Can I save Vegas projects as AVI rather than MPEG?

[Terry Esslinger]

If you capture MPEG movies (as from a DVD camcorder) Vegas will have MPEG video. Actually Vegas doesn’t really save the video. You use a capture app to capture the video to your computer and it generally will capture in the format that your camera sends it as. Vegas then looks at that video footage and and makes notes as to what to use and what to do to it. It does not change the footage at all (non destructive editing). It saves these notes as the .veg file (in VPro) and .vf in Studio I believe. The only time it will change the footage (and not the original footage) is when you RENDER a new file using the instructions that you have created in the .veg file. What you render out of Vegas should depend on what your purpose is for the file. MPEG is not really made for editing it is made for viewing. If you take MPEG footage and render it as MPEG (as for another DVD) you will be taking a lossy format and rendering it into a lossy format. The quality really takes a hit.

To answer your question directly. You can RENDER a vegas project into .avi and save it. It will look better when viewed than a rerendered MPEG file but still not as good (probably) as the original. DVD camcorders are made for people that want to take their shots and live with them, not edit them.

[Don Hutcheson]

Thanks for the answer. I am dowloading video from a Sony Z1U HD camcorder. Where (in my computer) can I reset the default format for saving the video, since I am inputting HD? And is AVI the best available format for making the “master” copy at the point of download?

Incidentally, when I activate “Capture Video” and get the choice of DV or HD, when I choose HD, it opens the capture app and usually says “Device not available”. Drives me nuts. But when I close the app, reopen it and choose “DV”, it is ready to capture! Can I use the “DV” capture app and still download high quality HD since that app recognizes the Z1U?

Thank you,

Don

Hutch

[Terry Esslinger]

The Z1U is the “pro” version of the FX1 which is what I have. Your cam puts out HDV for HD and DVCaam or DV for SD. There is a menu setting that you need to change depending on what you want to record and capture. You can capture HDV and output HDV or DV (cam conversion)or you can capture DV and output DV. For the Vegas HD capture app to capture HD you must have the cam set for HDV and have taped in HDV. Since the SD app seems to recognize the cam I would say that you did not do one of those things. Your computer will capture DV as DV.avi and it will capture HDV as M2TS (MPEG2 transport stream)I don’t believe you have any other choices. Unless you want to cam convert and capture your HDV footage as DV.avi (standard definition)

[Don Hutcheson]

Thank you, Terry. As it happens, I’ve been dubbing HD tapes as well as MiniDVCam from my PD150 that was also used on this project. I wasn’t aware that the Vegas HD capture application distinguished between the two.

One more thing: you reiterated that MPEG is highly compressed, then said the computer saves the original file as an MPEG. That means the final video has been through two MPEG compressions. Is there a way to go into VEGAS and lower the level of compression applied to files being captured as well as files being rendered? I’m originally an audio guy by profession, so I know the dangers of too much compression or compressing the same material twice.

Many thanks,

Don Hutcheson

Hutch

[Terry Esslinger]

One more thing: you reiterated that MPEG is highly compressed, then said the computer saves the original file as an MPEG

Yes MPEG is highly compressed and no I did not say (or mean) that the computer saves the original file as MPEG2. I also have a PD 150. So I basically have the same set up that you do.

There are two separate capture applications (what Sony calls the internal app and the external app) Which one opens depends on what you tell it you are capturing HD or SD. You get SD DV.avi from the PD150. It must be captured with the SD capture app (I think it is the external). Your other cam produces HDV output which is a type of MPEG2. I am not great at these differences and someone else on this list might be able to give more specific info there. But I believe it will capture M2TS files. Both files are about the same size (13GB/hour) It would seem the HDV file would have much more information (data) in it than an SD file so to be about the same size it has to be much more compressed. The HDV video was aquired as MPEG (M2TS) and captured without changing it. The HDV uses a GOP (group of pictures) technique that I am still not straight about but basically it only really has one complete frame for every 15 frames it captures. The frames before and after are what I call ‘delta’ frames. They only record the changes that occur from that frame (I frame?) to the next. That is why a drop out is so deadly, it effects 15 frames (1/2 second) and is very noticeable. Butthis is how it compresses. When you render a time line with HDV footage on it to SD for DVD you rerender it to MPEG2. But it still looks much better than your SD footage rendered to the MPEG2.
I don’t know if I have made any sense at all here as it is getting late and I need to go to sleep. So thankfully, I’ll quit.