follow-up to Vegasvs FCP (wondering about QUALITY)

[Erik Lindahl]

I think a lot of times an editor, be it a Final Cut Pro editor, will say what they prefer and usually I’d prefer a QuickTime file, uncompressed or ProRes (if HD/2K) and thus I think this is what you encounter.

Yes, I think it’s still only possible to decode ProRes on Windows at the moment which imo is a major issue Apple should fix if they really want to spread ProRes the way it seems. I think Telestream stated Episode can encode ProRes even on Windows, I’m not 100% sure on that one. This is however a major over-sight done by Apple if they really want a wide-spread format. Seing hardware from various manufactuers are supporting ProRes I would think software can / or will in the future as well.

You said “Apple does not make ProRes422 codec for the Windows version of Quicktime” which is somewhat incorrect. They make one it just isn’t a two-way-street.

Well, Cineform is a format that i theory could “bridge the gap” between say your Vega’s system and an FCP system. The problem is as you state – why would an FCP user go out and buy something they get for free (more or less)? So yeah, we’re again stuck. This is IMO an issue Apple has the power to fix if they really wanted to. A small royalty fee for ProRes I guess is what’s holding companies back from embracing it, I can’t really say. I can say that on MacOS in FCP ProRes works far better than in Premier Pro. The later can read it but it’s not very efficient.

Looking to the future I wouldn’t be surprised if MacOS / QuickTime and also FCP get’s a far more “open” structure (i.e. reads native file-formats rather than re-wrapping everything to QuickTime). QuickTime X in MacOSX 10.6 is to my knowledge built towards that idéa. At the moment we’re still stuck in QuickTime 7-land for production however. At the end of the day, in my opinion, it would be sweet to just add support centrally in QuickTime for .MXF, .MTS .M2V and so forth as well as adding the needed codecs. It shouldn’t matter if my MPEG2 stream is wrapped in a QuickTime or a .M2V really as long as we don’t end up with formats that have a bunch of limitations. This however won’t be known until MacOSX 10.7 and / or Final Cut Pro 8 / what ever the new version will be called as we’re still stuck in “old QuickTime land” for the time being.

I don’t have any HDV footage here but when ingesting digital formats such as RED, DVCPRO HD and so forth you go to the following steps:

– File > Log and transfer
– Click the “Add volume” in the top left corner (i.e. your P2 card with media)
– Navigate to the card and click “open”
– All the files on the card should now show in the transfer window, you can preview them, set in and out points and so forth.
– In the top right corner there is a “settings” button where you can set to retain the original codec or transcode to ProRes.

That said, I’ve got limited experience with HDV given we HAVE edited some HDV in FCP.

————————
Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se

[Erik Lindahl]

Sadly your Linux won’t run 85% of the applications one need so.. not open enough 😉

————————
Erik Lindahl
Freecloud Post Production Services
http://www.freecloud.se

[John Rofrano]

[Erik Lindahl] “That said, I’ve got limited experience with HDV given we HAVE edited some HDV in FCP.”

Thanks. Now at least I can point them in the right direction.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

[Erik Lindahl] “Sadly your Linux won’t run 85% of the applications one need so.. not open enough ;)”

Yea, I had to join a web conference the other day. I think it was goto meeting or something like that and it stopped me from opening the conference and said I needed windows or mac to join so I hear ya’. I had to load windows in vmware player just to use the browser! Argh!

~jr

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

[Dave Haynie]

It’s kind of telling that, of the five formats you specifically mention, only one (DVCProHD) is an actual camcorder format, and at that, not really an industry standard. Yes, it’s known well in the industry, but it’s a Panasonic proprietary format (as well as not really HD). ProRes, similarly… well known in the industry, but an Apple proprietary format. DNxHD is open source but owned by Avid, and generally not a capture format. Cineform, of course, also not a typical capture format, and also very proprietary. As is Quicktime itself (which you need for DNxHD and ProRes, at the very least).

How about native support for actual cross-vendor camera capture standards, like MXF/MPEG-2 (a SMPTE standard) or AVCHD?

However, I think it’s kind of irrelevant about what FCP actually CAN edit, in this context. When you’re dealing with a service bureau of some sort, they’re generally going to suggest their format or two of choice to make their lives easier, not yours. And perhaps to cover their butts… they can’t support a format that’s going to get transcoded into ProRes or some such, without the possibility that the conversion changes your video in unacceptable ways.

