I'm fairly experienced in the ways of SD video editing with Vegas, but I'm brand new to the HD world. I am doing some test shooting with a new Canon 60D and thought I would shoot in 1080 30p as recommended as a good setting for wedding videography, but I don't see this setting in Vegas. The closest setting is 1080 60i in both the "new" dialog box and "render."

I'm confused as to how I edit and render 1080 30p.

This is Vegas Pro 9 if that makes a difference.

Try this... File->New; To the right of the template will be a "folder" icon. If you hover over it, the bubble will say "Match Media Settings". Click on this icon and navigate to one of the clips you captured, click on the clip and "open". This will automagically match your project setting to your source.

Edit: As far as rendering is concerned, the answer depend on you distribution medium. Remember you can aways click the "custom" button and change the params.

Good Luck!
...Jerry

Thank you very much. This is even more confusing than I thought it was going to be.

I found it ridiculous that there's no template for 1080 30p, I started with the 1080 24p and modified the settings. You can use the "Match Media Settings" option to select a source file an use its properties for the project. But, there's still no template to render as 1080 30p. I used "Internet 1920x1080-30p" (for Sony AVC), and modified the video and audio properties (for my NX5U: Video 20,000,000 bps, Audio 48,000 Hz, 192,000 bps), then save as a custom template.

If anyone has a better method, please share.

Simply choose the HD 1080-60i (1920x1080, 29.970 fps) template then go into project properties and under Field Order set it to None (progressive scan). That's of course assuming you're talking about 29.970 fps and not actual 30 fps. You can save this template if you want. When you render do the same thing. For whatever codec you want to render to (AVC, mpeg2, etc.) choose the 60i option and change the field order to None (progressive scan).

If the original footage is in 30p when you render, Vegas will simply keep the progressive frames in tact. Vegas will not interlace then deinterlace the footage.

If your source footage is true 30 fps (not 29.970) then simply change the framerate to 30 by typing it in. But most likely you are actually shooting 29.970fps so the built in framerates should work.

-Garrett

"...there's no template for 1080 30p..."

there is (so far) only 1080p24 in the industry.

camcorders can capture 1080p60, and some online services use mp4 1080p24/30 for satellite or broadband internet delivery... but Blu-Ray media only goes to 1080p24 and the spec for HD broadcast is either 720p60 or 1080i60.

no doubt 1080p30/50/60 will happen... but not yet :)

-

to OP:

if you're wanting to work in source format, do as Jerry suggests...
1) go File > New
2) click the "Match Media Settings" (top right) of Project Properties window
3) a dialog box will open...
4) navigate to one of the files you intend to edit and select it

once selected, Vegas will generate Project Settings based on the media you've chosen... save the project settings as a Template for future use if you want.

I have been shooting in 1920 x 1080, 60i. I have been considering switching to 30p. The thing that I am wondering is even though the DVD and BluRay spec don't support 30p, does it work in practical use? That is do players and TVs generally support 30p?

A couple of things I don't like about 60i is that when cropping on the time line or when downsizing to SD, the footage is first deinterlaced and then reinterlaced which damages the sharpness of the footage. With progressive, this isn't the case. Am I overlooking anything? I want the best quality footage possible.

Jim,

As Rob noted, at present there is no support in Blu-ray for 30p. However, if your source material is progressive, creating a 60i BR when presented will actually be a 30p picture. Current TV's are capable of progressive pictures so when the interlaced frames are placed back together the picture creates the original progressive image.

To preserve your 30p source just choose a 60i frame rate. I should have mentioned in my first post that rendering to 30p is for DVD's. Creating a DVD with 30p footage does work. I do it for most of the Dance Shows I do. As I mentioned for Blu-rays you have to create 60i footage but since I shoot in 30p it comes out as progressive and you don't have the offset in the two interlaced frames that you would if you shoot 60i.

-Garrett

Thanks Garrett, Are there any combing artifacts on BluRay when the 30P is converted to 60i? As I understand 60i interlaced, each field is separated from the other by 1/60th of a second. Even with a good conversion from 30p to 60i, isn't there some visible loss such as combing artifacts or loss of resolution?

Nope, no combing effects or loss of resolution. Those occur when you have 60i source material and create 30p. It's due to the fact that each "1/2 frame" is created with a 1/60th of a second separation. For scenes with motion there is a noticeable shift between the two 1/2 frames creating the full frame. If you use your NLE to create a true progressive frame from the interlaced material there will be a slight loss of resolution due to the fact that it is creating a new frame from predicting the full frame from the 1/2 frames (that's the best way I can put it without going into the details of various methods).

If you start with progressive material and only render to 60i, all that is happening is each 1/60 of a second there is every other line from the progressive full frame. Then the next 1/60 frame are the other half of the same frame. When you put these back together it recreates the same progressive frame as original. Remember, with modern televisions using progressive scan, they are taking the two 1/60th interlaced frames first, creating the full frame, then progressively displaying the picture.

