Next vid editing software to get?

Prem Pro 1.5 will work on a Athlon XP2600 but not really anything smaller but
for prem pro 2.0 you would need a processor that supports SSE2, so that mean a P4
or an AMD 64bit chip

as usual..............Sony vegas!!!
;)
stable as heck
supports more codecs than anything else on the market
runs on PIII if you want / AMD anything, so not an issue.

regardless of which one you buy, no doubt you'll download the demos first, so see which workflow you prefer, right? Because all we tell you doesn't compare to personal experience

:)

Yes, definately Sony Vegas.

Not a huge learning curve from MSP7, similar screen layouts but very stable and easy to use. I have used it for many years now and never want for anything more.

oh Sony Vegas, is that the audio software that tries to do video? ;)

seriously i did use the trial for a bit but i couldn't get on with it although there were a few niceish features in it.

Have a look at Canopus Edius Pro 4, I think there's a free download trail version (full features but expires after 30 days). I'm happy with it.

Unless it has Sony Vegas on the box I wouldn't bother opening it.

A drawback of Sony Vegas is the lack of Enable/Disable for individual clips on a timeline. I've talked this through with demonstrators at several exhibitions and at first they say "Oh yes, it's got Enable/Disable" and then I extract from them the admission that it applies to complete timelines and not to individual clips on a timeline. They then say "Yes, wouldn't it be really useful if it did that. Let me check and get back to you". But they never do.

Editing in general and multitrack editing in particular is so much easier with Enable/Disable for individual clips. No deleting is needed when selecting between cameras and the timeline remains much more coherant.

Ray Liffen

Why not speak to a dealer who sells several of these programs. Tell them the sort of work you do etc and they may be better placed to advise you.

IIRC there is a summary of the pros and cons of various editing software on the DVC website.

The problem with advice from individual users is that few have detailed knowledge of a wide range of editing programs and inevitably they tend to recommend the program they use. I use Avid Liquid and am perfectly happy with it. I have a much less detailed knowledge of a couple of other programs and have never used some. So although I can recommend Liquid it's not a recommendation based on a broad knowledge of editing software.

Ray, not sure I understand your concern,

by disable do mean leave the clip on the time line but not be able to see it when previewing ?
If so then just take down the opacity of the clip to zero works for me.

Or

Chose between varies clips in the same position on a time line?
Use the "Take function"

Or

lock it in position so it cannot be moved?
not, that I am aware

Hi
That's a totally unacceptable workaround for a professional NLE used for multi-layer compositing, which may have a whole range of keyframed opacity parameters set for each clip.
Multi-layer work frequently requires disabling of individual clips in order to make precise changes to any particular level.
As RayL says, if that is how the software is implemented, then it has not been designed/engineered by a development team that has any real-world experience of current professional-level editing practice.
Even more so on an A-Z++ transition track NLE rather than Ray's beloved A-B only track Premiere <6.5 ;)

I do not see how that is a total unacceptable workaround, grasp the top of the clip drag to the bottom, boom invisible on the timeline, hardly a workaround, that normally implies a long winded solution

Taking the opacity down on the particular clip makes it invisible or another way disable it, does not effect any key frames for that (or other) clip, if it is just, to do what you say then muting the whole time line will do that anyway.

I at present cannot see what the difference of muting a clip or the track would have, both will do the same trick while you work.

Adjusting the opacity could work, but if you go to render the timeline to the same format as the original (let's say dv .avi for instance), then the program will re-render the section where you have the opacity set to 0% (which might degrade quality, and increase timeline render time).

In Vegas (at least in version 6 and 7), to disable/enable an event on the timeline, you can use the Switch/Mute option on the clip.

Regards,
George

If they clip already has keyframed opacity points at variable levels then you simply cannot
just take the opacity down on a clip as this would destroy all keyframed settings for opacity on that clip. As paul says a totally unacceptable work around.

this sounds more interesting however

ummm............it doesn't. just tried it. works as Z says.

however, the MUTE option is the bestest. thanks for the tip!

:)

A lot of editing is repetitive. The same few tools are used over and over again to work on the hundreds of clips that go to make up the completed project. Under those circumstances, it is simply perverse to work inefficiently, to use tools that need three actions when a better tool only uses two or one, to use inefficient methods when there is a better way.

I take note of the various work-rounds and bodges that have been suggested as alternatives to Enable/Disable for clips (which I can do in Premiere by pressing a single key) and say thankyou, but unless you take pleasure from doing things the hard way, then please accept that the lack of this feature is a drawback, plain and simple.

Ray Liffen

Ok can i just clarify this.

If you have a clip on the timeline with say an opacity fade up at the begining and an opacity
fade down at the end (opacity fade rather than a transition apllied to the clip)
with a keyframed dip in opacity in the middle, if you then lower the opacity for the clip to zero ie it is then effectively invisible and then put it back up it does not affect the keyframed opacity points like the two fades and the dip at all?

