RedCineX and Vegas Pro miscommunication?

[William Kee]

Hello. I'm trying to find ways of holding on to Sony Vegas rather than shifting over to Premiere Pro 6.5.

I edit a lot of 5K R3D footage.

When I make changes to my R3D files in RedCineX, for example - changing the curves of the RAW footage, these changes do not show up accurately when I open Vegas and edit such files. For example, for my short film, I did a key-light grade on RedCineX which took many many hours. However, when I opened my Vegas timeline, in which I was cutting the short film, the changes did not correspond to the changes made in RedCineX -- In RedCineX, I had boosted the mids heavily, however, in my Vegas timeline, the image remained flat and RAW-like.

When I opened the (limited) properties within vegas, to access the RAW r3d information, there is in fact changes to the RAW setting (for example, the mids had in fact been boosted in the curves), but the image on my preview looks vastly different to how it did in RedCineX (which is the true image).

Since I edit mostly R3D footage and have become accustomed to Vegas over the years, it would be extremely helpful to my sanity and career if someone could explain why this happens, correct me, or offer a solution to the problem.

P.s It is important for me to edit the RAW in RedCineX because RedCineX allows me to adjust ALL of the settings within the RAW r3d files and is therefore more flexible.

Thanks guys.

 

[Subhadip Sen]

This has been an issue with newer footage on the latest colour science. I don't have any answers for why it happens, I suggest you get in touch with Sony Creative Software. They are a helpful bunch who would have the best information regarding the issue. But an easy solution is of course going the offline way. Particularly when Vegas (or other NLEs) are not ideal for finishing any way. We simply use H.264 proxies, which can be exported after you make changes in Redcine-X. Once edited, Vegas Pro 12 has awesome export capabilities - you can directly export Premiere prproj files, Avid AAF, FCP7/X XML or generally EDL. All of these work flawlessly with the other NLEs and finishing apps like Resolve, Speedgrade etc.

All that said, native editing is great for short form projects. Since I mostly do long form projects, Vegas is quite simply more efficient for me. Vegas does other formats like F55 beautifully, just wish they could get R3D support back to how flawless it was in 2009 with R1. However, for native R3D editing, Vegas is simply not good enough today. In short, till this issue is fixed, you have two options - use offline editing to stick with Vegas, or look into other alternatives if you must edit natively.

 

[William Kee]

Thank you for your thorough answer. I'll call Sony asap.

Will

 

[Marcos Montenegro]

For me, Vegas Pro is very intuitive, and out of all NLEs out there is the one I work on the quickest. I agree William, the files do look different after work has been done in RedCineX, especially if you use alchemy or other tools like that. I'm interested to see what Sony comes back with.

 

[William Kee]

It's so important for Vegas to do some catching up. I can't even find a way of outputting an EDL for editing in basic coloring programs such as Resolve, and what's the purpose of having native R3D editing if we are encountering severe issues with color space and communication with other programs etc? Furthermore, RED have just announced and released RedCineX with GPU acceleration - this is a good time for Sony to jump at the opportunity of upping their game. With the introduction of the RED Dragon Epic, cameras such as the M/X Epic, Scarlet and Red One will become far more assessable to your average consumer, and 4K resolution will undoubtedly become standardized within the next few years. furthermore, with the introduction of the Sony F55 camera, Sony should aim to have an equally professional NLE.

I work at Pinewood studios and have spoken to many DIT's about Vegas, and all agree that it is obsolete. I find it to be very intuitive, but can't disagree with the fact that it's missing too many vital features.

Hurry up Sony!!