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SVP GRINDS to a halt
Hi All,
I am trying to work with H.264 MP4 files from a Blackmagic ATEM Switcher recording. They are 1080p format and I can get about 7-10 FPS preview…..any ideas?
I can edit about anything else and get decent preview….my project settings match the file format and I am using an 8 Core AMD with 16GB of RAM and the system drive is SSD.
This happens with both the GPU on and off.
Thanks for any help!!
Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions -
20 Replies
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[Scott Francis] “I am trying to work with H.264 MP4 files from a Blackmagic ATEM Switcher recording. They are 1080p format and I can get about 7-10 FPS preview…..any ideas?”
Reduce your playback quality or convert the video to a digital intermediary for editing. AVC/H.264 is a broad specification that no software vendor can ever support entirely. This means that it’s easy for hardware manufacturers to produce a file that is AVC/H.264 compliant and have it not work in certain software. Apparently this is what Blackmagic may have done. As you might expect, they may have optimized the format for acquisition which could impact performance when editing. As a result, you’ll probably need to convert it for editing smoothly.
This is why NLE’s like Final Cut Pro provide digital intermediary codecs like ProRes. Acquisition formats, and editing formats, and delivery formats, are not always the same thing. Sony started down this path by offering CineForm but somewhere along the line they broke that relationship and it’s been a problem for Vegas Pro editors ever since. Sony now provides their Sony YUV format as a digital intermediary but it produces huge files. I would convert them to CineForm or Sony MXF for editing.
If you’d like, post a small sample here and we’ll download it and run it on our computers and see if we get the same results. In fact, I’d really like to try it with my ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics card and see if I get higher frame rates. This card has really boosted my playback performance significantly.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Hi John,
I have a play that I am shooting tonight and using the ATEM to record….I will capture a short clip and upload it for you.
Your response was kinda what I expected…just don’t like spending 6 hours to re-encode a video clip just for editing….but them’s the breaks…
Thanks!
Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions -
[Scott Francis] “.I will capture a short clip and upload it for you.”
That would be great. I’m really interested to see how it performs on my system.
[Scott Francis] “just don’t like spending 6 hours to re-encode a video clip just for editing”
How soon we forget that we would spend 6 hours ingesting 6 hours of tape that we shot. How spoiled we all are with our tapeless workflows. lol ;-D
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Good point!!! However, I used to take a laptop to each camera and capture live to save on camera playback use, so I have kinda been spoiled I guess!!
Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions -
Had a similar problem with some Apple encoded H.264 MP4s.
First step I ended up using an app called
MP4_TO_MKV_LOSLESS_CONVERT.exe.
You drop this into the folder along with the original files and run it. This app ripped through the files in no time at all and put them into MKV wrappers. I seem to remember I may have had to do each file individually. No losses as no transcoding.
Second step I used an app called
MkvToMp4.exe.
With this piece of software you drop all the MKV files into it and run it. This again rips through the process without loss as again no transcoding involved. Just make sure you nominate a destination folder for the rewraps before you start.
What I ended up with were ‘normal’ MP4 files that played back fine in Vegas.
The original files on investigation were of a format called ‘dash’ and codec called ‘dash’.
The final converted files were designated format ‘MPEG-4’ and with a codec designation of ‘isom’
Go figure? Anyhow it all worked with no quality loss whatsovever.
I found both of the above apps, both free, by searching for them via Google. Give it a go. If you can’t find them post back and we can work out a way to get them to you if you want to try the process out.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Do you have links to where you downloaded those apps?
Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions -
Look I’m just rushing out on a job but will check when i get back if it’s not tool late. Otherwise tomorrow morning. Will keep you posted. This process saved me heaps of grief time.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Hey John,
Here is a short clip that I shot tonight. Sorry it is only of the audience, but to have it be the real file, I needed it not to be of the play. That file is about 15GB!!
Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions -
Scott ~
Good to see you uploaded a file. I tried my first suggestions on it but it didn’t work… well it did but the audio was way out of sync.
I then tried something else though and it worked fine. The converted clip plays back at full frame rate and involved NO video conversion, that was totally lossless. The original audio on your clip is 256 kbps AAC. It was converted to MPEG audio, version 1, layer 2 and at 128 kbps. Audio wise to listen to I can’t tell the difference. Your call obviously.
What I did was a lossless video conversion from the totally unfriendly QuickTime MP4 clip you uploaded to a Vegas friendly M2TS file. Plays beautifully and if I had a load of it I could edit with it quite happily.
I have attached (I hope! Haven’t done it before.) a zip file with an app called
MP4_TO_M2TS_LOSSLESS_CONVERT.EXE
The link is:
Also in the zip are two txt files. One has an info breakdown of the clip you uploaded and the second one has an info breakdown of your clip after it was converted to an M2TS file.
To execute the conversion just double click on CONVERT.EXE and it will convert the first file in the folder. I hope you don’t have a million clips to do because you will have to remove each original and converted file from the folder you are doing the conversions in before you proceed to double click and convert the next file.
A bit of a clumsy work around but at least you will get good clips to work with.
Hope it is of some help to you. Would be great if someone could write a batch file to run this as a batch convert.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
[Scott Francis] “Here is a short clip that I shot tonight. “
I’m seeing similar results on my 8-core Xeon with ATI Radeon HD 5870. There is no GPU activity at all and I’m getting 6-7 fps with only 25% CPU load. Clearly this playback isn’t using more than 2 of the 8 cores. 🙁
On my 6-core/12-thread Core i7 with NVIDIA Quadro 4000 I’m getting a respectable 24 fps at Preview Auto and 20 fps at Best Full. That’s not bad. The CPU is again at only 25% but my GPU is at 45% which is why I’m getting better frame rates.
So it appears that for this particular footage, Vegas isn’t using my ATI card at all but it is using my NVIDIA card. This GPU stuff just gets more and more confusing every day.
BTW, I couldn’t help but load the footage into Final Cut Pro X and it played back as smooth as silk! No issues at all. FCP X doesn’t have a fps readout, but the video was not jerky like in Vegas Pro. I’m pretty certain it was full frame rate. This is a case where it pays to know more than one NLE.
I would contact Sony and let them know about this problem. Perhaps they can add some optimizations for it.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com
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