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That preview issue,- to be solved the hard way?
I like almost everything about Sony Vegas Pro 11 when it comes to its user interface BUT I work exclusively in HD and that slow, jerky preview issue has been haunting me for a couple of years, now. Trials with stereoscopic 3D have exacerbated the problem.
I have an i7 desktop with 12Gb RAM and RAID.. but even this fast machine isn’t good enough to produce smooth playback on Vegas Pro unless I use a blurry preview mode which means that until I render I don’t really see what I’m doing. I have tweaked all manner of settings but the problem remains.
I have looked at solutions such as VAAST’s swap-out option (editing in a more light-weight format and then swapping back for the render): this works but is annoying and I have always felt that it shouldn’t be necessary.
What has been a revelation to me is running a trial version of Avid’s Media Composer: all of a sudden the clouds disappeared and shuttling high definition was a breeze, and this full screen on a monitor,- not even effects trip it up!
I really don’t want to leave Vegas – I’ve invested a lot of time in learning it and feel right at home with its interface. I also face one heck of a learning curve and cost. But the ability to move your mouse right or left and have the preview follow it smoothly and in full screen on a 1920 x 1080 monitor is rather like finding the holy grail.
Vegas looks to be in the last chance saloon for me, or am I missing something?
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2 Replies
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Are you going to be using Media Composer on your Windows PC? I had a chance to work in Avid Symphony (which I believe is ninety percent the same as Media Composer) a few weeks ago. While the playback on 1920×1080 was flawless I found the new hardware-less version of their product to be very flawed. The interface has problems accurately identifying cursor position (making window resizing and positioning almost impossible.) Their move from native hardware systems (which of course are amazingly fast) to a consumer setup seems to be in its infancy.
Your machine is fast enough to reduce the conversion process to a reasonable time but that flawless playback comes at a cost. Avid converts any non-native footage to an MXF wrapped clip in the project folder that when I did it (an hour long clip but on a less powerful machine) took fifteen minutes while Vegas does not need a conversion step. Of course that lack of conversion and dealing with more codecs natively is why Vegas playback is always slower.
You mentioned the learning curve necessary to get in to Avid. Do not underestimate how excruciating this will be. The reason people keep using Vegas despite its many problems is that the interface is (insert your own multiple here) times better than pretty much all the others. I found Symphony’s setup even more annoying than Boris Red’s which is hard to do.
In my opinion (and that is all it is) unless you are going to go the very expensive hardware setup route all Avid does give you is flawless playback. As much as editor’s consider “the preview” the most important thing in their work it is actually less necessary than having a good reference in audio work. (Note I said less necessary not unnecessary.) Just fight a bad NLE interface for a few days and then flawless playback starts to look like a luxury only. After finishing my project in Symphony (the hardware-less version) I will avoid it in the future if I can. Now with Vegas moving in to hardware acceleration I would guess in a year or two of CUDA tweaking on Sony’s end HD playback will start coming close to Avid’s.
Why do you find the Vegas “proxy” system to be a workaround that annoys you? It sounds as if you had a hands on test of Media Composer. Was the footage in your test a native Avid codec? If it was not then the proxy system that you use in Vegas is actually what Avid did albeit in an automated process.
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Hi Matt: thank you for your interesting experience and views. I shall look out for the cursor issue you describe and your other comments certainly give pause for thought.
Regarding your queries,- I don’t much like the idea of a swap-out process (VAAST’s Gearshift or the use of Cineform). It’s not that I’ve had any bad experiences of these, but (perhaps irrationally) I feel that it’s just an extra stage into which errors could creep,- video editors seem buggy enough generally. My tests so far have involved importing MXF and AVCHD files to the same timeline and playing with transitions.
If MC6 converts non-native formats to MXF it seems to work pretty well and I have only to wait a while for the initial conversion to take place. The only problems I’ve met so far have been concerned with my multiple monitor setup which has tripped up the titler or upset the windows layout,- but it’s early days.
My preferred solution would certainly be – as you suggest – for Sony to harness GPU power to make the really software pleasant to use rather than something of an uphill struggle at least when dealing with HD. There are those who think that the next development in consumer / prosumer video will be 2K+ rather than 3D.. then heaven help us!
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