Vegas Pro 9 questions

J

jbcon

Active member
I've been using Vegas Pro for several years but am now actually editing HD content for the first time with it. Having just gotten a GH1 I am pleased that it will natively process the AVCHD files, however notice that for some reason, my Vegas at least will not allow me to insert or do any sort of transition, fades, etc between clips.

Is this normal? Is that why so many transcode the AVCHD to another format first? OR am I just doing something wrong not being familiar with the higher bandwdith formats.....
 
What do you mean "won't allow you..."? People transcode because they get increased performance, increased color fidelity, and a better product. I cannot for the life of me, understand why some people are so adamant on throwing these horrible codecs on the timeline and demanding they work. It's like people refuse to step out of the DV/SD mindset.
 
Like I said, I am new to dealing with HD, I wasn't even aware that Vegas would deal with AVCHD files based on all that I read, and as you say every one transcoding them, I assumed it just wouldn't work. Now I understand......

If there are better ways to skin this cat, by all means let me have it....

As for what I mean.... literally, when I try to insert a transition in the timeline it will not let me. nothing happens.

Its not that I am refusing to step outof an SD/DV mindset, I have just yet to work with the new media enough to have learned any better.... my priority was to learn the camera first...then work on my workflow.
 
Ummm that came across like it was directed at you. Your situation is clearly different. Sorry about that. Kind of a pet peeve. I don't know why Vegas won't let you add a transition. It should work, I'd just expect it to be slow.

There's a WHOLE lot of information on this site about transcoding to DNxHD, Cineform, and even the newish Matrox VfW codecs. All of them make excellent choices for editing. Cineform costs money, the others don't.
 
Found a product called Alive HD conversion, seems to work pretty good. I am still unclear as to why I need to convert if Vegas will handle the file, although with my issue with loosing the ability to do transition between scenes, that would be a pretty good reason for me, if in fact that was due to the AVCHD format....

The new question.... would I be shooting myself in the foot and introducing whole new problems and learning challenges by switching to Premiere CS5? My wife just brought home the Adobe Master Suite and doesn't do Video stuff, so I am wondering if I could use those licenses? But don't have the time to learn a totally different application, unless it was similar to Vegas.
 
would you say, Vegas is harder to learn or CS5? If Vegas than I could see myself maybe switching, if CS5 is more complex I probably wouldn't. I am curious if there will be an upgrade path for Vegas 9 users when they release 10 Pro.....
 
I have a non-hacked GH1 and I just quickly tried Alive HD and it seemed to work well - it successfully converted AVCHD to .WMV (23.976). But, when I dumped this converted file into Vegas movie studio 10 it shows up as 23.976i, not 23.976p.

I looked closer at a paused faster motion frame and I can see definite lines, so it's still interlaced. I looked through the limited options and nowhere does it have option to convert to progressive frames.

I'm quite new to NLE software and I find Vegas quite easy to use - it seems to make sense to me. Until recently I was using iMovie on my 2ghz Intel Macbook, so Vegas Home Studio seems like a real step up from that in terms of features and performance (on my 6-core AMD Windows 7 desktop).

There is a reasonable upgrade path from Vegas Pro 8 to 9 described on Sony's Web site, so I'd bet that there will be a similar plan from 9 to 10. However, they just released an update to Pro 9 (version 9.0e I believe) that offers a whole lot of new features so I doubt that a new version of Vegas Pro will be coming out anytime soon.
 
I've run the .mts files on Vegas without any problems. I know the 64bit version can have a few issues. Make sure your running 9e, and try the 32 bit version if your using 64.

Saying that I shoot in Pal which is 25 progressive frames interlaced into 50fps, which is relatively easy for Vegas to figure out and recombine. If your shooting in the US then you're MTS files will be 24fps within a 60fps container which is allot more complicated for Vegas to figure.

Ive edited 3 short projects in Vegas with MTS files directly on the timeline. However I have been investigating various free intermediate codecs for performance issues.
 
I'm new to Vegas (using Pro 9) and am having problems rendering files from edited footage. The rendering process goes smoothly but the end result is unsatisfactory. Using HD-type settings (with aim of maximising image quality) I am getting very poor playback - jerky or non-existant picture etc., whilst the original file taken straight from my GH13 plays back fine (so I don't think its a graphics issue on my pc).

I've been using 'C' settings in PTools but couldn't tell you off the top of my head what settings/framerate etc. this particular file was recorded at (not at home at the moment so can't access the file).

So for starters could I have some suggestions as to what rendering settings people are using to get best quality playback?

Thanks.

Sorry if this is hijacking the thread at all, but the title does encourage wider questioning on Vegas.
 
I am a newbie to Vegas Pro 9e, and I have no problems with importing and editing 50i PAL .mts files made with my GH13.

I have tried changing them to "progressive" via the drop-down menu on the right-click / properties / media window. I have tried leaving them as "upper field first."

I have rendered the respective files as DVDs using both progressive and "upper field first."

Played back on 720p on my 42" TV, I can't see a difference in quality in any of these variations. To my eyes, they all look precisely the same.

