It appears that I will be taking that trip to Vegas but I do have some concerns.

1. Is Sony Vegas compatible with the Canon HV30? That is the software I plan on using.

2. I once took a class in Flash which was a disaster. I am concerned with having a replay of that event. Is Vegas as or more complicated as flash? I realize Flash is based on animation.

3. Is there a thread of original content that has been edited by Vegas? I have seen on so far, I am curious to see how others have fared.


Thank you

Tim:

I have been using Vegas 8 Pro with HV20 material regularly. However, in the HDV end of editing you have many things to consider. First thing is what are the resources in terms of computer. If you have a minimal system, your experience with any editor will be unsatisfactory with HDV editing.

Second issue I can see arising is whether you intend to use to the fullest advantage, the 24p feature of the camera. While you can edit the raw 24p HDV footage, it will include pulldown that allows you it to be played in the normal HDV 60i stream. If you want to edit true 24p, Vegas does not actually remove the pull down from the HV20/30/40 cameras..... except that I now understand the HV40 may actually shoot raw in 24p, that has no pulldown inserted. With the 30 though, you will need to have something to remove the pulldown. There are some free long winded methods out there, but I use Cineform, and Cineform's Neo Scene at $129.00 is fine for your needs.

That program is a stand alone capture utility and codec. The footage actually is converted to a .avi file, about 3 times as large as the HDV .m2t file would be. While the files are large, it actually is easier to edit with in terms of processing demands.

Something else about Vegas. A lot of us cannot get full level preview. The preview will strobe in some situations, depending on how much you have color corrected and otherwise filtered. In those situations, setting the preview to a lower or draft level gives you a full motion preview, but with reduced resolution. In those situation I will toggle back and forth using the best preview, when I am not actually playing back time line, so I can see how the image looks at the cursor frame.

I originally used other editors, including Pinnacle Studio, and Premiere. It took a few months to get used to Vegas, but I don't edit with anything else now,

Thanks for the heads up. I am definitely going for Vegas.