PAL 25p workflow in Vegas

[Dodgy Nick]

Can anybody suggest a 25p workflow for Sony Vegas ranging from capturing all the way through to output to (potentially) HD-DVD as well as standard def DVD?

Thanks

[Tamidor]

yes pleaaaaaaaaaaaase :eek:

[Goose]

Currently Im just importing into a standard 50i timeline and it seems to work fine - Im rendering using the the 50i HDV preset and it seems fine although Im currently unsure what vegas is actually doing. I have tried changing the project proerties from interlace to progressive but couldnt tell much difference in the final render. I dont think there is an option to render to 1080-25p for hdv?

[paperke]

Seems like nobody wants to post detailed 25p workflow for newbies (like I am). Unfortunatelly :(

Please share your experience ...

[wild_quinine]

Yes, please, someone help us out - doesn't need to be a complete expert. Just could someone who competently knows how to get from having well shot scenes on tape to output in, say 720p H264 show us how they get there. It's as much about comparing notes as anything. I am way out of my depth here.

I have some - in places quite well shot - video from my wedding, and honeymoon. I've got it over to my hard drive with HDVsplit in m2t format.

What now? I've tried a few demo or beta version video editors, and most of them crash when I import these files.

What are the steps you all take?

What do you use?

Particularly for 25p process.

Please, someone take the time to give us a more thorough overview.

THANKS, in advance.

[africanmarty]

Capture footage with HDVsplit

Premier pro 2.0 has an export option for 1080 25p, and I’ll explain how I do mine... (I’m no expert but the results are fantastic!!!) - click thumbnails for a bigger/better pic.

First load pp2.0 and start and new project and select 'custom settings' and fill in the ‘general’ tab like I have (refer to picture 1), then on the ‘capture’ tab change it to HDV capture (refer to picture 2). Once completed save the preset so you wont have to do it again (eg: "canon HV20 1080 25p)

Pic1
http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/8/23501344927.jpg (http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=6401938)

Pic2
http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/8/23501344992.jpg (http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=6401939)

Once you have done that start a new project with the newly created setting & import your HD files, and edit/customize ect as you normally would. Once you are ready to save your movie go to File --> Export --> Adobe Media Encoder (refer to pic 3)

Pic3
http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/8/23501345051.jpg (http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=6401940)

Once in Adobe Media Encoder make sure your format is ‘MPEG2’ and change the preset to ‘1080 25p 15Mbps VBR’ (refer to pic4) and that’s pretty much it, one thing I changed was the bit rate as HDV's 1080 bitrate is 25 Mbit/s, I changed it to 25Mbps.

Pic4
http://img2.putfile.com/thumb/8/23501345086.jpg (http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=6401941)

Render out your movie and your done :)

Let me know how you guys went with this, it work perfectly for me :)

[wild_quinine]

Let me know how you guys went with this, it work perfectly for me :)

Thanks so much for this - just wanted to let you know that the effort you went to is appreciated. I'll apply your sugestions and see where I get. I'll post back with thoughts later.

Thanks again!

[Fletch78]

Sorry to point it out like that, but you guys looking for a special 25p workflow are getting an important point completely wrong.

To set things straight: 25p is NOT a new format, there's absolutely nothing 'special' about it that requires special treatment and an appropriate workflow. You have to understand that 25p is nothing else than 50i, with the only difference that both fields (A and B) have been recorded at the same time, resulting in high resolution progressive footage. I could shoot some kind of a '25p' way back in 1997 with my old Sony Hi8 cam, just with half the vertical resolution. Even with the HV20, being in HDV standard (not 25PF) mode and setting the shutter to 25 in TV mode yields a "25P" effect with lower vertical resolution. The point is: 25P does not require any special tricks, even the oldest version of Adobe Premiere (let's say version 5) could handle the footage (it's not HDV, I know, but we're talking about 25P, which is the same both on DV and HDV).

Record in 25P and just import it in a standard 50i timeline. Your NLE doesn't even see the difference between 25P and 50i true interlaced (with the temporal difference between fields A and B) footage. Both use an interlaced 'container' (50i).

[directore]

The point described so well above is often missed by many, the beauty (or wisdom) of the 25/50 scheme (PAL) is that from the point of view of the editor it doesn't matter whether you shot it in progressive or interlaced. The editor always works with frames, 25 of them every second. It doesn't care whether they are progressive or interlaced.

The only time fields enter is when you tell your editor to de-interlace your footage. What happens then is you are telling the editor your frames are interlaced (even/odd fields were exposed at different times, the meaning of 50i) so there are likely jaggies in there so could you please do something to minimize them (process even/odd fields so they look more or less as if they were shot at the same time)). Other than that the editor doesn't care about fields one bit. It's always just 25 frames each second interlaced or not.

The situation is much different in the NTSC land. There for some stupid reason* interlaced and progressive footage is shot at different frame rates. Specifically 24 fps when progressive (so called 24p) and 30 fps when interlaced (so called 60i). So everything gets very messy as going between progressive (implied 24 fps) and interlaced (always 30 fps) involves creating/removing additional frames. This is that infamous pull-down mess.

The life would be much easier if HV20 shot progressive in 30 fps, then generating 30 fps (for those few who still use old crappy analog 60i US TV sets) would be as easy as in PAL land (meaning nothing would have to be done other than just adding appropriate flags if even that!).

HV20 doesn't do it for a number of reasons a) there are Scrooges, Canon that is, and b) they would still have to provide 24p as 30p is apparently not very much film-like and that would be too much for them because they are well Scrooges after all.

The first ("NTSC", meaning USA) camcorder that will do it right will be the one that will give us an option of shooting 30 fps either in interlaced or progressive mode (the same way PAL HV20 gives users the option of shooting 25 fps either in progressive or interlaced), and 24p. The latter stored on tape in its original 24 fps format not that artificially generated, telecined 30 fps (60i) crap they do now.

Well we can only wish.

---
* actually the reason is very simple, many decades ago some idiot (working for RCA needless to say, "really-crappy-appliances" in US folklore) ) decided that US TV has to be 30 fps (interlaced obviously) and we are paying the heavy price of that idiotic decision to this day and will for many more to come.

** US analog TV frame rates are actually 29.97 fps not 30 fps. I'm just following the standard convention of using 30 fps when referring to US analog TV frame rates.