general questions about worfklow in vegas + cineform

[Frédéric Salvy]

hello all.
here is a list of questions i've not found in the FAQ.

Sytem I will use (draft)
1 single Intel quad core (q6600 or q9450)
4GB RAM
Dedicated HDDx2 for OS (RAID1)
Dedicated HDDx2 for video (RAID0)
Windows XP 32.
Sony vegas 8
Cineform NEO 4K
Blackmagic decklink pro (4:4:4)
AJA 2Ke (4:4:4)

is someone using a DELL precision machine with decklink successfully ?

I) Codec :
cineform is similar to MJPEG2000 ends with "I-frames with wavelets compression in Variable BitRate, constant quality" -- we have none of the compute load issues. We are between 5-7 times faster for encode and decode than JPEG2000. No hardware is needed.

Data rates depend on you, your quality choice and your content. Data rates in compression ratios work for all source formats. 10:1 for good quality, 7:1 for very good quality with peak data rate hitting 4:1 (rare.)

that means (video stream only):
SDvideo = 4:2:2 10bits YUV 720x486i @29,97fps ->32Mb/s = 4MB/s
HDvideo = 4:2:2 10bits YUV 1080i@59,94fps ->190Mb/s = 24MB/s
HDvideoRGB = 4:4:4 10bits RGB @59,94fps ->284Mb/s = 35.5MB/s

so even a single drive 7200rpm can handle full hd :)

II) Sources :
[SD] My source is meanly from a Sony VTR deck with Digital Betacam SD. Can I capture in SD 4:2:2 10 bits ? What is the minimum CPU to do that (max quality) ? how much RAM is needed ?
(I mean capture with preview + inverse telecine process.)
The final quality will be about the same as from the tape (archiving purpose)?

[HD] My source is meanly from a Sony HDCAM SR deck with Digital Betacam HD. Can I capture in SD 4:4:4 12 bits 1080i60/1080p60 ? What is the minimum CPU to do that (max quality) ? how much RAM is needed ?
Is it best to have a 4 cores @3Ghz or a 8 cores @2Ghz ?
(I mean capture with preview + inverse telecine process.)
The final quality will be about the same as from the tape (archiving purpose)?


III) Preview :
Do I have a preview during capture in realtime (with AJA and Blackmagic cards) ? this preview in on the PC monitor only ? Or can I have the preview outputted to SDI ? this preview reflect the input only, or the on-fly-compressed video ?
only AJA card is working for preview from the timeline, not (yet) blackmagic ? (i mean no delay, perfect sync perfect output)

IV) Timecode :
Do I get the timecode form the Deck and from SDI LTC-VITC (live sources) into the captured file ?. Is the embeded timecode available into AVI and MOV files ?
In vegas is there a way to see this embedded timecode (timecode reader) ? A way to burn it in the video ?

V) Closed Captions
[SD] EIA-608, closed captioning in line 21. Do the CC is embedded into the captured file ? AVI and MOV ? when I playback from the Vegas timeline, do I directly see the CC (via external decoder) ? With both AJA and blackmagic cards ?

[HD] EIA-708, closed captioning in line 9. Do the CC is embedded into the captured file ? AVI and MOV ? when I playback from the Vegas timeline, do I directly see the CC (via external decoder) ? With both AJA and blackmagic cards ?

VI) Inverse telecine (24p film look)
My sources are mostly film telecined into digital betacam tapes NTSC. Is there a way to automatically remove the telecine process during capture ? I mean a professional film look, with no more fields, whatever the pulldown sequence of the source is (clean or broken). What happen if the source is purely video or video and telecined mixed ?
With 24p, my final footage will be much higher quality and less CPU intensive to process ?
Then can I edit this footage transparently in Vegas ? Can I mix normal video and 24p footage ?



VII) And ultimate capture question :
Can I capture directly in Vegas with :
- close caption
- time code
- preview
- inverse telecine
- HD or SD

Or I must use cineform HDlink ?


best regards to this forum, cineform and vegas !

frédéric