital cameras the range is better: Sony CineAlta F23, Sony SRW9000, as well as RED One cameras are all that capable of capturing 1080p50/1080p60 pictures.

good answer regarding current standards and end-viewer options - at present.

Pretty much the same situation here in NTSC-land, as you noted. However, I started saving all projects to 60p anyway - back when I bought my first 60p cams - the Sanyo HF1 and HD2000; and I continue the practice with the TM700.

I will want to distribute those projects that I'm working on at 60p when viewers are ready. At present, I degrade the image to 60i for 1080, or else burn to DVD, or else degrade to lower pixels @ 24p for the web.

But I'm still left with the original 60p Cineform master which later can provide 60p MP4 or whatever format when the time is right. Even now I can distribute to my friends the 60p .MP4 files for viewing on their computer.

I suppose it depends upon possible use of the video in the future, or at least cuts from it. If it is unlikely to ever find a use again, then it makes sense to set the project for 25p. But if the material might be used in the future, it seems to me that the highest amount of information possible should be preserved - 50p (hard disks are so cheap now; last night I bought a 2TB Hitachi for $90 U.S. + $9 tax, after instant $20 off from NewEgg plus a $20 mail-in rebate - with free shipping).

May I tell you Larry that preserving all your projects shot in progressive 60 frames per second mode in their original form is the right thing to do.

Doing so, you get the best of two worlds: the same temporal resolution (motion) as of the standard 60i video and the high vertical spacial resolution per frame as of progressive video.

As to what frame rate we can hope to have in the future, 60p is very close to the possible maximum.

According to the findings of Douglas Trumbull (the inventor of Showscan cinematic process), 72 frames per second is the maximum frame rate at which emotional impact peaked for viewers. Besides, 72fps is the maximum rate available in the WMV format.

"72 frames per second is the maximum frame rate at which emotional impact peaked for viewers" -

very interesting indeed; I didn't know about that, but I'll keep it in mind . . .

Thanks, Larry

Hey Larry, Hey Arkady!

Thanks for the replies and info!! This thread and all the stuff I've had to read as a result has become a real learning experience for me.

Meanwhile I've had to fly to China for an 8 week project, but never-the-less I'll be trying to give some kind of long-distance support to my good friend in Tel Aviv who is still struggling to get decent video played on a PAL DVD.

For our last tests before I had to jump on a plane - we shot material in 1080/50p and in HG as well.

Our goal was to eventually burn a PAL DVD that would look nice when played on his DVD Player/TV.

We tested each of the two materials separately.

Both were converted to 25p avi files with NeoScene and then imported to Vegas. We made a simple edit and then once rendered straight to mpeg-2 video stream and ac-3 using dvd architect templates. Then tried rendereing first to .avi (cineform codec) and then taking that avi and rendering it to mpeg-2 video stream and ac-3.

Then we created the dvd using the single movie option in architect.

Basically, all went rather well as far as the work flow.

I'll be honest, I can't currently remember the project settings we had set. I'll have to get back to you on that. I believe we used one of the HDV 1080 templates and then customized it so that it would be 25/fps progressive.

No problems editing. We managed to render up to 10 minutes of video with no crashes. Then we prepared and burned some dvds - one for each test.

All dvds had similar problems. Generally, everything seemed fine except for one thing. The video looked weird (like a flickering noise) specifically in various combination of the following incidences:
1. bright areas, like a white wall for example
2. horizontal lines, like window blinds
3. during camera movement.

Could this have to do with not setting the Project Properties up right in Vegas? Or maybe not rendering with the correct settings?

Right now I'm basically trying to get him to a point where he can take advantage of his new Panasonic HDC-TM700 (although he is not fixated on using 1080/50p if he can get satisfactory results easier with less demanding format). He wishes to edit with his new copy of Vegas 9 Pro, which he is quickly learning and eventually end up with a decent looking PAL DVD that he can play on his 27" inch TV.

I apologize again for having to relay things from you guys to him and then from him back to you... but it's the only way.

Thanks!

I've had a similar problem when playing back SD conversions from HD on a DV.
I put it down to viewing it on an HD LCD screen. When viewed on a SD CRT television, it was perfectly acceptable.
I guess it has something to do with the 720 x 576 SD anamorphic image being upscaled to the HD parameters..

Hi Robin. Indeed he is playing the DVD on an HD LCD tv set.

Any workaround?

Is there anything he can do differently at any stage of his work flow (described above) that can help overcome this?

THX

Hi Adi,
I can't think of anything at the moment - it seems that it's inherent in playing back SD material on this type of screen. I had the same problem when I first bought an LCD TV. I could only receive SD broadcasts from a digibox which was connected via a Scart plug. Those images had the same defects as you mention. When I changed the digibox for the HD version whch used the HDMI port, the quality of SD programmes was vastly improved. How is the DVD player connected? If it's possible to try an HDMI input, there may well be an improvement.