And with that said, I shoot AVCCAM from time to time at work, hand my SDHC card to our internet media guy, and he happily edits away in FCP. Maybe it goes to ProRes (probably… he’s just got a Mac laptop… I’d probably use Cineform for any non-trivial editing of AVC on my dual-core laptop), but it goes without a hitch. I think it’s even easier for him if I remux the MPEG-2 TS streams to MPEG-4, but I don’t bother anymore.

This is a common phenomena in support, across the board. You find a “minimum configuration” sticker on nearly every software package. This usually has little to do with what actually works or not… it’s really a statement of the level of hardware you need to speak to tech support about problems — they’re minimizing their needed expertise by supporting only those systems they need to support, not everything that’ll work.

-Dave

[Al Bergstein]

wow….long thread. Just wanted to add…regarding monitors…

I use both Vegas 9.0e, 10 on an HP AND a Mac Pro running FCP current version. I run both to THE SAME MONITOR…I switch between the two platforms, sometimes start rendering on one and change to the other.

The MAC platform with their built in support of high res graphics cards is DEFINITELY better quality on the SAME monitor. So it’s NOT the MONITOR. It’s the application.

It would be interesting to hear from someone who runs both AVID and FCP on the same monitor, like I do. I bet they are the SAME quality, since both support graphics cards properly.

Now that Vegas 10 supports graphics cards, I notice a BETTER resolution on my monitor, but still NOT to the degree that FCP does. However, I can finally playback AVCHD real time, which I think was a marketing decision on Sony’s part since it amazingly got fixed as they released their AVCHD cameras. Pathetic.

So I continue to use Vegas for simple fast run and gun jobs, and when I need real quality, or have to ‘play well with others’, I transcode to MOV (which costs time and money folks!), and do it on the Mac. yes, I could transcode to Neoscene’s tools, and sometimes do, but I still don’t get great color correction, or proper quality of display. I think that the ultimate output is the same quality, BUT it’s the problems I encounter editing (jerky preview/playback, poor white balance, etc.) that forces my hand.

I LOOK FORWARD to not having to buy over priced Apple hardware and software, but hey, it’s just a tool. It’s not a religion…

Alf

[Frank Black]

Sebastian, how do you color balance them?

[Frank Black]

Thanks Dave — about IPS.

[Frank Black]

Alf, interesting what you say about it NOT being the monitor.

[Dave Haynie]

Not sure what you’re talking about here.

Windows has support of high resolution monitors, just as MacOS does. In fact, I get my drivers directly from nVidia… not sure about the Mac platform. But that’s optimal.. they know the graphic device better than anyone else.

As far as GPU support goes, that’s a speed issue, not a quality one. Vegas doesn’t support the GPU in UI preview yet, only for rendering. They have improved their preview — AVC editing is noticeably faster in Vegas 10 than Vegas 9, but it’s all CPU based.

Not sure about FCP, but Vegas has a slew of options for video preview, including direct-to-device, if you have dedicated preview devices. For normal preview, when quality matters, I preview 1080p on a 1200p monitor, fullscreen, and the quality is limited by the monitor, not Vegas, IF I select the highest quality preview. There are options to scale down in quality and resolution.. you probably know that, but just in case… look for it.

There is no need for an application to “support a graphics card” .. in fact, I don’t want Vegas knowing about my graphics card specifically for video preview. I keep my monitors color calibrated, that runs through the operating system (as it should), and anything not going through the OS would bypass that as well.

And there’s another question… if you’re doing serious video or graphics work on a Mac, you most certainly have a color calibration device (it’s easy to tell.. I get a nag every two weeks to run calibration again). Do you have support for this when you boot Windows, or is it Mac-only? That alone could be the difference in image quality that you’re seeing.

This isn’t unique to computers, either.. most people don’t calibrate their HDTVs either. And HDTVs aren’t shipped with anything close to a good guess about calibration, either (don’t know about monitors), they’re shipped to make a big impact in 5 minutes on the retailer’s floor. Pretty close to the opposite of what you really want. I have done calibrations on friends’ and relatives’ TVs that have repeatedly kept them from returning them… and with all that, not one kick-back from Best Buy or Panasonic 🙁

-Dave