I was using an composite envelope with keyframes across the whole track, then changed individual opacity of a clip by dragging down it's top edge

sure, not the best solution, but since the MUTE switch is available, all objections are moot

and as Vegas allows one to assign a key combo to virtually anything, one can set up a keystroke to mute/unmute a clip. Have just set up CTRL + SHIFT + D to do so. Simple

sorted

thezerocool, get in touch with DVC and ask them for a copy of their very helpful booklet (i'm sure it's free) on the pros and cons of the major editing programmes. It's a very unbias view and has lots of useful pointers. They will probably be able to tell you if there are free trials available and I've always found these a good way of sorting out the ones you might like as against the ones you instantly dislike.

DVC contact is: http://www.dvc.uk.com

robo

Sony Vegas. Luv it!. Have you tried using the mute switch?.

The Switch is a place I have not been before as i have not required, but handy to now know. This is not a tool I use over and over again so the two key press is neither here no there, and the re-assigning the keyboard in Vegas is handy , as I use if for some other shortcuts.

I Take note off Rays comments, but there is a lot going for Vegas apart form the mute switch that makes it so fast to work with and and I have to say better then the old tradition film type editors.

Also remember Vegas can run scripts so a load of repetitive stuff can be automated, like checking the whole time line to see if you have left any gaps between the clips, or check all audio and Normalise where required, or change.

Could the function of the Mute switch in Vegas be explained, please? What it does and, also very important, what it doesn't do?

Also, am I to understand that the only 'keyboard shortcut' available for this Mute function is to align three fingers so that three keys are pressed simultaniously? That there is no option for this function to be assigned to a single key?

Ray Liffen

lol

ok, when it mutes, it disables a clip. what it doesn't do is lock, delete, remove, spring clean, do the laundry or affect the clip in any other way.
as the help explains it: "Excludes the selected event from playback"

and if you really find 3 keys too much of a hassle, you could always................(wait for it)..........assign it to one key!!!! F4 works for me, becos I use it not for anything else in vegas AFAIK

for all the switches, have a looksee here:

Mute
Excludes the selected event from playback.

Lock
Locks an event so that it cannot be moved or edited.

Loop
Enabling the Loop switch on an event will allow you to drag the right edge of the event out and have it repeat the file over and over rather than inserting silence.

Invert Phase (audio only)
Reverses the phase of the sound data. Although inverting data does not make an audible difference in a single file, it can prevent phase cancellation when mixing or crossfading audio signals.

Normalize (audio only)
Maximizes an audio event’s volume without clipping.

If you want to recalculate the normalization value for the selected event, click the Recalculate button on the Event Properties dialog to determine the normalization value for the selected event. If you trim or extend a normalized event, you will want to recalculate the normalization to account for the different audio levels that may have been exposed.

Maintain Aspect Ratio (video only)
Prevents aspect ratio distortion (stretching of video frames) when the length-to-width ratio between the source media and project's frame size are not the same.

Reduce interlace flicker (video only)
This switch can be useful in cases where the source material didn't originate as video and contains extremely high spatial or temporal frequencies.
When you watch the rendered (interlaced) output on video of this sort of media, you may see flickering or crawling edges if this switch is not applied
Enable this switch when using imported images that were not created using a video camera (such as photographs) or when using generated media or text.

Resample (video only)
Select a radio button to determine how video frames will be resampled when the frame rate of a media file is lower than the project’s frame rate. This can occur either when the event has a velocity envelope or when the frame rate of the original media is different than the Frame rate setting on the Video tab of the Project Properties dialog.

With resampling, the intervening frames are interpolated from the source frames, much like a crossfade effect between the original frames. This may solve some interlacing problems and other jittery output problems.

Smart resample
Resampling occurs only when an event's calculated frame rate does not match the project frame rate and the project frame rate is 24 fps or greater.
The calculated frame rate takes into account any changes made to event speed with velocity envelope, playback rate, and undersample rate.

Force resample
The event is always resampled, regardless of its frame rate or the output frame rate.

Disable resample
No resampling will occur.

Hi Fuddam
Thanks for that authoratative reply ;)
Most often, its pilot error or ignorance that causes a major part of people's software problems or bad experience...

Fuddam

Thanks, but please define 'Event' ie what the word means as far as Vegas is concerned.

If I have a clip that is 1 hour long and I make a cut at 30 mins and a cut at 30 minutes and 1 second (in both sound and picture), would I be able to highlight ONLY the picture part of the 1 sec clip and disable it (using your F4 key) so that although it remained on the timeline it was invisible as far as the timeline picture output was concerned? And would another press on the F4 key would make it visible again?

I'm not trying to catch you out - it's important to see whether we are actually talking about the same thing. (Especially when Vegas experts and demonstrators on exhibition stands have suggested otherwise)

Ray Liffen

:)

'event' is the term Vegas uses for anything on the timeline, be it audio, video, still. Could use 'clip' as same

yes, as you wrote, F4 will disable whichever event / clip you highlight. tried it yesterday / today, to 100% guarantee customer satisfaction. Audio and video can be muted separately if you want.

HTH :)

is similar to hitting Z to mute an entire track (audio or video)

As Fuddam says, the answer is YES.

