HD editing cry for knowledge

[John Rofrano]

[Kevin Brady] “I am working video I shot in Costa Rica in January with a Canon SX30IS point and shoot. … My question finally for the group is what software do I need to learn? I love the interface on this Sony software but hate the crashing. Do I need to spend $600 for the 64 bit pro version? Does it solve all these issues?”

No, you probably should buy a “real” video camera to shoot vacation videos. 😉

What codec does the camera use?

If you don’t know, download GSpot and drop the file into it and see what it tells you.

You may have to convert the video from that camera into something that can be edited by a video editing software. I read the specs on that camera and they don’t say much about what formats it uses for movies. They also never say that you can edit your videos, only that you can watch them on TV. That tells me that this camera was not targeted for people who plan to edit their videos.

~jr

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

[Kevin Brady]

That little camera produced a .mov file. I have a Canon HF11 and I just ordered a Canon HF G10 that should arrive Monday next week. I think those are both sorta real video cameras. I have also shot some video with my little Panasonic point and shot DMZ-DS3. I think good software should be compatible with all the current files that are coming out of these cameras. For work we use any and all cameras that we have. We need to be able to “make it happen”. My Droid thunderbolt shoots hd video and I am expect one of these days I will have no other option but to shoot something that we need to use with that phone camera.

If converting from .mov to .mp4 will solve all me issues I am happy to do that. What software would you recommend for that?

Is there a way to get this light weight version of this Sony software do what I need?

[John Rofrano]

[Kevin Brady] “I think good software should be compatible with all the current files that are coming out of these cameras.”

I know that’s what we would all like… but it’s physically impossible. If there were “standards” that camera manufacturers agreed to, then that might be possible… but the current situation is that still image camera manufacturers and $99 pocket camera manufactures are “out of control” selling cameras that shoot all sorts of non-standard formats. It is impossible for software developers to keep up. So you need to check if your camera and software are compatible before you buy either. That’s just the way it is.

[Kevin Brady] ” For work we use any and all cameras that we have. We need to be able to “make it happen”. “

Then you need a workflow that includes converting some of that video into an edit-friendly format. These are usually known as “digital intermediaries”. Apple Final Cut Pro forces you to do this. In Vegas it’s optional but it’s high recommended.

[Kevin Brady] “If converting from .mov to .mp4 will solve all me issues I am happy to do that. What software would you recommend for that?”

No. MP4 is a delivery format and is horrible for editing. You want to convert them to either CineForm ($99USD) or Motion-JPEG video with PCM audio. For the latter you can use a free tool called AviDemux.

[Kevin Brady] “Is there a way to get this light weight version of this Sony software do what I need?”

Only if you use an edit-friendly video format. 😉

~jr

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

[Dave Haynie]

[Kevin Brady] “Hate the crashes. I am working video I shot in Costa Rica in January with a Canon SX30IS point and shoot. The video itself looks amazingly good to be out of such a sad camera. We were trying to pack light on this trip so I left the big glass and tripods at home. Thinking the little camera would be ok. Much to my surprise the video was pretty good but the stills were sad. The thing does not focus well at all. “

That’s a 12Mpixel camera with a crazy long zoom, it’s not going to be the sharpest tack in the box, but it’ll blow away the Instamatic my Mom used to take on vacation.

Video is 720/30p at around 3.5Mb/s.. that’s not Blu-ray quality, but it’s perfectly acceptable for YouTube these days (they actually stream 720p at about 2Mb/s).

The crashes… that’s a trickier thing. It’s been over a year since I’ve seen a video file-related crash. But Vegas (and more other NLEs) isn’t good with errors or other unexpected things in the video file. I had the Sanyo Xacti FH-1 as a pocket camcorder for awhile (position now occupied by my TM700), and it shot crazy good video for the price. It recorded AVC in an MP4 wrapper, and unfortunately, had bugs in the department… negative timecodes, which made Vegas crazy. I fixed this by re-muxing the video (strip out the AVC and AAC elemental streams, then create a new MP4 multiplex using the freeware “Yamb” program (Yet Another MPEG-4 Builder, or some-such). It’s worth a try.. chances are, there’s something in the Canon format that’s on the evil side.

You’d think not, but evidence suggests that the still camera and camcorder people within any company might as well be at separate companies. It’s taken ages for still cameras to deliver proper video autofocus — every camcorder company understood the details of getting this right decades ago.

[Kevin Brady] “This Sony software is only 32 bit so it really does not seem to care that I have lots of memory and lots of cores to work with. I get out of memory messages just trying to edit. I am able to render pretty well though. The results look pretty decent other than now my sound does not quite match the movement.
“

I don’t think you need more memory or 64-bit just to do simple edits 720p AVC video. You don’t need to reset a program to “clear the memory” unless both the application and your version of Windows have severe problems. If you’re seeing repeated out-of-memory errors, it could be a bug in the program. Or the CODEC, if Canon installs their own rather than using the Windows 7 default. This is not the behavior with Vegas Pro.

If “Studio” isn’t using multiple cores (no ideas here, you’d think it would), that alone might be justification for an upgrade, though I totally understand that $600 is more than most people want to spend on hobby software (or $489.95, which is the basic upgrade price from Vegas Studio HD). And you might find it cheaper on eBay (hint, hint). If it’s just for a hobby, you can technically get a friendly educator to buy it for you with the educational discount (my wife’s a teacher, and would never approve of my spending money on software enough to help out here — this also gets you a version that’s not licensed for professional work, so consider that).

Another option: find a cheap older version of Vegas Pro and upgrade. That’s how I got into Photoshop… my Dad and I found a version of Photoshop 3 for $50 at a computer show, totally legit. That plus the Photoshop 4 upgrade was far cheaper than the whole thing. Much more work, but cheaper.

-Dave

[John Oconnor]

I have had like problems with the “.mov” video coming out of a Nikon cool pix – This is a “quicktime” format. I was advised by tech at Apple/Quicktime” that I should convert if I wanted to edit and an excellent converter software is “QuickTime Pro” =$30 download from Apple – It will convert to many other more “editable” codecs including AVCHD and various MPEG’s. I have not gotten back to trying it but if mov is a “quicktime” format then I would expect Apple and QuickTime Pro to know how to deal with it…
There is also a thing called “Large Address Aware” which can be applied to you VMS10 (assuming win 7 32 bit -NA for 64 bit)and will actually allow VMS to use more of all that RAM you have = a cause of lots of rendering and writing crashes – details on it are over in the Sony VMS forums. “Works for me” John

John O

[Kevin Brady]

I dont think this will surprise anyone here. I tried all the suggestions without success. So in my frustration I decided to download the 64 bit version of Vegas pro 10 trail version just to see if it was bad video clips or just buggy software that was intentionally crippled.

The 64 bit Vegas 10 pro works flawlessly. Dang it!
Well it is only money I guess. I if I had all the money I have wasted on cheap versions I could have already paid for this great one.

Thanks to all for the comments and assistance. I expect my new HF G10 will yield much better video files.

[John Rofrano]

[Kevin Brady] “The 64 bit Vegas 10 pro works flawlessly. Dang it!”

This is because the Pro 10 version is actually newer than the Movie Studio 10 version. I’m guessing that the next Movie Studio version will do better with these newer camera files. If Pro is working for you, then that’s probably the best solution.

~jr

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