Need help in HDV capture in Vegas 6

orca wrote on 10/26/2005, 9:25 AM

Hi everyone,

I desparately need as many advice as I could get here. I've never done HDV, so this is going to be the first time for me. Basically I need to edit HDV footage on my VV6. I will be able to borrow the HVR-Z1 or HVR-M10U just to capture the footage. My question is, what should I prepare to capture this? The total footage is probably around 6 hrs.

How much HD space do you think I need to have? I can set aside the budget to get this and also some plugin to capture this if I need to, hopefully it's not that bad. What's the process of capturing HDV input? Is it going to be the same as capturing miniDV footage, just hookup firewire and start capturing?

I will only have the unit for one day to do all the capturing, so I'm not going to worry about editing it as yet as long as I can dump all the footage to the HD and and I will have more time to learn about the editing process (proxy, etc.) later. But the capturing is going to be done this Fri/Sat, so any quick tips are greatly appreciated.

Thanks a zillion!

Comments

VOGuy wrote on 10/26/2005, 10:09 AM

(1) Go ahead and byy Cineform Connect HD. It'll save you time and give you options you don't get in Vegas's capture ap.

(2) If you save to m2t files, they are the same size as standard mini-DV files.

(3) If you save as Cineform Intermediate files (recommended), they are about 40-50 GB/Hour.

-Travis

orca wrote on 10/26/2005, 11:30 AM

Travis,

Thanks for the info. Pardon my ignorance here, as far as using the Cineform Connect HD, will it make a difference to Cineform Intermediate files as I capture the HDV footage from the camera as opposed to dump as m2t files first, then convert them to ConnectHD later on? Will there be any adv / disadv over either method?

Spot|DSE wrote on 10/26/2005, 12:04 PM

It makes no difference whether you capture/convert, or convert on capture. Depending on the speed of your machine, you're sometimes better off capturing and then converting.

The advantage (if you have a fast machine) is the conversion to CineForm is realtime/on the fly, whereas on a slower machine, you have to wait as it finishes, and some systems (rare) will experience artifacts in this capture process.

The cut off point is in the 3.2 GHz area. If your machine is slower than that, definitely capture and then convert, and if your machine is faster than that, and optimized, then convert on capture. I recommend you always bring over the m2t files as well.

orca wrote on 10/26/2005, 12:37 PM

Thanks Spot. I figured it's probably best for me to bring the m2t files first, then start shopping around for bigger HD this weekend. Then do the conversion later on.

With the cut off being in 3.2, I guess mine is more on the slower side of it.

Thanks again for both of you.