Since my original post in this thread, I have been following your comments because I was puzzled as to why you included the MUTE function as a "work-round and bodges"???

After seeing your example, I am certain the SWITCH/MUTE (assignable to a single shortcut key) will do what you want :)

And if your timeline under the muted section is eligible for smart-render, then that section will be smart-rendered (i.e. as if it weren't there at all).

Also, if you define a preview section of your timeline to playback in a loop, you can keep toggling the MUTE on a clip while playback continues to play (i.e. it does not stop playback while you enable/disable the clip). NOTE: the continuous preview-playback also works while adding/removing fx/filters/track-motion/etc... (this is one of my favorite features of Vegas).

Regards,
George

Thanks to you both. It's good to have that cleared up - and it makes Vegas much more interesting as a follow-up to my present setup.

Ray Liffen

Fuddam, are you saying that even the latest Vegas 7 will run on a PIII? If so it might be what I'm looking for to replace my rather flaky Premiere 6.01 which keeps disappearing from the screen in mid-edit.

My editing workstation has a 1.9Ghz P4 with 1Gb RAM with a Radeon 9600 series graphics card set for dual monitors, and a DVStorm2 card, so upgrading to either Premiere Pro 2 or Edius 4 isn't available to me without investing £3000+ in a completely new system. But if I undertand you correctly my existing setup would run Vegas 7 for SD editing, although I accxept that I would need a new system for HD editing if I ever go down that route.

I'm not sure whether Vegas would work with the DVStorm though, and doubt whether Canopus have issued Storm drivers for Vegas, so that might present a problem.

Well, here it be from the horse's mouth:

System Requirements
Microsoft® Windows® 2000 SP4, XP Home, or XP Professional (Windows XP SP2 required for HDV and XDCAM)
800 MHz processor (2.8 GHz recommended for HDV)
200 MB hard-disk space for program installation
600 MB hard-disk space for optional Sony Sound Series Loops & Samples reference library installation
256 MB RAM (512 MB RAM recommended for HDV)
OHCI-compatible i.LINK® connector¹/IEEE-1394DV card (for DV and HDV capture and print-to-tape)
Windows-compatible sound card
DVD-ROM drive (for installation from a DVD only)
Supported CD-recordable drive (for CD burning only)
Microsoft DirectX® 9.0c or later²
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0²
Internet Explorer 5.1 or later²
Product requires online registration within 30 days

:D

agreed. The only hardware really needed for vegas is firewire, and I haven't used dvstorm. There isn't any hardware acceleration for vegas, but at least is not hardware dependent.

Thanks, Fuddam. Seems that all I need to do is put in an OHCI firewire card and give it a whirl!

I'd be really interested to know how you get on. Trial...
http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/download/step2.asp?DID=698

If you really want to learn how to use Vegas then Buy the Gary Kleiner tutorials:

vegastrainingandtools.com/videos_learn_sony_vegas_tutorials_and_dvd_architect_training_on_instructional_video_dvds.html

First Class instruction ( I bought the Vegas 5 set a couple of years back). Gary, by the way, is the Creative Cow team leader for the Sony Vegas forum.

John

Brian I am running Vegas 6 on a 1.4Ghz 128Meg laptop and works fine, the render is the only real problem as the faster it is the quicker it render. But I normally leave on overnight if a big project.

A firewire card is only required if you need to capture footage, Vegas has capture utility.

As we have a lot of Vegas enthusiatst here would some one mind answering a couple of questions. I have had a brief look at Vegas kindly demonstated by Cheema and quite liked it.
My current set up is DV500 and prem 6.5. and Computer and editing facilities are due an upgrade. I have a TV plugged into the DV500 card which gives a very good real time display and as much as is possible with the variance of TV's, a very accurate display. Infact colour or exposure corrections are applied to the TV picture rather than the monitor picture displayed in the premier workspace which tends to colour shift and be much darker.

Will Vegas allow a similar setup that would display on a seperate TV while working on the project. Then when written to DVD, and that played back through the same TV, get exactly what I was seeing from the timeline.

I hope that makes sense. Basically, what I see on my TV, of what is being played on the timeline is pretty much what I get once the project is finished.

Is the latedt version of Vegas HDV compatable?
Doaes it include DVD authoring or is that a seperate software?
Thanks for any information
Dave Hughes

Yes it will. I use a Canopus ADVC -110 to do exactly that.

well, the options for TV output for vegas are as follows:
- AJA card
- Blackmagic decklink card
- firewire / DV out
- secondary windows display

I don't know the spec of the DV500, but assume your TV output uses it be Y/C etc? AFAIK (and please correct me) would not use that out. Mine runs through firewire, then TV out from there.

very :) Has been HDV compatible for previous 2 versions (5&6) but now is muchos faster.

included. very capable tool, too. DVD Architect. includes scripting, which looks to open a whole world of add-ons. Have tried the Video button stuff, which is quite groovy, ie having a button/s directly on your video playback. While they watch the DVD, buttons appear as you specify, which they can click to take them elsewhere.
:)

EDIT: just googled a pic of your DV500. Didn't know it had a breakout box. Thought it was card only, which would have caused a hiccup. Well, you be happy no doubt, then ;)

You can output the preview from a Video card as Video (if fitted)or as above via fire wire to a device to convert to TV, a pass through on a camera or player will do.
To get accurate results you may need to pre-render a section just to make sure the results are accurate.

