A/V out of sync in preview editing mode, wtf? Any solution?

Randall_Oelerich

Randall_Oelerich

Veteran
Anybody have solution to that befuddles me? I pull e.g a 2 hr mp4 780x480 film into Sony Pro Vegas 10 and once the A/V tracks load I can click play and hear and see the film playing just fine. BUT.... if I click ahead on the timeline, e.g. 90 minutes in, then click play, I hear audio from some completely other (earlier?) moment in the film, audio that has nothing to do with the current video playing, completely whacked. It is maddening. Even if I select say a one minute section an hour into to film and render out that one minute clip, that clip still has the audio in it that is completely unrelated to the video. Wtf?!? yes I have the project settings matched-- same frame rate and resolution and audio Hz for the project as the original film pulled into Vegas. I mean seriously this is unacceptable for such an expensive product. But I really do not want to migrate to Adobe projects (Premiere NLE) not that they have gone to a cloud subscription model. Honestly I would consider buying a different NLE that does not have this issue, perhaps I should download some demos trials of other NLEs. But if I can solve this riddle of Vegas with anybody's help I would stick with Vegas. Any ideas?
Randall
Windows 7 x64, 16GB RAM, six core AMD cpu, nvidia geforce video. I am using my onboard motherboard audio/sound, perhaps that is part of the issue???
 
Par for the course with Vegas. I foolishly stuck with them from V7 to V9, and then moved to Avid and haven't looked back. Best of luck with your issue. I had that same glitch happen years ago, among many other unworkable anomalies, and just gave up.
 
PerroneFord said:
Par for the course with Vegas. I foolishly stuck with them from V7 to V9, and then moved to Avid and haven't looked back. Best of luck with your issue. I had that same glitch happen years ago, among many other unworkable anomalies, and just gave up.
Click to expand...

Good to know i am not alone, that it could be a weakness of Vegas. I think I might download some demo trials of competitors and use the same mpeg movie i having issues with in Vegas and see how the competition handles it. It is really just plain unacceptable to have an expensive NLE that does this odd glitch, I would rather migrate to something dependable. I used vegas for editing shorts, but now I am looking to produce a feature indie and i have to have an NLE that can do the job on a feature film, etc.

Sometimes companies offer crossgrade discounts, if I like a competitor's product i might see if i can get a crossgrade discount. But i won't $witch until i test the heck out of another product, don't want to jump out of the proverbial skillet and into the proverbial frying pan. :)
 
Well, things are a bit different now than they were when I switched. When I switched, Vegas was not considered an expensive editor. It was hundreds of dollars cheaper than Apple, nearly a thousand cheaper than Adobe, and Avid was $2499 for their base product. Obviously, things have changed! Right now, with FCPx as cheap as it is, Adobe being so much cheaper, and Avid sitting at $999, there is no way I'd even CONSIDER fooling with Vegas. There is a reason upwards of 90% of Hollywood features are cut on Avid. It's complex, and not that easy to learn. But features are cut on it EVERY DAY. All the Marvel films, All the Batman/Spiderman films, Avatar, etc. Name a blockbuster, and it was cut on Avid. I cannot name a single Hollywood release that was cut on Vegas. Zero. A few have been cut on Final Cut, but those are mostly indies or documentaries.

Adobe Premiere is probably your best bet. Tons of support, great tools, fair price. Just be aware that none of these is like cutting on Vegas. You'll have to follow some rules. You can't just throw anything on the timeline, hit play and expect it to work. Avid will make you do things the Avid way. Once you get used to it, you can cut faster than you EVER could on Vegas. Took me about 30 days. Takes most people 45-60 days. I'm sitting here cutting a show in Avid as we speak. But I'm rusty since I haven't had to cut anything in nearly a year.

Also be warned that Mpeg is a TERRIBLE thing to put on a timeline and I don't recommend it. If you have a modern machine, most of the NLEs will deal with it. Avid is going to want to convert it to DNxHD for best performance, but I've seen timelines with 30+ tracks of video and audio in Avid simply play out perfectly when everything was in DNxHD. It's worth the trouble to let it convert to that excellent codec. When I was making my Avid switch, Avatar was in production. I remember reading about how many tracks Cameron had on the timeline, and when someone dropped by the studio to see how it was going (they were editing as they went) he simply reached over and hit the spacebar and the movie played out! Vegas would fall over dead under that load.

