Vegas 7 and HDV Editing: Is this a Viable Option

Paul Kepen · October 17th, 2006, 02:37 PM

I am currently running Vegas 6.0D. Just purchased the $149.95 upgrade to V7. Just wondering if those of you that have already upgraded, have any tips on the procedure. Are there any caveats, or special tricks to getting the best upgrade? Can I just upgrade, or do I have to remove program-V6 first. Thanks

Jay Hancock · October 17th, 2006, 03:18 PM

No need to remove Vegas 6. None at all.

Also, when they put out minor version updates (e.g from 7.0a to 7.0b) you can install it on top of the existing one. (That only applies to minor versions, do not install V7 on top of V6).

A couple of things for installing Vegas 7 (which you may have learned from the other posts in this forum and thread), all of which you can think about AFTER installing Vegas 7:

* If you are using plugins from 3rd parties (like VASST, Pixelan, etc.) check for updates, download them and install them
* If you use .mov files on your timelines, you need to have QuickTime 7 with authoring components installed (free download from Apple website)
* If you are using Cineform's HD Connect product, download their 3.2 update. If you use a prior version, you can get crashes in Vegas 7.

Will Hanlon · October 17th, 2006, 05:07 PM

Werner, what error do you get when you try to import over 20 m2ts? Is it an exception error?

Dan Keaton · October 18th, 2006, 06:48 AM

Once you open a Vegas project in Vegas 7.0, one that was originally created in 6.0, and then you save it, you will no longer be able to open it in Vegas 6.0.

If this could be a problem, then I recommend that you copy your "Projects" folder to another folder before using the projects in Vegas 7.0.

Generally, this should not be a problem, but if you are in the middle of a large editing project, this is good insurance so that you can go back to Vegas 6.0, if necessary.

Werner Wesp · October 20th, 2006, 06:31 AM

Will, I can't remember exactly, but it could be an exception error. When I import 50 m2v files at a time I get this error. When I import those same 50 files 10 at a time (5 times of impoting) it doesn't pose a problem.

Usually my projects have 400 or more clips, so it is too much work.... (400 is really the very least. 700 to 1000 clips is a good average... so you can guess it is a hell of a job importing it in 70 times... and even then it doesn't go flawless)

Matthew Chaboud · October 23rd, 2006, 12:24 AM

Werner, try 7.0b. My suspicion is that you were using hardware that falls back onto an older decoder (because of a lack of SSE2 support). This has been corrected in 7.0b.

Werner Wesp · October 23rd, 2006, 05:46 AM

Yep, updated to 7.0b. I haven't run test on capturing, but the performance of preview hasn't really improved.

I was looking at another PC. I've always run AMD, but perhaps this time the Intel? Anyhow, Dual core for certain, because Vegas will take advantage of that (and that's the only software that will run on that PC). AMD is 64bits, but is the intel E6600 also 64-bits? Anyhow, 64-bit won't improve the performance of vegas, because Vegas doesn't support 64-bit rendering (as I understand it).

I don't want to fuel a Intel - AMD war, but which one has the best features for working with vegas? The intel E6600 or the AMD dual core 4800+ or 5000+? And what are the differences?

L2 cache is 4 Mb on the E6600, but I don't know what it is on the AMD and it seems to me that is an important key in rendering...

Glenn Chan · October 23rd, 2006, 11:12 AM

The rendertest.veg benchmark for Vegas (it's the only Vegas benchmark with lots of results / data points) shows that Intel's offerings are clearly in the lead.

2- Cache size is not that big of a deal when it comes to video rendering, although it might depend on the effect. Clock speed is a good way of figuring out relative performance **WITHIN A PROCESSOR LINE***. By within a processor line, I mean a single product line out of the many processor lines a manufacturer may have. And unfortunately, it's confusing since each manufacturer has slightly different product lines (i.e. different size caches) and the naming systems are confusing.

Matthew Chaboud · October 23rd, 2006, 01:20 PM

All current Athlon 64, Opteron, Core Duo, Core 2 xxx, Xeon, and P4 processors support SSE2, so you're covered there. Just about anything you buy right now will cover that for you.

If you're looking at AMD, look at AMD64, Intel, EM64T. You may not want to run an x64 OS right now, but the 64-bit capable processors are the quickest of each maker's line. AMD's been solid 64-bit for quite some time now. You have to work pretty hard to get a non 64-bit capable AMD processor.

The non-SSE2 support (are you running an Athlon XP?) in 7.0b doesn't make things really fast, but it does keep you from crashing with too many files (a problem that Vegas 6 had).

