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Anyone actually editing HDV with Vegas??
so i got all excited to see vegas 6 being released with “professional realtime HDV editing and support” and figured it’d be pretty great. we have the new Z1 camera here and for what it costs, it makes some nice pictures. i have it hooked up here with vegas 6 running… using the internal capture, and it says and it says “device not available.” hmmm did a search on this forum and found only one thread talking about using windows device manager to update some kinda driver for this camera. said to look under “sound, video and game controllers” and update some kinda “subunit” to DVHS, etc etc etc.
i see nothing for that in windows. its XP with SP2. there’s nothing in the vegas help about this. course this is just the beginning… seems like if i can actually get vegas to capture my nice HDV video, it can’t actually edit the raw mpeg files “natively.” there seems to be some kind of long complicated batch render process to convert mpeg files into some kind of intermediate format (that i assume isn’t even a 1080i HD file). so in theory, i wouldn’t even be truly editing in HD right? then to print it back to tape?… something about going into windows explorer to the folders where the files were captured to, changing folder names, reopening projects so it picks up the original HDV files instead ??? sounds crazy!
i’m a huuuuuuuuge fan of vegas and really swear by it. but i see VERY VERY few posts in any vegas forum talking about HDV editing. today an associate of mine brought in our Z1 and said he had it at a friend’s last night. the friend was capturing HDV from the Z1 just fine, dropping it onto the timeline and editing away with no hiccups, conversions to “intermediate files,” and it looked as easy as editing regular DV. course… he was using the newest version of FCP. according to the FCP pages online, it can edit HDV with no intermediate codec and output right back to tape from the timeline (with some rendering of course). not so easy with vegas 6 huh?
i really hope i’m just missing something here, or that there are easier better ways to do HDV in vegas (as advertised). i dont care for FCP, but if they can make editing HDV quite painless and efficient, then they’re one up on sony vegas. any thoughts? any thoughts about getting the camera to at least be able to capture in vegas? sorry for the rant.. guess this HDV editing stuff is quite new to everyone still.
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14 Replies
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Some responses I’ve seen:
Please update to Vegas 6.0b if you have not done so. Also, please make sure you deck is set to output the format you desire (HDV or DVCAM are both possible). When you invoke “Capture Video” you’ll be asked to choose a source format, and from there you should be able to connect to the Z1-1.
You are strongly encouraged to use WinXP SP2 if you are working with a Sony HDV camera or deck (in any HDV-capable software, ours or not). HDV file read, write, transcode, project templates, field handling, etc is all doable in Win2k and pre-SP2 XP using Vegas 6, but getting Windows to load the camera/deck driver (assuming you can get it to load at all) can be a nightmare. HDV driver loading in XPSP2 is automatic, no manual fiddling (usually).
Edward Troxel
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I just reread your message about FCP. I have the latest version of FCP (5) and I have edited HDV footage from the Z1U on it. It does not edit HDV effortlessly. I have a 2 ghz dual g5 with 4 gb of ram and fast hard drives and it hates native hdv files. Once an intermediate is made, it’s better, but not like editing dv.
I’m not sure what your friend was editing, it could have been a letterboxed down conversion from the z1u to standard dv, in that case it would edit easily, but so would that same footage in Vegas.
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First of all, yes, Vegas 6 captures HDV fine. I don’t have a super fast PC, so once captured, I edit using proxy files.
There are various ways of doing this. Vegas itself will allow you to render to any other formats of course, but it’s much easier using the Gearshift script/plug-in from VASST. This not only helps create the proxy file, but you can swap back and forth from proxy to HDV pn the timeline with a single click any time. When finished, Vegas will PTT HDV back to the camera through firewire.
Creating the proxy files does take rendering time – I usually do it overnight.
I have been using DV widescreen avi for proxy files – this means I can edit even on my old laptop with full frame rate previews.
Cineform also have a Connect HD product which will capture and convert to their own intermediate codec, which is a HD resolution avi. These still need a reasonably fast PC to preview full frame rate, so I prefer DV avis with my slower computer.
I’d beware of Mac users making extravagant claims. They’re not always based on reality.
Peter Wright
Perth, Western Oz
http://www.allroundvision.com.au -
[lance herring] “we have the new Z1 camera here and for what it costs, it makes some nice pictures. i have it hooked up here with vegas 6 running… using the internal capture, and it says and it says “device not available.” hmmm did a search on this forum and found only one thread talking about using windows device manager to update some kinda driver for this camera. said to look under “sound, video and game controllers” and update some kinda “subunit” to DVHS, etc etc etc.”
I’ve got PP 1.5 and EDIUS PRO 3 all working perfectly with both JVC and Sony HDV.
But I get the same error message as you do with Vegas 6.