High-light the section to render (small section) then press SHIFT+B

I've recently bought a new Sony A1 HDV cam from Prestons at a very competitive price, and was lucky enough to get one of the last with the free Vegas 7 software. I've now installed this and have been playing around with it, and like its feel and features. Although its the full Vegas 7, it doesn't have the DVD Architect 4 software that now comes as part of the retail bundle. But it looks as though you can buy this from sonymediasoftware.com in the US as a downloadable upgrade to any version of Vegas for about £120, so I may do this later (Ggggrhhhhh - just tried their web site to see, and it says my serial number isn't a qualifying number - I'll have to stick to DVDWS2!)

I've got a couple of queries to which I've not been able to find the answer:

1. How do you create a new floating dockable area? The help section says that you can do this but doesn't tell you how. Nor does the manual or any of the on-line tutorials I've looked at to date. I use dual monitors, and this would be a useful feature if I only I could work out how to do it.

2. Can anyone using Vegas for HDV editing suggest a suitable spec for a new desktop workstation (or laptop for that matter)? I shall need to replace mine before I can start to edit HDV.

Many thanks.

grab any palette you want to move from its original position by the little grab handle in the top left of the palette. Signified by 3 small dots in a vertical line, IIRC. Move it to the 2nd monitor (for example)

can place any palette anywhere, or even drag one over another to dock them together. The 2nd one will form a large rectangle on top of the original, to indicate they will dock together.

truth be told, if you can edit DV, you can edit HDV, esp if prepared to use proxies (eg Cineform one is highly recommended)
that being said, am currently looking at new spec myself, which includes:

- Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (better if you got the cash)
- 2GB Ram minimum
- Socket 775 mobo, eg Asus P5B Plus, pref with eSata port for future. should also handle quad core later.
- Any reasonable video card, since Vegas doesn't really care about them. Will spend about 75-100 quid myself, since like the odd game. For vista eventually, would prob want 256MB.
- HDD: 7200 rpm Sata II drives x 2 for video Raid 0 (eg 2 x 250GB)
- HDD: 7200 rpm Sata II x 1 for system drive (eg 120 - 160GB) Am quite kindly disposed to the Samsung drives right now. Very quiet and reliable.
- 2 x DVDRW drives. Only really need one + DVD reader, but having a 2nd has proved invaluable when the 1st went bung on deadline. So cheap too - about 23 quid.
etc

I edit HDV on an old 64bit AMD Athlon 64 3000. Want higher speed, but biding my time / trying to get someone else to pay for it.

Fuddam
Thanks for your very helpful response. Isn't it easy when you know how? I've now got my screens looking as near to me old Premiere set-up as I can get.

That sounds like a whole new learning curve to me! I've obviously got lots to get to grips with before I'm anything like proficient on Vegas, so will keep Premiere on stand-by just in case.

That's the sort of spec I was thinking of, but its good to have my thoughts confirmed and your suggestion for the mobo is helpful. The points about future upgrade are something that I probably wouldn't have considered.
Many thanks for all you help and quick reply.

Well, I’m getting on quite well with Vegas 7d and certainly like what I’ve seen so far.
However, I’m disappointed with the video preview performance which stutters badly (presumably dropping frames), although the audio playback is smooth.
I’ve tried reducing the preview size and quality, but this hasn’t made any appreciable difference. I’ve also tried configuring Vegas to preview only to my external monitor via firewire, but this hasn’t helped either.
I’m running Vegas 7d under XP Pro SP2 on a P4 1.9GHz with 1 Gb RAM and an ATI Radeon 9600 512 Mb graphics card. Whilst previewing, CPU usage is running at 100%.
The video files are on a separate video drive which has been defragged and works well on the same system with Adobe Premiere and my Canopus DV Storm 2.
Any suggestions, please?

Brian, you like me have been spoilt by Canopus' preview performance. I keep trying Vegas and much as I like many of its features I cannot get preview performance within a million miles of what I'm used to, even on a fast machine. (Core2Duo extreme, 2GB RAM and a fast RAID array)

I think it comes down to what is most important to you. I use Edius for most of my editing (on an Edius SP system these days) then do anything Edius cannot do in something else, sometimes in sections, sometimes the whole thing.

Bottom line is, if you want the same preview performance you are used to then you really are limited to either Canopus or Matrox hardware solutions. (I gather FCP is equally challenged in this department. I'll find out soon.) ;)

Hi
FCP 5.1.2 is quite challenged to give in-depth real-time preview on an equivalent 2003-era Mac G4 system, say 1GHz, with that little RAM.

But on a recent Mac then dynamic RT preview gives continuous output to an external video monitor under all normal editing conditions.
Of course being a 'Pro' system it is expected that all viewing of DV or higher-format video will be done on an external video monitor, and performance is adjusted to favour that.

With the old Pinnacle Cinewave card, which was the equivalent Mac hardware card from the era of the Storm, you get at lot more than the Storm's RT performance even on an old G4 Mac (but of course since the card was based on a Targa 3000 card it cost a lot more).

I'm delighted to hear this. I'm really rather looking forward to sampling FCP on a Mac Pro now. But reading between the lines I'm going to need either an AJA card or something similar to get the real-time preview performance?

Of course, I considered Cinewave at the time I purchased my old Storm (1) after miserable experiences with a Matrox RT2000. But, as you say Cinewave was uber pricey.

Hi
For users of Vegas and PPro, or FCP, AJA's PCI-X or PCI-e cards with a proper monitor are a complete joy to use, and are a good way to get external preview when editing HD or HDV.
For SDI or component capture, or for broadcast editing of Beta SP or DigiBeta, in uncompressed or DV50 4.2.2 format, they are are a very good solution.

However for DV editing no external hardware is needed, as the feed down the FW is perfectly adequate.

There will be differences in the way the software compensates for the use of software as opposed to Storm's hardware acceleration, but these are consistant, and give a highly productive editing environment in FCP.

Does this mean increased latency by any chance? Coming from a real-time background I really value near instant response to play, stop, reverse play, 4Xforward and 4X reverse commands.

Hi
Latency is partly under the operators control with FCP - its a trade-off ;)
For highly complex compositing of multi-layered graphics to be viewed with RT preview, latency is much less critical.
For simpler editing then RT preview settings can be lowered to give better responsiveness.

The commands are alway instantaneous and responsive (to within a fraction of a frame).
Its the timeline cursor when in motion that displays the slight positional latency, but I'm mostly looking at my video monitor during timeline Play.

For users who find the latency a problem, then the AJA or Blackmagic internal cards do away with the problem.
The AJA-IO, being an uncompressed SD capture box running on FW400, has correspondingly higher latency than normal DV FW.

Faster CPU speeds, better software optimisation (both FCP and OS X) and fast hard drive systems all combine to reduce the problem - I don't find it a problem at all.
It comes down to getting used to the feel of your editing system :)

Hi Paul,

Thanks. Once again, I'm really looking forward to playing with FCP. I'm not bothered about cursor latency for the reasons you expouse, its the commands I'm concerned with.

I'm quite prepared to accept other limitations like not being able to mix frame rates/resolutions on the Timeline without rendering because I appreciate where it is coming from. It's the everyday dynamics that concern me.

I agree about getting used to the feel of your editing system but, you know what they say, familiarity can breed contempt.

Hi
With Premiere Pro for Intel Mac due later on this year, my guess is that there may well be a NAB (mid-April) announcement of the successor to FCP 5.1.2, which may be FCP 6.
With OS X 10.5 due to be announced by then, and maybe new Mac Pro computers with newer Intel CPUs, it is possible that FCStudio may be due for a significant upgrade. :)

On the other hand the longer the upgrade takes to arrive, the more significant it may turn out to be. ;)

As ever, we live in "interesting times" to use the phrase in the Chinese sense.

I think that, despite the undoubted head of steam behind FCP, Apple needs to update it soon or risk losing a lot of credibility. From testimony here and elsewhere its much vaunted integration with the sound and dvd authoring apps is a lot less impressive than Adobe's. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of Adobe. I regard the Adobe apps I run as a necessary evil and look forward to the day I can replace them with something much more friendly.
For the present though, Framemaker rules in long-form technical document authoring and I've just bitten the bullet and invested in the Premium version of Production Studio. Primarily to get my hands on After Effects Pro and Encore.
I used to be a Mac evangelist until I was forced to use PCs by the BBC. Now I'm agnostic but I'd love to be convinced because I hate all the corporate BS that comes with Microsoft.

Hi
With the BBC's likely new policy of using FCP as their future universal video editor, and video media available everywhere under the all-pervasive Creative Desktop system, the obvious question is 'under which operating system' will Creative desktop be based?
The answer if FCP is to be used has to be 'Mac-based'. ;)

Knowing the BBC the question is,

"Is FCP is the only option they are considering for the all-pervasive Creative Desktop System."

If that were to be the case it would run contrary to all their established practices of never putting themselves at the mercy of one supplier.

um....not sure what's up with your system. granted, the cpu you're using isn't exactly cutting edge, but I used to edit on an Athlon 1.4ghz with 768 ram and get smooth playback, and that was on vegas 3 & 4. Vegas has always been about realtime preview........

you're not running some anti-virus prog etc in the background?

True, I have to resort to pre-renders for smooth playback of extensively composited material, eg 5 - 10 layers video, parent-child relationships, with track motion etc, but usual editing is smoothness all the way. JKL is my friend. Just been working on a timeline of 5:15hrs, and no hassles running at speed to navigate the morass of material.

my current pc is behind the times anyway - amd 64 3000, with 2GB and some arbitrary video card (vegas doesn't use the GPU anyway).

core 2 duo coming soon, i hope :D

Where do they second-source Windows from then?
Time will tell...

