SmartRender maybe? New in Vegas Pro 8

[Hulk]

http://www.videoguys.com/vegaspro8.html/

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/product.asp?pid=457

The first link shows a "new feature" saying no rerendering for long GOP HDV.

I say maybe SmartRendering because we've all heard this before.

At least the Sony guys are working in the right direction and at least thinking about it.

I have to say I'm ready for the new titler and some of the other new features.

[Jerry Jones]

Agreed.

Now this program is beginning to look more interesting, but Smart MPEG Rendering must actually work as advertised.

Broken Smart MPEG Rendering in the Corel (formerly Ulead) products has cost me a lot of money.

I'm pretty ticked off about it, too.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

When Vegas Pro 8 is released I will be upgrading and I'll definitely give the SmartRender function a work out and report back.

The problem is I know I won't be buying an HDV camera since I want to stick with either hard drive or solid state storage and that will almost definitely be AVCHD.

[Jerry Jones]

I look forward to your tests.

I'm also fascinated by that new "mixing console" feature.

Check it out:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/product.asp?PID=457&PageID=103

This is incredible.

I'm not sure how the buses work.

But the feature description says there are 26 "master and aux" outputs.

Where I work, we route 13 XLR analog microphones and 3 analog line sources into a Mackie mixing console.

We have six auxiliary sends per channel.

I'm wondering if we could replace the entire physical mixing console with this Sony Vegas mixing console using some type of analog-to-digital converter with plenty of XLR connectors.

Do you know of such a converter product?

Behringer makes this device with only eight XLR inputs:

http://www.behringer.com/ADA8000/index.cfm?lang=eng

It seems to have only an ADAT interface.

Not sure if this would work.

And what kind of sound card would be able to handle a couple dozen channels?

Does such a product exist?

I'm also very curious about this Phonic Helix Board 24 Firewire mixing board:

http://www.phonic.com/en/product/detail.php?group_name=&languageid=1&group=en&product_no=helixboard24firewiremkii

It apparently offers a Firewire interface.

It has plenty of XLR connectors.

Could one hook up one of these to a computer -- with Firewire -- running Vegas 8 and monitor each channel -- independently -- using the Vegas mixing console?

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

When Vegas Pro 8 is released I will be upgrading and I'll definitely give the SmartRender function a work out and report back.

The problem is I know I won't be buying an HDV camera since I want to stick with either hard drive or solid state storage and that will almost definitely be AVCHD.

[Hulk]

Jerry,

I'll look into this further later but I've been able to do some pretty elaborate multichannel mixing and recording with the "old" Vegas.

As for Mic-pre's with converters built in I like the Presonus gear. Here's one you might want to check out:

http://www.presonus.com/digimax_lt.html

If you need higher sampling rates they also have a model that does that too.

[Jerry Jones]

So how would that brand new mixing console in Vegas 8 actually work?

Could you use it to "control" an external hardware device... sort of like a control surface?

Also, I've never worked with ADAT connections.

Are there soundcards with that type of connection that you might recommend?

Or is a special type of computer interface required?

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Also, when you check the Smart MPEG Render feature, make sure that when you render out a n HDV clip, that you carefully study the behavior of frames near edit points when you play back the resulting clip.

If there's Smart HDV Rendering, then there's bound to be Smart SD MPEG-2 Rendering.

Check the SD, as well.

Those of us who've studied the bug in the Corel/Magix software have suspected that this might be the result of a flawed MainConcept SDK.

Thanks,

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Jerry,

I can't tell exactly what new features/useability the mixing console will bring but from the screenshot it looks like the aux sends will now be able to be fed to other busses and effects channels. For example with vocals it's common practice (with pop songs anyway) to put a little reverb on the delay. So now you can feed some of the delay FX into the reverb FX. Not a huge addition but it does make Vegas a more complete multitrack mixer.

If you get the right hardware interface I'm quite sure you can do what you need in software. In fact I'm pretty sure the Presonus FireStudio can do it. I haven't worked with it personally but from what I've read it has very flexible routing.

[Jerry Jones]

Have you tried Vegas 8 yet, Mark?

I anticipate making a decision on my next upgrade in about one more month.

Since I work for a university, I qualify for decent pricing on both Vegas and/or an Apple setup.

I'm leaning toward the Apple.

But I'm interested in Vegas 8, too.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

Oooops.

The forum comments at the following link do not encourage me:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=103710

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

And check the out the lukewarm endorsements here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=103247

That does it for me.

I'm going Macintosh.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Jerry Jones]

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/

The new Macintosh operating system upgrade, called "Leopard," is due next month (October).

That's all I'm waiting for.

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[wkulecz]

Jerry, please hang around and let us know how the Mac works out. I'm in the same boat, but probably willing to wait another year or so, since without some HD distribution method, its pretty low priority for me.

--wally.

[Jerry Jones]

Will do, Wally.

The only thing I have left to decide is which model of Mac that I will buy.

1. MacBook Pro
2. MacBook
3. Mini

Final Cut Express runs on all three.

But Final Cut Studio 2 will only run on the MacBook Pro (or the Mac Pro desktop).

Jerry Jones

http://www.jonesgroup.net

[Hulk]

Jerry,

Yes, I am running Vegas Pro 8. As you know I'm already sold on Vegas so 8 is just another incremental update.

The titler is much better and more versatile. The dedicated audio mixer is also nice but the audio tools in Vegas were always pretty good in my opinion and I come from the multitrack audio world having owned my own studio in the '90's.

I haven't tested the SmartRender feature because I don't have an HDV camera.

I've really been satisfied with Vegas since Version 5 for what I do with it but the updates are definitely nice. Good multi-cpu support and handling of hi-def formats are the most important additions in the last few updates in my opinion. I'm just glad Sony is staying with it.