What program to use to edit V1 footage? at DVinfo.net

John Huebbe · March 1st, 2007, 12:45 PM

I've searched the forums and most people seem to be using either Final Cut, Vegas, or Premiere Pro 2.0 to edit their HDV footage that was shot on the V1. I'm a windows guy, so I don't have Final cut. I have premiere pro and I downloaded the demo for Vegas, but both seem very slow and I'm not impressed so far.

My system is 3.6ghz Dual core Intel, 2gig memory, 4x72gb WD Raptor hard drives in a raid setup, GeForce 6600 video card.

Is this a good enough setup to edit HDV? Vegas only shows 12 - 14 fps just playing a clip from the timeline, no edits or effects. VLC player doesn't even strain when I play a video clip off of my drive, so something seems odd to me.

In the past working with DV, I would edit everything with Newtek's VT4 editor. I've considered buying their new program, SpeedEdit, but they don't have a demo that I can tryout.

Are there add-in cards that will speed up the performance of Vegas or Premiere Pro? Am I doing something wrong?

Ray Bell · March 1st, 2007, 12:53 PM

Go to Cineform and download the tryout... cineform will convert the V1 footage to what is term'd "Cineform intermediate" in an AVI file format....

very very easy to use...

after its converted to AVI just edit as a standard video file then, when you get done editing you have the option of how to output the video file...

your computer should be more than fine for editing this type of video...

John Huebbe · March 1st, 2007, 01:28 PM

Thanks. I checked out their website. It says "Vegas 6 and 7 both ship with basic CineForm Intermediate HDV codec components for an improved HD editing workflow" So... when I was using Vegas (for the first time, mind you), did I screw something up? Do I need to enable it or envoke some tool to use it or is it already enabled?

Chris Barcellos · March 1st, 2007, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Huebbe

Thanks. I checked out their website. It says "Vegas 6 and 7 both ship with basic CineForm Intermediate HDV codec components for an improved HD editing workflow" So... when I was using Vegas (for the first time, mind you), did I screw something up? Do I need to enable it or envoke some tool to use it or is it already enabled?

I think you have to capture in HDV, then render out to the codec to edit in it. HD Connect allows direct capture to their codec, and also, as I understand it, provides advanced not basic codecs and advanced editing capabilities. Cineform Aspect even goes farther in the Premeire Pro arena...

Dave Blackhurst · March 1st, 2007, 02:04 PM

Hi John -
Your computer should be adequate, running a dual core 3800+ athlon here, nuthing fancy on the HD, just plain vanilla 7200rpm non RAID, 2G RAM.

FWIW, with Vegas 6, it was pretty choppy, but with 7, it's been smooth enough to work with - you may want to fiddle with the preview window settings some (4 with 4 subsettings, if my memory is correct). In the highest quality, it can be a bit sluggish, but you can find an acceptable quilaity for editing from my experience, it doesn't have to be the "best", although I find all the "draft" settings to be sorta ugly.

If you look under render settings, you'll find a setting to render to intermediate format... I've used it, and it does make the previews work pretty much like SD DV, since the computer is no longer trying to reproduce the long-GOP frames on the fly (at least that's my impression of why it is faster).

Two warnings, you file size will expand by approx 4x, since it's "extracting" quite a bit more info to create an .avi file (which is then easier for your computer to process). Those 72G hard drives will fill up fast.
Second, I found the time required to create the .avi intermediate files was pretty tedious - I ended up just letting the machine run overnight... not good if you're on a high priority project, but it was necessary in Veg 6, once I got 7, I've had no problem editing native m2t files, even with infinicam and 2 HDV streams (and I think I will be able to do 4... will know shortly!)

Hope that will help you some, editing HDV takes mre horsepower than SD, but your specs "should" be enough, they are pretty close to my box, just in Intel flavor.

