First let me state the reason for posting this thread in this section.

I shoot about 50% of my footage on my XH-A1 @ 1080 24f and the other 50% at 1080 60i. I am looking for users opinions on an NLE that can provide a quick workflow for short film that are shot at 24f and is also stable enough to edit a 3 hour conference(multiple cameras) without constant crashing. I think I will get a stronger response from XH-A1 users in this section of the forum instead of the editing forum.

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A little background info on myself,

I started filmmaking about five years ago with my fathers Sony TRV720. My first editing platform was Pinnical Studio 7. I kept working with Pinnical through version 10 at which point I had had enough of it's glitchee interface. I started editing on Avid Free DV until I could afford Adobe Premiere Elements 1.0. Shortly after that I upgraded to Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0.

I was very content editing with Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 until I played around with the trial version of Adobe Premiere Pro. I did my research and Adobe Production Studio 1.0 had the best bang for the buck, ecpecially since I was Home Educated I could grab the Academic Version.

I was able to purchase an XH-A1 in March of 07 & I absolutelly love it!

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My problem is that Premiere Pro 2.0's doesn't support batch capture, scene detection, or preview with the XH-A1. *I have recently found out that HDVSplit supports scene splitting and have been testing this feature.*

Here is my current workflow for short & not so short projects shot in HDV 24f(prior to HDVSplit):
*Capture entire tape into PP2 project with Canon HDV preset.
*Use the Source Monitor to create in & out points to drag into the Timeline.
*Finilize my edit.
*Export any effects shots as Quicktime movies with the Animation Preset.
*Import into After Effects and once the effect shots are complete, Export a *Quicktime movies with the Animation Preset.
*Import the finished effect shots into PP2, lay them over the existing video & save as a Master project.
*Using Dynamic Link I import the Master project into AE and apply color correction, letterboxing, etc.
*Export my "Digital Dub", wich is a TIFF sequence of the final project(Easily archived over multiple DVDs).
*Import my TIFF sequence into a new AE project & create a new composition for each output type(720p, DVD, iPod, web, etc.) & export media.

Here is my current workflow for conference or similar productions(multicam), and a minimum of 1 hour long shot in HDV 60i(also prior to HDVSplit):
*Capture entire tape into PP2 project with Adobe HDV preset.
*Use PP2's multicamera tool to edit footage. Deal with at least 3 project crashes, most likely due to the length of the project.
*Use Dynamic link to get project out of PP2 to apply color correction, etc.
*Export my "Digital Dub", wich is a TIFF sequence of the final project(Easily archived over multiple DVDs).
*Import my TIFF sequence into a new AE project & create a new composition for each output type(DVD, etc.) & export media.

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Possible Solutions
These are the solutions I am looking at. If you have personal experiance with a particular NLE, can you give me the Pros & Cons as you see them? Unfortunatly I can not move to a Mac system because I do not have the budget to make that transition. I do however have the ability to get an Academic version of most software.

#1 Stick with PP2
Pros: It's the cheapest solution. You can just use HDVSplit to batch capture & scene split.
Cons: It's unstable with large projects. You can't archive to tape.

#2 Grab the Academic version of CS4
Same Pros & Cons as PP2. The only reason I am even considering CS4 is because it includes On Location, and Encore CS4(Blu-ray authoring). Will On Loaction record HDV 24f to HDD? If not, I am not really interested in CS4.

#3 Grab the Academic version of Avid Media Composer
Pros: High end software that is very powerful. Besides Media Composer it also includes; Sorenson Squeeze 5, Boris Continuum AVX, Avid DVD by Sonic(Is HD authoring Blu-ray?), Avid FX, SmartSound Sonicfire Pro 4 with FREE downloadable Upgrade to version 5, Two SmartSound Music Audio Palettes: Core Sessions & Core Foundations, Class on Demand Complete Training for Avid Media Composer.
Cons: Very steep learning curve. Does NOT support 24f capture from XH-A1. Would I have to rely on HDVSplit to capture, and then use MPEG Streamslip to transcode the .m2t files to DNxHD?

#4 Grab the Academic version of Sony Vegas Pro 8
I am also a bit weary of Vegas. I have never actually used it, but I'm a bit conserned with the interface. Does Vegas have support fot batch capture with an XH-A1 in 24f? Is it stable for multiple hour long projects?

