Slowmo trouble with HMC150 and Vegas

Thanks for the follow-up Jerry. I find it just stable enough to be encouraging and destable enough to know that it might bite me in the a$$. I have been in touch with tech support at SCS, but have been talking with Eric and he just doesn't get it. He thinks that I am having trouble with choppy footage in the preview window. I am going to ask that he transfer my support thread to Matt whom I have delt with in the past and he is pretty good. I'll keep you posted on what they report. Let us know if they find anything to help you.
 
Musician, I'm continuing to experiement. I came up with a scenario that would always cause jitter, then worked backwards until I could consistently render jitter free. If you are able to run this render setting on your offending footage I would like to hear what results you get. I realize this isn't the most useful render settings but we (and SCS) may be able to learn from this. Here is how I rendered:

Source: 720p60, Playback rate .4, Resampling disabled

Project Properties: Standard HDV 720-30p (1280x720, 29.970 fps)

Render Settings: Start with MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4), and then set following:

Video rendering quality: Best
Frame size: Custom 1280 x 720
Frame rate: 23.976
Use deblocking filter unchecked
Variable bit rate, Max 2,000,000; Average 512,000

When I render with these settings I do not get jitter. When I increase bit rate to constant 4,000,000 I get jitter. This is repeatable for me. See if it is for you.

PS: I am rendering to a separate drive. My OS and Vegas are on one drive, my source and project on another, and my rendered footage on yet another drive.

PSS: I just discovered a 100% reproducable scenario on MY pc. I have sent it to Matt at SCS tech support. Here is what always causes severe jittering on mine:

1. Set project properties to the stock HDV 720-30p (1280x720, 29.970 fps) template settings.

2. Import an HMC150 720p60 clip onto the timeline.

3. Add a velocity envelope and set it to -100% (i.e., full reverse).

4. Render using the stock MainConcept MPEG-2 HDV 720-30p template.




Jerry
 
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I tried your suggested settings, and unfortunately it did no good for me. In fact the jittering was as bad as ever. To conform to your settings, I moved my footage to an external hard drive, set up the project as you advised, and rendered out to the external drive with the settings you specified. I got very blocky and jittery looking footage. Later I tried a render with the footage on my external drive but did an intermediate cineform render, and again it was clean for more than half of the clip, and then the jitter sets in. I am wondering if Vegas is just having trouble with the 60p version of AVCHD footage. When I put 30p footage on the timeline, everything looks perfect. But when I put 60p footage on the timeline, half of the time I will get a solid green frame displayed in occassional thumbnails that appear in the clips on the timeline. Do you ever see these solid green thumbnails on your timeline? It happens on both of my computers, not every time, but sometimes. And when they are there, the jittering gets pretty severe.
 
Guys, I think Vegas has an issue with long GOP altogether regardless of whether you are using AVCHD or HDV.

Ever since upgrading to Pro 8 I've had a lot of trouble with green & red thumbnails appearing on my timeline. I think AVCHD's higher compression scheme only exacerbates the problem! I wonder what they did to Pro 8 that has caused to be so unstable editing HDV/AVCHD footage?

I'm using an Intel 2.4ghz Quad Core with 4GB of Kingston ram & a Hewlett Packard dual core with 4GB however it does not matter which machine I try it on they both fail at various points with long GOP footage.

SCS really needs to get on the ball with this because I'm certain many folks are already probably looking at alternative NLEs! Perhaps Panasonic can invest in or buyout an existing NLE brand like Sony did - imagine... streamlined editing proces and no transcoding BS - what a dream!! :D
 
Musician, yes I do see these green and red thumbnails on the timeline.

Jerry

TheMusician said:
When I put 30p footage on the timeline, everything looks perfect. But when I put 60p footage on the timeline, half of the time I will get a solid green frame displayed in occassional thumbnails that appear in the clips on the timeline. Do you ever see these solid green thumbnails on your timeline? It happens on both of my computers, not every time, but sometimes. And when they are there, the jittering gets pretty severe.
Click to expand...
 
Evro, yes, and I think the same as Musician - I believe it most often shows up with 60p footage. If you haven't done so I hope you will send an example to Sony Creative Software tech support to help them find the cause.

Jerry

Evro said:
Guys, I think Vegas has an issue with long GOP altogether regardless of whether you are using AVCHD or HDV.

Ever since upgrading to Pro 8 I've had a lot of trouble with green & red thumbnails appearing on my timeline. I think AVCHD's higher compression scheme only exacerbates the problem! I wonder what they did to Pro 8 that has caused to be so unstable editing HDV/AVCHD footage?

I'm using an Intel 2.4ghz Quad Core with 4GB of Kingston ram & a Hewlett Packard dual core with 4GB however it does not matter which machine I try it on they both fail at various points with long GOP footage.

SCS really needs to get on the ball with this because I'm certain many folks are already probably looking at alternative NLEs! Perhaps Panasonic can invest in or buyout an existing NLE brand like Sony did - imagine... streamlined editing proces and no transcoding BS - what a dream!! :D
Click to expand...
 
Evro, I will have to disagree on the long GOP statement concerning Vegas. I have been using Vegas for about 8 years now. I havent had any trouble with DV or HDV. So far the only trouble that I have had has been with the 60p flavor of AVCHD. This is a relatively new codec in the professional editing market and everybody seems to have a different recipe for it(Sony, Panasonic, Canon). I imagine that there will be a few hiccups along the way, but I am confident that they will get them ironed out as will all the other NLEs. Personally I am not going to jump ship. AVCHD is a very complex codec and stressful codec on any system, so the wisest thing to do from a professional standpoint would be to use a I-frame 4:2:2 intermediate like Cineform anyway. This will withstand color correcting and multiple renders much better than AVCHD. Cineform already has AVCHD ironed out and their solution works very well within Vegas, so this is a great and reliable and easily edited solution... it is just more than I am willing to spend right now. So until Vegas gets it all worked out, I am just spending a little time looking for a cheap workaround. But so far, 60p AVCHD is the only problem I have seen. (And the green frames are weird. I have seen red ones in the past, but never green. This is new.)
 
