best 1920 render for reuse into Sony movie studio HD Platinum 10

[John Rofrano]

[Steve Shelton] “If you experts were doing ‘sub-mixes’ what would you advise and what render format?”

I would use CineForm but you would have to buy that codec. Movie Studio 12.0 supports XDCAM EX which has a template for HQ 1920×1080-50i, 35Mbps VBR that should keep your quality very high. I don’t know if Movie Studio 10 supports that. You could also change the MainConcept MPEG2 HDV template to MPEG-2 and 1920×1080, profile High. That would make an Full HD MPG file.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Norman Black]

I installed the GoPro Cineform studio free software. It seems to have installed the codec such that my movie studio 12 can use it for AVI files. Should probably work for MS10 as well.

[Steve Shelton]

JR – Thank you very much for having a look at this and commenting, really appreciated, led to a few more questions though:

You could also change the MainConcept MPEG2 HDV template to MPEG-2 and 1920×1080, profile High
my HDV settings only seem to allow 1440 x 1080 as a max, although as it stands with my vegas version it might be my best option. I did try rendering my ‘sub-mixes’ as custom HQ mp4s 1920×1080 20Mbps. The results were great, played ok in media player & in vegas preview window but as soon as placed in the timeline I was getting random quirky pixelations every few seconds (don’t know what the technical term is!). I read on another post of yours JR saying that Vegas doesn’t like its own mp4s …which is frustrating! Do later versions of vegas cope with their mp4s any better?

I would use CineForm but you would have to buy that codec
Please excuse me for being a bit behind the curve here! Are you saying start from stratch again and create my sub-mixes from the start on cineform or use cineform to do a conversion on a vegas created sub mix that vegas can work with in a master project? I’m downloading the free ‘studio’ version, is that good enough for what I need?
XDCAM EX
Is this the format Cineform will output in? Is this what I need to but the codec for?

[Steve Shelton]

Thank you Norman – so have you already done the sort of thing I’m trying to do? If so I’d be interested to know the process that best worked for you i.e. what programme you did your sub-mixes on, what format you rendered them to to used again within vegas.
I have a 4Gb 32 bit win7 PC. Is vegas going to trip over loads if I load in 7 or 8 AVI files of about 5 mins each …that’ll add up to a lot of Gbs! …or should it work, if a bit slow?

[Steve Shelton]

Following on from that I’ve now downloaded the CineForm however it doesn’t seem to want to accept my mp4 renders (sub mixes) created using Vegas (assume a codec thing) so it would appear to be of no use to me …unless it’s to do with the codec you mentioned but I won’t know how to correct that. Maybe you can explain what I need to do if anything?

I read on some blogs elsewhere of people having similar problems with cineform and one of them recommended ‘eyeframe converter’ and with a bit of a playing about I found it will accept avi renders of my sub mixes and using a format of ‘MJPEG HD – Proxy quarter size’ creates a *.mov file 1920×1080 25fps 86Mbps weighing in at just 2.2Gb (compared to about 21Gb of the avi with same stats).
This *.mov is playing OK, on first test run at least, in my vegas timeline and the quality-wise is pretty reasonable although notice less tones of dark/black in the *.mov file compared to the avi I created it from (i.e. a black coat is one very dark black as opposed to shades of dark greys to blacks …could post examples if interested) however the definition is noticably better than the 0.5Gb 1920×1080 50fps 20Mbps mp4 I produced from vegas (which has horizontal banding of pixels in stills) although the mp4 handled the blacks truer to the original.
In your experience is using the 1920×1080 25fps 86Mbps mov files as my mastered sub mixes to load into my vegas master project an OK thing or are there pitfalls with mov files or all this chain of conversions and am I better trying to get the cineform to work ..but I don’t know how!

