Using Sony Vegas Pro for RAW 4:2:2 capture?

[jwillis84]

I just found out AverMedia was and still is a pretty amazing company.

Apparently they not only write drivers and capture software, but they also made a Capture Plug-in for their C027, C727, H727 NTSC/PAL, S-Video and HDMI video capture card line.

It was designed for SONY Vegas Pro 10.0 which is no longer made, but I just installed it in SONY Vegas Pro 14.0. It was also sold as a part of the DarkCrystal SDK on cdrom disc. Which is a kit for writing your own capture software using their hardware.

But its so flexible, it crossed 32 bit to 64 bit versions of Windows, crossed their different hardware types and revisions and version of SONY Vega pro.. outstanding.

It allows capturing in RAW 4:2:2 or will software convert the capture during capture to MP4.

Its a little awkward in that SONY Vegas Pro was designed with a Firewire DV/HDV Video Capture application that could be called from the {File} menu using "Capture Video" - so conventional wisdom is that SONY Vegas Pro [can not] capture video from an Analog or Digital capture card.

But AverMedia got around this by building a {Media Generator} plugin.

Essentially what you do is install the plug-in, restart SONY Vegas Pro, and then click on the {Media Generator}{Third Party}{AverMedia HD Capture} then drag the (Default) profile to the "timeline" track and up pops a Preview and Capture dialog window.

Its kind of cool and looks really good.

The default settings have to be changed to the desired Input.. I capture with S-Video

The default for Preview is not showing the preview, so press the Preview button and up pops the video.

The default is to capture in MP4 format.. which for 2014 was kind of the norm.. if your going to compress to a compressed format might as well go all the way, unless you plan to edit.

But the shocker was that you could select the raw AVI format.

-- merged --

Slight Correction.

I was using SONY Vegas Pro 13

It does make a difference because 13 was the (Last) version released under the SONY brand name.

[lordsmurf]

The overhead on NLEs just makes capturing less than ideal.

Most NLEs give an option for uncompressed 75gb/hour 4:2:2, but that's equally not desired. Lossless would be more interesting.

[jwillis84]

it is uncompressed

this is an old program and old capture card

probably no one would be interested

i should have thought about it before posting

[lordsmurf]

Lots of people still use "old" (legacy!) versions of software. Ain't broke, won't fix it. I actually forget what version of Vegas I have (currently uninstalled) but it was a Sony version.

It's a good editor, I just prefer Premiere.

But NLE capture ... interesting to try at least once, but overall not viable.

[Bogilein]

What is wrong with an avi file recorded uncompressed as yuv 4: 2: 2 with an NLE?
File Size? Harddisk space? Harddisk speed? No counter for dropped/inserted frames?

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bogilein

What is wrong with an avi file recorded uncompressed as yuv 4: 2: 2 with an NLE?
File Size? Harddisk space? Harddisk speed? No counter for dropped/inserted frames?

Uncompressed requires 2x+ I/O, which causes dropped frames even on SATA. Uncompressed with non-IDE (SCSI) only for years, often with special SDI systems (which were limited).

Even with SATA, and a no-drop capture, you still have both size and related I/O to deal with. Everything from editing to encoding is slower, sometimes 2x as slow. There's just too much data, and needlessly so.

This is why lossless exists, why ProRes422 exists.