Mixing video from Flip Ultra HD with other formats in Vegas Pro

[stantheman1976]

What's the best method for mixing in footage from a Flip Ultra HD cam with other formats in Vegas?

The Flip is 1280X720p / 30fps.

I may want to mix it with a normal SD project of 720X480i DV-AVI footage and also some projects with 1440X1080p / 24 or 30fps HDV footage shot with Canon HV40 cams.

So what's the ideal way to mix in the flip with each of those? Also if I want to mix all those formats together in a single project what's the best workflow? Most likely all these projects will end up on DVD as the end medium.

[aedipuss]

if you are working with that athlon then sd is your best choice. downconvert the HDV footage from the hv40 with the camera hardware during firewire capture to miniDV.

[stantheman1976]

Those specs are outdated. I forgot they were even listed. I don't have a primary system of my own right now. I'll be using my wife's i7 quad core until I get my own laptop in the next few weeks. I'll get an i5 or i7 also.

So if I'm mixing the Flip video with standard SD DV 480i video should I just set the project properties in Vegas to NTSC DV Widescreen interlaced? Do I need to tweak any settings on the individual track with the Flip footage?

If I mix the HDV, Flip, and SD and don't down-convert the HDV during capture do I do the same thing? Set the project to a normal NTSC DV with interlaced footage? Will there be any problem putting that progressive footage into an interlaced project?

[aedipuss]

i'd do it as a DVavi project if the only output is going to be DVD.

if there is a chance i wanted something like 1280x720p for youtube or web video then i'd set the project to the specs of the highest quality source material. if that was the hv40 the i'd choose a template that matches it, like HDV 30i and capture the hv40 footage as HDV. for the flip i'd choose a 1280x720 40p template or make one.

[stantheman1976]

I think I have it then. When mixing the progressive Flip or Canon video with the interlaced SD video I just didn't know if it would cause any problems when I output as interlaced DVD, but if the project properties are set for my final output I suppose Vegas will know what to do.

[poisondeathray]

The 30p segments will adjusted in vegas to either frame blend (smart resample on) or frame duplication (resample off) to make up the temporal resolution

30p is 30 samples per second (1 second is represented by 30 moments in time), but 60i from your DV-AVI footage is 60 samples per second. To make up that extra 30, those extra samples have to come from somewhere - so vegas either blends adjacent frames or inserts duplicates. This means those sections will look relatively choppy or choppy & blurry compared to the DV-AVI sections

[stantheman1976]

I understand the that DV footage is 60 images per second split into odd and even segments blended together to make a single image and that the progressive footage is 3 individual images per second. So if I put that progressive footage into an interlaced project Vegas has to adjust for that somehow.

So is there a way to get it mixed together and look presentable then?

If I mix 30p footage from the Canon and Flip there's no real issue there. I would just have to set the project properties to 1440X1080 and output progressive.

I just know that tonight I'm going to film a friend's band with 2 Panasonic SD cams and probably the Flip also so mixing those is an immediate concern.

[poisondeathray]

I understand the that DV footage is 60 images per second split into odd and even segments blended together to make a single image and that the progressive footage is 3 individual images per second. So if I put that progressive footage into an interlaced project Vegas has to adjust for that somehow.

Well that's how vegas does it. That's how premiere does it too. Virtually every editor does it this way.

You only have 30 moments in time represented with the 30p footage. You can't get something for nothing ("Money for nothing and chicks for free"?)

So is there a way to get it mixed together and look presentable then?

Depends on your definition of "presentable".

Non discerning eyes might not notice. It depends on the type of footage shot. If there's a lot of motion - yeah it will be noticable. If they are static shots, maybe something like an interview - you might not notice

Another option is to make it 30p instead of 60i (this way everything looks "choppy", but at least everything matches)

If I mix 30p footage from the Canon and Flip there's no real issue there. I would just have to set the project properties to 1440X1080 and output progressive.

