Combining video clips from different cameras

ringo747 · 12 Oct 2011 at 20:17

So I have some clips from an HDV tape camera, 1080p from a Lumix P&S, and some 720p from a Kodak Zi8.

What sort of workflow should I follow to get all these clips into Vegas and edit into a video? I am guessing I need to get everything into the same format before doing anything else.

Any suggestions?

ringo747 · 14 Oct 2011 at 09:59

Anyone?

feriso · 14 Oct 2011 at 10:11

Not necessarily, Vegas might just recognise all the formates to start with so you might just need to import all your media; drag onto your timeline, edit it and then export it all as one format at that point.

Not used Vegas for quite some time but I know PowerDirector can do this.

ringo747 · 14 Oct 2011 at 11:19

So regardless of what you stick on the timeline you can render it all to the same output?

RaV · 14 Oct 2011 at 11:36

I dont have much experience with Vegas. But generally format isnt the problem as long as it can read it. Resolution and possibly frame rate are.

I know from premiere pro that if you bring 1080p footage into a 720p timeline, you have to scale down the 1080 footage, or else it is cropped in the 720 res window.

Framerates are a bit harder to judge if it makes any difference until you export it. Some clips may look jerky if there is a drastic change from their default frame rate to the one your exporting at. But most video editing packages now are pretty good at frame blending to make sure it all looks ok with different frame rates.

3dcandy · 14 Oct 2011 at 13:48

+1 not used Vegas, but a couple of programs I've used have been pretty good with mixed footage as long as you are careful and choose an output format larger than the input format, in which case the program can scale the footage up and you get less problems...

ringo747 · 14 Oct 2011 at 14:48

Thanks for the info guys. So I should be exporting to 720p max based on the fact that I have 720p footage on the timeline from a Zi8?

3dcandy · 14 Oct 2011 at 21:49

perhaps that would produce the best results...have a play and see, I've had mixed results.

dav3evans · 14 Oct 2011 at 23:38

Best practise is to stick with a timeline/sequence setting that matches as much of the footage you have as possible. Then after that export it all as the final output format you need.

It's best to start off as compatible with as much of your footage as possible. Have you got a specific requirement for the final output?

ringo747 · 15 Oct 2011 at 00:20

I am just going to be sticking together some clips for Youtube so it's nothing too important. I usually export everything to 1080p for max youtube quality but 720 would probably be fine.

dav3evans · 15 Oct 2011 at 00:25

Personally I'd stick with a 1080 sequence and upscale the 720p footage as it should still look fine. especially if it's youtube stuff and not for a picky broadcast company

This is what people usually do in this situation when they have mostly 1080p footage and want to shoot some slow-mo footage (which needs to be 720p50) then just scale it to fit.

ringo747 · 15 Oct 2011 at 00:34

Dead on I'll give it a go. Any other settings I'd need to change? What about mixing 1080i with 720p? Does it matter at all?

moogle · 15 Oct 2011 at 01:01

ringo747 said:
Dead on I'll give it a go. Any other settings I'd need to change? What about mixing 1080i with 720p? Does it matter at all?

I would make a copy of the interlaced footage and deinterlace it then put it in the timeline. However you can just set the deinterlace settings in the project settings (I use blend mode) and it will do it when it gets rendered. It's going to be displayed on progressive screens anyway. Plus looks rather unprofessional when it's not done, unless you're going to show your video to someone on a CRT, deinterlace it.

Do remember that deinterlacing will lose some data. Not quality but some moments captured in time, so always keep the original unless it's not that important a video.

As for different framerate videos, I would set the project settings to the highest framerate of your videos, that way the lower framerate videos will have better frame timing accuracy (if that makes sense).

Ie with 30fps project setting a 25fps video will have more frame slots to duplicate a frame to make it seem like 25fps in the 30fps project, but if it were the other way round the 30fps video would lose some key frames (unless you did some pre processing to cut out frames and blend them down to 25fps) and look a bit jerky.

Not sure if smart resampling blends the frames down for you, but from an old render I have cutting down the frames resulted in a frame skip every 1-2 seconds and it was noticable as the video had some fast motion.

dav3evans · 15 Oct 2011 at 11:19

Deinterlacing is a good shout for sure. Nothing worse than seeing those interlacing lines when there is motion in the shot.

All of the footage above should be 25fps anyway, so there shouldn't be any issues. the 720 footage obviously has 50fps but in my experience the removal of what is effectively half the frames to get regular 25fps playback looks ok. This is done automatically when you import into most NLEs, the data is still there it just doesn't play it back unless you tell it to (how you get slow motion).
Although