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Home: Video University Forums: Wedding & Event Videography:
Will my system edit hdv?

 
 


Bill615
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Mar 10, 2009, 8:43 AM

Post #1 of 14 (1233 views)
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Will my system edit hdv? Can't Post
Hello everyone, I haven't posted here in a while and I miss it. We finally seem settled into our new house/business setting, so we took the plunge and ordered two HD cameras this week. My question is this: Will we need to upgrade our computers as well? It will be HDV footage from the Sony Z7u and FX1000.

The wife and I have different setups that are both 2-3 years old now. We edit with Sony Vegas Pro 8. Hers is a 2.8 GHz system and mine is 2.0 GHz dual-core system. They are both maxed out at 2 gig of RAM (without flashing the bios or any other tricks that are probably more than I want to do).

I see that one can get quite a computer at Best Buy or wherever for less than a grand. However, if these will cut it without too much frustration, then I would rather hold off for a few months.

Bill


Edward
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Mar 10, 2009, 9:35 AM

Post #2 of 14 (1218 views)
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Re: [Bill615] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
Yes it will but you probably won't get full framerate playback. For my last multi-cam using HD AVCHD files, I rendered out the PIP view to DV and used that for previewing. When I built my master track, that was done from the original files. The final output looked great.
Edward Troxel
JETDV Scripts & Newsletters @ www.jetdv.com


Kenneth
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Mar 10, 2009, 4:04 PM

Post #3 of 14 (1171 views)
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Re: [Bill615] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
Yours, yes - hers, good luck. I would suggest upgrading your wife to a faster system and using the old machine for just encoding.



Philadelphia Wedding Video
The Kenneth Stillman Blog



WCardone
User


Mar 11, 2009, 7:35 AM

Post #4 of 14 (1138 views)
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Re: [Bill615] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
Dual-core is a minimum these days but the good news is that you can probably easily upgrade the MB & processor to dual-core 2.8GHz with 4GB RAM for a very reasonable cost. Even though XP will only see 3 point something GB of RAM, max out the MB if that is what it takes to get 4GB. The extra GB over 2GB makes a noticeable difference in transcoding times.

Probably the bigger question, though, is if you want to EDIT in HDV. HDV will download into any system that you could previously download DV footage to. The problem is if you want to edit it as opposed to letting the camera convert the HDV footage to DV during the download. I recommend editing in HDV if you can but if you don't make some allowance for it, even a quad-core system will bog down. For editing purposes, a quad-core has no advantages over a dual-core. The quad-core scheme is a HUGE advantage for transcoding once your editing is done. It about cuts your transcode time in half.

There are a couple of options I can think of which will allow you to edit in HDV.

1. Scrap Vegas and buy Edius.
2. Scrip Vegas and buy Premiere Pro with the Matrox RT.X2 card.
3. Download your HDV footage using Cineform. This, from my perspective is your best option. It costs a hundred bucks and they give you a three day trial to see if you want to buy it. The file size of your AVIs will be slightly increased from what raw HDV footage would have been but the editing becomes simple as pie.
----------------
Wesley Cardone


Brackish
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Mar 11, 2009, 7:51 AM

Post #5 of 14 (1134 views)
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Re: [WCardone] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
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For editing purposes, a quad-core has no advantages over a dual-core.
 A quad core won't make Vegas render faster than a dual core?



------------------------------------------------------------
"still motion is who everyone else is trying to be like"


MLiebergot
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Mar 11, 2009, 8:22 AM

Post #6 of 14 (1130 views)
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Re: [WCardone] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
Quote
1. Scrap Vegas and buy Edius.
2. Scrip Vegas and buy Premiere Pro with the Matrox RT.X2 card.
3. Download your HDV footage using Cineform. This, from my perspective is your best option. It costs a hundred bucks and they give you a three day trial to see if you want to buy it. The file size of your AVIs will be slightly increased from what raw HDV footage would have been but the editing becomes simple as pie.
Why scrap Vegas and get Edius? If you want to work in intermediate codecs, there are many avenues to achieve this. One is VASST GearShift, which will take your HDV video and swap them out with DV proxies, whcih can be switched back to HDV before rendering. The other is Cineform, which you mentioned.

Again, I see no need to get premeire with a Matrox card, except for render purposes. Just let your video render overnight if needed and your golden.

Also, there is a huge difference in HDV and Cineform fiel sizes. Cineform intern=mediate files sizes will be roughly 3-4 times larger than HDV video. So if storage is a concern, then work in HDV. But since stroage is cheap these days, simply get a hard drive to store your project on and swap out a new drive for a new project. We use removable JBOD dirves, so swapping out a new hard drive takes a matter of 2 minutes to accomplish.

Also, Vegas does an excellent job of transcoding your HDV video to SD vides if needed, as Vegas does a fantastci job of scaling, which can't be said for programs such as FCP.
If you want to take your HDV vidoe and output it to SD 16:9, just make sure that you select "Best" for the video render quality, while you export your elementary MPEG and ac3 vidoe streams.