As far as performance is concerned, it's worth looking at the benchmarks and examining what you're doing. For instance, my Socket-F Opteron and Woodcrest machines (2.6GHz and 2.66GHz, respectively) are more closely matched than one might expect. In my testing, the Woodcrest is generally faster, but not by as much as an E6400 vs. a 4400+.

There is, of course, the argument for going really cheap (single-core Athlon 64 3200+ for $50, for instance) and riding the back of the performance wave. It comes down to how you value your time vs. your money.

Jay Hancock · October 23rd, 2006, 03:33 PM

Somewhere a lot higher up in this thread, before it turned into an AMD vs. Intel discussion, somebody was asking about the pros and cons of using .m2t native vs. using an intermediate (like Cineform). Here is an interesting and relevant quotes from Sony on their Vegas forum:

If you are doing a render to new track or something similar that requires multiple generations of intermediates , you would be better off using uncompressed (the best option) or some format with less lossy compression for these intermediate renders than long-gop MPEG-2.

However, you are not going to get _better_ quality that the original source by compressing to any intermediate file first, and then applying fx, and then rendering to your destination format. No matter what the source format is, it gets processed in Vegas as RGB 4:4:4, and from there it gets rendered to the output format you choose (WMV, DV, M2t etc etc).

It is true you might get a different look by rendering to some compressed intermediate format first (due to dithering or whatnot), but you'll never have a _cleaner_ source than pristine native original file. Compression = data loss- you might not be able to see it in one or even 50 generations but it is occuring, and it does add up.

Summarizing: If you are rendering to new track, applying fx, rendering to new again, applying fix, rendering to new again, applying fx, and then rendering to output, you are better off using uncompressed, Sony YUV or a visully lossless codec like Cineform for these intermediate steps than you would be if you were rendering to a highly compressed format like HDV m2t for each of these intermediate render steps.

If you have a timeline with a variety of original sources (m2t included) and you apply fx and titles etc and then you render to your output file, you'll get the cleanest possible result (because you didn't compress in any intermediate steps).

My interpretation, the real question is: will you be doing multiple generations of rendering?
Yes => use an intermediate.
No => use native .m2t original.

Prior to Vegas 7 it wasn't practical to use .m2t sources because of lackluster playback and edit performance, but that limitation is gone. And since the playback performance of the Cineform intermediate in Vegas 7 has degraded significantly (compared with Vegas 6), it is no longer the preferred option unless you are doing multiple generations of rendering.

Some have stated that complicated color correction and compositing warrants the use of an intermediate. After reading Sony's comments about the inner workings of Vegas, I don't see any basis for that.

Dan Keaton · October 23rd, 2006, 03:44 PM

Dear Jay,

Quote from your last post:

"Prior to Vegas 7 it wasn't practical to use .m2t sources because of lackluster playback and edit performance, but that limitation is gone. And since the playback performance of the Cineform intermediate in Vegas 7 has degraded significantly (compared with Vegas 6), it is no longer the preferred option unless you are doing multiple generations of rendering."

Has the playback performance of the Cineform intermediate in Vegas 7 degraded significantly? Is this Sony's position, or have you seen this yourself?

Jay Hancock · October 23rd, 2006, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

Dear Jay,
... Has the playback performance of the Cineform intermediate in Vegas 7 degraded significantly? Is this Sony's position, or have you seen this yourself?

I haven't seen Sony comment about it, but I have observed it myself. As have others on both forums (Sony and this one). You can check some of the commentary in the Cineform Software Showcase area on this forum. Their CTO comments that Sony has changed the way Vegas is making program calls into the Cineform codec, and the result is slower playback.

I don't have actual playback framerate comparison data to share. Some people might have posted these observations in the forums..

For a project I'm working on that does require multiple generations of rendering, I am using Vegas's "takes" feature to put both an .m2t and the Cineform intermediate on my timeline. When I do playback, I view an .m2t take. When I render, I switch active take to the one with the intermediate. I did all this because it was necessary to run the footage through DeShaker in VirtualDub, making the original .m2t not an option for final render.

Chris Barcellos · October 23rd, 2006, 04:41 PM

I ve been monitoring this thread, having asked the original question. And yes, my question was intended to address intermediate v. "native" editing.
Of course, coupled with that is equipment needed as well as the way Vegas 7 now handles both methods of editing...

Jay's and Dan's posts are getting to the heart of things. It is interesting that Jay's post indicates that Vegas 7 seems to have taken intermediate editing a step backward. Does anyone else have an indication or comment on this ?

Dan Keaton · October 24th, 2006, 11:07 AM

Dear Jay,

Thanks for the udpate. I did not know that the Cineform intermediate was slower under Vegas 7.0.

