Understanding P2 Workflow: Vegas and Raylight

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USING P2 HD WITH
VEGAS AND RAYLIGHT
when it counts
Computer/OS specifications:
Pentium 4 3.0GHz or better, preferably dual-core processor
512MB of RAM, recommended 1GB
Windows XP (Home or Pro)
DirectX 9.0 or later
A sound card
Sony Vegas 5.0 or later (current version is 7.0)
DVFilm.com Raylight software, version 2.02 or later
Overview:
This paper will provide current and prospective P2 customers a step-by-step understanding of how to use P2 with the Sony
Vegas video editing application, by using the Raylight program from www.DVFILM.com. Vegas 7.0 (and earlier) has no
support for DVCPRO50, DVCPRO-HD, or MXF files from P2 cards; you must use Raylight to have access to these features.
Raylight is a codec and file conversion package which gives Vegas the ability to work with P2 MXF files; it’s available for
purchase from www.dvfilm.com/raylight/. Updates to the latest version can be found at http://www.dvfilm.com/update/
updateR.htm.
The basic P2 workflow described is available for use with the AG-HVX200, AJ-HPX2000 and other Panasonic P2 HD
camcorders. Please contact Panasonic for further details, or, visit http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/home.
asp
Acquisition In The Field:
Footage must be acquired in normal MXF-compatible means, principally on P2 cards or on the FireStore FS-100. If
acquiring on P2 cards:
a) Footage can be edited directly from the cards
b) Footage on the cards can be transferred to the P2 Store Drive (model AG-PCS060G), and edited directly from
the P2 Store, or later transferred to your editing computer.
c) Footage on the cards can be transferred to a hard disk, and edited from that hard disk. In order to provide
compatibility across multiple Operating Systems and computer platforms and non-linear editing systems, we
suggest purchasing disk drives that are already formatted FAT 32. Some P2 camcorders (such as the AJHPX2000) can supply BUS power, and some (such as the AG-HVX200) cannot. Make sure your hard disk can be
appropriately powered by your camcorder, or by battery power, or by AC adapter. Additionally, always copy the
entire CONTENTS Folder (video, proxy, etc), as well as the LASTCLIP.TXT file. Please note, this drive is generally
intended as an intermediate storage device and will not necessarily provide enough throughput for editing.
Acquisition In The Studio:
Footage may be acquired using any of the above means; additionally, live streaming footage can be captured over an IEEE
1394 interface cable, using a video capture application such as Serious Magic’s DV Rack 2.0 HD. However, footage cannot
be captured directly by Vegas, even with Raylight. Vegas software cannot be used for live streaming capture of DVCPRO50
or DVCPRO-HD footage. If you want to do live capture of streaming footage of these formats you’ll need to use a program
that supports live capture, such as the aforementioned DV Rack 2.0 HD.
Regardless of how you acquire footage, it’s vital that you archive it before erasing your P2 cards. Whether archiving to tape,
or optical disc, or hard disk, make sure that you copy the entire contents of the card (CONTENTS folder and LASTCLIP.TXT
file) to an archival media before formatting or erasing the cards. See the “Archiving” section at the end of this paper for
more details.
Also, the P2 Viewer is a free application and a helpful solution for viewing and copying P2 card content to a disk drive / PC.
This software also supports metadata, voice memos, and text memos. Please contact Panasonic for further details, or, visit
http://www.panasonic.com/business/provideo/home.asp
Preparing For The Edit:
When first starting an edit session, make sure that you have properly installed the Raylight software using its Install.exe
program. Do this before running Sony Vegas. If you intend to edit DVCPRO50 footage, you must also make sure that you’ve
first installed the Matrox DVCPRO50 codec available for download at:
http://www.matrox.com/video/support/ds/software/codec/home.cfm
Run the Raylight Control program (raylightControl.exe) to set your default settings.
Before importing or converting footage, you should set some default parameters. First, choose a target output folder for
any Raylight output:
Click on the “Browse” button to choose the folder you want to store any compressed/output footage. Also, make sure the
60i/60p radio button is selected.
