Similarly, Vegas Pro has
always featured robust native file format support. From the beginning
around 10 years ago, Vegas Pro users have enjoyed the ability to throw
just about anything at their projects with the confidence that the
application would simply accept it and enable them to get on with their
work. We've always put a premium on the ability for Vegas Pro software
to work with native codecs and file formats as they come off of the
recording media instead of forcing users to transcode or re-wrap their
footage to a single edit-friendly format. With every format that Vegas
Pro software supports and has ever supported, you can mix and match all
the frame sizes and frame rates on a single timeline, in most cases
without transcoding or re-wrapping your files. To the user, that means
simplicity. Just throw it on the Vegas Pro timeline and start editing.
In
this article I present an overview of many of the major file formats as
they relate to Vegas Pro software. This will give you a good idea of
the flexibility you have to work in Vegas Pro projects regardless of the
cameras you shoot with or the type of files you use in your work. This
flexibility gives you many more options when it comes to deciding what
video cameras to buy. It also enables those of you who work with files
provided by other sources to accept more jobs. I'm going to focus on
video file types, but don't forget the huge array of audio file types,
like WAV, AIFF, MP3, FLAC, and more that the application handles with
ease.
In a great generality, Vegas Pro
software supports video files that fall into three categories:
- Files that work right out of the box
- Files that
work after you install a free codec
- Files that work after
you purchase and install a codec
The first group of file
types (those that work with the default installation of Vegas Pro
software) comprise a surprisingly large number of formats. Well,
surprising if you're not already a Vegas Pro user anyway. These include
old standby formats like DV (either AVI or MOV) and HDV as well as
others which are less commonly used as source footage such as WMV, some
types of MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, and others. If these files already exist on
your hard drive, you can add them to your project directly from the Open
dialog box or the Explorer window. For example, to add a WMV file to
your project, use the Explorer window to navigate to the file on your
hard drive as in figure 1. Click the Start Preview
button to view the file and make sure it's the one you want. If it is,
drag it to the timeline or into the Trimmer window where you can mark
you in and out points before you add it to the timeline. This same
technique works with most other formats as well.
You can use the Explorer window to navigate to any video
file that's already on your local or network drives.
If you
have DV or HDV on tape that you haven't yet transferred to your hard
drive, you can use the Vegas Pro video capture tools to transfer it. To
capture from tape, choose File | Capture Video. In the
Capture video dialog box, select either the DV or the HDV
radio button and click OK. The Sony Video Capture
application opens for DV capture or the integrated video capture window
opens for HDV capture. Use the capture utility's controls to find and
capture the footage you want. When you're done, close the capture
utility and click the Project Media tab to see that the
clips have automatically been added to your project.
You
might also be shooting your DV or HDV footage to the DR60 hard-disk
recording unit or the MRC1K memory recording unit. If so, you can easily
import that footage from either of those storage devices into your
project.
Choose File | Import and from the
cascading menu, choose either Hard Disk Recording Unit
or Memory Recording Unit. Again, when you're done with
the file transfer, the clips appear in your Project Media window ready
for you to use. For a thorough walk-through of HDV video capture or
importing, check out the free Working
with HDV in Vegas Pro tutorial video.
You can also
use the Import process to transfer MPEG-2 files from your direct to DVD
video camera into your Vegas Pro project. Connect your camera and choose
File | Import | DVD Camcorder Disc. Again, the
processes finishes with the clips loaded into your Project Media window.
Vegas
Pro software features intuitive workflows for working with several of
the exciting newer file formats as well. For instance, the application's
XDCAM workflow has been praised as straight-forward and complete. To
pull your MXF footage from an optical XDCAM disc (or from a disc image
that you've copied to a network or hard drive), choose View |
XDCAM Explorer.
The XDCAM Explorer window, shown in
Figure 2, provides tools you use to import the proxy and/or
full-resolution video files from your disc. You can complete your entire
edit with the proxy files in order to lighten the load on your CPU and
then swap them out for the full-resolution files when you're ready to
deliver your project. You can also make use of your essence marks, shot
lists, and more. For a full understanding of the XDCAM Explorer window,
view the XDCAM
workflow video tutorial series.
The XDCAM Explorer window gives you all the tools you
need to preview and import proxy and/or full-resolution clips from your
XDCAM optical discs, add the files to your project, and render an MXF
file back to your optical disc when you're done editing.
