[Al Bergstein]

Hey John, by the way, is ATI ok for Vegas? I accidently said OK to a new Dell desktop that comes with a top of the line ATI card instead of a NVideo. I do have another older (last year) NVideo card, but wondered about the ATI. It’s too late to change, as they didn’t have NVideo in stock..sigh..

Doug, I’m also running Vegas 10 64bit on a Samsung i5 with 6 GBs of RAM 500 GB hard drive internal, esata port and docs external and it rocks. The eSata port on that machine (which is why I bought it) and my eSata dock works fine if you don’t mess with the cables at all (a bit touchy). Just did a short 5 minute video on it because my other machine MB failed. Main problem with any laptop is that you really don’t have multiple video out capability, in the way a desktop does. It’s really hard to go back to a small screen unless you are desperate. It does have both a standard VGA and HDMI out, and my 22″ monitor works well with it. However, I’ve been amazed at how fast this machine is rendering Vegas. It seems as fast as my 8 core that just died.

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

Also you didn’t mention if this was 10.a or 10.b (likely b if you upgraded just in the last few days. More info on what codec you were running, etc. I would assume it to be something specific with your machine setup? And John is also right, does your machine work right with everything else? Like the video and sound play Windows media player just fine? How much RAM on your machine? etc. An over the top upgrade from 32 to 64 bit is a fairly major upgrade, so making sure all drivers are fine is important. Best of luck…we’ll do what we can. But I’m unclear if you can even restore point that upgrade.

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

Frederic, what was your impression of Adobe having used both? Is it worth the switch in time and effort?

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

Ok, I’m out of the editing suite for a few days, but will retry this. It was my belief that the first time I had spent time applying the key and the color correction to clip 1 using media fx, then to clip 2 and then merged them using multicamera editing. But I’ll give it another try and see what happens when I get back. maybe there is something I missed. Thanks John, for helping me think through this.

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

Yep, Michael’s got it right. I use a Panasonic HMC150 for those long continuous shots, like concerts, lectures, etc. The 7D is for close up’s wide angle establishing shots, etc. to add to my A camera. I’ve had the camera overheat on a long concert, so it’s a real problem that can happen when you shoot for two hours almost contiuously. But it’s a great camera, just not a great all around video camera. Having said that, there are tons of things that don’t require continous shooting over 12 minutes. See what it is you are shooting. Also, there are lots of cheap HD cameras that might be able to act as that long range long running camera. Get the right tool for the right job…

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

I use Neoscene, but let me tell you, it doesn’t solve the playback issue. It’s a problem, no matter what HD format you use. If you can’t stand it, find another NLE…unless someone has an answer to this problem. I know I haven’t found the answer yet.

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

It’s incredibly expensive, isn’t it? If you really are buying into the Mac world, *and can afford the price* then just pull the trigger and buy the Mac Pro. Another option that I did, was to buy a slightly older Mac Pro, and buy a state of the art Windows 7 machine. I got a a full function Windows machine for under $1000 (though a real state of the art HP workstation is likely to be more like $2k). I bought a Mac Pro for $2200. Added 1 TB drive to the 2 drives in there already (for RAID 1), then bought 2 more 2 TB drives for the MacPro and one 1 TB for the Windows 7 machine. Two monitors. I can work on two machines, rendering one full video while I work on a second one on Vegas. Or I can use both monitors almost at once, because the Vegas machine is using VGA to the second monitor. You can’t do all that with only one Mac. My Mac Pro is fine, slower than the Windows 7 machine, which is more powerful.

The iMac only has one 800 MB FW port, which if you really get into it, is not enough. No expansion slot for esata cards, which I needed. I think you’d regret that choice, if you really get into video editing in a big way. 800 FW is ok, but eSata takes full advantage of the 7200 RPM drives. For HD work, it’s almost a must. Not quite a must, but getting there. I do use 800FW for two of my external Mac drives. You don’t want to daisy chain too many FW devices, as they end up with contention.

