Why? XDCAM HD in Vegas

[Peter Wright]

Only a guess, but the ability to read scenes from disc etc will involve a considerable new structure, so I’m not altogether surprised.

I would have thought it possible, however, for Sony media to have been given the blueprint for this camera ages ago. My technical division is constantly in touch with my creative team, but then again, they’re both me.

Peter Wright
Perth, Western Oz
http://www.allroundvision.com.au

[Gary Kleiner]

[Peter Wright] “My technical division is constantly in touch with my creative team, but then again, they’re both me.”

LOL!

Gary Kleiner

Learn Vegas and DVD Architect

http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com

[Randall Raymond]

My technical division is constantly in touch with my creative team, but then again, they’re both me.

Who’s washing the bottles?

[Ron Shook]

Raymond,

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “Does anyone have a clue as to why we have to wait until September for Vegas 7 for full support of XDCAM HD footage for a SONY camera that is out NOW? Why wouldn’t this be an upgrade given for support of the camera? September???”

Full Native MXF support in any format flavor is a tough job that delves down into the guts of the NLE database structure. It’s not a simple upgrade to do it right. No NLE that the very great majority of us might use currently has it, including Avid, Apple and Adobe, except Edius, and even though Edius can do Native XDCam MXF, they can’t do native XDCamHD MXF yet, so Vegas is far from alone.

Avid will probably be the first to be able to edit XDCamHD directly from the optical disks, if they haven’t already, but their version is not MXF native, but a workaround that takes advantage of their more capable database and media management. Edius, Adobe via Matrox, and yes, Vegas will all deliver MXF native XDCamHD capability in the same time frame, mid to late Summer, early Fall. Be encouraged by the fact that it is happening, and that once an NLE manufacturer has mastered MXF native in one format they are far better prepared to deliver MXF native in other formats in short order if they haven’t already.

For those who don’t know, MXF is an SMPTE standardized wrapper that contains metadata far beyond the conventional video and audio essences and time-code that travels with video tape. It can contain in the file itself any number of standard and user definable fields of metadata, such as a time stamp, the shooters name, place, which could even be automatically entered with GPS data, the copywrite holder, the production company, whatever. This metadata always travel with the file when the file is handled natively through the production/post-production/distribution process and as it travels through that process the fields are incremented and the user has a history of file back to the beginning, when it was first created.

If the NLE can handle MXF natively, each clip that you use in the edit master file will have a history of metadata, so you’ll never have to wonder where a clip came from and where, when and how it was modified, years later. Obviously broadcasters with their huge media asset management and digital rights management tasks, need and embrace this whole heartedly, but I think that it’s obvious that it can be an advantage to even the one man band type folks. I think that it’s also obvious that it ain’t no simple upgrade journey.

Ron Shook

[Randall Raymond]

Thanks Ron. I like this camera for its workflow. The idea of pulling in proxy files, doing a quick cuts-only edit and then BURNING that EDL back onto to the same disk is just brilliant.

One would think, that of all NLEs, Vegas will have the tightest integration with the camera. The idea of being on the road and emailing proxy files and having a rough edit done before you get back is just way too cool.

[Ron Shook]

Raymond,

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “The idea of being on the road and emailing proxy files and having a rough edit done before you get back is just way too cool.”

You betcha!

[Raymond Motion Pictures] “One would think, that of all NLEs, Vegas will have the tightest integration with the camera.”

Perhaps it will, but you have to understand that this is a very complex undertaking, and that the idea behind MXF as an industry standard is that any NLE that is compliant to this standard can potentially have the same integration as long as Sony opens the codecs to the industry or uses reasonable licensing policies.

At this point in time, Sony isn’t going to cut its own throat and thumb its nose at the broadcasters who will generate the bulk of XDCamHD sales by not helping first and foremost the NLEs that most broadcasters use, which would be first Avid and Then FCP, with Edius and Axio starting to make some headway. As a broadcast product, Vegas is way down in the list, even if it is Sony’s product. At least it will be one of the first in MXF compliance and can start making it’s way up the list if it meets other broadcast needs as well. It certainly should begin to in the mobile computing category that you are looking to use.

Ron Shook

[Peter Wright]

> “Who’s washing the bottles?”

– have a guess …

– and you’d be right.

Peter Wright
Perth, Western Oz
http://www.allroundvision.com.au

[Rob Mack]

And just keep in mind that the division that makes the XDCam and the division that produces Vegas are very, very separate. It’s not actually a given that Vegas would be first out the gate with support.

Rob Mack

[Chris Young]

Hi All ~

Seeing it’s now safe to talk about V7, had my first post pulled! Ron L. explained why so all was cool and understood. Mr. Sony didn’t want the info out prior to NAB. Prior to NAB we attended a Sony XDCam HD release day here in Sydney where we had a hands on day of the new cameras and BluRay DVR’s. A very good system were my first impressions. The 350 camera especially. During the course of this day we were shown a PowerPoint slide show. In this slide show were details of the V7 release in Sept ’06. The detail was that V7 will have direct I/O FAM (File Access Mode) with these cameras and will handle the 18/35 Mb/s VBR rates as well as the existing 25 Mb/s HDV format giving it backward compatibility with the current Sony HDV format. Interestingly we were told that Sony Media USA now had a couple software engineers working in Japan with the camera development team to get very tight integration between the cameras their formats and Vegas. So as Ron said, a lot of work to be done.

Apparently Sony Japan are now realising that Vegas is making serious inroads to the NLE market. Their latest figures putting FCP first, Premiere Pro second and Vegas solidly in third position and closing on Premiere. With the news that Adobe is pulling a lot of the ‘bundling’ options of Premiere being available with various video cards it was hoped Vegas would move into second place. The impression a few of us got was that Sony was aiming the XDCam HD system into the market as an ‘affordable’ complete HD system, including NLE software integration, with Vegas. So interesting times ahead I think.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Joe Carney]

From what I saw at NAB, Sony is positioning Vegas as part of an overall workflow/asset management system they are developing. Some of the new visually based search tools were very interesting, and available directly from a menu option in Vegas itself. What they demo’d went way beyond Adobes’ bridge product. What that means is if they get it into broadcast stations, field setups using Vegas could become an important part of the overall system. Much like laptop based Avid systems are used to pull things into full Avid suites.

This isn’t to say Independent movie makers like myself are left out in the cold, just that Sony is definitely backing Vegas for a variety of uses.

Joe C.