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Sony vegas, dropped frames/laggy/jittery during playback
Hello, I am fairly new to Sony Vegas, I have made a couple little movies, clips and such, but nothing HD. I recently acquired an HD capture device. I am capturing footage from an xbox 360 and then importing it into Vegas for editing. Once I have captured my footage I can watch the clip via a media player (i.e. quick time, vlc, etc) with no problem. The clip plays smoothly and with wonderful quality, with at 720p or 1080i. My issue is once I have imported it into Vegas, during playback either in the media preview window or in the project preview window the clip seems to drop some frames, or skip some, I\’m not sure. Below the preview window it shows the resolution of ur clip, of the preview window and such, the top right figure (which I believe is the frame number in which you are on). As the clip plays, and the numbers climb, dots or periods follow the frame umber (i.e. 56……) and then clip begins to skip, and jump frames. I have refered to a couple of posts similar to this, and some suggestions have been; matching footage settings, changing from 60fps to 30fps, changing from 1080 to 720, and so on. None have worked so far, thus…I am hoping someone can provide a little assistance. Thank you in advance for all and any help!! :). Best of luck to you all…and God bless.
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10 Replies
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What are your computer specs? It is not unusual to have frames dropped with Vegas. Are you Vegas 9 or 10 (pro?)….32bit or 64 bit….a lot of things can affect the smoothness of playback in Vegas…
Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions -
Hey, thanks for your reply.
Processor: Intel Core i7 Q740 @1.73GHz 1.73GHz
Ram: 6 GB
OS: 64-bit Windows 7
Vegas Pro 10.0a (Build 387)I’m not positive what I am experiencing is in fact dropped frames. I haven’t had much experience with that, so I’m not sure. But based on what I have described, I guess you could tell, or at least a little bit. If you need any more info just let me know….
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[Martin Nash] ” I recently acquired an HD capture device. I am capturing footage from an xbox 360 and then importing it into Vegas for editing. “
Without knowing your computer specs as Scott has suggested, my guess is that whatever extremely compressed format that this device us using, it is not optimal for editing and you may have to re-encode it into a format that is easier to edit. If it’s some form of AVC/H.264, then Vegas Pro 10 has improved support for playing this format back but it may still not play the variant of h.264 that this device produces smoothly. You will need at least a modern Core i7 QuadCore to get smooth playback and even then it may stutter.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Try upgrading to 10c, also make sure your media is not on the same drive as your OS. I have 6 drives in my system and have two for project files, 2 for rendering to, One SSD for main system drive and one for storage.
The only thought with your processor is that it is not even over 2gh….that may have something to do with it as well. I am using an AMD 6 core that runs at 3.2 Ghz..and a lot of the other i7’s are about 2.5Ghz or more as well.
Again with what John said…you may be using a CODEC like AVCHD that may be more difficult to work with..Good luck!
Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions -
[Martin Nash] “Processor: Intel Core i7 Q740 @1.73GHz 1.73GHz”
In addition to what Scott said about using Vegas Pro 10c, the minimum specs for Vegas Pro is 2.0 Ghz with 2.8 Ghz recommended. A laptop running at 1.73Ghz is not going to give you a smooth playback experience. Even though you have more cores, they just might not be fast enough individually.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks for all ur responses!
So basicly it sounds like I’m just dealing with a performance issue with my computer, and thats all? Man, if that’s it I’m sure bumbed…lol.
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[Martin Nash] “So basicly it sounds like I’m just dealing with a performance issue with my computer, and thats all?”
No, it may be a performance issue with any computer and that particular file type. Does the capture device give you a few choices?
I have the Hauppauge HD PVR and it has three capture formats (1) PLAYSTATION 3 (*.m2ts), (2) AVCHD (*.ts), XBOX360 (*.mp4), and only the AVCHD *.ts format edits easily in Vegas Pro. The other two are very choppy. So I would see if your device can capture in a different format.
If not, you can always convert the files into an easier format to edit.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
That is the same capture device I have, the HD PVR. I’m not sure why but I never even thought to switch that setting. I figured it said xbox 360, so that’s was I selected. I just switch that to “.ts”. Imported a short clip to Vegas and it plays wonderfully. It seems the simple (but maybe not only) solution was right in front of me. I’m curious as to what u have it settings for with the HD PVR are. (i.e. Bit rate, etc.)? Idk if you guys have any expierence with an xbox 360 it’s self. I can out put; 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. You had mentioned for to try and stay away from 60fps if it wasn’t absolutly necessary, however it is worth the draw back of capturing in 1080 30fps? What r ur thoughts between the 2? My goal is to have good quality without over doing it, I don’t need the best ever, blue-ray, crazy HD stuff but I want it to be clear, and look good!
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[Martin Nash] ” I’m not sure why but I never even thought to switch that setting. I figured it said xbox 360, so that’s was I selected. I just switch that to “.ts”. Imported a short clip to Vegas and it plays wonderfully. It seems the simple (but maybe not only) solution was right in front of me.”
Yea, those settings are the device you want to play back on… not the device you are recording from. So the MP4 files it makes are optimized to play back on the XBox 360 but Vegas hates them. I’m glad the AVCHD setting works good for you too.
[Martin Nash] ” I’m curious as to what u have it settings for with the HD PVR are. (i.e. Bit rate, etc.)?”
I use the HD PVR for recording programs that I want to keep from my DVR which has an anemic 80GB hard drive. I noticed that the dimensions and bit rates change based on the programming it sees and so I just keep it at the defaults. For HD it uses 1080-60i @ 9Mbps bit rate and it looks great.
[Martin Nash] “Idk if you guys have any expierence with an xbox 360 it’s self. I can out put; 480p, 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. You had mentioned for to try and stay away from 60fps if it wasn’t absolutly necessary, however it is worth the draw back of capturing in 1080 30fps? What r ur thoughts between the 2? My goal is to have good quality without over doing it, I don’t need the best ever, blue-ray, crazy HD stuff but I want it to be clear, and look good!”
Blu-ray only supports up to 30 fps so there is no need to record 60 fps because you will just throw half of them away when you make your final render anyway. Record 1080p at 30 fps and it should look great.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Wonderful information! Thank you so much guys… 🙂
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