Fred Foronda · October 24th, 2006, 05:02 PM

Thanks for everyone who pointed me to the right choice. I got my upgrade and what a big improvement as far as using native m2t. In Vegas 6 I get a 8.8xx frame rate playback on raw m2t..now with 7 I get 29.4XX-29.9XX. These are all under the preview auto quality. I'm very pleased!!

October 17th, 2006, 02:37 PM	#31
Paul Kepen Major Player Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Minneapolis Minnesota Posts: 347	Upgrade Vegas 6 to Vegas 7 ? I am currently running Vegas 6.0D. Just purchased the $149.95 upgrade to V7. Just wondering if those of you that have already upgraded, have any tips on the procedure. Are there any caveats, or special tricks to getting the best upgrade? Can I just upgrade, or do I have to remove program-V6 first. Thanks

October 18th, 2006, 06:48 AM	#34
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Once you open a Vegas project in Vegas 7.0, one that was originally created in 6.0, and then you save it, you will no longer be able to open it in Vegas 6.0. If this could be a problem, then I recommend that you copy your "Projects" folder to another folder before using the projects in Vegas 7.0. Generally, this should not be a problem, but if you are in the middle of a large editing project, this is good insurance so that you can go back to Vegas 6.0, if necessary. __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

October 23rd, 2006, 03:33 PM	#40
Jay Hancock Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 40	Somewhere a lot higher up in this thread, before it turned into an AMD vs. Intel discussion, somebody was asking about the pros and cons of using .m2t native vs. using an intermediate (like Cineform). Here is an interesting and relevant quotes from Sony on their Vegas forum: If you are doing a render to new track or something similar that requires multiple generations of intermediates , you would be better off using uncompressed (the best option) or some format with less lossy compression for these intermediate renders than long-gop MPEG-2. However, you are not going to get _better_ quality that the original source by compressing to any intermediate file first, and then applying fx, and then rendering to your destination format. No matter what the source format is, it gets processed in Vegas as RGB 4:4:4, and from there it gets rendered to the output format you choose (WMV, DV, M2t etc etc). It is true you might get a different look by rendering to some compressed intermediate format first (due to dithering or whatnot), but you'll never have a _cleaner_ source than pristine native original file. Compression = data loss- you might not be able to see it in one or even 50 generations but it is occuring, and it does add up. Summarizing: If you are rendering to new track, applying fx, rendering to new again, applying fix, rendering to new again, applying fx, and then rendering to output, you are better off using uncompressed, Sony YUV or a visully lossless codec like Cineform for these intermediate steps than you would be if you were rendering to a highly compressed format like HDV m2t for each of these intermediate render steps. If you have a timeline with a variety of original sources (m2t included) and you apply fx and titles etc and then you render to your output file, you'll get the cleanest possible result (because you didn't compress in any intermediate steps). My interpretation, the real question is: will you be doing multiple generations of rendering? Yes => use an intermediate. No => use native .m2t original. Prior to Vegas 7 it wasn't practical to use .m2t sources because of lackluster playback and edit performance, but that limitation is gone. And since the playback performance of the Cineform intermediate in Vegas 7 has degraded significantly (compared with Vegas 6), it is no longer the preferred option unless you are doing multiple generations of rendering. Some have stated that complicated color correction and compositing warrants the use of an intermediate. After reading Sony's comments about the inner workings of Vegas, I don't see any basis for that.

October 23rd, 2006, 03:44 PM	#41
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Dear Jay, Quote from your last post: "Prior to Vegas 7 it wasn't practical to use .m2t sources because of lackluster playback and edit performance, but that limitation is gone. And since the playback performance of the Cineform intermediate in Vegas 7 has degraded significantly (compared with Vegas 6), it is no longer the preferred option unless you are doing multiple generations of rendering." Has the playback performance of the Cineform intermediate in Vegas 7 degraded significantly? Is this Sony's position, or have you seen this yourself? __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

October 23rd, 2006, 04:41 PM	#43
Chris Barcellos Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Elk Grove CA Posts: 6,838	I ve been monitoring this thread, having asked the original question. And yes, my question was intended to address intermediate v. "native" editing. Of course, coupled with that is equipment needed as well as the way Vegas 7 now handles both methods of editing... Jay's and Dan's posts are getting to the heart of things. It is interesting that Jay's post indicates that Vegas 7 seems to have taken intermediate editing a step backward. Does anyone else have an indication or comment on this ? __________________ Chris J. Barcellos

October 17th, 2006, 03:18 PM	#32
Jay Hancock Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Dallas, TX Posts: 40	No need to remove Vegas 6. None at all. Also, when they put out minor version updates (e.g from 7.0a to 7.0b) you can install it on top of the existing one. (That only applies to minor versions, do not install V7 on top of V6). A couple of things for installing Vegas 7 (which you may have learned from the other posts in this forum and thread), all of which you can think about AFTER installing Vegas 7: * If you are using plugins from 3rd parties (like VASST, Pixelan, etc.) check for updates, download them and install them * If you use .mov files on your timelines, you need to have QuickTime 7 with authoring components installed (free download from Apple website) * If you are using Cineform's HD Connect product, download their 3.2 update. If you use a prior version, you can get crashes in Vegas 7.