Paul,

Linux, OSX and "in-house" OS where necessary.

I take your point tho'.

However, they used to be a lot more concerned with the applications rather than the OS. In the sense that Windows is as near as it comes to a universal OS. Just like 230V mains, a necessary evil. (Unless you have your own generators of course...)

Hi Fuddam
Thanks for your advice/comments.
I've now run EndItAll2 to close/kill off everything including McAfee Internet Security, and this has made some improvement, although nothing like as smooth as playback in Premiere through my DV Storm 2. CPU now runs at an average of about 92% whilst previewing.
Like you, I'm planning to replace my machine with a Core 2 Duo with 2Mb RAM in the not too far distant future, so hope that this will give me better previewing.

Well, after wading through this lot: My reccomendation to replace MSP 7 is....MSP 8! I also got fed up with the unreliability of 7. Though the improvements over 6.5 made it worth suffering. (realtime preview etc) I tried Vegas (6d). lots of thing I liked, but also lots I didn't like. I'm 90% happy with MSP 8 - I guess we'll never hit the magic 100% with any NLE. So, if you want to buy Sony vegas cheap....drop me an e-mail. :)

Brian, before investing in a new machine, please try to get to see Vegas running on an equivalent spec device. At least you would know what to expect...

Rob
Thanks for this advice. I agree that this would be sensible, and I'd love to do this, but so far haven't been able to find a supplier within reasonable travelling distance from my home in Wiltshire who builds Sony Vegas DTV edit systems. There are several, DVC included, who supply the software, but don't build actual systems.
Does anyone have any suggestions about where I could see Vegas running on a modern Core 2 Duo machine, please?

I would offer to show you my machine but I'm a long trek from Wiltshire in West Sussex, not too far from DVC.

Hopefully there will be someone running Vegas on a core2duo a bit closer to you.

I am going to experiment a bit more with Vegas this week using the supplied codec rather than the Canopus codec. Cheema reckoned this might possibly improve matters. I'll happily report back if you like. Or if there is any particular thing you'd like me to time/check I can probably do that. As it is at the moment I'll use Vegas for some things but stick with Edius for editing.

It could have something to do with the Canopus codec as all my tests so far have been with footage captured via the Storm. I'd be interested to know how you get on. I'll capture some fresh footage through the Vegas supplied codec, and play around with that but won't have time before this weekend.

Mine too. I'll try to get some time today or tomorrow and I'll let you know.

Brian
I have Vegas 7.cv and Edius 4 on my core 2 duo 2.4 system. You would be more than welcome to come and play. I am on the North Devon/Cornwall Border, out in the sticks near Bude

I may have missed this in the previous pages, but is anyone running the multi cam editing in Vegas - Excalibur?

Have been using Excaliber multicam for sometime on Vegas 6.0d.
With main PC dead, system on core duo laptop. Hoping to move to core2 duo soon.

been using excalibur since 1st incarnation, though not got latest since v7, and ultimateS 1 & 2

prefer excalibur, to be honest, for multi-cam, esp adding unused cuts as takes - very cool feature

:)

Brian, I've just done a quick experiment and I'm delighted to report it would seem to be the codec!

Capturing with Vegas I can preview full res and full screen quite happily and it seems just as responsive as Edius. (I checked and I have the same preview resolution in both projects)
On my 2.93Ghz Core2Duo processor usage is running at around 10% just playing back and maybe 35% in the middle of a 20 second picture and stereo sound crossfade. Now all I need is a batch transoder to see if the same results can be had from old Canopus captured rushes. I'm guessing Virtual dub may oblige unless unyone has any better ideas?

Anyway, bottom line, using its own codec Vegas appears to be thoroughly useable in the way we have come to expect providing the machine is up to it.

I've read this thread with interest, and I am astonished to see that Premiere Pro has virtually slipped off the radar. Adobe should read this thread and be seriously worried!

I must admit to bias here. I have always used Premiere, all the way from P5.0. I tried Pinnacle Studio initially, and found it crude and unstable. When Edition arrived, I tried that, but it had too many bugs, some of which were cured by frequent new versions, or massive patches (I was on dial-up in those days). I could have grown to love it, but my interest was killed by two things: Pinnacle selling me Edition 5.0 - which did not work - after they had released 5.1, which did work; the chaotic file management, with umpteen files for each clip.

So here I am having just upgraded from PPro1.5 to PPro 2 with my RTX100; something I swore I would never do when I bought the former.

My initial thoughts are, that I do not like the new "silber-grau" corporate image (even if it does co-ordinate with my BMW!), but at least you can turn it off and revert to the far-easier-on-the-eye Windows colour scheme. I do like being able to watch the progress of the rendered file on the program monitor, especially as this seems to proceed much more rapidly, even for a Matrox effect.
I also like having the CTI central in the timeline window as the timeline scrolls past when I play the sequence.
The performance of many of the effects seems much improved. I especially like the new unsharp mask, though the default setting of 50 is far too high for most material.

