Sony vs. Canon with Vegas

[Nicolas Gulino]

Hi, My Sony HDV camera went kaput and so I'm looking at a new one, somewhere in 3k range. I'm looking at the Sony NX70U or the Canon XF100 at the moment. Your thoughts about these cameras are welcome, but for this Vegas thread I'm wondering specifically which one's HD file output would be the best fit for my existing editing system. I'm still running Vegas 7e (I've been in editing hiatus for awhile!) so my first question is: can I still edit in HD with my current version of Vegas or do I need to upgrade? If I need to upgrade, is my current hardware adequate-AMD Athlon 2.5 GHz 64 X2 Dual core 4800+ with 3Gb of RAM. ? The other question is in terms of workflow: how does Vegas do with Canon's XMF files? I heard they are cumbersome. Any thoughts and advice greatly appreciated!
Thanks,

Nico

[Randall Leong]

Nicolas,

The newer cameras IIRC shoot AVCHD (and high-bitrate AVCHD, at that) rather than HDV. Your AMD system is now too old and too weak to handle the AVCHD material natively. You see, AVCHD requires much more CPU horsepower and more RAM than HDV in order to even play back smoothly, let alone be edited smoothly.

If you must upgrade your system, get an entire new PC build (since most of the parts in your current PC cannot be carried over to a new system) with at least 8GB of DDR3-1600 RAM (16GB to 32GB is even better) and an Intel i7 CPU such as the i7-3770K on a Z77 motherboard. Also, you will need at least three hard disks plus the OS disk in order to run any "prosumer" NLE to most people's satisfaction.

[Seth Bloombaum]

and... V7 was a great release for HDV, but predates quite a bit of Vegas development for AVCHD/h.264 editing. Sorry to say that software updates would probably also be needed for a smooth preview at resolutions that let you see what you shot.

Of course, if slow and clunky editing is OK... I can remember some early laptop editing experiences that were a little frustrating, but the projects got done.

I7 is a whole new world, after editing P4 and Core2Duo; it's night and day.

Or, it may cost you less in total to buy a used or new hdv camcorder! I'm just as excited as the next guy/gal to update to the latest, but, my hdv camcorder does come out for some jobs, especially long continuous-roll event coverage. And that material does cut like butter....

[Jeff Harper]

I've read that the XF100's footage handles very well in Vegas, maybe I'm mistaken. This has been asked before I thought.

I recall many chiming in to say it handled quite well, I might be mistaken.

[Al Bergstein]

Folks, I have an xf100, and where you came up with it shooting AVCHD is beyond me. It's like the blind describing an elephant. The xf100,anyone can find by Googling it,shoots mxf, like some Sony cams, at speeds up to 50Mbps. I have no idea if V7 supports it or not. A good reason to upgrade! I do love the camera.

The footage edits beautifully in Vegas 11, on an I7 Intel.

[Sean Seah]

i have done both Sony FS100, FS700 and Canon XF105, XF305 and C300 only V11. They all edit very well. Only thing you need to use XF utility to wrap the mxf from the canon to a single folder. Sony is more convenient that all the mxf files are in one folder VS Canon's multi folder. Canon's approach is just like the EX1r/EX3 method.

[Nicolas Gulino]

Thank you all for your advice! Looks like my hiatus from editing left me a bit like Rip Van Winkle...I woke up and everything changed! But that's to be expected with technology. I had read other threads comparing the AVCHD and MXF formats but wasn't clear how Vegas dealt with them. I assumed that the Sony AVCHD cams would do better in Vegas because they're both Sony products, so it's good to hear from some of you that the Canon files are supported too. I'll look into (=save more $$) upgrading the PC and Vegas. And true that Vegas 7 was great with HDV, but I can't see myself going back to tapes now, especially since it is precisely the tape mechanism that broke on my camera that led to where I am now!
Thanks again.

[Fred Foronda]

I am getting by with Intel core i7 2.66ghz, 6gb RAM window vista 64 bit..you think adding more ram will help with renderings?

[Jeff Harper]

No, but 12GB would smooth out things in a general way for your PC overall. Only processor speed affects rendering, and # of cores. Of course GPU can come into play, but that aside, the answer is no.

[Eric Olson]

Originally Posted by Nicolas Gulino

And true that Vegas 7 was great with HDV, but I can't see myself going back to tapes now, especially since it is precisely the tape mechanism that broke on my camera that led to where I am now!

A cheaper alternative to a new camera is to buy a flash recorder that captures HDV over firewire and continue using your current camera even though the tape drive is broken.

Note that the XF100 can shoot 25 mbps 1440x1080 mpeg2 which is exactly the same format as HDV except without the tape. Thus, you only need to rewrap the files on import to use with Vegas 7.