Next, choose your default playback quality level:
Raylight can play back your footage in one of three quality levels; lower-quality modes are provided for faster playback
performance on slower computers. If you’re using a fast computer, you should probably leave it selected on Raylight Blue.
If performance on Raylight Blue is too slow for satisfactory editing, try Raylight Yellow. Raylight Red is a very low-quality
proxy file, which should only be necessary on the slowest of computers. Note: if importing MXF files directly into Vegas,
Raylight Red will not be available; Raylight Red is only available when using converted .AVI files created by Raylight’s
RayMaker application (see the “Preparing Footage For Import” section for more details on RayMaker).
You can always change this playback setting later, even while running Vegas, so what you choose here is not a permanent
decision.
Finally, select the Advanced Options you want to use:
For simplicity and ease of use, we recommend to select only the “Make self-contained AVI” and “Mark Frames Red/Yellow”
as shown in the picture above. Raylight has many options and powerful features; these two options make the footage
easier to work with and easier to avoid mistakes. For information on the other options, visit www.dvfilm.com/help.
Preparing Footage For Import:
Raylight provides several ways to work with footage from P2 cards. Primarily you can choose to either:
1) edit the MXF files directly from the cards
2) edit the MXF files directly from a hard disk
3) convert the MXF files into standard Windows-compatible .AVI files.
The easiest, simplest, and fastest way to work with the footage is to keep the footage in its native MXF format. However,
pre-converting your MXF files into .AVI files can offer one rather significant benefit: .AVI files can be used in applications
other than Vegas, whereas the Raylight plug-in only brings support for MXF files within Vegas. If you wish to use your
footage in other applications (such as Adobe After Effects for additional compositing, or for integration into a 3-D program
such as LightWave) you may need to convert the footage to .AVI format first (since .AVI is a more universally-understood file
format on the Windows platform.) Also, variable frame rate footage (using overcranking and undercranking in 720p mode)
should be converted to .AVI format first. As more and more programs begin to support the MXF file format the necessity of
converting MXF files into .AVI files should become less important.
With Raylight and Vegas, you can freely intermix .MXF and .AVI files on the timeline.
Working With Native MXF Files:
If the footage currently exists on P2 cards, no preparation is necessary. P2 cards can be read by either a PCMCIA/CardBus
slot on a laptop computer, or through an AJ-PCD10 or AJ-PCD20 P2 Drive, or through an AG-PCS060G P2 Store (when the
P2 Store is being used as a pass-through slot), or through a USB-equipped P2 Camcorder such as the AG-HVX200 when in
“USB Device” mode.
If the footage has been transferred to a hard disk or is currently on a P2 Store, no preparation is necessary; just plug in
the hard disk. If the footage is on a P2 Store, plug the P2 Store into a USB 2.0 port (and ensure that the P2 Store is in PCcompatible mode). The P2 Store can appear to the computer in one of two ways (as specified by the P2 Store Manager
software):
a)
As a series of sequential external drive letters (such as J:, K:, L:, etc) where each card that’s been copied
to the P2 Store appears as its own drive, or
b)
As one large external drive, where each card that’s been copied to the P2 Store appears as its own
subdirectory on that drive.
If footage was acquired on the FireStore FS-100, you will first have to run the FS-100 “Organize P2” command before
attempting to import footage into the computer. Then set the FS-100 into direct drive mode, and attach the FS-100 via an
IEEE 1394 interface cable; make sure to plug the cable into the FS-100’s COMPUTER I/O port, not its DV I/O port.
Regardless of where the source footage is, if you’ve chosen to edit your footage in native MXF format you can now skip
ahead in this document to the “Setting Up Vegas Project Settings” section.
Converting MXF files to .AVI Files:
If you’ve chosen to convert some or all of your MXF footage files into .AVI files, use Raylight’s RayMaker program. Navigate
to the directory where you installed Raylight, and double-click on the RayMaker icon to bring up the RayMaker program
window.
Before converting any footage files, go to the “Process” menu and choose “Options”.