I see. Yet, as I understand from what you're saying - it is something that has to do with the SD material which in fact has been converted from HD material, right?

I'm asking because material he shot on his mini DV camcorder and burned to PAL DVD plays perfectly fine on the exact same display. So I'm figuring that possibly there is something that might be done at some stage to render out SD in a way that the LCD display can handle better. Otherwise, is he basically stuck with going out and purchasing a blue ray burner and player as an only solution?

Hi guys. To keep things orderly, I'm going to discontinue the issue of problems with playing SD converted from AVCHD on LCD display here with this thread since it seems to be going off-topic and unrelated to Vegas in general.

I want to try opening this particular topic at a more appropriate forum, but since I'm not too sure what sort of problem this is exactly - I can't figure out which forum would be best. At the AVCHD format discussion? or maybe The View: Video Display Hardware and Software?

Which do you think?

Hi. Still haven't sorted out my HD to SD on LCD screen problems.

Over at the AVCHD forum (http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/avchd-format-discussion/484547-just-cant-figure-out-how-make-pal-sd-dvd-avchd-footage.html#post1568970) it has been suggested that Vegas isn't doing the hottest job down-converting the HD material to SD mpg-2. I've been told to try and render out an HD file from Vegas and then use TMPGEnc to make the mpg-2 file for DVD.

So, first of all, since this discussion kind of side-tracked but now seems to be going back to a Vegas issue, I thought I'd keep you updated.

Next, I'd like to of course test implementing TMPGEnc into the workflow and seeing if it makes things better. But then I came across something that I didn't notice before and am curious to know if this might make a difference in my case.

When setting up Vegas to render out the project to an HD avi file using the cineform codec I did as follows:

1. set file format to .avi
2. set template to HD 1080 24p, then hit the custom button and changed 24p to 25p.
3. still in the custom settings window I also changed the Video Format to Cineform HD Codec.

Up to this point all is clear. But then I noticed the Configure button which I didn't bother about before.

Clicking the Configure button I am given several options regarding the Cineform codec.
Two of them seem like they might possibly be relevant to the problems I'm trying to resolve:

The first is:
Use Video Systems RGB (default off)
vs.
Use ITU.Bt.709 color space (default on)
I have no idea what these mean exactly and/or the pros and cons of each. Could changing to Video Systems RGB possibly make a difference regarding the problematic look of the SD PAL DVD which eventually is made and screened on an LCD display?

The second thing I'm curious about is that Encoding Quality is by default set to Medium HD. Other options are High HD and Low HD. Should I leave it at Medium?

Looking forward to your input on this and then I'll give TMPGEnc a go and report back. Thanks!

I'm not qualified to comment on all your questions, and I don't use PAL; but I can say this:

I've been using TMPEnc for years; I now use it to burn SD DVDs from 60fps progressive files. Output is great. But it can only handle projects up to, say, one hour and 40 min. on standard 4.7 GB DVDs; more than that needs double-layer DVDs. DVD Architect can put longer projects on DVD by using lower bitrates. I'm using an old version . . . maybe the new v4 Express gives more control over bitrate - I've barely played with it so can't say for sure.

If you are working with interlaced source files, you should de-interlace with Smart Deinterlace plugin (free) from Mike Crash if you are going to put anything on the web, or for computer playback (You don't need to do this for TMPEnc). Here's how I do it in ATSC land:

1. Set Project Properties to 59... frames per second, best rendering quality, interlace set to None, 1920x1080 (presuming that you are starting with 1920x1080i).

2. Download Mike Crash's free Smart Deinterlace.

3. Use Smart Deinterlace effects on media (go into the media window and right-click, or right-click on the FX button on any event and choose the source file for the Smart Deinterlace). In order to avoid artifacts, you should right-click on the clip, click Properties, then clear the checkmark for Smart Resample.

4. In the Smart Deinterlace FX window, choose “field” preset. In clip properties, set resampling to “none.” Motion Threshold: 5. Choose cubic, and motion denoiser.

5. Or, if you have an entire track on the timeline that has many interlaced clips, you can do them all at once by clicking on the track FX button; but there is a trick: You must go down to the bottom of the Smart Deinterlace FX window where it says "Smart Deinterlace" and make sure that the little triangle at the far left points to the left; if pointing to the right, click it once to make it point left. (You won't need to worry about this if you apply Smart Deinterlace to individual clips in the Project Media Window instead of to the track.)

Then render out with Cineform using its Progressive setting. Result: No judder, no comb, no loss of resolution.

Use the "medium quality" setting in Cineform - not much advantage to using High HD.

Ok. Thanks.

And what is

Use Video Systems RGB (default off)
-or-.
Use ITU.Bt.709 color space (default on)

in Cineform configuration window about? I'm assuming I should just leave it at the default, but I'm curious.
THX