Finally,
for several formats Vegas Pro software features the Device Explorer
window. This window enables you to navigate to your device, preview the
clips on that device, and import any or all of them–in their native
format–onto your hard drive and into your project. Or, if you've already
copied your disc image to a network or hard drive, you can import the
files into your project from that location.
You can use the
Device Explorer window for several different file types including XDCAM
EX MP4 files, AVCHD from several cameras including the new Sony HXR-NX5U
and HDR-AX2000 NXCAM camcorders, and R3D files from your RED camera.
And as I mentioned, Vegas Pro software supports each of these formats
natively so you know you're working with the best quality possible right
from the cameras.
To use the Device Explorer, first, connect
your device. Choose View | Device Explorer. Each device
you have connected to your computer appears in the left-hand pane of
the Device Explorer window. You can also browse to any disc image that
you have stored on a network or hard drive. Select the device from the
list to view thumbnails of the clips on that device in the right-hand
pane as in Figure 3. Select a clip and click the Start Preview
button to view it. Drag the clip to your timeline to simultaneously
import it onto your hard drive and add it to your project. To add
several clips at once, select each of them and click the Import
Selected Clips button. Or, to import all of them, click away
from any clip to deselect them and click the Import All Clips
button.
Use the Device Explorer window to preview XDCAM EX
files, RED ONE files, and AVCHD files, import them to your computer
drives, and add them in their native formats to your project timeline.
Vegas
Pro provides further support for R3D files. Add an R3D file to the
timeline, right-click the event and select Choose in Project
Media List from the menu. Then, in the Project Media window,
right-click the selected clip and choose File Format Properties
from the menu. In the R3D Decode Properties dialog box you have access
to all of the R3D Decode Properties. When you're done with your
adjustments, click OK.
The R3D Decode Properties dialog box gives you control
over the same settings as those on the camera.
For complete
information on both the Device Explorer window and the complete RED
camera workflow, check out the Vegas Pro 9
Seminar Series training package.
The second group of file
types that Vegas Pro software supports includes files that require the
installation of free third-party video codecs. If you add a file to your
timeline and you get the audio but no video, that's usually a good
indication that you need to install a codec. This category includes a
wide variety of file types but a few important ones stand out.
First,
if you're receiving files from a colleague who works on a Mac, you may
well be faced with using ProRes MOV files in your project. You can
download the ProRes codec from the Apple site and install it on your
machine. Once you've done so, use the Vegas Pro Explorer window to
navigate to where you've stored your ProRes files and drag them to your
timeline. Once again Vegas Pro software utilizes the ProRes files in
their native format.
Somewhere around build 7.6.2 or so, Apple
also began including the ProRes codec with their QuickTime player. So
if you have already installed the player, you can use ProRes files on
the Vegas Pro timeline without any further codec installation.
DNxHD
files from Avid are similar to ProRes files and they work the same way.
Download and install the free codec from the Avid site and you can add
DNxHD files to your Vegas Pro timeline from the Explorer window.
Finally,
like us, many of you use Techsmith's Camtasia screen capture software
to create software demos or training. To edit the AVI files from
Camtasia on the Vegas Pro timeline, you'll need the TSCC codec. If
you've installed Camtasia, then you already have the codec, but if
you're editing on a machine that doesn't have the application, you can
download the TSCC codec from the Techsmith website. Then use the Vegas
Pro Explorer window to navigate to your Camtasia files and add them to
your project timeline.
The last category includes files that
also require the installation of third-party codecs, but these are
available from their manufacturers only by purchase. Chief among this
group are codecs that enable you to use files that have been wrapped by a
different application into another format (for example, MOV files that
were created by wrapping HDV files, MP4 files shot with the XDCAM EX, or
MXF files shot with XDCAM). Some of these codecs also enable you to
work with files such as all popular flavors of DVCPRO50 and DVCPRO-HD
files from the Panasonic P2 camera, and MOV files created by certain JVC
cameras. Codecs in this group include the Raylight family of codecs
from DVFILM.com (including future support for AVC-Intra through Raylight
Ultra), Calibrated XC Decode from Calibrated Software, and the neohd
product from Cineform.
Each of these products is for sale, so
you'll want to do a bit of research before you buy to make sure you're
getting the right one for the work you need to do.
The robust
file format support that we've talked about in this article means more
flexibility for Vegas Pro editors. While the software is certainly more
thoroughly optimized for some of these formats than others, it's
essential to your business to know that you can accept formats that fall
outside of your normal workflow and integrate them into your Vegas Pro
projects. |
