How do I get vegas to captur HD video
 

I'm new here and I was searching and could not find the exact answer. I need to now what exactly should I do to get vegas to pick up the HD video. I am using the sony hvr-a1u cam. Any help would be great. I am new to HD video.

Or what would be the beast way to capture HD to the computer.

Several posts on this exact topic. Several ways to do this, but working with an intermediate codec is pretty much needed when editing HD in Vegas. Do another search.

Here is one that will also talk about codecs.


http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=edit+hd

Here is another...

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthrea...hlight=edit+hd

I should have explained better. I can not get my computer to capture HDV. I am useing win XP home ed. do i need to upgrade sp2. What sw should I capyure with? Somthing that is not very expensive and works well. So far every program I tried dose not work.

If you are using Vegas 6 or Vegas Movie Studio Platinum then you have a capture application for HDV.

If it's not working, you probably need XP service pack 2 and possibly to also manually set the device type in windows.

Go to the support knowledgebase at sonymediasoftware.com and search for Answer ID 1332 "HDV camcorder or deck not recognized?" for the detailed steps.

In Vegas Movie Studio you select the internal capture (HDV) reference to capture the native .m2t stream. The, if you are going to use an intermediate to edit with, you have to convert those to the intermediate format provided by Vegas, which is a Cineform intermediate codec. You can attempt to edit native stream too, but that gets a lot of "bad" recommendations from the gurus. It make work to your satisfaction, so try it.

One other thing, if you want "scene detection", you might try the freeware program HDVSplit to capture with. Get the latest version (0.75 or better, I think).

Oh, by the way, definitely update to SP2. I don't think you will be going anywhere without it.

Thanx a bunch guys! I got it all taken care of updated to SP2 and there was a setting in the cam that was wrong so I got it working. I love the quality it's perfect better than I had expected. Vegas seems to edit it ok just a little slow. Will I get big advantages going with these other programs I here of on here that work with vegas?

Jesse:

Actually available with Vegas is the ability to convert the footage you captured to the Cineform .avi intermediate codec. You don't have to add anything. What I would do, if you want to try something like that is capture your footage by scene with HDVSplit, then render them to the Cineform intermediate codec from inside Vegas, then use those files to edit with. You will have an easier time editing that way.

Second, you can download the HDConnect trial version from Cineform to see if you want to use that capture utility. Unfortunately, there is no scene detection, (at least in version I tested) but it saves the conversions step, creating a .avi intermediate file directly. If after you test, you like it, you can purchase it fo $200.00. If you don't get it, you will eventually have to remove the program. When that happens you will also likely have to reinstall Vegas in order to get back the use of the intermediate codec on the original basis.

when I render HDVSplitted .m2t files into Cineform codec - do I lose a generation (qualitywise)?

In practice.. no. In theory one could argue that any rendering could cause loss, but the Cineform codec is "Visually Perfect™"... see here for quality analysis:

http://www.cineform.com/technology/H...ysis051011.htm

Also once you have rendered to Cineform, you can do multiple generations of renders (should you need to) without visible loss (as shown in the above link).

If I can 'render to Cineform' from inside Vegas - what is the use of ConnectHD?

In theory, I could use Vegas to render-->Cineform.avi, and use that 'avi' to edit in PPro2 - (as I am familiar with PPro2)

I am wondering where does ConnectHD feature in here...if Vegas6 does the job

HD Connect gives you a direct transcode to the Cineform HDV codec right out of the camera. In other words, you don't have to take the step of capturing in .m2t format, then rendering to the Cineform Codec. So that is the primary benefit. I believe there may be some additional benefits.

Yes - speed of workflow is the main advantage of Connect HD. You can see a full list of reasons (as marketed by Cineform) here:
http://www.cineform.com/products/ConnectHD.htm