I've tried a demo version of NEOSCENE, but have found no real advantage to working in Vegas with the .avi files generated. Plus the .avi files created by NEOSCENE are much larger than the corresponding .mts files. And again, I see no difference in quality.

Could it be that the DVD format (720 x 576) is just so poor that the quality of the import material makes little difference? I'm puzzled.

Thanks for any insights.
 
what is the processor in your PC? that can have a lot to do with rendering, also what file format are you using as the output file (rendered file). HD-type doesn't say much.....

I have had some issues outputting to Quicktime mov's from SD to HD in the past and realized the problem occurred when I tried to render in a high resolution than the original content. Non since switching to the GH13 though
 
My processor is an Intel i5 750 running at stock speeds (not overclocked) with 4gb RAM.

I've tried rendering to .avi and Quicktime .mov's, and probably one or two others. Each one varied slightly in issues experienced, but none of them were acceptable and certainly negate any benefit of recording with an HD camera.

There's quite an array of options available when rendering, particularly when going into the 'custom' screen, and I've not got much clue what should be ideal for files taken from my GH13, into a Windows 7 folder (I'm currently assuming no changes are made to the file type just by copying from the memory card onto my Windows hard drive), and then opened and edited in Vegas.
 
Further to last, the video file in question is still a .mts file (avc format):

1920 x 1080 x 12; 25fps PAL

All I've done with it is throw in a couple of effects and one transition.

So anyone able to just post some rendering settings that they would expect to get good results from such a file...?

Thanks.
 
woj101 said:
Further to last, the video file in question is still a .mts file (avc format):

1920 x 1080 x 12; 25fps PAL

All I've done with it is throw in a couple of effects and one transition.

So anyone able to just post some rendering settings that they would expect to get good results from such a file...?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

hi there...welcome. so, where will the project in question end up? web, dvd, broadcast, etc? that helps us help you.
 
Chris Light said:
hi there...welcome. so, where will the project in question end up? web, dvd, broadcast, etc? that helps us help you.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the welcome.

Your question is kinda hypothetical at the moment - the project I'm working on is just my first tinkerings with video from my GH13, so no specific output target. At this stage I'm just looking to find the sort of settings that will best preserve the quality of the original recording, and wasn't having any luck rendering something that was actually watchable.

However, I have found this morning that .mp4 files are a definite runner. I've rendered a minute's worth of video and it's playing fine and looking fine.

What I now need to improve is file size. One minutes video is 144mb in mp4 - but that's one helluvalot better than the 8.5gb (for 60 secs!) file sizes I was getting for the same video in .avi

As you can tell, I can't pretend to be in the same game as most of the videographers on here, but I would like to develop my skills in order to produce simple videos for small companies etc. so need to start somewhere.

Thanks for taking an interest.
 
well...i'm not sure if you're male or female, but i say "dude" a lot haha...i won't presume until i get confirmation haha

and i'm in the same boat as you. i sold my Canon xh-a1 last year in favor of the GH1...now it's a beautiful GH13.

i edit in Sony Vegas...but just the Platinum 9 $129 version. i still think i can help you.

so lets start with an immediate concern: file size.


#1, we're dealing with "containers" vs playable formats. .avi is a container for your footage, not a file type.

this is where my original question becomes relevant. where do you want to view your footage, ultimately? there can be more than one answer, because if you wanna watch it on dvd, you'll render it one one format. if you want to upload it to YouTube or Vimeo, it's yet another format. You wanna burn a BluRay?.....yet another. you get the picture....


so if file size is an issue, then why don't you think about buying more storage so you can preserve the highest quality footage, and you can worry about "delivery" formats later?
 
Well currently my vids will just be for playback on pc, TV and web (vimeo). Don't have blu-ray so not much interest in producing BD discs at the mo.

My 144mb mp4 (for 60 secs video) was rendered using a max bit rate of 50,000,000 and an average of 20,000,000..

I've since re-rendered using 10,000,000 (max) and 4,000,000 (average) bit rates and this gives a file size of 30mb, which is much closer to acceptable for a short piece of personal footage for my friends to download/stream, and there wasn't any discernible reduction in image quality when playing back on my pc using vlc player (for some reason windows media player isn't showing any pictures with my mp4s, even though I downloaded others from vimeo and they play fine - ?).

I've reduced the bit rates further to 2,000,000 max and 768,000 average, which gives a file size of just 6mb, but the image quality has noticeably deteriorated, so I'll probably play around with the bit rates a bit more and see if I can find a perfect balance between quality and file size - although I suspect it will constantly vary depending on the content of the video...
 
in your case, i'd render a .wmv file at 8,000,000 min VBR Peak(it's a 2-pass encode) with max 10,000,000 for online stuff. that seems to preserve the GH13 footage quite well while the file sizes aren't rediculous.. for the massive amounts of compression needed for web video, it's a good compromise.
 
shoot...watch a few of my vimeo vids...if you care to. they're all .wmv 8-10 mb, just as i've described. see what you think.
 
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