DV Editing with VEGAS Pro

If your project is destined for tape or television, the DV (digital video) format is an excellent choice, and VEGAS Pro is optimized for DV editing.

The DV codec provides excellent image quality — even over multiple generations — and the audio exceeds CD quality. If you have high-quality DV source footage and you stay within the DV format throughout the editing process, you will be able to output broadcast-quality video.

Choosing source media

Whenever possible, use DV source media. These can be captured from DV cameras and decks with no loss in quality. For more information, see Capturing video

NOTE You can convert analog source video to DV using a media converter.

Setting project properties

Set your project properties to match your desired output format. For more information, see Setting project properties

This will give you a true view of the final output if you use an external monitor for previewing, and will prevent unnecessary stretching or field order inconsistencies.

TIP If you want to use an existing DV source file to set your project settings, click the Match Media Settings button on the Video tab of the Project Properties dialog and browse to a file.

Rendering and prerendering

When prerendering or rendering your project, use the default DV template that matches your project settings. Playback performance will be optimized, and you will avoid needless recompression of DV footage. For more information, see Selectively prerender video and Rendering projects (Render As)

Recompression occurs only when necessary. Raw DV sequences without transitions and effects will not be recompressed when you output the project to DV from the timeline or from a DV file in Video Capture.

Printing to DV tape and prerendering

If you are printing to tape from the timeline, use the default DV template that matches your project settings. If you use an uncompressed or custom template, you will create a file that will not print properly. For more information, see Printing video to tape from the timeline

NOTE When you print to DV tape from the timeline, you can generate a test tone to accompany the test pattern. Note that this tone is fixed at -20dB. If you need a different tone level to match your audio mix, you can create a custom test pattern and tone clip that is calibrated to your hardware.

Setting color levels

The DV format allows color values to exceed broadcast NTSC and PAL color level standards. To ensure that your video levels stay within legal broadcast levels, you can use the Extremely Conservative preset in the Broadcast Colors filter to specific events or to the entire project.

This filter does result in recompression of the video, so expect render times to increase significantly if the filter is applied to the entire project.

With the DV codec and the smooth clamping capability of the Broadcast Colors filter, you will not significantly degrade your picture quality. The only noticeable difference typically occurs in the pure white portions of the video, which will be smoothly clamped to legal broadcast levels.