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Problems with H.264
I’m recording using a program called AmaRecTV. I’m using an x264 codec. Specifically this one: https://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/
I set the bitrate to 10mbps, but it comes out to 25mbps.
It gives an option for the FourCC. By default it’s set to H264, but I found that Vegas wouldn’t open files with that FourCC. I then tried all the other FourCC’s (h264, x264, X264, AVC1, avc1, VSSH). All of them worked with vegas but the files lag. For example it will say:
Frame: 643…
It also lags when I split files.
I have no problem editing FRAPS files which are atleast 10x the size.
Another thing I find weird is that there is no thumbnail for the file when I open My Videos. And when I right click and go to details it doesn`t say bitrate, frame size, or even length.
I`m thinking this is a codec issue? I don’t know though, because I’m pretty sure I installed a codec otherwise it wouldn’t work at all right?
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10 Replies
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Driving myself crazy here. I got PICVideo MJPEG codec, but the files are 3x the size and look worse.
I went to reinstall all my codecs and now I can’t even open the x264 files in Vegas. Someone please save my sanity.
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Updated aviplug.dll to the 32 bit version, and I can import, but still get too much lag.
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BTW I’m running Windows 7 with a 64 bit OS. I have 64 bit Vegas. I have 8 GB DDR3 RAM and an i5 760 quad core processor. While previewing the file my CPU is at 35% and my RAM is at 30%.
I still get that stupid Frame: 3467…… thing.
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“I went to reinstall all my codecs and now I can’t even open the x264 files in Vegas. Someone please save my sanity.”
How did you “reinstall” your codecs?
If you used a codec pack you surely have replaced the good codecs installed by Vegas with inferior ones. The solution here is to reinstall Vegas.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
Reinstalled Vegas. Same issue.
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MJPEG is a very primitive CODEC. Video formats like MPEG-2 and AVC use interframe and intraframe compression. Some individual frames will be compressed directly, just like a frame in MJPEG (which is just like a single JPEG frame from a still camera), but others encode the differences between themselves and previous or successive frames in a very small vector format, and only have to compress the differences in a conventional way. This makes MPEG and AVC much, much smaller per unit quality… or much, much better quality at the same file size. You would have to go maybe 10x-20x large in MJPEG to deliver the look you’re after.
Compression should be chosen according to your application, not at random. For the web these days, AVC is the right answer. For DVD, you want MPEG-2, at 720×480 (NTSC) or 720×576 (PAL), etc. There’s really nothing much around today that needed MJPEG… I have run into a few robots at work using that, but it’s pretty much been superceeded by other formats.
I would start with the pre-defined H.264 templates in Vegas. There are a few under the Sony AVC CODEC (Vegas Pro has both Sony’s and Main Concept’s AVC CODEC), with a couple “Interent” presets that work very well. If you run one of these, and think the result is wrong, post the specifics here, and maybe we can at least check you math. Note that the Sony CODEC is constant bitrate, the Main Concept may be variable. You can actually use either for low and high resolutions, but Sony’s ships with higher resolution presets, Main Concept with lower resolution presets.
-Dave
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I see part of your problem here… you’re doing things with AVC in a AVI wrapper… that’s where FOURCC codes come from. That’s very non-standard, and you’re probably going to get what you get there.. could be good, or it could be generating defective video files. For professional and most consumer use, AVC files are encapsulated in MPEG-4 (.mp4) files, MPEG-2 transport streams (.ts, .m2t, .m2ts, etc), or Quicktime files. There is no FOURCC concept for any of these formats, the formats are coded internally as streams.
You might find Sony handles the files better if you re-mux to AVC. There’s a free program, YAMB (https://yamb.unite-video.com), which might help here. You can also use the VLC media player to re-mux into a .m2ts or .mp4 wrapper. In both cases, they’re just changing the wrapper, video is not re-coded.
You may not see thumbnails when Windows itself doesn’t understand the file format. Some of these things (well, many of them, these days) are actually handled through the ffMPEG subsystem (another freeware project), which is rather dubiously hooked into the Windows media subsystems. In fact, since Vegas will use Windows resources for any of these things, you’d expect the Windows shell (aka Explorer) and Windows Media Player to have some of the same issues you see in Vegas… this isn’t specifically a Vegas problem, it’s system-wide.
-Dave
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My capturing program only lets me record in AVI. It doesn’t like some codecs (ffdshow screws up a lot). The x264 codec works really well, but Vegas doesn’t like it.
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Is there anything specific I can do to fix it?
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Only the stuff I suggested in my first post: re-mux the AVC/AVI as AVC/MP4 or AVC/TS. That will let Vegas use its own AVC CODEC, rather than counting on x264/FFMPEG, which isn’t really delivered for editing proposes. Try YAMB, VLC, or ts-muxer for these re-muxing tasks.
-Dave
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