Or you can forego the Mac entirely, buy the HP workstation and both Vegas and Adobe, and buy a Mac later if you really need one. I wager that between Adobe and Vegas there is nothing that FCP can do beyond the functions of these two programs. I’ve found that the only thing holding me back from full on Vegas work is that stupid preview of HD footage never being able to keep up. I am constantly having out of sync audio in preview. Sony is going to lose me and others if they can’t fix this problem. I have a 1GB CUDA graphics card. I’ll likely end up going to Adobe because of the problem. Quite odd really. But if you can work around it, Vegas is much friendlier a product than FCP. That’s what I’m doing until I’m done with the latest batch of videos I’m doing, which I need to do fast and cheap.

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

Yes, I’m probably going to abandon the effort. Another problem I’m facing (other than the background angle which I forgot about until you mentioned it), was that when I shifted to Create Multicamera Track Vegas warns that it will strip out effects, etc. which is why I had the problem in the first place. It seems to be saying that my keying, white balance, etc. is going to be stripped out, and in fact that is what happens. So I think you are right in that I would have to render the footage first as a keyed footage for track one, then key and render the footage for track two, then create a multicamera track with the two of them. Way too much effort for what I’m getting paid, and I get an odd angle of looking at the background anyway. But I may try it for the learning experience at some later, less pressed, moment.

Would you two agree with that approach?

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

Sorry John, email is not a precise communication tool. I did add the Chroma key to the media not the events or track, as you mention. And maybe my problem was that I was not keying *prior* to going into multicamera editing. I was editing then keying. That makes sense, I’ll try doing it as you suggest today.

So the method is:
1. insert the clip that you will key.
2. insert the second clip that you will key.
2a. remove the unwanted sound track from whichever track is worse.
3. Add the background (this could be done first of course).
4. Key clip 1 to the background.
5. Key clip 2 to the same background.
6. Enter multicamera editing mode.
7. make the cuts between the various takes as you see fit.

Does that seem to be correct?

Did I miss a video training program on keying that someone has done?

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

Matt, I’ve worked for over a year in AVCHD off Panasonic HMC150, and I use both Vegas and FCP 7 at different times. I did a 16 minute video all in AVCHD transcoded into ProRes. The fastest way (I think) to do what you want, and stay with FCP is to simply L&T without any editing on the way in, like what I do when I batch the AVCHD into AVI when I want to work in Vegas on W7.

Now, I do use Vegas and raw AVCHD if I have a fast and dirty job, under 10 minutes of simple documentary like takes, and no FX of any consequence, BUT, it is not a great editing codec, and reallly bogs down if I throw in raw MOV files from my Canon 7D, which I usually also transcode in batch to AVI.

BUT when working with others, and needing FCP, I will always transcode to Prores, and have found that unless I need to *really* log, that I just drag and drop the whole days shoot in and convert, and go get dinner.

So if you insist on wanting to work in AVCHD native, which neither I nor anyone else on this board considers a good idea, especially for longer professional work with lots of fx, then just work on getting the transcode down.

FWIW, I find that I can transcode much faster with Neoscene to AVI than in FCP to Prores. Maybe it’s my machines, but my Mac is a a dual 2.8 Ghz quad core, 10 GBs RAM, and my measly W7 64 bit with 8 GBs RAM does seem to much more quickly batch transcode the footage. Which is another reason I end up on Vegas more than FCP. But what I’ve found is that FCP plays the footage smoother than Vegas. You give up something either way you go. Vegas needs to get their video preview act together, while FCP forces a slower transcode but then previews fine. Pay me now, or pay me later, but there are no perfect choices, though I’ve not yet tried Premiere on W7, which may hold an answer, but likely just a different set of choices.

Arguing about Apple’s choices on this board is a waste of time. I don’t bother cause it will only bring down the fanboys to flame you…

Best of luck.

Alf