The key is to shoot in 30p, edit in 30p, then only render out to 60i. I've done this many times and it works great both for BR and DVD.

-Garrett

I currently use a Sony EX1R as my primary camera. I am going to buy a Panasonic GH2 as soon as it is released. It doesn't shoot in 30p. It only shoots 24p or 60i. Is it a good idea to convert the 60i from the GH2 to 30p with Cineform (which I also use) if I am going to have the GH2 footage in the same project as my EX1R footage shot at 30p? I don't like 24p but I do want the best video quality possible.

For me, it really depends on the content and mix of footage. I shoot primarily with an EX3 and use a Canon HV20 as a B/Backup cam. The HV20 also only shoots 60i like your GH2. Most of the time when using the HV20 it is only for short master or cutaways so when producing a 30p project I use Cineform to deinterlace and live with the slight loss of resolution. I do shoot a lot of 24p material for independent movies/documentaries and only occasionally shot 60i for some sporting events.

Cineform does a pretty good job at deinterlacing but I'd suggest that you do some test footage shooting some similar footage to your project using your EX1R and GH2 and going through the various work flows. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes and either solution, taking 60i and deinterlacing or shooting all in 60i, has it's pros and cons. The biggest issues I have is getting good color matching between my two cameras.

-Garrett

OK, I know this is like basic stuff, but I'm struggling a bit with learning how to edit and render with my new Canon 60D. I'm recording at what the camera calls, 1920x1080 30. The files I take off my HDSC card are Quick Time Movie files(.MOV). After I transfer them to my media drive, is there anything else I need to do to the files before editing? My system really struggles to play the video in the Vegas timeline. I have the preview window quality turned down to "draft" "auto" but the image seems a bit jumpy, like the processor can't keep up. Do I need to render the files that come out of the camera with another computer program first?

Vegas 9.0e
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU6600 @2.4 GHz 2.70 GHz
4.00GB RAM
Windows 7 64 Bit

Geoffrey, you have three basic directions you can go with this:

1) Further optimize, if possible, your PC for Vegas playback. Make sure that Vegas has all the OS resources you can give it.

This may not give you what you want. V9 and all previous versions use Apple's Quicktime for playback of these files - ouch, there's a real bottleneck there!

2) Transcode to some intermediate codec that is better behaved. Cineform NeoScene for $100, DVFilm's Epic for $45, or Sony MXF, built-in to Vegas. Cineform and Epic have trial versions.

Of course, the drawback is that extra step of transcoding takes time. Epic works in the background to transcode while you work.

3) For V10, Sony wrote their own decoder for mov such as the 60D clips. It works better. There's a trial version of V10, too, and you can install it and keep your V9.

Which of these might work for you? It depends on what kind of work you're doing. I used to use Cineform, have demoed Epic, but am currently using the native playback in v10. My work doesn't require layering multiple video streams. I'd suggest you try some of the above, and figure out what's good enough and best matched to your workflow. They're all very reasonable solutions...

Seth,

What a clear, concise, understandable answer. I just downloaded Vegas 10 and it must do it's thing without me telling it to. The only thing I did was to select my clips in the "explorer window" - right clicked - and selected "add to project media list." At that point it seemed to be doing something to each clip. Anyway, after that, I put my clips on the timeline and it behaves much, much better.

Thank you very much.

Geoff

I realize that my clips AREN'T playing smoothly in my Vegas 10 timeline after all. Did you say there is a built-in transcoder to Vegas 10? I can't figure out how to get it to transcode my Canon clips. There's nothing in the Vegas 10 help files about transcoding. Thanks. Geoff

Geoff, have a look at this: How to Transcode .mov Files using Matrox Codecs | Custom Made Computers (http://buildyourown.wordpress.com/2010/08/08/how-to-transcode-mov-files-using-matrox-codecs/)

Seth,

If you have a really fast PC and a good Cuda enabled video card, you should be able to work with 2 or 3 .mov files in the timeline. Beyond that or with special effects, you will have some stuttering and things get difficult, even in V10. There you can use Cineform's NeoScene to transfer from card to PC in a really good .avi codec that let's your PC breathe much easier. Even older PC's can run several tracks smoothly and modern ones can run many tracks. The .avi files are significantly bigger than the native camera files though.

If you have a really fast PC and a good Cuda enabled video card, you should be able to work with 2 or 3 .mov files in the timeline. Beyond that or with special effects, you will have some stuttering and things get difficult, even in V10. There you can use Cineform's NeoScene to transfer from card to PC in a really good .avi codec that let's your PC breathe much easier. Even older PC's can run several tracks smoothly and modern ones can run many tracks. The .avi files are significantly bigger than the native camera files though.


