VEG vs Work ethic

[Donald Blake]

Hi everyone,
Ok so here's the situation

I'm working on a project with two actors, they want to make an HD video each month for a website. they want that video to have the same 30sec intro everytime,

I already did the 30sec HD intro in a veg file, I have a dozen of audio/video tracks wich certain have track motion and track FX, I also play with the track volume and levels etc...

How should I proceed with the other video (that will be different every month)
keep tracks 1 to 12 for the intro only and add tracks each time I have a new video (each month) ?? how will I proceed with the rendering?? by muting tracks?

Or copy the same intro veg file and rename it every month then add the new video right after the intro? what if I want to change the intro after that?

An easy way is to have two veg files and add the two rendered videos together in a new veg file (same 30sec rendered intro file + new rendered video file) and render them together, but I don't want to do that because you loose quality everytime you render an already rendered file, and I want to keep that crisp clean HD look.

Is there another solution? what is your way to do it?


thanks!
DB

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Donald Blake

...An easy way is to have two veg files and add the two rendered videos together in a new veg file (same 30sec rendered intro file + new rendered video file) and render them together, but I don't want to do that because you loose quality everytime you render an already rendered file, and I want to keep that crisp clean HD look...

Workflow has so many choices, what makes sense to me might not to you, and vice-versa.

To take your last point first, you're starting by junking the easy and straightforward way, rendering the intro once, then bringing it into each month's episode as a finished piece. This is the straightforward way to do it since time before NLEs existed. Have you tested it? Are you absolutely sure you're unhappy with the quality of this approach? Rendering to Vegas' built-in Cineform codec (32-bit Vegas 6, 7, 8) creates an intermediate file that is good for many, many generations without visible loss.

Ok, I'm not going to get on my soap box this time, but what "everybody knows" about generation loss is largely a result of rumour, not personal experience. (/rant)

But if you're going to stick with your no-generation-loss-is-always-better approach, here are some alternatives:

Originally Posted by Donald Blake

Or copy the same intro veg file and rename it every month then add the new video right after the intro? what if I want to change the intro after that?

This can certainly work - it calls for you to be careful, of course. Start with a new copy of the intro veg each month, for ease of use you would insert tracks above the intro (unless some sort of transparent transition from intro to program...). No need to mute tracks on render this way. Creating a year's worth of episodes on one veg is *not* what you want to do.

If you want to change the intro, then change it, rinse, repeat.

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If you're looking for magic in your workflow, consider nesting the intro veg into each month's veg. This *can* work well, and keeps you at minimal generations. Many people have found that it slows rendering considerably. The problem with magic is sometimes the rabbit bites your hand.

"Nesting" = drag the intro veg from the explorer to the timeline.

[Donald Blake]

Originally Posted by Seth Bloombaum

...the straightforward way to do it since time before NLEs existed. Have you tested it? ...but what "everybody knows" about generation loss is largely a result of rumour, not personal experience. (/rant)

Seth from my personal experience, I have done the test a couple of times to see it for myself, and my conclusion is that there is a noticable difference, like I said the image is less clean and the edges are not as sharp, the contrast also changes, of course I guess it all depends on what format you use, I have tried the most obvious ones and still I noticed a difference.

Concerning the "nesting" option (wich I think is very interesting) if I insert my 30sec intro VEG file in each monthly VEG file, will it be updated every time I open the monthly VEG file or will it be like it was when I originaly inserted it? In other word if I change the actor's name in the 30sec intro VEG file after 6 months of work will it be updated automatically in each of the monthly VEG file?

I will test it for myself, to see if it really slows down the rendering process.

Thanks Seth

[Seth Bloombaum]

OK, it's probably good I didn't rant any more than I did :-) However, if you haven't tested to Cineform (vegas version of codec) and to AVI uncompressed you might want to revisit this. Other interesting choices would be Sony YUV and Huffy Lossless YUV (which may not be native to Vegas, it's been a while).

Yes, in a nested project changes to the project are reflected in to nested version.

[Jon Rule]

Try Lagarith as well - Lagarith Lossless Video Codec It's based on the Huffyuv and is very good.