Raylight has the capability to remove/strip out 24PA
Advanced Pulldown from 1080i/24PA clips or 480i/24PA
clips (note: it cannot remove 2:3 pulldown from
1080i/24P or 480i/24P). For working with 1080i/24PA
or 480i/24PA it is recommended to always remove the
pulldown. That way you can edit the footage on a 24P
timeline, and never have to encounter “interlaced
frames” or pulldown.
Raylight can also remove redundant frames from
720/60P clips. If you have shot using variable frame
rates on a FireStore FS-100, this option will allow you
to convert those variable-frame-rate clips into true
overcranking/undercranking .AVI files. If your footage
was shot in 24pN or 30pN mode, this setting will have
no effect – in 24pN or 30pN mode, duplicate frames
have already been removed during recording. But for
footage that has been recorded using the “Over 60”
modes, Raylight can strip out duplicate frames, making
the resulting .AVI file require less space on your hard
disk.
The process of converting your footage from MXF files
into AVI files will take time, and it will take hard disk
space. A Raylight conversion to MXF files runs at faster
than realtime rates, and the new .AVI will be slightly
larger than the source .MXF file. You must also tell
Raylight where to place the newly-created .AVI files;
by default Raylight will store the files in the same
directory where the MXF video files are found. It is
recommended that you always specify a new directory
for the output footage, especially for footage that’s
still on a P2 card. You should use the “User selects
output folder” checkbox and path to specify a new
output directory so that Raylight will put all the created
footage in your selected directory.
In the “Configure Raylight” dialog box, Raylight offers two ways to convert the footage: either as “self-contained AVI” or
not.
Checking this box “on” will result in Raylight creating self-contained .AVI files. These .AVI files will contain all the original,
unmodified DVCPRO-HD data that the MXF files contain. This is the most convenient and foolproof way to work with
Raylight .AVIs and is the recommended workflow.
Once you’ve selected your options and your target directory, simply go to Windows Explorer and navigate to your P2 card
(or, to the hard disk where you’ve copied the contents of a P2 card). Find the CONTENTS folder from your P2 card, and drag
and drop the CONTENTS folder right into the RayMaker application.
When you drop the CONTENTS folder onto RayMaker’s window it will bring up a dialog box showing a list of all the files that
it will convert from MXF to .AVI.
(Your list will obviously look different than
this list, depending on what the particular
contents are of your P2 card or your hard
disk.)
Press “Start” and RayMaker will begin
converting your footage files to new .AVI
files (leaving the original MXF files
untouched and unharmed).
(Note: while converting the footage, you
may see a warning message that says
“WARNING: could not find the Audio MXF
files for this clip—AVI will be silent.” This message occurs when converting 720pN footage that was shot at variable frame
rates; for example, the HVX200 records no audio when using off-speed frame rates; in cases like that Raylight will not find
audio files. This is not a bug or a problem; it’s just the way the system works.)
Setting Up Vegas Project Settings:
Run Sony Vegas and choose “File->New…” Choose your project settings based on what type of footage you intend to
edit. For DVCPRO-HD, you may have to customize the settings, as Vegas doesn’t include project presets for all the possible
DVCPRO-HD projects. Here are the appropriate project settings for the various DVCPRO-HD formats:
For 720p/24P:
For 720p/30P:
For 720p/60P:
For 1080i/60i, the existing “HD 1080i/60i” preset can be used, or you can use this:
Note: since Raylight and Vegas don’t yet allow for on-the-fly 2:3 pulldown removal from 1080i/24P footage, you would also
use this 1080i/60i template to edit 1080i/24P footage (but not 1080i/24pA footage; see below).
For 1080i/30P, simply change the “Field Order” to “None (progressive scan):
For 1080i/24PA you can use the existing “HD 1080-24p” preset, or match these settings:
Raylight can strip out the 2:3:3:2 pulldown from 1080i/24pA footage (or 480i/24pA footage) either when creating new .AVI
files, or on-the-fly from MXF files. Therefore it’s appropriate to edit 24pA footage on a pure 24P timeline.
