I tend to use the DNxHD 36 for my stuff. It cuts quite easily in Vegas, even on my laptop. I do notice a significant performance difference in 8.1. But I use both programs still because 8.0c has codec support that 8.1 does not.

Perrone,

Are you saying that you can convert your existing .m2t HDV clips directly into this DNxHD 36 codec and then edit these in Vegas 8.1? Do you find the performance editing these clips is superior to editing HDV .m2t on the timeline?

Jon

No, that is not what I am saying. The EX1 shoots Mpeg2 wrapped in an mp4 containter. I can convert THOSE directly to DNxHD outside of Vegas. I can render HDV files from within Vegas (8.1/8.0c) to DNxHD.

I don't know, I tend not to edit HDV on my timeline. I prefer to transcode before bringing my files into Vegas. This includes a change to square pixels, a deinterlace, and often a file size change. Occasionally it also entails a frame rate change from 60i to 24p.

Spent most of the day testing and my conclusion is that Quicktime on the PC is the bottle neck. I have Procoder 3 on my machine so could do a batch convert of the 1080i m2t files from my HC7's to the DNxHD 36 codec - set everything the way I thought it should be - based upon some input Perrone gave in private email exchanges. Bottom line is Quicktime is crippleware as far as I can determine - and since there's no way I can see to rewrap the MOV to an AVI, looks like Cineform NEO Scene is the way I will be going.

Tested on both my Dell D620 2.0Ghz Core2Duo with a WD 320GB 7200RPM System drive and WD 250GB 7200RPM video drive in the second bay. My Q6600 desktop with separate HD's fared a little better - each machine has 4GB of RAM running Vista 64. Latest version of Quicktime Pro as well. Could barely get 16 fps at 1/4 preview rez in the timeline monitor window - even less on my laptop.

Unless proven otherwise, I'm pretty sure the DNxHD codec route with Vegas Pro 8 is a no go for me at least - I was hoping otherwise.

Perrone,
Sorry if this is a newb question, but how do you convert the EX1 "raw" files to the Avid formats outside of Vegas?
Pete

Sorry to hear that Cliff, but I certainly understand where you're coming from. Putting 1080 on the timeline is a bear. I have no doubt that Cineform, with the VFW pipeline is going to be faster. I'm sure my expectations were lower than yours in terms of editing speed.

I'll be curious to the results of people who've been machines around the avchd format and what their experiences will be.

There is a utility to do it. Click on my name here, and go to my homepage. Browse to Avid, and you will see the folder with the tool.

Thanks. Got it. Now I just have to figure out how this all works! Ain't life great?
Pete

Easy as pie. Point the tool at an XDCamEX .mp4 file directory, specify an output directory, highlight the files you want to convert, select a bitrate, push the magic button! :)

What am I doing wrong?
 

Perrone,

I downloaded the Avid DNxHD codec, but when I render (Quicktime 7, Video format = Avid DNxHD codec, compressed depth = 32 bpp color, quality 80%, progressive scan, frame rate = 29.970 NTSC, frame size NTSC DV 720 x 480), it takes 10 hours (PC with Athlon 5400+, 5g RAM) to render and the file is over 100 GB in size!

What am I doing wrong? I just want to make a quality DVD out of the DV video that I've shot. What codec do I need, how do I need to set it, etc, to render a quality file that I can burn to DVD?

Thanks,

GP

Dear GOD man!

First, if you are working with SD (720x480) there is no need for you to use the DNxHD codec. It's designed for HD, not SD.

Second, if you are writing SD DVDs, you need to be encoding mpeg2. That is the only codec that DVDs use.

So two questions:

1. What NLE are you using? (Vegas, Premiere, etc.)
2. How long is the program you are trying to encode?
3. What program are you using to burn your DVDs?

And yes, a 10 hour long encode on a machine of your class doesn't seem out of line at all. But you're really going the long-way around at the moment. If you answer my three questions, people here should be able to help you much better.

>>1. What NLE are you using? (Vegas, Premiere, etc.)

Vegas

>>2. How long is the program you are trying to encode?

1- 1.5 hours

>>3. What program are you using to burn your DVDs?

iDVD. I have MacDrive that allows me to use my mac drives with Vegas. I render to them and use iDVD to make the DVD's.

Thanks,

GP

I was interested to try DNxHD -- I use Vegas Pro 8.0, but haven't used QT much because I never needed to before. I downloaded the free Avid DNxHD codec, and had QT already installed on my machine. But when I tried rendering part of the Vegas timeline as a mov (for the first time, I might add), I got a warning dialogue:

"The Sony QuickTime plug-in was not able to initilaize the QuickTime components on your system. It appears that QuickTime for Windows is not properly installed. QuickTime files cannot be be read or written without a full installation of the QuickTime version 7.1.6 or greater components, including the authoring components."

I checked my version of QuickTime and sure enough it was 7.0.3, so clearly I needed to upgrade, but this was my first problem. On the Apple website it says the download is for Windows and Mac, but the only download I can find is a dmg file which Windows does not recognize. How can I get QuickTime for Windows?

I went to this page:
Apple - QuickTime - Download

Chose "QuickTime 7.6 for Windows XP or Vista" (i.e. the one WITHOUT iTunes)

When clicking on the download button, it wanted to download an EXE file.

Edward - that link is the page I used, but I don't see where I can specify the Windows version. If you click the main "Free download now" button you have to accept "QuickTime76_leopard.dmg" (or Tiger version) which Windows doesn't want to open. I can't see on the page where to get the Windows version.