Concentrating on wildlife, I am a great user of image stabilisers, and SteadyMove is still supplied with all versions, except the educational version. I was fortunate to buy the Pro version before it became silly money, and there is a new version of this for PPro 2 (it is well hidden on the 2d3 site). This works very well indeed, much the best results I have seen; but you MUST de-interlace, export the clip and import this, before applying the filter. There is a bug in the installer which makes the on-screen help inaccessible. I have a simple solution for this if anyone needs it.
Dynapel SteadyHand installs OK, but as far as I can see, it has no discernible effect on the clip.

I doubt that I shall change now, as learning a new system would simply be too hard work, so the evangelists for Vegas, Edius, etc. need not come knocking on my door!

Hi
All professionally oriented visual software is being designed this way - emulating the 18% neutral grey 'average' exposure photographic card. This is so that your eyes have something neutral to rest on when doing critical colour balancing of stills or video.

For people who have a Photoshop/After Effects/Video Editing workflows I think the Dynamic Link and Bridge aspects of the next Creative Suite Upgrade - v3 - including Premiere Pro, which will work on both Mac OS X and Windows Vista, will bring Adobe's product line very much back to the forefront.

Partly because reports are that they seem to have instituted a proper in-depth software beta test regime, with real users doing the testing.
http://labs.adobe.com/about
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies

Alan,
I'm not sure Adobe have too much to worry about! I'm just acquiring Production Studio Premium (mainly for After Effects and Encore) and Ultra 2. I'll certainly play with Premiere Pro in V2.0 but I do like Edius.

I'm interested in your Steadyshot comments. I've been using it with reasonable success since I bought the ordinary version plug-in for Premiere 6.0. The pro version is, as you say, now silly money. Does it offer that much of an improvement over the bundled version?

Paul,

Grey I can understand, but silver-grey??? I find the Windows off-white and pale blue far easier to use. At my age, I find reading text against a background which is too far from white very hard on my eyes.

Rob,

The Pro version (for which I paid £79) offers far more in the way of controllable parameters, including a choice of Free/Pan or Static camera; edge handling, degree of correction, as well as detecting cuts within clips. The effect can also be keyframed. I suspect that the analysing methods are much the same. They all analyse blocks of pixels, rather than individual pixels (Alan Roberts can give the details on this), and I would have said that the extras were not worth the money, until this morning.

I was working on some material that I obtained around Venice Beach, where some of the old saline lagoons have survived the massive southern Californian urban development. As I know that stabilisers cannot cope with the sudden large scale movement, I always trim clips to the point where a bird tenses for take-off. This morning I was distracted and applied the pro version to a clip where the bird takes flight at the end. To my astonishment when I played it back, this was still usable. Out of interest, I applied the cut-down version supplied with PPro, and the result were the usual mish-mash of blurred legs/wings/body. So yes maybe there is some fundamental difference between the two.

So perhaps on the evidence of these two responses, I should hang on to my Adobe shares?:D

Thanks Alan, very interesting. I'd certainly like to try it. (later version of SteadyMove) I think I paid more than that when I bought the plug-in. I'll have to check if I can upgrade to the later version.

I'd think your Adode shares are safe enough. They have me (and I'm sure may others) by the proverbials. I'm obliged to upgrade FrameMaker at vast expense every couple of years, not to mention InDesign.

Alan, thanks once again! I've just managed to download the Pro version for PP2 and my existing serial number works!

Perhaps I shall be giving PP2 more of chance after all. (When it gets here).

Rob,

That's good. From what 2d3 told me there should be no problem with serial number - they do not regard it as a full upgrade.

The problem with the help install is that it inserts a double // in one registry key, where it should be a single /, of course. I did tell them about it, and they said that they would amend the download, but I expect your download is the same as mine.

I have been using this new version much of the day, as a lot of the material was hand-held with long lenses, even though I found a brace point sometimes. I have to say that I have become more and more inmpressed with its performance as the day has gone on.

My modus operandi has become trim the clip and put it in a separate sequence, deinterlace, export. Place the new clip in the sequence, set the parameters as required, render; export the new clip. place this in the sequence, apply the unsharp mask - here I am gradually edging towards the default 50, unless there are hard edges in the frame, eg buildings, trees etc. can stand a higher setting. Export this and apply any colour correction, etc. in the main sequence as with any other clip.

The only sort of clip where I still do not get good results is the almost impossible "small bird on a twig, with a background of moving water". What I need there is the ability to select one or more points of reference for the stabilisation. The old Pinnacle ProOne offered this, but the execution was pretty poor.

Alan,

Thanks one more time! When PP2 arrives and I've installed it I'll see if I can sort out the registry key. I don't suppose you can remember which key or is it obvious?

PaulD, in your message above you seem to imply that Dynamic Link and Bridge will be in the next version of Production Studio. There are actually already here in the current version of Production Studio Premium and they work great. I can't begin to count the number of hours saved rendering something out of AE to bring it into PPRo. I hardly know what they could improve on in the CS3 versions.

