[Ian Roach]

I’m editing an XDCam HD project (NTSC – 35 MBps VBR) on a dual Xeon 3.4 Ghz processor, 2 GB RAM using an AJA Xena card, previewing to an external HD monitor. I don’t know if the AJA card takes over some processing but I too experience some jerkiness at times – even previewing at the good/half setting.

Full is impossible to watch. (the auto preview setting inverts the external image – called Sony on this one and they’re looking into it).

I find with one line of video, the image and frame rate is fine – until there is lots of motion in the shot or an effect is applied. Even dissolves are not perfect most of the time. We end up doing a lot of dynamic ram previews just to be sure.

I preview video captured either from an external Lacie S2S drive (striped 4x500GB) – connected throught the PCI-e bus or an internal ide drive. There does not appear to be any difference in playback performance.

Mutliple layers of video really slows playback down.

We are in the process of getting 2GB more RAM. I think more RAM will help. I don’t know if it is psychological or not, but our external playback seems better – if we leave a small preview window open on our computer monitor.

I also think part of the problem is the variable bit rate XDCam HD is recorded at.

Not sure if this helps you – just my observations from my experience.

Ian

Ian
“Step outside, the graphics are amazing!”

[Ian Roach]

Thanks,
I’ll do that.
Ian

Ian
“Step outside, the graphics are amazing!”

[Ian Roach]

Thank you very much for your reply!

I found the setting in the video tab. I am so relieved to finally have a 35Mbps solution for XDCam HD.

Ian

[Ian Roach]

Hi,

Is there any talk that Vegas 7 will edit XDCam HD at 35 mb/s (The highest quality setting)?

Thanks,

Ian

[Ian Roach]

Hi All,

Finding this post has been very fortuitous. I’ll be starting a project using the F350 XDCam HD at 35 Mb/s and I’ve been looking for the best edit workflow.

I have been editing HDV footage with Sony Vegas (with very good results) but I’ve been looking at either Avid or Final Cut Pro for the XDCam HD. I was a little disappointed to find out Final Cut (and Avid too unless you spend a pile of money – unless I’m reading the literature incorrectly) only supports XDCam at 25Mb/s. Does anybody know why? Or more importantly, when Final Cut will support XDCam HD at 35 Mb/s? It would be nice to take advantage of file based transfer rather than going through a component conversion – although it is comforting to know I can do it.

Further to that, is 10 bit uncompressed HD possible to work with in Final Cut Pro or is it just too sluggish on the system?

We’ll be renting the cameras for this project and should be getting them at the end of this week. If people are interested, I would be happy to post my thoughts about it once I get a chance to play with it.

Thank you for your input.

Ian