Why does Vegas "fly" on some i7 rigs and others not!

L

Lat32Media

Active member
Ok - I get it - avchd is a recording format and not an editing format...unless you have brute power.

So when designing my rig and building my bizz I opted for HMC150 on Sony Vegas pro 9 64 - and then build this rig:

i7920, clocked to a stable 3.1 gz
12GB ddr3 1600 RAM
PT6 Deluxe v2
1TB western 7200 30mb/sec
HSI Radeon 5770
Win 7 64 bit

AVCHD edits ok - better after some tweaking, courtesy of Eugenia's blog - thanks!

But the question is why is there so much difference in performance - for instance ZaZaCast has a very similar set-up but can edit flawlessly.

I have come to the conclusion that it must come down to settings and not so much hardware. So I would like to know if these settings sound ok:

Under the tools/preference/video tab I have specified 8 threads and 4000 mb - is that reasonable?

Because Iam new to all these formats I use "match media settings" in order to have Vegas fill out my project properties - then I pick "8 bit" and "good" for pixel format/rendering quality ? - I assume can apply better settings later before rendering the project ?? (32bit floating point full range / best)

I am also curios to know if there are other pertinant settings in Vegas or win 7 64 that I should be aware of in order to use all the poweer I got - currently my cpu cores never "sweat" above 12-15%...yet vegas acts lackluster.

I am hoping some of you editing heavy hitters can weigh in and help my vegas be faster - thanks a bunch - Tom
 
Not all AVCHD formats are born equally. So it's possible they're using a different camera, from a different manufacturer/encoder, and so the decoding might require less computation.
 
Good point - so pannys version of avchd may not edit as easy as Sony's ?

Does my specified setings for the video tab semm reasonable ? Thanks
 
Here is a trick question..coming from sound recording and using pro tools for the past 10 years..with pro tools having 2 hard drives is a must, one hared drive to run pro tools from and the second drive to render to.. now will having 2 drives and using it with vegas help make render time faster..maybe putting the media or clips you use on one drive and run vegas from another..would that make things faster? i know for me, when tested my i7 with vegas 64 bit, it was much faster i say almost 2 times faster..but i love the MBL, and have to use 32 bit , its not as fast , but with mbl and few other plugs i have rndered about a min of clip mp4 high quality in about 6-7 mins..not too bad i think..with out mbl involved , it more like 2 or 3 mins on my 32 bit vegas..
 
skinny! said:
plus, ZazaCast just has an essence of COOL that the rest of us don't have. the dude plays bass.
Click to expand...
Damn Straight...you hear that Richard? :happy:
(Skinny, the checks in the mail... thanks dude!)

Richard J. Johnson said:
I really hope he sees that. Well, then again, maybe I don't.:happy:
Click to expand...
If you like, I can send you some old strings Richard....maybe you can get some of the 'cool' off those? :happy:


...now, back to the question at hand. I DO run vegas from one drive and all my media is on another, so as stated above, that might be the difference right there? Coming from an audio background, that's how I've always done it too!
 
Found this:
AVCHD (AVC-HD, AVC HD) video is recorded using the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video compression codec. Audio is stored in compressed form Dolby AC-3. Vegas does a great job of playing back these files on the timeline. However, you might not be able to achieve a full 29.97fps playback rate for various reasons (weak processor, not enough RAM, too many video plug-ins in the project, lots of video tracks in the project, etc). Because of your system limitations, you might need to create intermediate files.
1. Add the clips to the timeline.
2. Go to File > Render As. The Save As Type should be set to "Video For Windows (*.AVI)" and the Template should be set to "HDV 1080-60i Intermediate". Now click Save. The files will be saved as an AVI that utilizes the Cineform HD V2.5 codec. It retains all the detail from the M2TS file.
If you do not see "Video For Windows (*.AVI)" and the Template "HDV 1080-60i Intermediate" in your drop-down menus, then you can render the file to MPEG-2. Go to File > Render As. The Save As Type should be set to "MainConcept MPEG-2" and the Template should be set to "HDV 1080-60i". Now click Save.
After the file is saved (either AVI or MPEG-2), replace it with what's on the timeline. Now you'll experience smoother playback and more precision over editing the project.
 
Exporting to HDV mpeg2 has a massive loss of quality, I don't recommend it at all. If you want to create intermediates for AVCHD, you just purchase Cineform NeoSCENE. Vegas Pro 9 and Platinum 9 don't include the Cineform codec anymore, you see. Plus, that free codec that used to come with Vegas only could go up to 1440x1080 anyway. So I'm afraid, if you need intermediate files, you need to either purchase NeoSCENE, or buy a new PC. The alternative is the free AVID DNxHD codec, but if AVCHD is already slow on your PC, DNxHD won't be massively faster either.
 
Thanks for your many inputs - I will try all options to edit avchd natively - I know its possible with the machine power I got. I think sammysammy nailed it when suggesting a dual HD set-up. Currently I am only on one - making it working like a one-armed wallpaper hanger. Not smart.

Have been contemplating buying a G-raid 2 TB external...or maybe just another $99 1TB western internal. Any suggestions ?

Eugenia do you have any input on the video settings (tools/pref/video) where you have to specify ram and number of threads.

Again thanks for trying to help me out - will give back to the forum as soon as I have something clever to share :-)

ps. ZaZaCast coolness comes from taping a topless boxing women in his latest video...now thats a knockout!! (no pun intended).
 
The second hard drive will help, but it's not going to help that much if you're using a highly compressed long GOP codec. Just know that so you won't be too dissapointed when you find out the extra HD didn't really change things that much (also, that's going to be much more noticable when rendering, not editing).

Bottom line, you're fighting a losing battle, so I highly recommend going the intermediate route.
 
I guess with the GOP codec its more the cpu at work than the hard drive - ok I wont put my expectations to high - but 2 hard drives makes for a more professional separation of data + I'll take any tiny speed gain I can get...and still battle knowing that intermediate coding is loosing ground to faster hardware, or in my hopeful case..future Vegas upgrades that will breezily edit avchd like Edius currently does.
 
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