Yes, 30p and 30p mix well

The only issue is scaling the frame size, but progressive scaling is easy to do. Interlaced scaling can be tricky.


You mentioned 24p segments - that's even more horrendous. At least 30 is evenly divisible by 60. With 24p mixed in , you get non even cadence - it's a lot choppier and even non discerning eyes can see the difference

To be precise , when we say 60i and 30p, but those are actually approximations. 30p is really (30000/1001) or close to 29.97. Similarly 60i is really ~59.94 (or 60000/1001). An additional problem is the Flip records 30.0 exactly (I think). So actually , 1 in every 1001 frames will be dropped, and there will be a slight stutter at that point. The "proper" way to do this is to convert it to (30000/1001) by shortening both the video & audio

[stantheman1976]

I mentioned 24p but honestly I'm smart enough to know that would be a bad idea to try to mix in with the other sources. If I use 24p it's going to be just the two Canon cams mixed together with nothing else. Most likely on any particular project it will be either the 2 SD cams together or the 2 Canon cams together and they won't be mixed with the other type. The Flip camera is just an extra I have to give me the option of a third. I figured since it's 30fps, which is only slightly off from NTSC standard it might not be too hard to mix it with the SD cams and easy to mix with the HD ones if I shot in 30p with those.

If there comes a time where I tried shooting with all 5 cams at once I'd most likely set the Canons to standard DV to match the SD cams and throw the Flip in as a static, extra angle.

Like I said, the project tonight is a live show of a friend's band. I will be using the 2 SD cams for sure and wanted to use the Flip as a 3rd angle, maybe mounted somewhere if I don't have a 3rd person to film.

[poisondeathray]

Yes, 30.0 fps won't be too hard to mix in. Actually, if you right click and interpret the file properties , I think you can change it to 29.97 (Not sure how well vegas does this conversion so test it out first)

You can often "disguise" shots from different cameras and cadences by the way you edit and how you cut to other shots. Of course if everything matched it would be more ideal...

If there's a lot of motion (maybe it's a rock grunge band and they jump all around, I don't know...) then you will be able to see the difference between 60i segments and those shot at 30p. The 60i segments will have a really live "soap opera" look (similar to watching HD sports channels in terms of cadence which often are 720p60), but the 30p (either duped or blended) will noticably look choppier. You have to try it out (maybe to a few short test renders) to see if it's acceptable to you. Also experiment with resample on vs. off (so blend vs. dupe) - some shots look better blended, some duped. Neither is ideal, but you can't do anything about it with vegas (There is a 3rd option, optical flow and motion interpolation to generate the "in between" frames, but vegas doesn't have it)

I would avoid mixing in 24p segments for the reasons mentioned earlier if you can

[aedipuss]

it doesn't really matter with the canon hv20/30/40 whether or not you right click and change the field properties to progressive. they record a frame as 2 fields at the same time rather than one after another and write them to the tape as 60i. so if left as an interlaced project and video file when the editor or player displays them it puts the 2 fields back together and it is a progressive image, no jagged interlaced lines.

[stantheman1976]

So if I shoot 30p HDV with the HV40 and mix it with 60i DV footage should I down-convert the HDV while capturing or capture as 30p HDV and drop it into the normal DV project? Or in that situation would I be better off shooting at standard DV widescren to begin with on the HV40?

[stantheman1976]

I have one last question. If I shoot 30p with the Canons and Flip do I need to do anything to the footage while outputting for DVD besides render as a normal NTSC DV Widescreen with progressive frames?

[budwzr]

I would make the project 720p30 so you have a good quality master, then you can render out to lesser resolutions.

AFA mixing and matching goes, let Vegas handle it and see what you get. The Vegas timeline is built for mix and match.

I have a Flip, Playsport, GoPro, Canon G7, and Lumix FZ-35, and always mix and match in Vegas with no issues whatsoever.