You should have no problem working with a Duo Core or QUad core and editing HDV footage in Vegas. I ahve worked with 3-4 layers of video with effects with no problems. What helps is that Vegas has many different preview levels which you can work. If I really need to see how smooth a sequence may look, then I simply change the preview to Draft "Best" and I'm golden. In many instances I can still sue Best "Full" preview and get good results. I get these results on a 2.66 Quad Core Mac Pro (running bootcamp), and a 2.5 Duo Core MacBook Pro and Bootcamp. Granted the system is a MAC an not a PC, but theresults should be about the same. With Vegas the two big thinsg for display and render are your hardware, and not RAM, as Vegas relies on hardware to run and only RAM for preview purposes (RAM previews). So teh fater the processor and better your video card, the better results you will get out of Vegas.

BTW, as for previewing HDV footage to an external monitor you can either get a card like teh INtensity and preview via HDMI, or run a downconverted FIrewire preview to an SD monitor, as I have done both.


Michael

Cameras: (3) Sony FX1, Canon HV20
Audio: Marantz PMD620, Edirol R44, ZoomH4N, ZoomH2, Sennhesier G2
Mics: Rode NT5, Rode NT3, Rode M3, Rode NTG2, Shure SM57, AT822
Software: Sony Vegas, Final Cut Studio
Computer: MAC BABY! MacPro, MacBook Pro


WCardone
User


Mar 11, 2009, 11:11 AM

Post #7 of 14 (1108 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
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In Reply To
For editing purposes, a quad-core has no advantages over a dual-core.
A quad core won't make Vegas render faster than a dual core?
I am assuming that Vegas does not multi-thread except for transcoding or rendering. I should have not made that assumption though I would guess it is likely.

I can say that Premier Pro shows no speed differences whatsoever between a dual and quad-core machine until you transcode.
----------------
Wesley Cardone


MLiebergot
Veteran


Mar 11, 2009, 11:40 AM

Post #8 of 14 (1103 views)
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Re: [WCardone] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
Vegas does indeed have multi-thread capability.
So the more cores you are running the better the performance. Smile

Michael

Cameras: (3) Sony FX1, Canon HV20
Audio: Marantz PMD620, Edirol R44, ZoomH4N, ZoomH2, Sennhesier G2
Mics: Rode NT5, Rode NT3, Rode M3, Rode NTG2, Shure SM57, AT822
Software: Sony Vegas, Final Cut Studio
Computer: MAC BABY! MacPro, MacBook Pro


DGates
Veteran


Mar 11, 2009, 2:14 PM

Post #9 of 14 (1094 views)
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Re: [WCardone] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
I bought a Quad core system recently. It indeed rendered twice as fast as my dual-core setup.



"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln


Brackish
Veteran


Mar 11, 2009, 5:22 PM

Post #10 of 14 (1078 views)
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Re: [MLiebergot] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
Not sure but I thought I heard something about the newer
versions of Vegas, maybe 8 or so, having the capability of making
use of the video card for some type of improvement in performance.
Anyone know about this?



------------------------------------------------------------
"still motion is who everyone else is trying to be like"


DGates
Veteran


Mar 11, 2009, 9:01 PM

Post #11 of 14 (1061 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
When I upgraded my video card, I did see an improvement in rendering with Vegas, especially the Magic Bullet filters.



"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln


Brackish
Veteran


Mar 12, 2009, 6:37 AM

Post #12 of 14 (1047 views)
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Re: [DGates] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
In Reply To
When I upgraded my video card, I did see an improvement in rendering with Vegas, especially the Magic Bullet filters.
Okay. That might have been what I was thinking of, that it was
Magic Bullet that can make use of the video card rather than
Vegas.



------------------------------------------------------------
"still motion is who everyone else is trying to be like"


Bill615
User


Mar 12, 2009, 7:51 AM

Post #13 of 14 (1032 views)
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Re: [Bill615] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
Thanks for all the input. I forgot that our "utility" machine (used for capturing, dvd duplication, etc.) is also a dual core similar to mine. For now, we may just swap that with the wife's and see how it goes. We can always upgrade the motherboards/processor/ram if needed. We only have a few projects in March/April to cut our teeth on before the wedding season takes off in May. Spend. spend, spend. We must save the economy.

Bill


Edward
Veteran


Mar 12, 2009, 7:58 AM

Post #14 of 14 (1030 views)
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Re: [Brackish] Will my system edit hdv? [In reply to] Can't Post
Vegas, itself, does not use the video card to speed up processing. However, some plugins to Vegas DO use the video card to speed processing. This would included newer versions of Magic Bullet and a few others.
Edward Troxel
JETDV Scripts & Newsletters @ www.jetdv.com