#5 Avid Liquid
I know very little about this program and I am rather leniant becasue it was originally created by Pinnacle. Does it have support fot batch capture with an XH-A1 in 24f? Is it stable for multiple hour long projects?

Your opinions on which NLE I should turn to would be greatly appreciated. If you have some knowledge on a certain NLE that you could share, that would be great. Even if it's an NLE that I did not list.

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EDIT
And just to clear up any confusion; I currently have and use Adobe Production Studio 1.0. This includes; Premiere Pro 2.0, AE 7.0, Photoshop CS2, Illistrator CS2, Encore DVD 2.0, & Audition 2.0.

The problem is that PP2 is unstable with projects longer than 45 min, & about 50% of my projects fall into the 3 hour category. I’m tired of constant crashing of PP2. I’d like to find an NLE that is stable enough for long projects(3 hours), & can handle 24f footage. If something like that exists for the PC, that's what I'm looking for.

I shoot 24F and edit with Final Cut Pro. Often I mix things as you do, no problems. I don't believe Avid will handle Canon's 24f mode unless they've changed it in Media Composer recently. Last time I looked they did not do 24f. I started out with Avid Media Composer back in around '96 and moved to FCP in about 2006. About a year ago I was in a situation where I needed to set up an entirely new system and considered going back to Avid (because it's a bit easier and faster for some of the type things I do), but they didn't do Canon 24F so I stuck with FCP. Now that I use Compressor and DVD Studio Pro a lot, I'm quite happy with FCP. Compressor is easy and intuitive and you can export in about any configuration you need. It's easy to mix things in the timeline. Most all my stuff is edited in a 23.98 HDV timeline. When I drop in a 60i clip, it has to render but does so with the pulldown done so there's no need to do that as a separate step. I guess I could go the other way too but haven't.

The longest thing I've edited in FCP was just over 2 hours. No problems there either. I'm using a MacBook Pro, the 17" one, 2.6 duo processor. It was the fully loaded one available a year ago. It's been more solid that the earlier G5s I had used at a production house.

I have something coming up soon where I'll mix HDV footage with AVCHD footage. The AVCHD gets transcoded into ProRes422, so I'll probably capture the HDV as ProRes too and edit the whole thing that way.

If you prefer a PC over a Mac, my understanding is that the current version of Sony Vegas also handles Canon's 24F well.

Thanks for the reply Bill. It's not that I prefer PC, in fact I would switch to Mac in a heart beat IF I had the money. Unfortunately I only have about $600 that I can spend, so I'm looking for a solution that will fit that budget and hopefully streamline my workflow a little more that it is right now.

I will start doing some research on Vegas and see what it offers.

Kevin - i must preface this that i do not own the XH-A1 but I have a client that does. I have shot some small form 24p work for them before and captured with Vegas Pro 8 with no issues. It handles it quite well. However with any new NLE, working in HDV can be very intensive for your system. I understand your budget is limited so computer upgrades/replacement may be out of the question, but what are your system specs. I have never had Vegas crash during a project, I did have it crash once after I saved project and closed Vegas then crash (not an issue really though, as everything was saved and I was rebooting anyways for a Win Update.) So I would say it is quite stable in general. that is my limited take on it. Good luck!

Thanks Bryan for your input. When you capture 24f with Vegas, do you have scene detection, preview, or batch capture? Does Vegas even have a batch capture?

EDIT: How does Vegas do stability wise with long(3 hour) projects?

I have been editing HDV for a while and I haven't had any problems except when I have major special effects layers in AE. Here are my system specs:
XP 32 bit
Dual Core 3.2 GHz
3.5GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT(256MB)
RAID 5 HDD for video storage.
Single HDD for OS/programs
Single HDD for render/previews

And just to clear up any confusion; I currently have and use Adobe Production Studio 1.0. This includes; Premiere Pro 2.0, AE 7.0, Photoshop CS2, Illistrator CS2, Encore DVD 2.0, & Audition 2.0.

The problem is that PP2 is unstable with projects longer than 45 min, & about 50% of my projects fall into the 3 hour category. I’m tired of constant crashing of PP2. I’d like to find an NLE that is stable enough for long projects(3 hours), & can handle 24f footage. If something like that exists for the PC, that's what I'm looking for.