Best of luck in your quest.
 
Re the original problem, I have heard of this happening with extremely long clips (in previous versions) - possibly Vegas has a microscopic video/audio sync inaccuracy which only shows with those extremely long clips?

One interesting thing to try would be to split the clip into multiple events (e.g. 10 minutes each) after dropping it on the timeline - it's just possible that will reset Vegas's sync calculation logic for each event. Stranger things have happened...
 
clang said:
Re the original problem, I have heard of this happening with extremely long clips (in previous versions) - possibly Vegas has a microscopic video/audio sync inaccuracy which only shows with those extremely long clips? One interesting thing to try would be to split the clip into multiple events (e.g. 10 minutes each) after dropping it on the timeline - it's just possible that will reset Vegas's sync calculation logic for each event. Stranger things have happened...
Click to expand...

I am going to try that today. Not giving up just yet on Vegas for a microindie, although yes I would truly love to switch to Avid at some point. But it looks like Avid is now going for $1300 (ouch), a bit steep for microbudget; not out of the question, but I sure wish i could get Vegas Pro to work for at least a microbudget feature. But if Vegas just can not handle it then i will have to fork out the cash for Avid. I really also do not like the direction companies are going with cloud subscriptions-- both Avid and Adobe are going this way; but that is a discussion for another thread.

EDIT: I also just downloaded the trial version of Sony Vegas 13, perhaps the issue has been solved, or not. Upgrade would cost me $300 or less so if v13 solves this I will have to decide on an upgrade or just crossgrading or switching to AVID.
 
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PerroneFord said:
...Also be warned that Mpeg is a TERRIBLE thing to put on a timeline and I don't recommend it. If you have a modern machine, most of the NLEs will deal with it. Avid is going to want to convert it to DNxHD for best performance, but I've seen timelines with 30+ tracks of video and audio in Avid simply play out perfectly when everything was in DNxHD. ...Best of luck in your quest.
Click to expand...

Perrone thank you. I had never heard of DNxHD so I am researching that, interesting. I am going to try Vegas again today with .mov instead of mpeg container, play a bit. But I am intrigued with AVID now, and DNxHD.
 
I'll save you some trouble. DNxHD is a WONDERFUL format. It's what Apple essentially took for ProRes. It uses a compression methodology called Discrete Cosine Transform, or DCT for short. Many codecs use this. DNxHD is codified as SMPTE VC-3 which means it is an open standards unlike the other more proprietary codecs. DNxHD also is one of VERY few codecs that do not introduce a gamma shift when moving videos from PCs to Macs or Macs to PCs. Since I use both, this was very important to me.

BUT, when I left Vegas, it's handling of .MOV files was horrific. Every other program on my PC system was able to handle the .MOV files with ease. I am unaware if this is still the case or not. I dropped a DnxHD 115 file into Vegas yesterday for grins, and while Vegas seemed to understand it was a DNx115 file, read the length, saw the audio, etc., the timeline simply showed up black. To be fair, this is a quite old version of Vegas so perhaps things have improved. But Vegas wants .AVI files on it's timeline for best performance. To that end, Lagarith is the best lossless codec I can think of on the PC for Vegas, and for visually lossy, the best options are probably Cineform (no GoPro Cineform which uses wavelet compression), the old Canopus codec if it's still around, or something like Jpeg2000 which is available in an AVI container, but not for free I don't believe. I bought an implementation of this for archival purposes when I still cut on Vegas and it worked well.