Hmm... I've been using Vegas since V6 and for me Version 7 was rock solid and only ever crashed about 4 times a year even when I was working with DV & HDV footage on the same timeline. However, Vegas 8 seems to crash on me at least 4 or 5 times a week (I edit full-time 5 days a week.)

Well I am glad it is working for you... I actually want to do a fresh OS installation but I have 2 years of FX & Media Generator presets that I don't want to loose :(
 
Musician, have you looked at Raylight? I am considering going that route for now as I have a bunch of 60p footage I have to render for a client. Panasonic has a free tool for transforming their AVCHD to DVCPRO HD. Then, the Raylight plugin lets you edit the DVCPRO HD on the timeline. Raylight cost $195. I would be interested in hearing if anyone here has experience with this workflow.

Also, if you get a chance would you test my 100% repeatable jitter scenario where I placed a short 60p clip on timeline and added a -100% velocity envelope? ON MY PC - JITTER CITY! Just interested if you get the same result.

Jerry

TheMusician said:
Evro, I will have to disagree on the long GOP statement concerning Vegas. I have been using Vegas for about 8 years now. I havent had any trouble with DV or HDV. So far the only trouble that I have had has been with the 60p flavor of AVCHD. This is a relatively new codec in the professional editing market and everybody seems to have a different recipe for it(Sony, Panasonic, Canon). I imagine that there will be a few hiccups along the way, but I am confident that they will get them ironed out as will all the other NLEs. Personally I am not going to jump ship. AVCHD is a very complex codec and stressful codec on any system, so the wisest thing to do from a professional standpoint would be to use a I-frame 4:2:2 intermediate like Cineform anyway. This will withstand color correcting and multiple renders much better than AVCHD. Cineform already has AVCHD ironed out and their solution works very well within Vegas, so this is a great and reliable and easily edited solution... it is just more than I am willing to spend right now. So until Vegas gets it all worked out, I am just spending a little time looking for a cheap workaround. But so far, 60p AVCHD is the only problem I have seen. (And the green frames are weird. I have seen red ones in the past, but never green. This is new.)
Click to expand...
 
I do not own Raylight, but I know that it is a very workable solution. Anybody who uses P2 with Vegas has to use Raylight or one other solution but I don't remember the name of it because Raylight is the most popular. The only downside to using the Panasonic utility is that your footage will go from 1280x720 down to something like 960x720 in DVCPRO HD so there will be a small resolution hit. It looks like Raylight has a free demo, it doesn't go up to the highest quality video setting but it should give you an idea of how workable the solution is. I may actually do this myself as a temporary workaround. I am really torn between Raylight and Cineform because I am going to be editing a LOT of footage and if you are going to be adding a lot of effects or Color Correction, Cineform will handle it better than AVCHD. Decisions decisions. I'll try your render test later this afternoon.
 
Musician, I tried the Panasonic utility but wasn't happy with the reduction in resolution. I'm also comparing the default Cineform intermediate template that comes with Vegas and Lagarith, still hoping to find a low cost alternative to neo. I'd appreciate if anyone here has insights into using either of these to transcode to for editing 60p in vegas. My ultimate output is Mainconcept m2t 720p24 (i.e., high quality slomo).

I've also run into an interesting problem with Lagarith. My rendered 60p intermediate AVI plays at what looks like half speed. It isn't choppy or jittery, in fact it is VERY smooth, just plays in smooth slomo, even in media player.

My source AVCHD video is 720-60. I've set my Vegas project at both HDV 30p, and a custom HDV 60p. I've rendered the Lagarith AVI at 60 (59.940) fps. When I put it on the Vegas timeline it shows that it is 59.940. But it plays/previews at smooth half speed - same as in media player. Ideas anyone?

Jerry
 
SCS has confirmed that this is a problem with Sony Vegas 8.0c and HMC150 60p footage. Here is their response:

Our testing team did find that this clip was causing stuttering during playback and rendering. They also found inconsistent results and on about two out of ten renders they saw the stuttering. During playback in the timeline they saw more consistent stuttering and reported that "The more times I played the clip back in Vegas, (whether it was the original footage or one of the test projects) the worse the stuttering got."

We have bugged this issue and added this format and camera to our list of things to be fixed and improved going forward. At this time you might try rendering the files to intermediate AVI and then reimport and complete your editing.


VideoMaker said:
PSS: I just discovered a 100% reproducable scenario on MY pc. I have sent it to Matt at SCS tech support. Here is what always causes severe jittering on mine:

1. Set project properties to the stock HDV 720-30p (1280x720, 29.970 fps) template settings.

2. Import an HMC150 720p60 clip onto the timeline.

3. Add a velocity envelope and set it to -100% (i.e., full reverse).

4. Render using the stock MainConcept MPEG-2 HDV 720-30p template.




Jerry
Click to expand...
 
sorry to interject

sorry to interject

but I have been following this thread very closely and am interested in your results. I am a Raylight user and am ethereally happy with it. I was hoping to hold out for the Scarlet, or the HPX170 (to continue using the Vegas/Raylight workflow), but current projects are forcing me to make an immediate decision (and the price of the 150 is screaming). I will say the the Raylight workflow is great, but I am weary about transcoding to (in the case of the 150) DVCPRO-HD in the first place due to the generational loss and file size increase.

Fight the good fight, stay on SCS!
 
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