Vegas 7 and HDV Editing: Is this a Viable Option
 

The top pros in this Forum have long advocated use of intermediate editing codecs for handling of HDV. Is there anything in Vegas 7 that is changing that opinion ??

Yes- native HDV editing. Sorry, I'm pointing out the obvious.

On the Sony Madison Software site, Spot chips in with his opinion on the topic. I don't really have an informed opinion since I haven't looked into whether an intermediate codec would deliver better results.

Native HDV editing is great for non-color correction intensive work, for non-composited work, and for non-recompress-oriented editing.
If you're working on a slow machine, plan on compositing, intend to do intense C/C, or intend on rendering to new track...then an HDI is still the better option, IMO

DSE: Thanks. This is similar to the conclusion I have come to on the Premeire Pro 2.0 side.

I tested the demo version this afternoon, and HDV playback (m2v) is indeed a lot smoother, but on my machine not quite as smooth as it should be (Cineform still gives more comfortable editing)

I run a AMD 64-bit 3.2 GHz with 1 Gb RAM and a 256Mb video-card (2 monitors at 1280*1024) - I think I desperately need an upgrade (with Cineform editing in HD (1280*720 25p) is 'possible' - but not quite as nice and smooth as I would have wanted it - SD has spoiled me for a long time). I was thinking about some dual-core AMD64 with 2 Gb of RAM and perhaps a 512 Mb video-card (that should do the trick I suppose) - Can anyone give some suggestions?

Werner:

I haven't been using Vegas for HDV editing to date, but with this version, I may be doing so. In PPro 2.0, and editing HDV "native" I have great results with rendering for preview quickly with my AMD 3800 + Dual core self built, with 2 gigs mem, and a ATI PCI express card with 256 mgs of memory. It is not the real time previewing I got in DV with my Pinnacle Pro One editing board in the old days, but I don't feel there is an inordinate amount of time spent in rendering a project..

Very easy solution here is to AVOID AMD CPU's. I have nothing against them and have been a proponet of AMD for quite some time, but the new Core 2 Duo chips from Intel are not only MUCH faster for the $$, but typically geared toward this type of work. Definately go Core 2 Duo.

I don't know what status is now, but 8 months ago I was planning on Intel chip, but my research indicated the Dual cores were actually having problem with speeding up video editing... some reported slower speeds than single chip processors... Point is, do your research to find out what current view is...

When you say "rendering to a new track" do you mean renderinging into another format as well? Like Mpeg-4, Sorenson 3, etc ?

Jon

The Core Duos are a whole new ballgame. Until this summer, AMD was the clear winner. Intel has done a major leapfrog. The new chips are fast, cool and economical. My son just built a Core Duo system with the least expensive chip (about $185). It can render three instances of a crazy, flaming Particle Illusion test (in SD) in near real-time. His old 32-bit 1400+ AMD system could only manage about one frame every other second.

According to the tests Ive read, that $185 chip is rougly the equal to AMD's latest 4600+ 64-bit dual core.

That said, I've been an AMD guy for many years. I'm looking forward to seeing AMD's next release put them back in front!

BTW, we chose the Asus P5NSLI motherboard. http://anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2820 It works great, and is fanless. The only downside is that it lacks 1394. We added a Pyro PCI 64 1394 card, since it was relatively cheap, and uses the TI chipset. To move up to an Asus board with 1394 would have cost another $100 or so, the P5NSLI and 1394 add-on was an easy choice.

Yes, the new Core 2 Duo chips are built on a completely different architecture than what you saw 8 months ago. There aren't any benchmarks out there that show this chip to have any weaknesses against it's AMD counterparts. Worst yet, AMD is a LONG ways away from having a truly competative chip. Back to the old days, Intel is now King again.

Jon

Thanks to both of you... I hadn't been following this that closely as I hadn't been considering a new system, and have been happy with what I had built.. Guess now I will start making up excuses to move to the next level. :)

Chiming in...
 

First off, something's up if you can't view a single m2t at full rate on an Athlon 64 at 2.0GHz or above.

On my Opteron (admittedly quite quick) and Woodcrest (obviously quite quick) machines, preview half, I can generally handle in the ballpark of six m2ts at full rate (PIPping like crazy). 2 clips crossfading at preview full holds around full rate with build 115, depending on the source drives.

Secondly, on the m2t vs. intermediate debate, native footage with a never-compressed chain is always best. If you can't color-correct in-project (or don't want to), nested projects (just as expensive to preview as doing it in-project) or uncompressed renders (only as fast as your hard disks) are going to be your best bet. These will keep the data in shape better than any lossy compression can. If you can't swing that, Cineform intermediates are going to degrade your data less than m2t intermediates.

When I put together a really hard-hitting composite with multiple steps (happens far less with nesting and unlimited track parenting), uncompressed AVIs are my intermediates. It soaks a lot of disk space, but you don't have to keep the files around forever. Just keep the projects that you made them with.

I don't think it's the PC, but Vegas:

If I play an m2t or Cineform avi in mediaplayer, it runs fine.

If I play a Cineform in avi, it says it runs at 25 frames (as it should, it's 1280x720 25p), but it glitches every second or 2. When I have the preview at full resultion (preview auto or, preview full), that is. When I have the preview at half everything should be okay.

The problem is this:

When I put a clip on the timeline (even without any effect or transition - just a plain clip) and I try to play it in the preview (again, expanded to full resolution - preview full/auto), the displayed framerate droppes to 3 or 4. When I preview at half size the framerate is something about 15 - not enough, but that's just fine for editing - 3, 4 or perhaps 5 frames per second is undoable slow for editing....

The CPU seems to be running at 90-97%, RAM usage increases while playing, but I keep it under 1 gig with my setting for RAM preview. All drives are clean and defragmented (besides, if the problem was that the amount of data of the cineformfiles was to much to transport in such a short time from the harddrives, it wouldn't play fine in MediaPlayer - so I rule out the problem is with the harddrives).

Only thing I can see is that it's got to be vegas.

The biggest shame is this: When working with DV in SD, there was no recompression, so whenever you played something in the timeline that didn't have any effect on it or any transition - it would play as well as in (say) MediaPlayer, because that was all vegas was doing. With CineForm AVI files that isn't the case anymore (recompression turned of in properties window doesn't seem to make any difference) - perhaps it's got something to do with the native color space of the application (vegas in this case)... ?

hi
i have tried new vegas 7 with cineform and with native HDV, i can defenitely say native HDV has become faster with my new dual core 1,86 prestigio laptop, ati 256MB, 1 GB ram, and wuxga 1920x1200 display. more response in timeline and faster render to .m2t, than cineform .avi, and it is even not core 2 duo,
i can say i am very satisfied with the result.