For DV or DVCPRO or DVCPRO50, you can choose one of the existing NTSC DV project presets; just specify whether you
want 24fps or 29.97 (for either 60i or 30P); also whether you want normal 4:3 or Widescreen. There are four NTSC DV
project presets.
Note: if you are using 30P in DV, DVCPRO, or DVCPRO50, you’ll want to choose the appropriate NTSC DV 29.970 fps
project preset (either normal or Widescreen), and then you’ll want to change the “Field Order” drop-down box to “None
– Progressive Scan.”
(The above settings are appropriate for a 4:3 DV/DVCPRO/DVCPRO50 project at 30P.)
Importing Footage:
Raylight provides the ability to directly import P2’s MXF files, either from a P2 card or from a hard disk (assuming you’ve
copied the contents of a P2 card onto a hard disk, or are importing the files from a P2 Store). You can either drag the MXF
files directly to the timeline from the CONTENTS/VIDEO directory using Windows Explorer, or you can use Vegas’ “File>Import->Media” command to select the MXF files you want to import.
Of course, if you’ve used RayMaker to convert the MXF files into .AVI files, you can always use the File->Import->Media
command to import those new .AVI files.
Vegas will allow you to mix and match MXF files and .AVI files (and many other types of files), regardless of frame rate,
resolution, or aspect ratio. Vegas will automatically scale the footage to match your project preset.
One note about importing MXF files: if you’ve used 720p mode (instead of 720pN mode) to shoot a variable-frame-rate clip,
the Raylight timeline MXF import function may not accurately show the proper frames in version 2.02. Later versions may
correct this, but the recommended workaround is to use RayMaker to convert those variable-frame-rate clips into .AVI files.
60p/24p/30p/60i and 720pN clips can all be directly used via MXF; only 720p variable-frame-rate clips require conversion
to .AVI.
Outputting Footage:
Once your project is edited, you can export the footage
in a variety of ways, including to DVD or as a Windows
.AVI file or Quicktime file, or you can also render back to
a P2 card or to a “virtual card” on a hard disk or other
archival media.
Raylight 2.02 cannot render out a standard-definition file
back to a P2 card, but it can export high-definition files
to a P2-compatible MXF file.
To render out a P2-compatible DVCPRO-HD MXF file, first
choose File->Render As…
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Choose a “Save as type:” of “Video for Windows (*.avi)”.
Then click the “Custom…” button to choose your file export
attributes.
Click on the “Video” tab, and set the parameters according
to what type of file you want to render out. For DVCPRO-HD
1080/24P, use the following settings:
For DVCPRO-HD 1080i/60i, use these settings:
For DVCPRO-HD 1080i/30p, use these settings:
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When working with DVCPRO-HD 720p, you can use the
same basic template for all possible export modes, changing
only the frame rate. Start with these basic settings:
The above settings are appropriate for outputting a 720p/24p project. To modify that template for 720p/30p, change the
“Frame rate” option to “29.970 (NTSC)”:
And to change the above settings for outputting a 720p/60p project, change the “Frame rate” option to “59.940 (Double
NTSC)”:
For all DVCPRO-HD exports, the Audio tab should be set like this:
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Click “OK” to go back to the export dialog box, and click “SAVE” to export your footage into a Raylight .AVI file. Note that a
Raylight .AVI file uses the same DVCPRO-HD codec as the original MXF or RayMaker .AVI, so no recompression or quality
loss will occur to your footage (excepting, of course, segments with transitions or video effects that need to be rendered).
Once you have a finished Raylight .AVI file, you can now use the P2Maker.exe utility to create a P2-compatible MXF file.
Using Windows Explorer, locate the P2Maker.exe program icon and double-click it:
The P2 Maker program window then appears.
When the P2 Maker program window
appears, choose Process->Options to bring
up the P2 Maker Options dialog box.
From this dialog box you can choose to
export your file directly back to a P2 card
(assuming a card is mounted to your
computer). Or, you can export to a “virtual
card” by choosing to write to the Raylight
Folder. You can change which folder gets
used by clicking on the Config Raylight”
button.
