Need Program to Produce 1080i60 either .mov or .mfx file PC

[Merc225]

I need to produce videos for the local cable company and they are now asking me to produce them in HDV 1080i60 (.mov) or XDCAM 1080i60 (.mfx)  We are a low dollar company and im looking for a low cost program to do this. I was using pinnacle 12 and was told that Pinnacle 18 will do this, i bought 18 but it will only do 1080p in the .mov file. My other issue is my PC is a bit dated an it am afraid if i get a brand new version of anything my PC wont run it.  I have a Dell with 1.8 Dual core, 2Gb sound card 6mb ram  Help please.

 

[rs170a]

Sony Vegas Pro 13 Edit ($400) will do MXF files with no problem.

Your biggest problems are program cost and a very underpowered computer.

Minimum specs for Vegas 13 (and most modern NLEs these days are Windows® 7, 8, or 8.1 operating system (64-bit) along with a 2 GHz processor (multicore or multiprocessor CPU recommended for HD or stereoscopic 3D.

Keep in mind that this is the bare bones mimimum. You really need a recent i7 processor with a lot of RAM to make a computer work easily with HD files.

 

Mike

[Merc225]

Are  there older versions that will run on my machine? I really don't need the latest and greatest. Also what about a program that may do 1080i in .mov?

[rs170a]

Vegas Pro 8 can render out an MXF file to your specs and is not as CPU intensive as Pro 13. Due to its age though, you'll only be able to find it on sites such as Ebay. I will caution you to make sure that you're buying a legitimate version as there are a lot of scammers out there.

Vegas doesn't handle conversion to MOV very well so you'd need Adobe Premiere or someone with a Mac to do the conversion to that format for you.Go

Good luck.

 

Mike

[Merc225]

Thanks for your help. I found a used version on Vegas nine hopefully that helps me. 

[rs170a]

Good luck. Let me know if you need any help with Vegas.

 

Mike

[Merc225]

My plan initially is to compose my show in pinnacle and save the file then import to Vegas and save as a 1080i .mfx. Can you tell me what would be the best file to save my pinnacle project as? I can do 1080i in .wmv. Or would I be better off just loading the movie from my dv camera directly into Vegas? 

[rs170a]

WMV is a delivery format, not an editing format and you would see a loss in quality if you were to render to that first and then to MXF.

Your best option is to do everything in Vegas but I understand if you're reluctant to start a project with software that you've never used before.

Ive never used Pinnacle. If you have the option to render out to a lossless codec such as Lagarith (google it, it's free), that would be a good thing to do. Be advised the the resulting file will be quite large but at least the quality loss will be minimal.

 

Mike

[Merc225]

ok got the program, I can import the avi but my current files are 4:3. I can produce the correct file type for them but I need to make my 4:3 into 16:9. I have tried various things the make this happen, on the screen in the program it appears to be full screen but when I render it is 4:3 with black bars. How can I render these files to widescreen?  Thx in advance. 

[rs170a]

You have three choices here. Put up with black bars on the sides, match the 16:9 setting and have the top and bottom cut off or do what a lot of broadcasters do and add the identical video to a new track under the 4:3 one but set to 16:9 and blurred. The choice is yours.

 

Mike

[Merc225]

Can you give me a quick lesson on how to match 16:9 setting?

[rs170a]

Start a new project and set your Project Properties (File Properties) to NTSC DV Widescreen (720×480, 29.970 fps).

Drop the event (this is what Vegas calls a clip in case you do a search for it in the online help menu) on your timeline. Click the Event Pan/Crop icon which is at the lower right of every event. Right click in the window that opens up and select "Match Output Aspect". The top and bottom of this event will now be cut off.

If you want to do it the way I said that a lot of broadcasters do, add the event to your timeline (no Pan/Crop this time as you want it in 4:3) and then add it again to a new track underneath the existing one.

Delete the second audio track as it's not needed.

Do what I just described above to the new (lower track) event.

Click on the VideoFX tab, click on "Gaussian Blur" and then click and drag the "Medium Blur" icon onto the new event. This will blur the new event while leaving the original one alone. I've used this technique a lot when I have pictures that were shot in Portrait mode.

BTW, Sony has a lot of Vegas tutorials on their site at http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/training/vegaspro

Some of them might be for newer versions but the underlying concept remains the same.

There are also a LOT of Vegas tutorials on YouTubem some great and some not so great 🙂

Have fun!!

 

Mike

[Merc225]

Mike thanks a bunch. I'll use the tutorials. Dg

[rs170a]

You're very welcome. Good luck and don't be afraid to ask if you have any more questions.

 

Mike

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