October 17th, 2006, 05:07 PM	#33
Will Hanlon Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 148	Werner, what error do you get when you try to import over 20 m2ts? Is it an exception error?

October 20th, 2006, 06:31 AM	#35
Werner Wesp Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 497	Will, I can't remember exactly, but it could be an exception error. When I import 50 m2v files at a time I get this error. When I import those same 50 files 10 at a time (5 times of impoting) it doesn't pose a problem. Usually my projects have 400 or more clips, so it is too much work.... (400 is really the very least. 700 to 1000 clips is a good average... so you can guess it is a hell of a job importing it in 70 times... and even then it doesn't go flawless)

October 23rd, 2006, 12:24 AM	#36
Matthew Chaboud Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Chicago, IL, USA Posts: 93	Werner, try 7.0b. My suspicion is that you were using hardware that falls back onto an older decoder (because of a lack of SSE2 support). This has been corrected in 7.0b.

October 23rd, 2006, 05:46 AM	#37
Werner Wesp Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Belgium Posts: 497	Yep, updated to 7.0b. I haven't run test on capturing, but the performance of preview hasn't really improved. I was looking at another PC. I've always run AMD, but perhaps this time the Intel? Anyhow, Dual core for certain, because Vegas will take advantage of that (and that's the only software that will run on that PC). AMD is 64bits, but is the intel E6600 also 64-bits? Anyhow, 64-bit won't improve the performance of vegas, because Vegas doesn't support 64-bit rendering (as I understand it). I don't want to fuel a Intel - AMD war, but which one has the best features for working with vegas? The intel E6600 or the AMD dual core 4800+ or 5000+? And what are the differences? L2 cache is 4 Mb on the E6600, but I don't know what it is on the AMD and it seems to me that is an important key in rendering...

October 23rd, 2006, 11:12 AM	#38
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	The rendertest.veg benchmark for Vegas (it's the only Vegas benchmark with lots of results / data points) shows that Intel's offerings are clearly in the lead. 2- Cache size is not that big of a deal when it comes to video rendering, although it might depend on the effect. Clock speed is a good way of figuring out relative performance WITHIN A PROCESSOR LINE*. By within a processor line, I mean a single product line out of the many processor lines a manufacturer may have. And unfortunately, it's confusing since each manufacturer has slightly different product lines (i.e. different size caches) and the naming systems are confusing.

October 23rd, 2006, 01:20 PM	#39
Matthew Chaboud Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Chicago, IL, USA Posts: 93	All current Athlon 64, Opteron, Core Duo, Core 2 xxx, Xeon, and P4 processors support SSE2, so you're covered there. Just about anything you buy right now will cover that for you. If you're looking at AMD, look at AMD64, Intel, EM64T. You may not want to run an x64 OS right now, but the 64-bit capable processors are the quickest of each maker's line. AMD's been solid 64-bit for quite some time now. You have to work pretty hard to get a non 64-bit capable AMD processor. The non-SSE2 support (are you running an Athlon XP?) in 7.0b doesn't make things really fast, but it does keep you from crashing with too many files (a problem that Vegas 6 had). As far as performance is concerned, it's worth looking at the benchmarks and examining what you're doing. For instance, my Socket-F Opteron and Woodcrest machines (2.6GHz and 2.66GHz, respectively) are more closely matched than one might expect. In my testing, the Woodcrest is generally faster, but not by as much as an E6400 vs. a 4400+. There is, of course, the argument for going really cheap (single-core Athlon 64 3200+ for $50, for instance) and riding the back of the performance wave. It comes down to how you value your time vs. your money.

October 24th, 2006, 11:07 AM	#44
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Dear Jay, Thanks for the udpate. I did not know that the Cineform intermediate was slower under Vegas 7.0. __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

October 24th, 2006, 05:02 PM	#45
Fred Foronda Major Player Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: Hawaii Posts: 337	Thanks for everyone who pointed me to the right choice. I got my upgrade and what a big improvement as far as using native m2t. In Vegas 6 I get a 8.8xx frame rate playback on raw m2t..now with 7 I get 29.4XX-29.9XX. These are all under the preview auto quality. I'm very pleased!!