The problem is that PP2 is unstable with projects longer than 45 min, & about 50% of my projects fall into the 3 hour category. I’m tired of constant crashing of PP2. I’d like to find an NLE that is stable enough for long projects(3 hours), & can handle 24f footage. If something like that exists for the PC, that's what I'm looking for.

I've taken the PP courses and read the bibles. Like you, I was severely disillusioned by its tendency to crash, but also because I found out that if you want it to do Dolby surround, you need to pay extra for the license (not something they told me when I paid over $1,000 for the CS3 package).

I have used Sony Vegas for my last two short film projects. It's unassuming, but it packs a big punch. Don't let marketing and pretty interfaces sway you. I'm in the process of switching to Avid, but I wouldn't hesitate to use Vegas to edit a feature.


J.

Avid Liquid - I know very little about this program and I am rather leniant becasue it was originally created by Pinnacle.

Actually it came out of FAST Multimedia, which was bought by Pinnacle and then Pinnacle by Avid. Users seem to like it.

At this time it does not support AVCHD, BluRay, or VISTA, and a new replacement product is said to be in the works for rumored release in late 2009. There is a support forum for the product at Pinnacle.

I've taken the PP courses and read the bibles. Like you, I was severely disillusioned by its tendency to crash, but also because I found out that if you want it to do Dolby surround, you need to pay extra for the license (not something they told me when I paid over $1,000 for the CS3 package).

I have used Sony Vegas for my last two short film projects. It's unassuming, but it packs a big punch. Don't let marketing and pretty interfaces sway you. I'm in the process of switching to Avid, but I wouldn't hesitate to use Vegas to edit a feature.


J.
Thanks for more reassurment on Sony Vegas.

I prefer to do all my onlining(color correction, titles, dissolves, etc...) in AE. Would I have any problems exporting a QuickTime movie with the animation codec to import into AE?

Actually it came out of FAST Multimedia, which was bought by Pinnacle and then Pinnacle by Avid. Users seem to like it.

At this time it does not support AVCHD, BluRay, or VISTA, and a new replacement product is said to be in the works for rumored release in late 2009. There is a support forum for the product at Pinnacle.

OK, thanks Don. Late 09 is a bit to far down the road for me. I'm looking at picking up something before summer starts. I will take a look for those support forums and see what they say about Canon's 24f+Liquid.

...When you capture 24f with Vegas, do you have scene detection, preview, or batch capture? Does Vegas even have a batch capture?...How does Vegas do stability wise with long(3 hour) projects?... PP2 is unstable with projects longer than 45 min,...I’m tired of constant crashing of PP2. I’d like to find an NLE that is stable enough for long projects(3 hours), & can handle 24f footage...

Here is where my experience may not be helpful. The only 24p work i have done using an XH1A was short form. However, that said, Vegas (from my experience) does not discriminate in how it handles captures long or short. You can preview capture in RT, it does have scene detect (if you turn it on) and capture the whole tape it will break it into clips, you also can log the clips and then batch capture (I don't use this because the scene detect is good enough for me.) I have had no stability issues with Vegas in long projects however, on a Dual core your playback window may not be as smooth and clean as you are used to in Premiere.

I edit for my largest client in PP3 because that is what they use and they supply me content edits that i do finish edits of. One of their content editors was still on CS2 last year and often complained about stability. I have had some issues with it myself but they are very rare. Recently I did an edit for them that spanned across 10 hrs of training video, 2 cam XL2 shoot, and it handled it well but that was of course SD not HDV.

This is my take on things but I think it is fair:

In adobe the plan is to Edit in Premiere, effects in After Effects, and author in Encore...3 programs for 3 different tasks hence the dynamic link software and the hefty price tag.

With Sony the plan is to do everything but author in Vegas and author in DVD Architect Pro (supplied with Vegas.) The end result is it does lots of things very well but the interface is not always as clean as the Adobe counterpart. (Mainly because it is doing more than each Adobe product by itself.)

The end product can be just as good with either product (again my opinion.) As to importing into AE, I have no idea. You can export Quicktime from Vegas but I am not familiar with the codec you reference so i don't know how AE would handle the Qtime export.

