I normally edit in Sony Vegas Pro 10.0e, but since Magic Bullet is no longer supported on Vegas, I had to start using After Effects CS 5.5 to apply the Magic Bullet plugins.

My question is if I adjust things like color, denoising, etc. with MB on AE, how do I move that adjusted/edited video clip back to Sony Vegas without losing quality? I've rendered out from AE as an uncompressed .avi but the file size is ridiculous - 7.5gb or so for a 52 second denoised video clip (1080p, 24fps, file from Canon 60D/7D).

Do you get generational loss the more you render out? First render from AE, then throw that rendered file onto Vegas, which then renders out a second time for the final output?

Exporting from AE to Vegas is best done as uncompressed and yes the files are huge.
Cineform or Lagarith is also an option. Less larger files.
You could consider Premiere where you can apply MBL directly on the timeline.

Zhong,

I've been editing in Vegas, applying MBL in AE then final rendering back in Vegas. I'm using Cineform and the quality is very good and file sizes are manageable. However I recently found a major problem with this workflow.

It works ok if:

1. You convert your footage to Cineform using their converter HD Link.

2. Edit in Vegas and then smart render your clips out of Vegas to the same Cineform file specs with no effect applied. If you do it right the preview window in Vegas will say "No Compression necessary" while rendering.

3. Bring your footage into AE and work your magic then render back out to Cineform and bring the clip into Vegas and add as a take or place in a new track. You can also do color correction in First Light if you have Neo and I find the combination with AE tools to work well.

Here's the problem: If you ever render your clips out of Vegas where it has to re-compress the file (for example using a mask, transition or any kind of effect even with no settings applied) then something happens to the Cineform file and when you bring it into AE your black levels will jump about 7.5 IRE higher. I've been talking with Cineform support about this and they have confirmed the problem but told me it is a Sony issue. The last time I had a problem with Cineform in Vegas it took Sony about 1.5 years to fix it so I am not holding my breath on this.

Another option you may want to consider in the free Avid HD codec. I have not tested it yet but it may not suffer from the same problem that the Sony/Cineform combo do and I've heard the quality is excellent.

Also, you will not suffer extra generational loss if you smart render form Vegas (NOTE: Make sure when you capture in HD Link to choose "i-frames only". Vegas requires this for smart rendering to work). In the current project I'm working on AE is doing most of the rendering and Vegas only renders transitions and titles in 32bit so the final quality is very good. Using that method you can keep rendering passes to a minimum.

Regards, Marc