Frustrated with HD output quality

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

on a relatively fast 'puter (say...3.6GHz or faster) there is virtually no difference at all. CineForm is incredibly optimized. If you do a lot of editing, it's foolishness to not use it, IMO.

[Andreas Griesmayr]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

on a relatively fast 'puter (say...3.6GHz or faster) there is virtually no difference at all. CineForm is incredibly optimized. If you do a lot of editing, it's foolishness to not use it, IMO.

even if foolish, I take from your answer that one COULD - not - use Cineform.
Do I understand right that this would mean editing in mpeg4, which you say:

MPEG is a lousy editing format at small bitrates

Why is it lousy to edit, what are the major pitfalls, are there any advantages as well?

and talking 'puter...Vegas is speedier on double cores, yes?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Not sure how MPEG 4 entered the picture here, as HDV is MPEG 2, not 4. MPEG 4 is a horrible editing format, worse than MPEG2.
You could use any number of codecs or formats in Vegas. You can use native m2t, you can convert to DV, uncompressed HD, several HD intermediary formats, yadayadayada. On the HDI front, CineForm simply has done it well.

Advantages of editing MPEG?
I can't think of any. GOP was never intended for anything but display and archive. Fast built systems based around very high bitrate MPEG, and Sony Beta SX is built around it, but again...it's a delivery/archival format. Takes a lot of CPU horsepower just to decode it. Eventually, we'll see more NLE's take advantage of GPU, but that's limited, currently.


Yes, Vegas loves dual cores.

[Andreas Griesmayr]

Thank you very much for your answers.

Sorry for the mpeg4, but it prooves what the simple style of my questions also may show, that I do not understand much of formats, codecs etc.

I know how to download my SD video from my cam, edit it in Vegas, convert it to mpeg2 resp. ac3, author it with DVA and write it to DVD - and wonder how much of an adventure it would be if I got myself a HC3 or HC1, if I'd encounter more problems than I'd want to put up with, if future consumer HD cams will use other formats again, and if those will be easier or more difficult to edit.
I believe that there are more people out there who are in a similar position with similar questions, so I dare asking.

I am happy to know now that with Vegas 6 all required to edit HC1/HC3 footage seems to be a fast computer.

But your answers also raise more questions, which are very naive, and therefore might not deserve your, THE DSE's attention:

--What are m2t and uncompressed HD formats? Are they used by professional HD cameras only and therefore are of no concern to HC1/HC3 users?
--Do HC1/HC3 record in mpeg2, but as mpeg is difficult to edit there are various easier to edit 'HD intermediate formats', one of them being the CineForm?
--What is GOP?

I'd totally understand if you don't answer, I'd just take it that I should study up first..

[Bob Grant]

GOP = Group Of Pictures.

A mpeg-2 GOP consists of one complete frame and then a sequence of difference frames. So to decode the last frame in a GOP all frames have to be read from the initial frame at the start. Some mpeg-2 encoding systems use very short GOPs and are fast to decode, HDV uses a 15 frame GOP so is hard to decode but easy to encode but it's very efficient i.e. lots of picture data can be squeezed into a small bandwidth. This is fine for acquisition but lousy for editing.

Also this encoding scheme has high generational loss and it's visually very bad with errors having block boundaries. The CF codec uses wavelets. This scheme is not as effiicent but has less loss and any loss is way less visible. Also it's easier to decode making for easier editing.

All these are compression systems, some types of compression are bad, most good ones are very good, they're our friends, without them we'd be forced to use mosterous amounts of disk space, cameras would be unafforable etc.
Compression takes many forms, spatial, temporal and color space.

Yes do some reading. To work with uncompressed HD you're looking at TBytes of data and staggering data rates.

HDV via the CF codec is pretty smooth to edit in Vegas. You can also capture HDV as m2t in Vegas and use DV proxies to edit.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Movie Studio also has the CineForm codec installed with the product.

I checked my installation of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. I am up to date (6.0b build 126), but my capture of HDV using the internal capture utility results in a .m2t file extension. Also, when I try to render to the Cineform intermediate Codec, I get the message that my trial has run out. I assume this is from the HD Connect trial I installed at one time.

I do have the codec on board for capturing in Premiere Pro 1.51 and can edit with it in that application.

So my question is what have I done wrong to not have access to the Cineform codec in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum.

[Mark Bryant]

Chris,

When using the Cineform codec included with Vegas you still capture the native m2t, then you render it to Cineform Intermediate. (It is only with Connect HD that you capture "directly" to Cineform).

As for the other issue, there is a problem (bug) with the interaction with the trial, others have also hit this. To solve it I think you need to reinstall Vegas.

Mark

[Chris Barcellos]

Thanks Mark, I just did the reinstall, and now have the ability you indicate.

I guess the good thing is I can capture with Cineform in Premiere Pro 1.51, then bring it into Vegas MS to edit if I want to go that way.

[Ben Freedman]

Here's what I don't understand...

There are 3 benefits to an intermediate, as I understand it:

1) Improved workflow on slower machines
2) No GOP issues
3) Less compression, therefore fewer artifacts on recompression...

Let's assume we're going to edit on a wicked fast machine (dual opteron), so #1 isn't an issue...

Let's assume we're editing directly from the HDV files to the final format in 1 generation. Since we'd have to use this same generation to get to the intermediate, #3 isn't an issue (or not much of one)...

With regards to #2, I have been doing some experiments with cuts and disolves and other effects with PP2 and Vegas on HDV, and the rendered result seems very smooth and accurate, no matter which frame I start or end the effect on. In fact, has anyone had any GOP issues with native HDV in Vegas or PP2? I've heard all about it, but can't replicate it myself...

If #2 turns out to be a boogeyman, and 1 and 3 are not big issues, I still don't see the need to jump to an intermediate if my performance is good with HDV, and my editing needs are simple (cuts and dissolves, not heavy compositing, etc...)

Finally, many 'pro' level packages have been touting native-HDV editing latley (such as $10K+ Axios, avid, and others) so the idea that it's not something 'pros' want to do seems odd.

DSE? What say you? (Don't hurt me...)

Best,

Benjamin

[Laurence Kingston]

Another reason you need an intermediate is because Vegas can currently only handle about 80 m2t clips on a timeline at once before it crashes.

[Andreas Griesmayr]

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

on a relatively fast 'puter (say...3.6GHz or faster) there is virtually no difference at all. CineForm is incredibly optimized. If you do a lot of editing, it's foolishness to not use it, IMO.

and later:

Originally Posted by Douglas Spotted Eagle

Yes, Vegas loves dual cores.

Would be a notebook with an Intel dual core 1,666 MHz and 1 GB Ram be enough? They are quite inexpensive now, or should it be min. a dual core 1,830 MHz?