One other thing to consider is if you like plug-ins. Vegas has some good options but most of the plug-in developers focus on FCP and Adobe for plug-ins, so you often find yourself reading about a new great boris pkg only to find there is no Vegas version, though Red Giant Software (Magic Bullet effects) seems to support Vegas users and creates great options.

If it helps clear the muddy water for you at all, I have PP3 and Vegas on my system and choose to use Vegas for my work almost exclusively. Good luck!

Thanks for more reassurment on Sony Vegas.

I prefer to do all my onlining(color correction, titles, dissolves, etc...) in AE. Would I have any problems exporting a QuickTime movie with the animation codec to import into AE?

I do not have a canon. I have a DVX and an EX1. I edit with Vegas after moving from PPro.

Most of my work is 2-6 hour conferences. I have worked on 4-6 hour projects in Vegas without issue for 3+ years. I just edited a full 1080i 2+ hour project last week.

I have used the Animation codec in quicktime out of Vegas, but there are better choices out there depending on what's needed.

If you'd like to discuss workflow privately, let me know. Vegas is not perfect and has some quirks, but stability is not one of them. I make part of my living editing corporate and conference videos and if Vegas had issues, I wouldn't touch it. I have a newish version of Premiere sitting unused in my desk drawer.

Kevin, take Perrone up on his offer, while I don't always agree with him on some issues, he is very knowledgeable and his beliefs are well grounded in years of experience.

Though not on your list, Edius 5 might be a possibility. It is stable and handles all the formats.

You can download a 30-day trial from here and try it:
Canopus Worldwide Home (http://desktop.thomsongrassvalley.com/home.php)

You can ask on the very responsive Canopus forums about the specific work flow you do and get responses from people who do similar work:
Thomson Grass Valley Desktop Solutions Forums (http://ediusforum.grassvalley.com/forum/)

Avid Liquid handles long projects well, and it handles native HDV well. However, any development on the product stopped months ago. The Avid Liquid forum has a few experienced users remaining, but many have moved on to other editors such as Composer, Edius, Vegas or other:
Pinnacle Systems - Forums - Liquid s/w - Liquid Pro - Liquid Chrome Xe (http://forums.pinnaclesys.com/forums/134/ShowForum.aspx)

I am using mainly Edius 5 for HDV editing. Was a Vegas user for years, but find it is not stable with XH-A1's 25F footage. Edius is much faster for rendering so even if Vegas was working fine, I would still be tending towards Edius.

Richard

I would vote for Edius as well, I have had good luck with it for the last 3 years.
However, if you are combining Edius with the A1 and Vista, watch out! There are some significant issues with this combination. I am going to have to set up a dual boot on my computer so I can capture in XP and then edit in Vista.

You might like Premiere Pro CS4 if you have the horses to run it. The production premium suite has, imho, what you need. Disclaimer: I have practically no experience with Vegas; like you, the interface looked hard to manage and I never went beyond the free trial. Lots of people love it.

But avoid Avid Liquid like the plague, it is much loved by it's affectionados, but is (A) end-of-life, perhaps to be replaced by something else (B) quirky and viciously unstable (just look at the user group on the Pinnacle website) It was given the Avid imprimitur to make it sound impressive, it really is a Pinnacle product and is the same engine as their Pinnacle Studio consumer product. I bought it, never got it to work reliably, and s***-canned it, taking the loss with a sigh of relief. My two cents. //Battle Vaughan/miamiherald.com video team

Disclaimer: I have practically no experience with Vegas; like you, the interface looked hard to manage and I never went beyond the free trial. Lots of people love it.


You wouldn't think that the move away from the A/B roll paradigm would be so off-putting, but that is the very first thing people see in Vegas and get turned off. I came from Premiere, so it was a change for me, but I didn't have 10 years of editing on A/B roll, so I just kinda went with it. I'm glad I did.

Frankly, you can set Vegas up to do something very much like A/B roll, but once you see the benefits of NOT doing things that way, it's hard to just go back to it.

Bryan, you are dead on with what Adobe is planning for people to use Premiere, AE, & Encore for. One other point I'll mention about my current workflow is that I apply all me CC, titles, effects, etc.. in a 16 bit enviorment. This way there is no loss of quality when I export my master. Even though my footage is 8 bit, I get better results when I edit in a 16 bit enviorment.

