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Best Editing Format – HD 1080 video
Hi – relatively new to digital video and Vegas and struggling with editing – seems like the MTS and mp4 formats from my two cameras import fine, but playback preview (in vegas) is always “jumpy” and transitions – even straight dissolves – are almost worthless in preview.
I’ve researched and sort of get the impression that I should convert and work with other file formats for better editing performance. Understanding video formats is still mind boggling to me, and no one seems to have simple answers. I read a lot about DV AVI being good to edit with, but then I read that DV format is NOT HD … is that correct?
Any advice or direction on this is much appreciated!
KenM
Sound Works R&P -
10 Replies
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[Ken Matson] “but playback preview (in vegas) is always “jumpy” and transitions – even straight dissolves – are almost worthless in preview.”
MTS ia AVCHD and AVCHD requires brute-force processing power to edit. What processor and how much RAM do you have? If you have enough RAM you can use RAM preview to see your transitions.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
Two answers/options I’ve use/used with great success:
I used to use Gearshift by Vasst, allows you to render with your original HD files, BUT you edit with DV avi files(performance with DV Avi files is fast on a even good 5-6 year old computer, and its basically a seamless process as well.
Now i use Cineform…it basically takes your camera files and makes them 2 – 3 times bigger but much easier to edit with (cuz the CPU doesn’t have to work so hard).
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Computer’s 4 years old but it’s an Intel Core 2 Duo Quad Core QX6700 2.66GHz – I’ve got 8G RAM (which is max it can take) and am running Win7-64 and Vegas 9 64
KenM
Sound Works R&P -
I’ll have to check out gearshift – what is best way to convert to DV-AVI or Cineform ?
Thanks!
KenM
Sound Works R&P -
I don’t think the gearshift approach is going to work for me. I tried it, but the files are way too big and take way too long to convert. I have dozens of 1.5G to 4G files in this project. I’m less than happy that Vegas and my set-up just won’t “do it” with the native files.
I’m having some luck with RAM preview and am experimenting with pre-render -still think it should “just work” though!
KenM
Sound Works R&P -
haha, “just work”…nope!
I just tried and even my dual xeon computer struggles with fx applied to HDV(.mt2) video on my timeline(heavy FX mind you, but still:). I think avchd(.mts) would be worse as its even more compressed.
Using proxies for example, with gearshift, or transcoding to Cineform or many other “digital intermediate” formats is a necessary evil that lies within a large majority of video editor’s workflow – from hollywood, to broadcast, to event and wedding video.
I’m unsure but possibly Adobe Premiere CS5 which uses the video card GPU to help with editing might work…but its not a small investment.
Render overnight if you have to, you only have to do it once…
Sorry.
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yeah … having been a long, long time audio engineer, where everything works and edits real time, full quality, I guess I was expecting the same … I mean .. I worked with early digital video (mid 90s) for a bit, and then it was the overnight and weekend renders … but geez in 2011, is it really too much to ask for real time, full HD quality, no lags, no stutters, no skips, etc. in full screen preview with all transitions and effects and then render in 10 minutes. And I’m being dead serious … stunned this doesn’t work to be honest.
Well … back to reality apparently … a strategic question. With 4 camera’s x 3 hours worth of 1080 HD footage that will end up as a 2+ hour HD video … am I better to break the large files up into smaller pieces to edit with? Am I better to make lot’s of separate movies to put into DVD-A as opposed to one really long one? Still learnin’ this stuff! Thanks!
KenM
Sound Works R&P -
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My PC specs are similar to yours (worse actually, Q6600 with 4gb RAM), but there’s a simple tip I picked up here that allows me to edit AVCHD.
In your project properties, set the template to NTSC DV widescreen while editing. I use this in conjunction with “preview” quality and get mostly fluid playback. I still have to use RAM preview for transitions sometimes.
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Yep, i came to vegas from the audio world as well. Audio: so neat and tidy, basically one master format (i love. wavs), always uncompressed, in manageable file sizes:)
[Ken Matson] “Well … back to reality apparently … a strategic question. With 4 camera’s x 3 hours worth of 1080 HD footage that will end up as a 2+ hour HD video … am I better to break the large files up into smaller pieces to edit with? Am I better to make lot’s of separate movies to put into DVD-A as opposed to one really long one? Still learnin’ this stuff! Thanks!”
As for editing, you don’t really have to break up your large files but you CAN create “subclips”…they are like broken up clips, but virtual – they only exist inside the project. it might/will help with file management.
And you can break up your edit as well if it’s going to be long. You can save many smaller project files (.veg) and then import them into a master project for final render. For example, when editing a movie, each scene would be edited in its own project and then compiled into one master project
For DVDA you can make one large file but at least you probably should add simple chapter marks.
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