Hi all,

I've got questions about editing software. The camera I bought is Canon HF10, I'm trying out a trial version of Sony Vegas Pro 9, and I'm running it all on my Dell Inspiron 1545.

Windows 7 home premium

Pentium(R) Dual Core CPU T4200 @ 2.0Ghz

2gigs of Ram

32-bit operating system

Here is the problem, and I would appreciate any help. I've just been shooting test footage so that I can get a hang of the camera and technique, and also learn to use the editor. I saved a 1 minute clip to my hd, simple edit in Vegas just to play around, and the preview was jerky. I figured it would clear out when I rendered it. Well it took 30 minutes to render that 1 minute clip! After rendering the clip went from 140mb to 7+gigs. Surely my machine isn't that weak? I'm obviously doing something wrong, but I have no idea.


Thanks for any help you can give (you guys have been a wealth of knowledge so far).

So any thoughts, or recommendations for less resource intensive editors.

HD takes a lot of horsepower to render, and the AVCHD codec used by the canon HF series cameras is EXTREMELY processor intensive for editing & rendering.

The problem isn't vegas but rather the format of the footage. A good intermediate codec will help a lot.

Try the free trial of cineform neoscene (http://cineform.com/neoscene/index.php"), which is only $130 to buy anyway, and well worth the price... I think you'll be very happy with the difference it makes in editing. Of course, a Core2 Duo running at 2GHz is the minimum processor speed suggested by cineform, and they recommend 3gig of ram or more, so you'll be a bit on the low end there, but it will still work and will still be a lot nicer than editing AVCHD footage directly.

Thanks for the info! I'll check that out. $130 is a small price to pay if it will ease this jumpy editing.

It also makes life easy if you want to shoot 24p with that camera.. ;)

Will, when you use an intermediary codec what happens to the final render? Is it still of the original AVCHD quality or does the intermediary codec lessen the quality?

Will, when you use an intermediary codec what happens to the final render? Is it still of the original AVCHD quality or does the intermediary codec lessen the quality?

I was wondering the same thing. Their website doesn't say the format, but suggests that no quality is lost. How could that be possible?

I'm not entirely clear on how it works behind the scenes..

It re-encodes the footage using a visually lossless wavelet compression codec.

The simple answer is that it provides a more efficient method of editing video.. similar to Apple ProRes, but actually higher quality than prores. The ProRes wiki page offers a bit of insight into how an intermediate codec is useful:
"ProRes is an intermediate codec, which means it is intended for use during video editing, and not intended or practical for end user viewing. The benefit of an intermediate codec is that it retains higher quality than end user codecs while still requiring much less expensive disk systems compared to uncompressed video."

My understanding is that this codec has several detail levels within the file, so when you're editing you can use a slightly lower quality image for better speed and whatnot, and when rendering it will use the highest quality level available.. so it's similar to compressing an image with jpeg compression which offers a quality setting between 1 and 100.

I might be totally wrong on how it works, but what I do know is it works and works well. :)

They're a fairly small company, and the couple times I've had to contact support (my own fault, didn't deactivate my install before reformatting and installing a new operating system) they've been very quick to respond.

I'd say your best bet to get a definitive answer to this would be to contact them directly and ask.

Hey guys, I have an opportunity to upgrade to a new computer on the cheap. Two different models are available, which one do you think will work best with dealing with Sony Vegas, Canon HF10, and the awesome Cineform Neo Scene (thanks Will!)


Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/HDMI Motherboard. Capable of 3 Way SLI w/ Nvidia discrete graphics, capacity of 16 Gigs DDR2 RAM, AM3 CPU w/ built in 7.1 Stereo surround sound, 10/100/1000 LAN
2.6 Ghz AMD Phenom Tri Core processor.
Katana III radiator style heatsink and fan
4 gigs of RAM: 2x2gigs DDR2 800Mhz Corsair XMS2 Memory
Western Digital 500 GB 7200 RPM Sata Hard drive
LG 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 22X DVD Burner
Azza Mid tower with Thermaltake 500W power supply


Or...

3.0 Ghz Intel P4 Dual Core procssor and fan

Asus P5Q Motherboard capable of upgrading to Quad Core and 16 GB of DDR II Ram, with built in LAN and Surround sound

Asus EAH4650 1 Gig DDR II HDMI/DVI Video card

4 GB DDR 800 Mhz RAM

CD/DVD Burner

500 GB Seagate Pipeline 7200 RPM Hard Drive

Mid-ATX Case w/ 500W Thermaltake power supply



One has more Ghz in the cpu, but another one has a tri-core processor (whatever that is)

They both would be about the same.. the extra processor core is basically like having a whole extra main processor in the machine (ie, can do more simultaneous computations) and the speed difference between 2.6GHz and 3.0GHz is pretty negligible...

but, intel chips tend to score better in tests with video rendering than AMD chips, so that aspect of it is really a toss up. It looks though, from the lists you posted that the AMD machine doesn't include a video card -- nevermind, I guess it's got onboard video.

I dunno, how much is 'on the cheap' ?

$250

Ok, that's pretty cheap..

Seems like the Video card on the intel setup outputs HDMI, maybe that lets you monitor your output on your big screen TV in full 1080P HD..

(Intel pays my mortgage, so Im biased!)

and anytime I see multiples of 3 dealing with computers, I get confused, 1+1 no longer equals 1, dogs start sleeping with cats, and the world ends in a fiery flood.. but thats just me..

(Intel pays my mortgage, so Im biased!)
I knew there was a reason I liked you.. :) Honestly I was a BIG AMD guy until the i7 chip came out... now, my i7 920 is cruising right along overclocked to 3.8GHz with just air cooling.. aaaaaaaand, I am totally an intel guy again. :D (now if only the cost of ddr3 4GB dimms would drop so I could up my ram to 24gb instead of the 12 I have for less than what it cost to build the machine in the first place and I'd be set!)