Part of the reason I love AE is that as long as I can export my footage from the NLE as a Quicktime movie with the anamation codec(lossless compression), or a TIFF sequence(also lossless compression), I don't have to worry about NLE specific plug-ins. I just need to have the specific plug-in for AE & I can import just about anything to apply the disired plug-in.

Do you know if Vegas export to tape on the XH-A1 in 24f & 60i?
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Perrone, I will definitelly be taking you up on your offer about discussing my workflow. Any pointers or steps that I can take to help streamline my workflow would be greatly appreciated! I will shoot you an email through your profile with my email address.

Thank you for confirming that I can export a QuickTime movie with the animation codec out of Vegas. As stated above, I like to work in a 16 bit environment to prevent any loss of quality while adding CC, effects, etc.

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Jack & Richard, would either of you know wether I need to use Edius 5 or would Edius Neo work for me? They both claim that they can handle HDV, but do they both capture 24F? I was looking at the comparison and most of the features listed in Edius 5 seam like overkill for me. Does either of these flavors of Edius burn Blu-ray, or export to tape on the XH-A1 in 24f & 60i?

Do you know if there is an Academic version of Edius? The $700 sticker price is a little out of my budget.
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Mark, I am currently running XP & have no interest of jumping to Vista so I should be OK if I choose to move to Edius right?

System specs:
XP 32 bit
Dual Core 3.2 GHz
3.5GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT(256MB)
RAID 5 HDD for video storage.
Single HDD for OS/programs
Single HDD for render/previews

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Battle Vaughan, do you know if On Location works wtih the XH-A1 in 24f to record to disc?

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I have downloaded the demo version of both Vegas and Edius. I will give them both a try and test out the batch capture, scene detection, multicam editing, and output otpions.

I've been wondering if maybe I should keep using PP2 for my short films so that I can easily move my projects into AE. Then I would use Vegas or Edius for my conference videos & just forget about using AE for them if I can get satisfactory results from using either Vegas or Edius. Any thoughts on this idea?

Perrone, I will definitelly be taking you up on your offer about discussing my workflow. Any pointers or steps that I can take to help streamline my workflow would be greatly appreciated! I will shoot you an email through your profile with my email address.

Thank you for confirming that I can export a QuickTime movie with the animation codec out of Vegas. As stated above, I like to work in a 16 bit environment to prevent any loss of quality while adding CC, effects, etc.

Here you can see a screenshot of some of the quicktime codecs available/loaded.

Kevin, I have used OnLocation CS4 with my XHa1 in 60i mode but not in 24f, so I will have to run a test and get back to you tomorrow.

Kevin, I have used OnLocation CS4 with my XHa1 in 60i mode but not in 24f, so I will have to run a test and get back to you tomorrow.

If you could do that for me, I would greatly appreciate it!

Perrone, thanks for the screen grab!

Update -- borrowed a friends computer at work that has OnLocation CS3 on it, it recorded to disk just fine at 24f, although the recorder info shows 29.97 frames, the output as read in MPEGStreamclip shows an mt2 file at 23.976 fps, mpeg2 file, 1440x1080, 16:9, etc. etc. Audio MP2 stereo 48khx, 384 kbps. It never pays to assume with Adobe, but probably CS4 version works also. I'll check when I get home.../Battle Vaughan/miamiherald.com video team.

PS the native OnL format seems to be avi, but I couldn't find how to change that, it defaulted to m2t, maybe because that's what the camera was sending...

...I apply all me CC, titles, effects, etc.. in a 16 bit enviorment. This way there is no loss of quality when I export my master. Even though my footage is 8 bit, I get better results when I edit in a 16 bit enviorment...Do you know if Vegas export to tape on the XH-A1 in 24f & 60i?


Right, ok i think I was a little to vague when I posted before. In vegas you don't need the external aps anymore. you want to color correct, title, add effects? Welcome to Vegas the all in one solution. No more transfers over to Audition for audio correcting, you want to alpha mask, no more transfers to AE. The end result is a highly functional all in one solution for your video needs. you do sacrifice some of the clean interface of the Adobe line of products but the Vegas interface is highly customizable and intuitive. Your playback window may not always be as friendly as premiere but that is because you don't generally do effects in Premiere, you would export to AE for that, with Vegas it is all in one so it is hungrier for your resources. I enjoy PP3 and respect it's power but often find my results in Vegas to be equal at 1/2 the cost now and in the future as upgrades come out.

