Capturing HD Video

[Steve Chamberlain]

OK I am trying to capture some HD video off my new Sony HDV Z5E camera... I have a trial version of Vegas Pro 9... I plugged it all in and started to capture... But when the files ended up on my computer they are .m2t files ??? I was expecting MPEG2 files :(

Am I doing something wrong ? Help please... :D

[Bill Mecca]

You're not doing anything wrong, that is the form of MP2 files in Vegas.

[Steve Chamberlain]

I need to be able to send them to people as I resell the content I sell... do I send them as m2t's or MPG ? Someone told me if I just change the extension to MPG they will work fine ???

[Shaw Productions Inc.]

After you have the footage on your timeline and edited and are all done then click on "file" and "render as" and choose whatever format you want your end result to be.

[Shaw Productions Inc.]

Don't change the extension, it's better to click FILE then RENDER AS... and choose your format.

Steve Chamberlain said:

I need to be able to send them to people as I resell the content I sell... do I send them as m2t's or MPG ? Someone told me if I just change the extension to MPG they will work fine ???

[Bill Mecca]

Are you editing the raw footage? then render as discussed. check stock footage houses and see what format they are using. To use Pond5 as an example, this is clipped from their site.

"MotionJPEG-B: for non-DV interlaced clips, including HDV1080i. Make sure that the field order matches the original material (most likely upper-field first for non-DV material). Quality level of “high” (75%) or better (please do not go above 95%, in order to keep file sizes reasonable)."

Conventional wisdom is that MPEG2 as a format doesn't hold up well when being uncompressed and recompressed, which is what your customers would be doing when the put it on their timeline.

[Steve Chamberlain]

Hmmm I am confused... I posted this on a lot of other forums and every one seems to think it's ok to just rename the extension from m2t file to mpg file... they work when I play them too (remember I am a newbie here !)

It seems a big task to render each scene... I have about 8 1 hour tapes to capture, and on each tape around 10-15 short scenes... are you telling me I should render each one ? Can I not just supply to the customer, maybe in both m2t and mpg formats ?

[Steve Chamberlain]

Another quickie... as well as getting the m2t file... it also has a .sfk file, anyone tell me what this is as well ? If I am going to copy all of the content onto a hard drive for a client what do I need to include... can I put just the mpg, or should i include the m2t and sfk files as well ?

And just to clarify once I captured the video as m2t files, if I change the .m2t to mpg the video will work right ? So I dont need to render or publish or anything techie, I can simply change the extension...

[Bill Mecca]

Steve,

Maybe you need to give us a bit more information. What are you shooting, what are you to deliver to your customers and how will that delivery be effected.(tape, disc, internet) Can you answer this: what file type does your customer want?

Mpeg2 as I mentioned earlier doesn't hold up that well. Cineform has made a business out of creating intermediate codecs that make it easier and more efficient to edit HD files.

I've only just gotten into HD and thus far I edit with the m2t files nativley in Vegas as I don't do that much in the way of effects, but conventional wisdom is that they don't hold up that well when you start layering effects. You also need to be concerned with comptability and if delivering via internet, the file size. Are you editing the clips at all, cutting out the shaky spots, bad zooms etc?

I try to follow what the stock footage houses are doing, as they have a vested interest in providing the best video quality, compatability and file size and they have done all the heaving lifting when it comes to research.

B

Steve Chamberlain said:

Another quickie... as well as getting the m2t file... it also has a .sfk file, anyone tell me what this is as well ? If I am going to copy all of the content onto a hard drive for a client what do I need to include... can I put just the mpg, or should i include the m2t and sfk files as well ?

And just to clarify once I captured the video as m2t files, if I change the .m2t to mpg the video will work right ? So I dont need to render or publish or anything techie, I can simply change the extension...

[Shane Killian]

The .sfk file is something Vegas creates to contain information about the file so it doesn't have to scan it every time. If you delete it, it'll be recreated the next time you open it in Vegas, and you don't need to include it in files you send to your client.

[Shaw Productions Inc.]

Think of the .sfk like a backup. You don't have to include it.

Steve Chamberlain said:

Another quickie... as well as getting the m2t file... it also has a .sfk file, anyone tell me what this is as well ? If I am going to copy all of the content onto a hard drive for a client what do I need to include... can I put just the mpg, or should i include the m2t and sfk files as well ?

And just to clarify once I captured the video as m2t files, if I change the .m2t to mpg the video will work right ? So I dont need to render or publish or anything techie, I can simply change the extension...

[Pierre Samuel Rioux]

Click on the scene on the time line chose propriety then media
this is what i done with vegas Pro 8 and the original file are .m2t and in the middle of the box you could read FORMAT mpeg2.

[Phoenix]

for the best compatibility I use Quick Time Motion JPEG A at about 88% quality