Edit 1920x1080x50p video from Sony HDR CX700

[John Rofrano]

[Libor Jendele] “1/ I have Vegas Movie Studio Platinum V.10. As far as I know, this SW cannot be used to edit 1920×1080/50p clips. Is it possible to edit it natively with Vegas Pro V.10 version? Note that I don’t want to produce the final video in either 1920×1080/50i or 1920×1080/25p. I want to retain the quality as high as possible.”

Yes Vegas Pro can edit in 50p. How do you plan to deliver this video? Your PAL TV only supports 25p and 50i.

[Libor Jendele] “2/ How about “smart rendering” AVCHD video with Sony Vegas, (both 1920×1080-50p, both 1920×1080-50i)? E.g. when rendering unedited HDV/DVD video, it shows “No rendering needed” and original video quality is preserved. No recoding is done, just copying. I suppose that something similar for AVCHD is currently not supported yet. Am I right? Is there any chance in the next release of Vegas family SW?”

Vegas Pro does not support “smart rendering” of AVCHD.

[Libor Jendele] “3/ If I limit myself on using only 50i(FX,FH) quality, then I found that my Vegas Platinum can render video only at maximum 16Mbits, (Sony AVC, template AVCHD 1920×1080-50i). However, Sony HDR CX700 can offer 20Mbits and more (in interlaced regime). Does this limitation apply also for Vegas Pro or are there chances that a new Platinum will wave out this limitation? “

Vegas Pro supports Sony AVC rendering up to 20Mbps.

~jr

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

[Danny Hays]

I edit 1080 60p but had to make custom project setting and render presets as there were none for it in Vegas Pro 10

[Scott Francis]

Some of the new Canon cameras are going to shoot in 50Mbps, is Vegas able to handle that?

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions

[John Rofrano]

[Scott Francis] “Some of the new Canon cameras are going to shoot in 50Mbps, is Vegas able to handle that?”

Are you asking because of the 50Mbps? Because Vegas handles XDCAM HD422 1920×1080 50Mbps today. It’s anyone’s guess if the Canon format will be standard or non-standard which will determine if Vegas can edit it or not.

~jr

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

[Libor Jendele]

Thanks for the answers!

[John Rofrano] Yes Vegas Pro can edit in 50p. How do you plan to deliver this video? Your PAL TV only supports 25p and 50i.

I have TV Sony Bravia KDL40D35 TV and Azbox Premium HD+. Both TV and the set top box can play 1920x1080p. Moreover, I played back some clips (from the set top box) and compared quality PS(1920 x 1080/50p, 28 Mb/s) vs. FX (1920 x 1080/50i, 24 Mb/s) and indeed, there is some noticable difference between them. It applies especially to sport clips and clips with faster panning of the scene, e.g. countryside. The interlaced clips were a bit blurred. It would justify to prefer Sony HDR CX700, (50p) over Sony HDR CX550, (50i).

[John Rofrano] Vegas Pro supports Sony AVC rendering up to 20Mbps.
Is that right? Later in this thread it is mentioned that Vegas Pro can handle video with up to 50Mbips, (XDCAM HD422). I don’t know difference between video format used by XDCAM cameras and HDR CX700. Hence may I ask again: What is the closest match of Vegas Pro (AVCHD) rendering quality to the Sony PS and FX shooting settings (see above)? I don’t mind to use template user settings, as advocated by [Danny Hays]. Is it really just 20Mbits as you said?

I’m asking all these questions as it makes no sense to buy a fancy camera and produce non-editable footage, (or editable but during this process being degraded to something I can take with a cheaper camera). Note the Sony camera comes with PVB SW. It should allow for some very simple editing, (even directly in the camera) but I don’t have any details about it…

Thanks for your support !!

[John Rofrano]

[Libor Jendele] “Is that right? Later in this thread it is mentioned that Vegas Pro can handle video with up to 50Mbips, (XDCAM HD422). I don’t know difference between video format used by XDCAM cameras and HDR CX700. Hence may I ask again: What is the closest match of Vegas Pro (AVCHD) rendering quality to the Sony PS and FX shooting settings (see above)? I don’t mind to use template user settings, as advocated by [Danny Hays]. Is it really just 20Mbits as you said?”

Yes, it’s really just 20Mbps. XDCAM is not AVCHD and your set top box probably won’t play XDCAM footage. If you want AVCHD then 20MBps is currently the upper limit of the Sony AVC codec.

~jr

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

[Danny Hays]

Like John said, Sony AVC maxes out at 20mbps. I was able to modify the mainconcept avc template to 50mbps but even my i7 won’t play it without stuttering.
If your box plays mpeg2, I was able to modify the MainConcept MPEG 2 template to 50mbps 1080 60p and it plays fine on my i7 with Windows media player 11.
YOu can also modify the .wmv render preset for the same.
My Panasonic TM700 has a bitrate of 28mbps at the 1080 60p setting so there’s no reason to make it higher than that, but I did just to test a 50mbps mpeg2, mp4 and wmv.

[Dave Haynie]

The bitrate is actually less of an issue than the frame rate. I have seen no additional measureable overhead editing 1080/24p at 35Mb/s or so from my 60D, 24Mb/s from my HMC40, or 17Mb/s from my TM700.

With a very large number of tracks, the additional bit rate might start to have a slowing effect. But your modern single SATA drive is usually good for 50MB/s or so, which is 1/8th the rate of that 50Mb/s video you’re thinking about. Chances are, hard drive seeks will slow you down with multiple tracks on the same drive before you hit any hard limit on that drive.

On the other hand, increasing the frame rate pretty much linearly increases the CPU load. So 1080/60p editing from the TM700 really does use about twice the CPU as 30p or 60i from another camera. On my 6 core system, with Vegas 10, 1080/60i or 1080/30p has finally got the point where I really don’t think about using Cineform, at least for a simple project (when do something with 20-40 video tracks, that’s different). The CPU is still very much the bottleneck in editing, not the hard drive.

-Dave

[Dave Haynie]

[Libor Jendele] “[John Rofrano] Vegas Pro supports Sony AVC rendering up to 20Mbps.
Is that right? Later in this thread it is mentioned that Vegas Pro can handle video with up to 50Mbips, (XDCAM HD422). I don’t know difference between video format used by XDCAM cameras and HDR CX700. Hence may I ask again: What is the closest match of Vegas Pro (AVCHD) rendering quality to the Sony PS and FX shooting settings (see above)? I don’t mind to use template user settings, as advocated by [Danny Hays]. Is it really just 20Mbits as you said?”

Rendering vs. reading. Vegas can deal with multiple high bitrates coming in… I have done projects with 144Mb/s DNxHD and 100-133Mb/s Cineform just dandy. Not to mention RAW formats, which work, but probably slow you down unless you’re using a pretty hot RAID (my RAID is for long-term storage, not speed, being on FW800 rather than eSATA or something).

On the way out, the maximum bitrate is determined by the CODEC you’re using. This can be just about any rate imaginable, but for a specific CODEC, there can be a limit (eg, the limit isn’t Vegas, it’s the CODEC).

-Dave

[Libor Jendele]

Thanks all for the help. Very much appreciated! This forum is great…