Sorry to pester but I’m getting worn out and confused by all these files types, codecs and what will work with what etc and you guys have a much better understanding of it than me and maybe what I post here might help others thinking of the same thing.
Many thanks
Steve

[John Rofrano]

[Steve Shelton] “my HDV settings only seem to allow 1440 x 1080 as a max, although as it stands with my vegas version it might be my best option.”

Sorry if my post wasn’t clear:

1. Select the HDV 1080-60i template under MainConcept MPEG-2
2. Press the Customize Template… button
3. Change the Output type: to MPEG-2
4. Change the Width: to 1920
5. Change the Level: to High
6. Rename the Template: HD 1080-60i and press the Save icon.
7. Press OK

You now have a new template called “HD 1080-60i” that renders 1920×1080 MPEG-2. Like I said, I’ve done this on Movie Studio 12.0. I don’t know if 10.0 will let you do this but if it won’t, you now have a reason to upgrade.

[Steve Shelton] “Are you saying start from stratch again and create my sub-mixes from the start on cineform or use cineform to do a conversion on a vegas created sub mix that vegas can work with in a master project?”

Yes. Render the sub mixes with CineForm which is a visually lossless codec.

[Steve Shelton] “XDCAM EX – Is this the format Cineform will output in? Is this what I need to but the codec for?”

XDCAM has nothing to do with CineForm. It’s a very high quality Sony format that is supported by Movie Studio 12.0. Once again, you may need to upgrade your Movie Studio 10.0 if you want to use these formats.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Steve Shelton] “Following on from that I’ve now downloaded the CineForm however it doesn’t seem to want to accept my mp4 renders (sub mixes) created using Vegas (assume a codec thing) so it would appear to be of no use to me …unless it’s to do with the codec you mentioned but I won’t know how to correct that. Maybe you can explain what I need to do if anything?”

You should be rendering to CineForm from within Movie Studio instead of MP4 which would require you to create a template for it. I have a tutorial on my web site that shows you how: Creating CineForm Templates

[Steve Shelton] “Sorry to pester but I’m getting worn out and confused by all these files types, codecs and what will work with what etc and you guys have a much better understanding of it than me and maybe what I post here might help others thinking of the same thing.”

I’m sorry if I confused you. You don’t have to use CineForm. You ask what the Pro’s would use and I told you. Pro’s would use a digital intermediary but instead of having to explain to you what digital intermediaries are, I just suggested one that I use. That doesn’t mean you have to do the same. You might want to upgrade to Movie Studio 12.0 and use XDCAM or you might want to just use HDV with Movie Studio 10.0 and I’ll bet you can’t tell the difference in the final product. Don’t stress over it.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Steve Shelton]

Thank you JR for your great advice and tips – it’s sorted out loads of things for me. Having purchased a product I do feel somewhat let down by Sony in that I appear to have to purchase a codec (that used to be part of the package) to make a later version work to its full potential, a free download on their site would seem more appropriate. I think the best thing (and cheaper!) is to upgrade to v12; are you saying the results in that can be as lossless as using the cineform codec? Will old v10 projects upgrade OK to it?
Thank you again
Steve

[John Rofrano]

[Steve Shelton] “are you saying the results in that can be as lossless as using the cineform codec?”

I’m saying that the results from XDCAM EX uses a substantially higher bit-rate than your source footage therefore you will not “see” any loss.

[Steve Shelton] “Will old v10 projects upgrade OK to it?”

Yes, they are upward compatible.

But before you upgrade, render to HDV and see if you can tell a difference. If you can’t then use HDV. People get hung up lossless codecs all the time but unless you are re-rendering multiple times, one additional render is not going to show any perceptible loss.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Steve Shelton]

Thank you once again JR! I’ll do as you suggest. Sorry to sound hung up on it but I’m a complete novice regarding codecs and compression so hunting out advice from experienced users like yourself will save me hours of confusion, trails and errors.
Creative Cow is a fantastic set up and so prompt in reply, how can users of it show their appreciation or best support/promote it?
thanks
Steve