Urgent Best Practice Workflow advice pls!!

[Steve Quantrill]

I am hope that somebody can advise best rendering solutions to maintain quality when handing footage between applications. My scenario is....

I record footage in 1080p or 1080i. I edit this in Sony Vegas 10 64-bit to a window size that is either 720p or DV size (720x576) widescreen for example. This allows for me to reframe shots to an extent etc. After editing I colour correct and make any final adjustments to the footage such as stabilisations. My problem is that I have a noise removal tool by red giant that works in After Effects CS5 (some of my footage is low light etc) and I run it through this quite alot as it's such an excellent tool to clean everything up. My problem is by the time I render out from vegas then again through after effects to either DV (m2v) ready format footage or mov for example it all starts to look a little pixellated, especially any text. Is there an advised format anyone can recommend to render out from Vegas with so that as little quality is lost as possible before handing it to After Effects and then to DV. Uncompressed is not an option for me as some of the clips can be over an hour long that I edit.

Hope somebody can advise a good work flow on this.

Many thanks in advance

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

Hope this helps: Import Sony Vegas Projects to After Effects | BlueFx

If you are using effects/transitions that cannot be imported, then I suggest keeping your project file in 1080, output your clips from Vegas in 1080 and do your downsizing in After Effects (reframing as well). The best codec for this? You will need to run your own tests, as there are no standards.

[Steve Quantrill]

thanks and I had no idea after effects was capable of that. What a piece of software!!!