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Trying to work with Nikon on S9100 .mov not working with Vegas Pro 10(d) build 669:
Hello,
I have started the ball rolling to work with Nikon on why the .mov files from their Coolpix S9100 camera are either crashing Vegas Pro 10 (d) Build 669, or causing problems that won’t allow me to render.Anyone else having these issues please chime in. I have contacted a Senior VP in Melville, NY to see if I can get a Nikon Video engineer engaged to work with me.
The Nikon S9100 has a number of video formats but all export as .mov.
The 1080p 14Mbps will completely crash my Vegas when I put 4 or 5 clips occupying more than 3 minutes on the timeline. Working with the 2x normal format, 1080p at 15fps, will do the same after 3 minutes of timeline, the 720p (30 fps) has issues too, but I was able to get almost 5 minutes of video on the timeline and render it.Does anyone know more technical info on these issues? Is it limited to the Nikon S9100 or does this expand with trouble using video files from their SLR line? Please chime in.
As far as I can tell it may be the way Nikon defines a .mov file?
The spec says:: MOV (Video: H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, Audio: AAC Stereo)
Is it possible that putting a AVCHD file in a .mov container is a problem or how it is put in that container?
-Phil
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8 Replies
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[Phil Loarie] “Is it possible that putting a AVCHD file in a .mov container is a problem or how it is put in that container?”
The problem is usually how it’s put into the container.
Have you tried converting the files with CineForm NeoScene? I know NeoScene added support for the Canon DSLR’s. Maybe it will work with the Nikon. If it won’t, then it’s most probably a problem at Nikon’s end.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks John.
I have not tried the CineForm NeoScene yet. Does this process actually compress or render the original files in any way? If not, what does the process do?I have had varying symptoms of weirdness when adding the Nikon .mov files to my Vegas timeline. A brief summary may be of interest.
Using the Nikon S9100 original clips shot at the 1080p 14Mbps camera setting: if I put more than 5 or 6 of these clips or exceed 3 minutes in the Vegas timeline I start to see the last clip turn red or green in the preview window, and if try to change settings it usually crashes Vegas with no clear error in the Win7 event viewer (system or application log).
Using the clips shot at 1080p 15 fps (12 Mbps), the Nikon S9100 version of twice faster than normal speed: I can put maybe 5 or 6 of these in the Vegas timeline before it goes green or red. I have made tests by removing files until the symptoms go away but then when I render I get an error stating the the system memory is exhausted and I need to shut down any other applications. Since there are no other applications running, I am bit puzzled. Rebooting my system sometimes fixes this, but most of the time does not. Changing Options–>Preferences–>Video tab–>Ram Preview thing to zero does not make any difference, nor does upping it from the default 256 to 512.
Another symptom is that when I think I have some thing that will render and click the ‘render as’ the pop up window is transparent, only the border is solid making impossible to render.
Other oddities include using clips shot at 720p 30 fps (9 Mbps): although I have been able to exceed 3 minutes on the time line with these clips in fact as much as 4.5 minutes with no frames turning red or green and render an actual movie without errors, the preview is extremely sluggish and therefore making preview ludicrous.
About my settings: if I ask the project properties to set itself to the media, it thinks the 1080p files are 1080i. Tests made at this setting and various other settings such as 1080p, 720p, adjusting to original media or not, blend or interpolate or none, do not show any changes. Same is so with the clip properties, whether these are set to upper field first or None (progressive). The only consistent switches I maintain in the clip properties is to disable resampling, allow loops, reduce interlace flicker, maintain aspect ratio.
I have been running all sorts of tests of these settings now since mid June and I have about had it with these issues.
:<…hence my call to Nikon.
I don’t want to say it’s their fault, I just want to get clear on where the problem is. Who knows, maybe the next rev of Vegas might be able to fix this.
Thanks for your help,
-Phil -
[Phil Loarie] “I have not tried the CineForm NeoScene yet. Does this process actually compress or render the original files in any way? If not, what does the process do?”
CineForm is a near lossless HD 422 Digital Intermediary codec much like Apple ProRes 422. NeoScene will convert your MOV files to CineForm AVI files. You can then process and re-render the CineForm files any number of times without worrying about quality loss. I use this for moving between Vegas Pro and After Effects all the time. The CineForm files play very smoothly in Vegas because they use intraframe compression instead of interframe compression like MPEG2/MPEG4/AVC/H.264.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thank you John,
The latest word from Nikon is that their USA video engineer guru is on vacation until Sept. 6th so I don’t expect to know my next step until I work with him. I spent some time on the phone with the Nikon point person today who is arranging for me to work with the vacationing engineer. Although we don’t have any answers today, it appears the lines of communication are wide open and Nikon is listening.CineForm NeoScene sounds wonderful, I just checked their web site.