DB>)

Luis de la Cerda · March 2nd, 2007, 01:02 PM

SpeedEDIT is great. I use it on a daily basis and it just screams. It has a much better scaling engine for going down to SD than both vegas and premiere (comparable to virtualdub using lanczos, I can post some comparison shots.) On a 2.3 Ghz laptop it renders HDV out to SD at around 2x realtime (meaning a 3 minute clip renders out in a minute and a half.) It can also sustain multiple streams of native hdv with dves and color correction in real time (again, on my laptop I can do 2 streams, color corrected, DVE's on both and a CG layer on top in real time, full res preview, not a single frame dropped.) It can also do firewire hdv preview in real time, to use your deck to go out to a proper video monitor. No other NLE that I know of can do this. I actually expected real time performance to be much worse when going out via firewire in real time because of the encoding that has to happen, but to my surprise, it gets the same number of layers of real time video going on as the regular preview window method. You can't go wrong with SpeedEDIT :)

Doug Graham · March 2nd, 2007, 02:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luis de la Cerda

You can't go wrong with SpeedEDIT :)

I saw a demo of SpeedEDIT this week and was very impressed. I currently own Vegas 7 and Liquid Edition 7; both of them handle HDV quite well. But if you don't have an HDV-capable NLE at present, NewTek is having a heck of an introductory sale on SpeedEDIT, and it could be a very good choice.

Ray Bell · March 2nd, 2007, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Huebbe

Thanks. I checked out their website. It says "Vegas 6 and 7 both ship with basic CineForm Intermediate HDV codec components for an improved HD editing workflow" So... when I was using Vegas (for the first time, mind you), did I screw something up? Do I need to enable it or envoke some tool to use it or is it already enabled?

Wow, download the full version of Cineform Aspect and use it with your
Adobe Premiere...

What your not understanding is the statement " components "...

Download the full version and make sure you underastand how to use it....
It works great on the V1 footage...

The first thing you'l want to run is the Cineform program by itself.... this converts the V1 footage to AVI and then you just import this footage into
Premiere and edit it from there.... while in Premiere you can use the "components" to enhance the footage..........

Barry J. Weckesser · March 3rd, 2007, 05:27 AM

You also might consider Canopus Edius v 4 (current is 4.13) along with the NX Card for HDV with component video out. I have found it to be very stable and excellent for realtime output of your projects.

Lester Marston · March 3rd, 2007, 06:11 PM

Have you considered Avid Xpress Pro HD?

I've been an Avid user for the last six or so years and have recently purchased a V1 and put it through it's paces within the Avid environment.

Xpress Pro HD includes a proprietary intermediary codec (akin to cineform), which facilitates the transcoding, within the Avid interface, of digitised HDV footage to a more edit-friendly format than MPEG2, without compromising resolution.

Worth a look.

Jiri Bakala · March 3rd, 2007, 06:36 PM

Hi Lester,

I am an Avid user as well but I am running mine on a Mac (I think that you are probably on PC?). I am very curious to know how you find the V1 to be treated by Avid with all the frame rate varieties. I only had the V1U here for a weekend and recorded in 24p HDV, which my Avid didn't want to capture. I had machine control and could shuffle the tape well but the capture would repeatedly give me an error message. What has been your experience?

My version is Avid Xpress Pro 5.6.4 software on OSX.

March 1st, 2007, 12:45 PM	#1
John Huebbe Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: St. Charles Posts: 141	What program to use to edit V1 footage? I've searched the forums and most people seem to be using either Final Cut, Vegas, or Premiere Pro 2.0 to edit their HDV footage that was shot on the V1. I'm a windows guy, so I don't have Final cut. I have premiere pro and I downloaded the demo for Vegas, but both seem very slow and I'm not impressed so far. My system is 3.6ghz Dual core Intel, 2gig memory, 4x72gb WD Raptor hard drives in a raid setup, GeForce 6600 video card. Is this a good enough setup to edit HDV? Vegas only shows 12 - 14 fps just playing a clip from the timeline, no edits or effects. VLC player doesn't even strain when I play a video clip off of my drive, so something seems odd to me. In the past working with DV, I would edit everything with Newtek's VT4 editor. I've considered buying their new program, SpeedEdit, but they don't have a demo that I can tryout. Are there add-in cards that will speed up the performance of Vegas or Premiere Pro? Am I doing something wrong?

March 1st, 2007, 01:28 PM	#3
John Huebbe Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: St. Charles Posts: 141	Thanks. I checked out their website. It says "Vegas 6 and 7 both ship with basic CineForm Intermediate HDV codec components for an improved HD editing workflow" So... when I was using Vegas (for the first time, mind you), did I screw something up? Do I need to enable it or envoke some tool to use it or is it already enabled? __________________ - John http://www.321govideo.com

March 3rd, 2007, 05:27 AM	#9
Barry J. Weckesser Major Player Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Sarasota, Florida Posts: 427	Canopus Edius v 4.0 and NX card You also might consider Canopus Edius v 4 (current is 4.13) along with the NX Card for HDV with component video out. I have found it to be very stable and excellent for realtime output of your projects.