Yes, it was in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\2d3\SteadyMovePro

and it was the InstallDir key. The \\ is obvious when you get there. I backed up the key, then removed one \ and the help was accessed - before that there was an error message saying that the following directories .... had been searched for the help files but they had not been found. It was there that I saw the double slash which gave the clue to the solution.

When installing, I ignored the default installation directory, as it does not put the .aex in Premiere, so the effect is not accessible. I installed in

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Premiere Pro 2.0\Plug-ins\en_us

Good luck!:)

Hi Alan,

Not sure if I'm getting the wrong end of the stick..
I have premiere pro 2 (and other production studio components) but a 'SteadyMove' effect doesn't appear when I look down the list of video effects. Are you saying it should be included?
Is it installed as a seperate application - or included with Matrox related software(which i don't have/use)??

Thanks Alan, perfect!

What a great forum this is. It almost gives me hope for the future.

Hi
You're right. I was meaning that a bug-free version of PPro3 as part of CS3, with better media management (which is essential to DL and Bridge's operation), together with Intel Mac compatibility, will most likely bring Adobe's NLE back into consideration (again).

There is a copy of the limited version of 2d3 SteadyMove on the Premiere Pro CD - it is listed in the initial menu - for all versions except the education version. If you run the installation routine, the effect will appear in the list of video effects in a folder, 3d3.

I bought the full version, SteadyMove Pro, before I moved to Premiere Pro. At that time, June 2004, it cost me $116. The current price is $499!!! They also have the nerve to demand $99 per incident for support.

Thank-you Alan.
Found, installed and tested.
For test I used a sequence walking in front of a sniffer dog.
Any smoothing is possibly offset by the necessary zoom - nice to have in case of need but nothing to rave about on my very basic test, but will persist with tweaks when need arises to use it 'proper' as you seem happy with results.

Rob

Thanks for this very encouraging news. I'm going to try a similar experiment over the weekend, but don't expect to get such a good result on my creaking P4 1.9Ghz!

Looks like I'm heading for a new system based on a 2.93Ghz Core2Duo processor something like yours!

Brian,

Something I forgot to mention in my last post, I also placed a Canopus encoded clip on the same timeline as the Vegas ones with the same results. I.e. Canopus unwatchable, Vegas still fine.

Good luck with your experiments and please let us know how you get on.

Personally am an Avid fan, although not used it properly for a couple of years..., you can try it free: http://www.avid.com/freedv/

Don't know how similar or not it is to your current software.

EDIT:
Ok I'm having a slow night and not realised the original post was several months and pages ago, but will leave it as it is. Sorry if it offends anyone.

ps skim read something about FCP being used for the BBC's creative desktop. Not too sure that would be possible as last time (a couple of years ago) I saw a promo video with the whole thing based on Quantel.

Kris

Rob
I've recaptured my test footage using the Sony Vegas Capture utility (and consequently via their supplied codec) and am happy to report that playback direct from the timeline is fine with a full preview set to "good", even on my 1.9 Ghz machine. The same footage captured with the Canopus DV codec was much more jerky, so it was definitely the codec causing the problem.
Playback of a 3-cam multicam project with the same footage using Vasst InfinitiCam which I'm evaluating at the moment isn't quite as smooth, but I guess that pre-rendering might be needed here. I'll try that tomorrow before my InfinitiCam evaluation expires!
All I have to do now is get to grips with Vegas, and upgrade my computer for HDV editing in due course. Your help and my tests give me confidence that Vegas, which I got for free with my new A1E cam, is the right way for me to go to update from Premiere 6.01. Much as I would have liked to go for a new Edius system, I can't justify the extra cost.
Incidentally, does anyone have any recommendations re. the best Vegas multi-cam plug-in to use? I'm also looking at Excalibur which is nearly twice the price of InfinitiCam, but even so a sterling equivalent of about £65 is very reasonable for a multi-cam editing solution.

Brian
I'm delighted to hear you are achieving the results you need. If it is doing what you want on a 1.9GHz machine, I'm sure you will be even better pleased with a Core2Duo.

Sorry, I can't help with a multi-cam solution but I'm sure others will.

I still think Vegas has much to offer, regardless of budget, and the audio side of it is excellent. The Creative Cow forums have a lot of helpful information on how to get the best out of Vegas and there are many others.

(I've also been using their DVD Architect for authoring for years, regardless of what I edit in.)

Well, I use UltimateS2 & Excalibur. I recommend them for different tasks. For a while, US2 had a much better photo montage tool, which saved SO much time, but now Ex has caught up, I think

I prefer Ex's multicam, because you can add the excluded material as Takes, which is a way cool feature (i.e. toggle on the timeline afterwards, through the various takes for a particular cut. If it makes no sense, look in the help file for Takes ;) )

Also used to use the "find orphan" feature a lot, and currently use the auto ducking of partic audio track in relation to other audio tracks excellento

in the end, try them both out. BIg timesavers, whichever tool you use.