I may go ahead with a trial version to at least address the current footage. I’ll keep this thread alive as news comes in.
-Phil -
Update:
Hello John or others following this thread and good morning.I downloaded and installed the Cine Form Neo Scene trial version (latest rev.) last night, and immediately began converting a folder of assorted Nikon S9100 .mov files which included: 720p 30fps, 720p 60 fps, 1080p 15fps. There were about 58 files.
The outcome: there was a 7% fallout, that is 4/58 clips did not complete conversion, but did covert partially. Repeated attempts on the troublesome files did not succeed. Only one of those files was really something I needed in the timeline and there was enough of the partial completion to be useful. When I say partial completion I mean that most of the clip is converted but towards the tail the shot freezes.
The Neo Scene preferences were set as follows: High, I-Frames checked. Changing this to Medium with and without I-Frames had no affect on the troubled clips.
The behavior of the converter during a good conversion shows my quad core pretty much hammered with each CPU at about 98% as monitored by the Win7 task manager/performance meters. When it’s trying to convert one of the troubled files mentioned above, the performance starts out like the rest and then the progress meter on the Neo Scene window pane eventually stops forward progress with no log update, and the task manager meters show the CPUs are almost idle. Being patient and waiting to see if it would magically come out of this coma was a waste of time–waiting as long as 7 minutes with no changes. Please note that there were no other applications running during the conversion process except having the source and destination folders open.
How did the converted files work with the Vegas Pro 10 timeline?
I was able to enter all the files I wanted without errors, no green screens, no red screens, preview appeared ok. However while rendering, it dropped one file as in it shows only black for that clip then comes back with the remaining clips ok. I have heard of this behavior from other posts here, but I have never seen this happen until now. I then removed this clip and then on the next render another clip further down the line did the same thing. Rebooting, and adding the clips that did not render back to the timeline and then rebooting again I was able to render the whole piece. This a 4 minute 45 second video with mostly no sound (yet) as I plan to put music in later. Only the lead clip has the original sound. Please note that the time altered clips, 1080p 15fps and 720p 60 fps are silent by nature. I noted that during the renders that had a black out for one or more clips took about 10:47 to render, the good render with nothing out of whack took 13:04.
I should mention the following FX were engaged in the timeline:
Sharpen, Brightness and Contrast, Stretched timeline (sped up by 3 and 4 times depending on the clip). I also was able to have a fade in, and fade outs too. There were two video tracks, one with the all the clips, the other with titles/credit role.When I set the properties for this project I did ‘the set to media’ and pointed it to a 730p 30fps clip. It set itself to 720p 30 fps and progressive, with the adjust media to project unchecked. When I was done editing I noticed that the project properties had changed to interlace, blend, and the adjust media files to project was now checked. I also noted that Neo Scene interpreted the 1080p 15 fps as interlaced files. I wonder if the 15 fps rate was confusing it?
Questions: What advantage or disadvantages does checking I-Frames offer me?
Does the 7% fallout indicate the Nikon S9100 .mov files maybe wacked out more than I previously suspected?
Thanks you for your kind attention.
-Phil -
[Phil Loarie] “Questions: What advantage or disadvantages does checking I-Frames offer me?”
You always want to keep this checked if you are going to edit the files in Vegas. It enables Vegas to do “smart rendering”. If you don’t have it checked, Vegas will always re-render even if it’s back to the same format with no FX. Just keep it checked.
[Phil Loarie] “Does the 7% fallout indicate the Nikon S9100 .mov files maybe wacked out more than I previously suspected?”
Well… now you have two data points. Vegas can’t read the file, and CineForm NeoScene can’t read the file. This points to Nikon as the problem. Tell them to download the trial of NeoScene or Vegas Pro and let you know when their files work with it.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thank you John,
They also want me to try adding various other codecs to Vegas. This may end up being the almighty 3rd data point. I’ll keep posting on this
thread as this progresses, but I don’t think I will have anything to add until Tuesday, August 30th.-Phil
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UPDATE:
My plan to try other codecs got bumped by a new development. Over the weekend a good friend of mine who is a video engineer and a Vegas Pro user with tons of experience stopped by to take a look at what is going on with my .mov files crashing Vegas. He changed two things that so far appears to have fixed my issues.
1) tuning of the GOP thing in the general tab of preferences–something to do with a 2 GB limit on 32 bit machines taxing resources.
2) adjusting the preview to not scale the video but to preview at quarter size (less math for the CPU to deal with).
I have not tested this enough to be 100% comfortable that this fixes it all. But we did run several of the former troublesome 1080p 30fps Nikon .mov shots in the timeline exceeding the 3 minute mark and no red screens, no greens screens and no transparent pop up panes or crashes.
I still want to explore other things before I say this is resolved.
-Phil
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