In short, test .MOV on the Vegas timeline, but don't expect miracles.c
 
So I just downloaded and installed the trial of Vegas 13, interesting. No issues at all as before, playback was smooth of that 2 hr mpeg 720x480, audio and video in sync. I feel kind of duped, taken, paying for Vegas Pro 10 when it can not even handle a 2 hr mpeg, whereas ver 13 seems to do so fine. I am going to test Vegas 10 and 13 with the same video but in .mov What was interesting was that 13 asked me, when I dropped the video onto the timelime, if i wanted the project to match the video's settings, I said yes. Ver 10 did not, but even when I did a File: Preferences and chose to match, the playback issues is still there in v10. I emailed AVID to see if perchance I might be eligable for a crossgrade; I doubt it, but one can ask. Although if Vegas 13 can handle a 2 hr video, might be worth the $250 upgrade cost from ver10 just for a first microindie feature, then after that graduate to AVID?
R
 
PerroneFord said:
I'll save you some trouble. DNxHD is a WONDERFUL format. It's what Apple essentially took for ProRes. It uses a compression methodology called Discrete Cosine Transform, or DCT for short. Many codecs use this. DNxHD is codified as SMPTE VC-3 which means it is an open standards unlike the other more proprietary codecs. DNxHD also is one of VERY few codecs that do not introduce a gamma shift when moving videos from PCs to Macs or Macs to PCs. Since I use both, this was very important to me....
Click to expand...

I was on AVID's site yesterday, and it appeared as though that DNxHD codec might be opensourced? I installed their Avid Codecs LE just now from a downloaded AvbidCodecsLE.zip off avid.com I wonder if it will have that codec and if so if it could be used with Vegas. Hmm.
 
First of all, as a registered user, the upgrade to Pro 13 will only cost you $125.00
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegasproedit?keycode=64969 for the details.
If you want to spend a bit more money and get a lot more bang for your buck, check out the other upgrade options ($150 and $300 respectively).
Vegas Pro: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro?keycode=64969
Vegas Pro Suite: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegasprosuite?keycode=64969
Please note that this offer expires at the end of this month so you only have a few more days to decide.

I've never had any problems reading DNxHD files as far back as Vegas Pro 10. If you are, then you need a different version of QuickTime player on your system. I've received DNxHD files from an FCP user and have no problems reading them.
Yes, it is a free download from the Avid site and plays very nicely with Vegas.
If you need more help with it, Vegas guru John Rofrano has a tutorial on his site that's worth checking out.
http://johnrofrano.com/training/video-tutorials/avid-dnxhd-template-for-vegas-pro/

Mike
 
DNxHD is not open Source. In that name, it is specific to Avid. However, in name as VC-3, it is freely available and distrubutable. Avid has been allowing download of DNxHD for many years. This allowed ANYONE on Mac or PC to use the files generated by an Avid system in other NLEs. On the windows side, you can encode to it unlike Apple's ProRes. In fact, even on an Apple system, you can't encode to ProRes unless you buy some product that has it. It's not downloadable. The Avid codecs you get when you BUY Avid are slightly different than the LE ones you downloaded but they are similar enough for it not to matter. The codecs you downloaded will include both DNxHD as well as the old legacy SD codecs.

It is worth noting that the Avid Codecs that are freely available do not support anything beyond 1080p.
 
Randall_Oelerich said:
Anybody have solution to that befuddles me? I pull e.g a 2 hr mp4 780x480 film into Sony Pro Vegas 10 and once the A/V tracks load I can click play and hear and see the film playing just fine. BUT.... if I click ahead on the timeline, e.g. 90 minutes in, then click play, I hear audio from some completely other (earlier?) moment in the film, audio that has nothing to do with the current video playing, completely whacked. It is maddening. Even if I select say a one minute section an hour into to film and render out that one minute clip, that clip still has the audio in it that is completely unrelated to the video. Wtf?!? yes I have the project settings matched-- same frame rate and resolution and audio Hz for the project as the original film pulled into Vegas. I mean seriously this is unacceptable for such an expensive product. But I really do not want to migrate to Adobe projects (Premiere NLE) not that they have gone to a cloud subscription model. Honestly I would consider buying a different NLE that does not have this issue, perhaps I should download some demos trials of other NLEs. But if I can solve this riddle of Vegas with anybody's help I would stick with Vegas. Any ideas?
Randall
Windows 7 x64, 16GB RAM, six core AMD cpu, nvidia geforce video. I am using my onboard motherboard audio/sound, perhaps that is part of the issue???
Click to expand...

That's a known glitch which has been fixed in later versions. Doesn't help you with what you've got in front of you, but it was addressed.
 
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