Vegas does support output to tape, though again, i don't have that camera but I don't see why the camera model would matter.

Right, ok i think I was a little to vague when I posted before. In vegas you don't need the external aps anymore. you want to color correct, title, add effects? Welcome to Vegas the all in one solution. No more transfers over to Audition for audio correcting, you want to alpha mask, no more transfers to AE. The end result is a highly functional all in one solution for your video needs. you do sacrifice some of the clean interface of the Adobe line of products but the Vegas interface is highly customizable and intuitive. Your playback window may not always be as friendly as premiere but that is because you don't generally do effects in Premiere, you would export to AE for that, with Vegas it is all in one so it is hungrier for your resources. I enjoy PP3 and respect it's power but often find my results in Vegas to be equal at 1/2 the cost now and in the future as upgrades come out.

Vegas does support output to tape, though again, i don't have that camera but I don't see why the camera model would matter.
I did understand that Vegas is supposed to be the all-in-one solution, but as far as I know(and please correct me if I'm wrong) Vegas doesn't edit in a 32 bit environment. That is why I would prefer to apply my CC for my short films in AE. I wouldn't mind so much if my conference videos were completely edited, CC, and finally authored to DVD in Vegas because I'm more concerned with speed than anything else in that situation.

And output to tape is supported in Premiere for almost every camera except the XL-H1, XH-A1, & XH-G1. It's just something about the 24f that Premiere & a couple other NLE's don't like.

Vegas pro-8 and later, will edit in a 32 bit floating point environment

I wish i could be more helpful on the export to tape but surely someone on here is more knowledgeable than I on that. Best Wishes!

If you're using 24F the discussion linked below might be of interest. The 24f thing is over my head, but there's pulldowns and flags that aren't implemented and a bunch of technical stuff that indicates Canon's 24 frame mode is Canon thing that other brands of kit may not understand. Our Sony decks won't play it back, for instance. I find myself wondering if one could use a consumer Canon camera --- a used HV20, say, from Ebay --- as a deck and write to tape from Premiere to it, if one needed to do that...just musing....apparently Premiere understands 24f at standard def as a 60i file, somehow, but hdv/mpeg is a different story. Premiere 2.0 had a 24f plugin available, I assume it may be in CS4 but we don't do 24 frame so I've never looked...

Here's the link -- Re: Deck for reading Canon 24f? : HDV Format (http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/162/869513)

Battle Vaughan

OnLocation CS4 happily recorded the XHA1 at 24f to disk,making m2t files. On first try in Premiere Pro CS4 the first clip opened nicely requiring no rendering on a sequence setting of hdv 1080p 24, although this isn't really correct, I think. Subsequent clips showed an odd "dimensions too large error", probably something I did; tried at 60i as well (I have read that for some reason the 24F is read as 60i on some nle's) and got the same message. Should not deter, I think, as this was a quick test and I probably have a rogue setting in my sequence. It worked a charm on the first clip..../Battle Vaughan

I put the clips on my quad-core (had them on my laptop, much lower powered!) and things are working nicely, the boggle was my underpowered laptop, not the process, I think. M2Tclips import to PPro, require no rendering, output nicely (for grins I made a 720p AVI conversion and it's bee-youtiful....) Hope this helps....Battle Vaughan

Thank you for all the responses. I think I am going to go with Vegas to cut my Event videos with!

Thanks again!

I know I'm a little late to the party, busy busy busy...but just to clarify, the Academic Version of Avid Media Composer does NOT contain the 3rd party software included in the full version. Otherwise I would have grabbed it for the incredibly low pricetag I was quoted.
Avid Media Composer Software (http://www.avid.com/products/Media-Composer-Software/specs.asp)

I know I'm a little late to the party, busy busy busy...but just to clarify, the Academic Version of Avid Media Composer does NOT contain the 3rd party software included in the full version. Otherwise I would have grabbed it for the incredibly low pricetag I was quoted.
Avid Media Composer Software (http://www.avid.com/products/Media-Composer-Software/specs.asp)

I was actually looking at a product on CampusTech that says it does include all the bundled software. They sell the regular Academic version, and this other version that I was looking at that includes the extra software and training DVD's.