How to tell shooting mode in NLE (Vegas)

[John Watson]

On different shooting trips I've tried 50i and 25p but notice when looking at the properties pane in Vegas it doesn't seem to say which mode it was shot in. It would be useful to know to look for different characteristic and, I'd have thought, very important to know so as not to mix them up in the same video.

All my clips are showing 25fps (I guess it's counting 50i as 25fps as well)

I realise I can get this info displayed in the LCD of the camera but that means loading the tape up and finding the clip.. a bit of a pain!

Is there a way to tell how the footage was recorded in Vegas, or are we expected to add notes to each clip to store this info?

[John Watson]

Thinking about it I wasn't very clear in what I was asking.

What I mean is - How can I tell, in Vegas, if my clips were shot in progressive or interlaced?

[John Watson]

Checking options in Vegas I've come to the conclusion there is no way to tell for PAL users. I guess I'm going to have to get used to properly marking my tapes and not rely on Vegas to give me this info.

[mik]

:) how about right click and properties?

[John Watson]

You'd think that would be it wouldn't you! But I can't see anything there that says whether it's interlaced or progressive.

It might be easier for NTSC users as the frame rate would tell you.. either 24 or 30 presumably? But for PAL both frame rates read as 25 so there seems to be no way to tell.

To make things worse my last tape I actually labeled in the capture window before capturing it (I'm so unorganised I hadn't done this before!) But now the m2t files are in the media manager none of the info I put in is showing up.

It's probably easier to just stick to either interlaced or progressive.. I just need to make my mind up which I prefer!

[mik]

You'd think that would be it wouldn't you!

the truth is out there :hv20-smilie96:

[ronnylov]

One trick could be to use a habit to make a still shot to the memory card at the start of every recording. At least you can get some info regarding shutter speed and aperture and other things in the exif information of jpg files. But I don't think there are any metadata available in the m2t files...

[24Peter]

When I click on a clip in the "Project Media" tab it tells me frame rate, resolution, field order and file type... (field order = none = progressive.) Were you looking for something else?

[John Watson]

All my clips seem to show 'upper field first'

Deleted rest of post I as mis-read some of your info.. going to try filming some 25p and see if that changes.

I understand Vegas auto detects the footage type on capture, and I don't need to set anything prior to capture?

[John Watson]

Just tested it.. filmed some 25p and after capture it's showing upper field first.

I must be doing something badly wrong?! Project properties is set to 'None' but as I said above as far as I know Vegas auto detects on capture?

[Halsu]

I must be doing something badly wrong?! Project properties is set to 'None' but as I said above as far as I know Vegas auto detects on capture?

I'm pretty sure that the HDV file on tape is officially 50i, even if you shoot 25p.

25p cadence is not a part of HDV format specification, and that info is probably not stored on the tape. It's a bit of a hack really, and i think that's why Canon calls it pf25 instead of 25p. Luckily, it works just fine ,-)

You will have to manually set your clip proprties in vegas for all progressive clips.
After that they're "true" 25p.

In many cases, the clips will work fine even if you don't change the properties, but with some settings Vegas will (unnecessarily) de-interlace the footage, which results in reduced vertical resolution.

[John Watson]

Thanks Halsu, that makes sense. It's quite a learning curve trying to work out the intracies of filming and an NLE!

Now I wonder if I should re-capture all my footage as I have no idea how I filmed most of it.

I only realised the other day that setting project properties to 'Interpolate fields' helps get rid of the horizontal bars in 50i mode.

Makes me wonder what else I'm doing wrong.. but I'll learn in the end! :hv20-smilie64: