Vegas 7.0e

[Hugh Mobley]

Maybe someone can let me know if Vasst Gearshift will be any benefit to Vegas 7.

[Seth Bloombaum]

The short answer - it depends.

If you're cutting HDV on the timeline, if performance is not where you need it to be, and you've optimized your pc and aren't buying a new one or upgrading, if you wish cutting HDV was like cutting DV, Gearshift can help.

It does this by taking your HDV footage and rendering to DV (which can take a long time, depending). Then you cut your project. Then, press the magic button and all that DV is replaced by your original HDV, now (check any color correction you've done, because HDV is in a different color space) render to whatever your delivery format is.

In summary, a workflow that allows getting better preview framerate and rez on a lower spec machine.

Other improvements can also be made that enhance your ability to get better framerate and rez for HDV on the timeline - Vegas 7 has vastly improved HDV previews. An HD digital intermediate such as Cineform AVI (comes with Vegas 6 and later) can reduce processor load, but increases disk load.

So, it depends. It's a good product, very clever software, but does something very specific. A trial version is available, if it seems like it might help you should try it out.

What are you cutting, on what machine, with what version of Vegas?

[Hugh Mobley]

Thanks,I usually always shoot 24p using my HVR V1, I use two computers, one is a laptop, 3.2 p4 with a 300 gig external HD, the other is a 3.2 dual chip p4, usually take the clips and render to 1080 24p avi intermidiate. just wonder if I use gearshift, edit in dv then back to 4.2.2, is there any benefit as to definition over doing what I normally do,

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Hugh Mobley

...just wonder if I use gearshift, ..., is there any benefit as to definition over doing what I normally do,

No, the definition of your final project should be equal across all 3 workflows (HDV on the timeline, AVI-Cineform on the timeline, DV on the timeline but replace with HDV prior to final render).

If you are happy with the preview performance of the AVI intermediate (you are using Cineform? It's the default). If so, I don't think there's a reason to change.

If you do a project with multiple streams/layers and your previews are choking to a couple frames per second, that's a time when dropping down to DV resolution with Gearshift can help.

Among these workflows the only improvement in definition to be had is with projects that require multiple generations of renders. HDV, being so highly compressed, is not a good choice on the timeline in this situation - render to AVI Intermediate - Cineform for good multi-generations with minimal loss.