4K workflow in Vegas

macgregor

macgregor

Veteran
I have a ton of footage shot on the Canon 1DC at 4K.
Vegas 12 can take those files just fine... unless you drop too many of them in the project. Usually once you load +70 clips in the project, the program freezes. I've experience this same thing with other quicktime codecs as well (dnxhd for example) and it sucks. I've asked this before in this forum without finding a solution.

So I have to find a workaround. What if I load all those 1DC clips in davinci and I export a single 4K prores file from davinci so that I can edit in Vegas? Nice try, Vegas 12 won't read a Prores UHD file.
What other codec should I try?
Any ideas?
 
What about loading some of your clips into a Vegas timeline ( say 30 clips per timeline ) then saving the timeline, and importing multiple Vegas timelines ( each with 30 clips ) into another "master" Vegas timeline.
 
macgregor said:
Crashes too.
Click to expand...

I think you are going to find what most people do. When you start to use Vegas for feature length work it falls flat on it's face. I found it ok for working on stuff out to about an hour depending on what I had on the timeline. But as projects got more and more tracks and longer and longer, Vegas just didn't want to deal with it. It is possible using VERY light codecs. I never had much trouble with low bit-rate AVI stuff. But MOV's or lossless or mastering codecs on the timeline... no sir.
 
PerroneFord said:
I think you are going to find what most people do. When you start to use Vegas for feature length work it falls flat on it's face. I found it ok for working on stuff out to about an hour depending on what I had on the timeline. But as projects got more and more tracks and longer and longer, Vegas just didn't want to deal with it. It is possible using VERY light codecs. I never had much trouble with low bit-rate AVI stuff. But MOV's or lossless or mastering codecs on the timeline... no sir.
Click to expand...

No, I've edited many 5-6 hour projects in Vegas, with dozens of tracks, and many different codecs.
 
David Jimerson said:
No, I've edited many 5-6 hour projects in Vegas, with dozens of tracks, and many different codecs.
Click to expand...

David, I said "most". Whatever alchemy you've been able to achieve over the years is not something I ever mastered. I worked with Vegas from v5 - v9. Still have 9 installed though I don't know why. I fought through the battles with 2GB max AVIs, fought through the battles of putting even basic QT .movs on the timelime, bought a JPEG2000 product that wrapped in AVI just to get around issues. Fought with the gamma shifts, the horrific color management, etc. I had to move on.

I am hearing that v13 finally seems somewhat stable for many people and that's great. I remember the last 2 hour show I cut in Vegas. It was 3 or 4 tracks of video, 2 tracks of audio. The render completed, failed during it's copying of the temp file to the named file, and lost nearly 24 hours of my effort. I ordered Avid that week and moved on. At that time Vegas couldn't do closed captining (can it now?) and that was another major factor in our decision.

Vegas now may be able to handle larger shows than it did when I was using it, but based on the forum posts, it looks like it is still very problematic for people.
 
Well, I didn't do anything special, Perrone; I just worked my projects, and that was over the last decade, using every version since 4, with the exception of 9.

Doesn't mean there wasn't ever a problem, but I certainly saw no pattern of Vegas failing more and more the bigger a project got. I tend to use crazy numbers of tracks, too.

Of course you hear complaints here and on other message boards, but how often do people check in to say "hey, Vegas has been working fine for me; just thought you'd like to know"? Of course they don't; why would they? People come here and other places to ask questions and work out issues.
 
Yea, very true. People do use the forums to express discontent. I, and others like yourself, did use the forums to talk about workarounds to issues we'd found so that was some positive talk. I remember spending lots of time talking about DNx on the timeline as well as my move to jpg2000 for archival purposes. I spent a lot of time back then on the Vegas Pro forum and it was a chorus of discontent back then with the 8.0 and 8.1 releases, and the first steps into 64 bit. Even now, I have both the 32bit and 64bit versions installed because the plugins all broke. So I rendered my plugins on 32bit (mostly Magic Bullet) to intermediate, and then used the 64bit to load everything up and finish.

Out of curiosity, what codecs do you tend to put on the timeline? And has that changed over the years? I remember doing experiements with at least a dozen codecs over the years in Vegas, DNxHD, Canopus, JP2K, Lagarith, Huffman, XDCam, Apple Animation, etc.
 
There is definitely 32-bit material which the 64-bit versions can't/won't use -- and 8.1 was too stripped-down to use for 64-bit. I have the 32-bit version of Vegas 11 on hand to re-open old projects which use it.

Over the years, I used a lot of DVCPRO HD, AVC-Intra, AVCHD, the h.264 MOVs from 7Ds and the like, R3D, DNxHD, ProRes, XDCAM, and a smattering of others I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. Couldn't really tell you how much of each, though it was Panasonic-heavy.
 
David Jimerson said:
Couldn't really tell you how much of each, though it was Panasonic-heavy.
Click to expand...

I never used anything Panasonic beyond the DV of the DVX-100. Moved to the XDCam-EX stuff after that. Did do a bit of 5D cutting though. I tried R3D but my system was too slow back in '08 to really make a go of it. I fought the MXF compatibility stuff too. What a pain that was/is.

But thanks for sharing.
 
I've had no problems with hours of 1080 HD footage using Vegas 9 to 11, but I haven't tried anything more than simple experiments with 4K footage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top