If you want to export directly to a P2 card,
type in the Drive Letter of where your P2
card is mounted. If you don’t know the
drive letter, use Windows Explorer to identify
which drive letter is associated with your
P2 card. Then click “OK” to return back to
the P2 Maker main window.
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To begin the process of exporting your RayMaker .AVI to your P2 card (or to a “virtual card”), use Windows Explorer to locate
your RayMaker .AVI icon, and drag and drop it onto the P2 Maker window. P2 Maker will bring up a dialog box describing
what it is about to do:
Click “Start” and P2 Maker will begin the process of exporting your .AVI as P2-compatible MXF files. When it’s finished,
the resulting P2 card image should be able to be played in any P2-compatible camera or deck, or viewed in the P2 Viewer
application. (Be aware that the P2 thumbnail icon for your file will have a red “X” on it, but this does not affect the ability
of the clip to be played back).
Exporting Footage To Other Formats:
Nothing about Vegas, or the MXF workflow, limits you to only working with the files as MXF or P2 files. You can of course
export your footage to DVD-compatible MPEG-2 files, or downconvert to standard-definition (even DV files), or to any format.
Use the Vegas “Render as…” function to export files in a wide variety of formats other than DVFILM Raylight .AVI files.
Archiving Footage:
P2 cards are not necessarily permanent data storage media items; many people use them as “temporary containers,” filling
them up with footage, using that footage, and then archiving the footage onto a permanent storage format before re-using
the card. If editing straight from the card, you can archive either before or after the edit process. But if you intend to erase
the card and record more footage onto it, obviously it’s vital to properly archive the card’s contents before erasing it.
Data from a P2 card should not be thought of as “video data”; instead, it is computer data and should be archived as such.
You do not need to archive your P2 data onto “video tape”; instead, you can archive onto any computer-readable media. If
you explore the data on a P2 card you’ll see that each P2 card is viewed by the computer as a removable-storage disc drive.
It should be archived just like you would archive any disc drive. Common archival methods include:
a) storing the footage on external removable hard disks
b) exporting to data DVD-R or DVD+R
c) exporting to data Blu-Ray or HD-DVD optical discs
d) archiving footage on data tape drives such as DLT or LTO tapes
When archiving, you want to store all the originally-recorded data, in its original form. Don’t just archive certain portions or
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certain files, but back up the entire contents of the card. Additionally, it is vital to keep and preserve the directory structure
and archive the entire CONTENTS directory and the “LASTCLIP.TXT” file, if any.
To archive to an external hard disc, create a new directory on the external hard disc for each card you intend to archive (for
example, if you had three cards to archive on to your external drive “K:” you’d create the following folders: “K:\Reel_1\”,
“K:\Reel_2”, and “K:\Reel_3”). Then simply use Windows Explorer to drag the complete contents of the appropriate P2 card
(dragging the entire CONTENTS folder and LASTCLIP.TXT file) into one of those directories on your external hard disk.
Another common archival process is to use optical discs, such as recordable data DVDs. A 4GB P2 card can be archived
onto a regular 4.7GB DVD-R or DVD+R; an 8GB P2 card can be archived onto a dual-layer DVD-R. 16GB and larger cards
may be able to be archived onto data Blu-Ray or dual-layer HD-DVD discs. To archive onto a data DVD-R you’ll need a DVD
burner as well as a DVD burning application (such as Nero AG’s “Nero”) which supports making data DVDs. Note: you do
not want to create a playable video DVD, you want to create a data DVD. Then, using your DVD burning application, create
a data DVD image that consists of one card’s CONTENTS and LASTCLIP.TXT and burn one DVD per card.
Data tape (such as DLT or LTO tape) can be used to archive large amounts of data; an LTO-3 tape holds hundreds of
gigabytes of data. Use a data backup program to create large archives of card data directly onto high-capacity LTO or DLT
tapes.
Whichever method you choose, archiving footage as data (rather than as video footage) makes your project easier to restore
if/when you need to work on it again in the future.
Written by Barry Green, Fiercely Independent Films Inc., March 2007. Barry Green is the author of The HVX Book and The DVX Book and publisher
of several training DVDs for P2 products.
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