I’ve updated to V6b and also tried the script:
1. Plug in Camera
2. Go to Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager
3. Locate AV/C Tape Device under Sound, video and game controllers
4. Choose Update Driver
5. Choose “No, not this time”
6. Click Next
7. Choose -
I don’t have any problem capturing HDV in Vegas 6.0b after using the following script:
1. Plug in Camera
2. Go to Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager
3. Locate AVC/Subunit in the Device Manager
4. Right click, choose Properties
5. Choose Update Driver, and DO NOT let Windows go searching. Choose “I’ll find it myself” (or whatever the dialog actually says)
6. Browse to Sound, Video, Game Controllers to find the driver
7. Locate Sony in the list of Sound, Video, Game Controllers
8. Open the first Sony in the list, and select the DVHS driver as the driver for your camera.I believe your script was different.
As for editing, Sony help has instructions but Gearshift is easier. How can anyone NOT expect to use proxy files? These files are 4.5 times as big as DV files – huge to work with on today’s computers. And yes, creating them takes some time so sleeping on it is a great idea.
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“I believe your script was different.”
It is different because the the one originally published was written from memory and doesn’t match what’s really in the dialog boxes. Also, this should not need to be done in XP SP2. It looks like something from XP SP1.
“As for editing, Sony help has instructions but Gearshift is easier. How can anyone NOT expect to use proxy files? These files are 4.5 times as big as DV files – huge to work with on today’s computers. And yes, creating them takes some time so sleeping on it is a great idea.”
You don’t need to sell me on Proxy. I wrote the same function 2 years ago for FCP 3 and FCP 4.5 for the original JVCHDV camcorders. I sold many copies of HDVpartner but very few folks really want to wait and now that CineForm and native are available.
Best Regards,
Steve Mullen
Digital Video Consulting NYChttp://www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c%5B
https://www.gyhduser.com
——————————-“Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 Guide: HDV Technology, Production, and Post-Production”
“JVC GY-HD100 Gu
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haha seeing some good comments here, and ya i’m wary of anything FCP users say as well. and since i wasnt an actual witness to what the guy was doing with FCP, i can’t comment on how “effortlessly” the capture and editing actually was.
i know HDV is a tough format to edit and do anything with.. thats fine. my only gripes really is that vegas 6 was advertised to do HDV editing.. yes it does this, albeit with several steps in between. supposedly this Gearshift plugin makes things easier, but why the need to pay for extra software for simple features that should have been built into vegas? seems like all is needed is a function in vegas that will take all captured HDV clips within a project, build proxies to a determined folder on a drive, and replace all clips in the media pool. also it should allow easy selection between the raw m2t AND proxy file for a clip on the timeline. then in the “print to HDV” dialog, it should have a setting to automatically switch all clips to the original m2t files for PTT. if it has to go through extra processes to edit HDV, thats fine… the software should just make it more streamline. shouldnt have to go to windows explorer and rename folders and move things around, etc.
oh well maybe it’ll get better! thanks again for the replies.
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If you can capture HDV in some other app, that means the driver is loaded on the box and you can capture HDV with Vegas 6 (6.0b is as of this writing the current version).
When you invoke the HDV/SDI capture app, under the capture app’s prefs>device choose IEEE/1394 MPEG-2TS (you should see the name of the camera or deck also). The issue at hand could simply be that Decklink is selected as the capture device rather than the HDV device.
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“When you invoke the HDV/SDI capture app, under the capture app’s prefs>device choose IEEE/1394 MPEG-2TS (you should see the name of the camera or deck also). The issue at hand could simply be that Decklink is selected as the capture device rather than the HDV device.”
Same thing Sony said to me EXCEPT there is NO “DEVICES” tab under Preferences when you open the File > Capture Video. You get “Sony Video Capture 6.0 – Default”
And, under Options there is Preferences… but there is no devices tab. There are:
General, Disk Mang, Capture, Advanced Capt, Print-to-Tape, and Preview.
There is also no Devices tab under the applications Options > Preferences.
Where are you finding a DEVICES tab anywhere in Vegas?
Best Regards,
Steve Mullen
Digital Video Consulting NYChttp://www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c%5B
https://www.gyhduser.com
——————————-“Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 Guide: HDV Technology, Production, and Post-Production”
“JVC GY-HD100 Gu
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Turns-out you have to disable the External Capture application. Which is fine, except that VidCap60 has information on AV/C Subunit so it certainly seems like the one to use. It is called Sony Capture!!!
Why two capture utilities? Why is there an External VidCap60 utility? What’s it for?
Best Regards,
Steve Mullen
Digital Video Consulting NYChttp://www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c%5B
https://www.gyhduser.com
——————————-“Sony HVR-Z1 and HDR-FX1 Guide: HDV Technology, Production, and Post-Production”
“JVC GY-HD100 Gu
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