Best Editing Format?

[Nick White]

What system are you using? Vegas is pretty heavy on resources. Also, what other processes are running? If you can kill any networking and anti-virus etc while working, that can help. RAM also helps. Having no other programmes running etc etc.

I am no Vegas expert :D, but I may be able to help. Maybe ease the load for those more knowing. And hey I am waiting on a render. Course if I get it wrong…..

I am assuming you are talking about problems while editing / previewing, and not after rendering?

OK. Deep breath.

IME, it’s not the input media that count, and any prior conversion of that could well lose you Image Quality. What is most important in editing is the Project Properties. These need to be set to a Width, Height and Frame Rate that your PC can handle while editing. Then you need to choose a Video Preview Quality in the Video Preview Pane to best show the video as you play through it while editing. Actually, Vegas will, by default, choose over the top of that anyway, in an effort to stop stuttering, especially during multi-track portions or fading from one clip to another.

It depends on the size that you Preview at, but if you are having real trouble, a 640*360 choice will be easier for Vegas to work with then say, 1920*1080, at a higher Preview Quality. After much mucking about, I have found that it’s a matter of juggling Project Properties to get the Preview quality (resolution) and Project quality (resolution) as close as possible, then using a better setting (Preview / Good etc) in the Preview window. So set your Project Properties lower and lower until Preview resolution on the Good (Auto) setting is pretty much the same as your project settings, while minimising stuttering.

There is also an option in Project Properties to Adjust Source Media. Help is not clear about whether this will actually affect a rendered output, but it does imply that this can help. However it does crop media to fit the preview screen (I assume) and that to me is dangerous. However….

If I answered the wrong question, sorry. I hope my info is _correct_ and it may help somebody else 😀

Nick
Head: Hertz Music

[Sam Caino]

Those tricks are how I have been getting by for the last 7 years. These are HP 7800s. The same machine my coworkers are running Avid on down the hall. Powerful machines.

These machines have good days and bad, but it’s pathetic that I have to expend so much energy and time just getting my video to play. I was hoping the regulars on here had some secret formula I just didn’t know about and I’ve been doing it wrong all this time.

[Nick White]

Again I am assuming you are talking preview, not playing after render.

Sorry I was not telling you anything you have not already tried 🙁 I know how frustrating it can be.

Well to put it in perspective, I have just invested in 8GB of RAM in an Intel I7 machine, with a 1TB WD Black HDD for data and a 500Gb one for Windows 7 64 and installed apps. I decided to bite the bullet because I am getting back into Audiovisual stuff and hope to really slog at it. This is now actually not a top of line multimedia machine at all.

It does make things a lot easier, although even then it will trip a bit if I start adding tracks, cross-fades and FX to video, unless I again tweak my settings. That of course is the other thing: you start adding that stuff and each one really adds to the load, unless you go non-realtime with FX. HANDBRAKE TEMP

However I was working on a quad core machine with only 1GB of RAM, and that got by with only a few tweaks. Before that, yes, I struggled. In the end I accepted that the preview was just that, set a small size in both Project Properties and Preview Quality. I don’t think there is a magic bullet and I don’t think you will get much difference in other programmes. I have tried a couple and had the same sort of trouble. They had their own solutions, that in one case was rather elegant in theory, but IIRC just a bit weird in practice.

Actually if you have the time to set aside and have a cup of coffee, pre-rendering the segment you are working on does wonders fro just watching a bit of video. I used that a fair bit on a slower machine, swapping constant frustration for having to relax and wait for a few minutes. Again, if you choose your render size and quality, it will be quicker. You probably know that and are still unhappy….:(

And seriously, if multi-track Audio taught me anything, a standalone machine with NO avoidable background processes running makes a huge difference when things get stretched: no network, no scans, no AV, no FW. For a lot of the time they take up little and then suddenly dive in and do something, maybe even directly affecting a file you are working on or rendering etc.

Nick
Head: Hertz Music

[Aleksey Tarasov]

What is your format of raw footage?

> “What is the best format to convert all your raw footage to before editing..”

Use codecs with intra-frame compression, such as Cineform, Avid DNxHD, Apple ProRes, Sony MXF 422, Sony XDCAM HD etc.

> “..and what program do you use to convert it?”

For example, https://vegasaur.com/proxy-media-builder

35mm Film Grain | Magic Bullet Looks presets | Film Look for Vegas Pro

[Sam Caino]

The original files were H.264 .mov files. I tried converting them to .mpg2 and Vegas had a fit. I tried doing one as DNxHD and had better results.

I’m home now on my Sony Vaio with 12 gigs of ram and the original h.264 files are working fine.

I have heard of Vegasaur. I never really looked into low res proxy applications for Vegas, perhaps I’ll look into that for larger projects.

[Nick White]

[Sam Caino] “I’m home now on my Sony Vaio with 12 gigs of ram and the original h.264 files are working fine.”

???? I looked at the specs of the HP machines and they are not powerful compared to what you would seem to have yourself.

Nick
Head: Hertz Music

[Sam Caino]

Yes, my home computer is more powerful than the HP 7800. Shouldn’t a Z800 still be powerful enough to play a single, unaltered video track, though?

I love Vegas’ approach to editing, the way it makes most tasks so simple. And I love scripting and all the 3rd party apps. But, let’s face it, the video preview sucks. It’s certainly not Vegas’ strong suit compared to a lot of other systems.