Fast PC yes, but a CUDA video card will do nothing to help on the timeline. CUDA does ONE thing for Vegas users; it provides faster encoding of AVC files. That's it.

I agree that Cineform is a very useful intermediate codec. Since it converts to 4:2:2, it also allows more ability to color correct without the video breaking down.

Jim,

Looks like you are right on the Cuda. They improved the performance in the timeline significantly somehow, V10 runs better on my DSLR footage than 9.

I realize that my clips AREN'T playing smoothly in my Vegas 10 timeline after all. Did you say there is a built-in transcoder to Vegas 10? I can't figure out how to get it to transcode my Canon clips. There's nothing in the Vegas 10 help files about transcoding. Thanks. Geoff
To use native Vegas capabilities, you'd load clips on the timeline, then render to MXF. There are various batch render scripts that would help render clips individually, if desired. Vegas itself doesn't have a "transcode" function, which is why it doesn't appear in the helpfile or manual. Again, both Cineform NeoScene and DVFilm Epic have demos, they're worth checking out before you settle on a workflow.

Seth,

If you have a really fast PC and a good Cuda enabled video card, you should be able to work with 2 or 3 .mov files in the timeline. Beyond that or with special effects, you will have some stuttering and things get difficult, even in V10. There you can use Cineform's NeoScene to transfer from card to PC in a really good .avi codec that let's your PC breathe much easier. Even older PC's can run several tracks smoothly and modern ones can run many tracks. The .avi files are significantly bigger than the native camera files though.
I'm running a stock i7-920 with lots of ram, and I'm pretty happy with timeline performance. Since v10 came out, I've done a series of green-screen clips at 1920x1080 with 5d native footage, and chromakey is one of those efx that will slow things down! No complaints here, though, it's working adequately, and I don't need to transcode for these projects. I do most of this editing at Preview-Half, with keys checked at Best-Full, and animated masks checked at Best-Full using RAM pre-render.

It sounds like a lot of work switching between preview modes, but in practice it's really quite smooth.

I've downloaded and installed the trial version of Cineform and transcoded some files with it. It seems to help playability in Vegas preview, but it still is a bit jumpy. I can't tell how smooth my pans or any camera movement are until I render and watch in a separate player. I have a pretty fast quad core machine with a dedicated "media" drive sharing the shame channel as my program drive. I can't figure out why I don't get smooth enough playback to be able to judge my camera work. Would a Black Magic card help in this regard? Thanks!

Just curious, what processor and what kind of hard drive are you using? Problem sounds similar to symptoms that would manifest if the hard drive is a USB external. Or maybe it's overly full? Or just a slow drive?

If your using the Q6600 processor, etc, in theory it should be OK with Cineform files...but it is not the ideal procesor for playing with HD. It is a generation to old to be ideal; but again, it should work with Cineform. You probably have an i7, right?

Let us know what you're running.

Oh yes, do you have a separte controller for your media drive you can hook up to? It could be choking for that reason, though it is unlikely. It is more likely to be a slow drive, IMO.

At any rate, it does sound like your hardware is choking, or maybe your preview setting is on Best. If so it shouldn't be. Preveiw Auto is the setting I use and would recommend.

Windows 7 64bit
Motherboard ASUSTeK P5N-E SLI version 1.XX
CPU Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz

Measured Speed 2700.7MHz
Bus Speed 300Mhz
Front side bus Speed 1200Mhz

Total Physical Memory 4094 MB RAM (sticks of 2GB RAM DDR2)

I have three drives. The media drive bench marked with the following results just now:
Disk Mark - MBytes transferred per second: 448
Sequential Read MBytes transferred per second 60
Sequential Write MBytes transferred per second 61
Random Seek + RW 2.26

I just did another test.

I put the Cineform file in the timeline and watched it in the preview window at "preview" quality and it ran at 16 fps.

I put the virgin Quicktime Movie file from my camera in the timeline and it played at 29.970 fps.

Maybe you're transcoding using the wrong settings? I don't know.

Your hard drive sounds plenty fast. With Vegas preview dependent on the processor for the most part, I'm suspecting your processor is bogging down. Again it should work for your Cineform files, though.

Just on general principles, if I were editing/processing HD files of any kind, I would consider something a bit more powerful anyway. The Q6600 is a fine processor, but not optimized for video quite like the i7.

Even with the i7 at 3.6 GHz, editing AVCHD is still a challenge, but for a single cam edit I don't need to transcode and things flow well enough. So far I've been able to dodge needing Cineform. I edit so little AVCHD anyway right now.

The Blackmagic card you mentioned, I don't know how much it costs, but as I recall it's pricey. Does it work with Vegas? I guess it does, I've seen it mentioned a lot around here. I would opt for a newer processor before I bought that card, but that is just me.