March 3rd, 2007, 06:36 PM	#11
Jiri Bakala Major Player Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Kelowna BC Canada Posts: 706	Hi Lester, I am an Avid user as well but I am running mine on a Mac (I think that you are probably on PC?). I am very curious to know how you find the V1 to be treated by Avid with all the frame rate varieties. I only had the V1U here for a weekend and recorded in 24p HDV, which my Avid didn't want to capture. I had machine control and could shuffle the tape well but the capture would repeatedly give me an error message. What has been your experience? My version is Avid Xpress Pro 5.6.4 software on OSX. __________________ www.ascentfilms.com

March 1st, 2007, 12:53 PM	#2
Ray Bell Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,414	Go to Cineform and download the tryout... cineform will convert the V1 footage to what is term'd "Cineform intermediate" in an AVI file format.... very very easy to use... after its converted to AVI just edit as a standard video file then, when you get done editing you have the option of how to output the video file... your computer should be more than fine for editing this type of video...

March 1st, 2007, 02:04 PM	#5
Dave Blackhurst Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Apple Valley CA Posts: 4,874	Hi John - Your computer should be adequate, running a dual core 3800+ athlon here, nuthing fancy on the HD, just plain vanilla 7200rpm non RAID, 2G RAM. FWIW, with Vegas 6, it was pretty choppy, but with 7, it's been smooth enough to work with - you may want to fiddle with the preview window settings some (4 with 4 subsettings, if my memory is correct). In the highest quality, it can be a bit sluggish, but you can find an acceptable quilaity for editing from my experience, it doesn't have to be the "best", although I find all the "draft" settings to be sorta ugly. If you look under render settings, you'll find a setting to render to intermediate format... I've used it, and it does make the previews work pretty much like SD DV, since the computer is no longer trying to reproduce the long-GOP frames on the fly (at least that's my impression of why it is faster). Two warnings, you file size will expand by approx 4x, since it's "extracting" quite a bit more info to create an .avi file (which is then easier for your computer to process). Those 72G hard drives will fill up fast. Second, I found the time required to create the .avi intermediate files was pretty tedious - I ended up just letting the machine run overnight... not good if you're on a high priority project, but it was necessary in Veg 6, once I got 7, I've had no problem editing native m2t files, even with infinicam and 2 HDV streams (and I think I will be able to do 4... will know shortly!) Hope that will help you some, editing HDV takes mre horsepower than SD, but your specs "should" be enough, they are pretty close to my box, just in Intel flavor. DB>)

March 2nd, 2007, 01:02 PM	#6
Luis de la Cerda Regular Crew Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Mexico City Posts: 181	SpeedEDIT is great. I use it on a daily basis and it just screams. It has a much better scaling engine for going down to SD than both vegas and premiere (comparable to virtualdub using lanczos, I can post some comparison shots.) On a 2.3 Ghz laptop it renders HDV out to SD at around 2x realtime (meaning a 3 minute clip renders out in a minute and a half.) It can also sustain multiple streams of native hdv with dves and color correction in real time (again, on my laptop I can do 2 streams, color corrected, DVE's on both and a CG layer on top in real time, full res preview, not a single frame dropped.) It can also do firewire hdv preview in real time, to use your deck to go out to a proper video monitor. No other NLE that I know of can do this. I actually expected real time performance to be much worse when going out via firewire in real time because of the encoding that has to happen, but to my surprise, it gets the same number of layers of real time video going on as the regular preview window method. You can't go wrong with SpeedEDIT :)

March 3rd, 2007, 06:11 PM	#10
Lester Marston New Boot Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Perth Australia Posts: 13	Have you considered Avid Xpress Pro HD? I've been an Avid user for the last six or so years and have recently purchased a V1 and put it through it's paces within the Avid environment. Xpress Pro HD includes a proprietary intermediary codec (akin to cineform), which facilitates the transcoding, within the Avid interface, of digitised HDV footage to a more edit-friendly format than MPEG2, without compromising resolution. Worth a look.