can vegas utilize the new Quicktime codec?

[Terje A. bergesen]

Vegas can render H.264, select Sony AVC/AAC in the Render As dialog box. For some reason the H.264 rendering in Vegas is limited to max 1.4M/s of video and a few other restrictions. I have no idea why Sony would limit it like this, but there you go.

Installing QT v 7 will not let you render from Vegas using the new H.264 rendering engine in QT. I assume you got the pro version, which means you can render directly from QT. From Vegas you render as DV-AVI open in the QT player, and then chose File -> Export and chose your settings there.

I wouldn’t recommend it though. QT 7 is, in short, pure and utter garbage. It is so amazingly unstable that I have only been able to creat a single H.264 movie with it, and that was a very short one. All the other times it has crashed half way through or less. That is painful, and doubly so because the QT H.264 encoder is the slowest piece of software ever written by man. It is astonishing that a company like apple will release this junk.

To add insult to injury, QT 7 doesn’t understand when a DV-AVI is in widescreen perspective, it thinks that all DV-AVI movies are in 4:3 perspective. I shoot exclusively in 16:9, and QT won’t even read my DV-AVI files properly. All other software on my computer does. I can also render to 16:9 MPEG-2 from Vegas and QT will then open it in 16:9.

I would recommend you, as a PC user, demand your money back from Apple. They should not be allowed to get away with such bullshit (pardon my french).

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Terje A. Bergesen

[Ken Mitchell]

You are correct. QT7 is something that should be avoided at all costs.

[Terje A. bergesen]

Not only should it be avoided, with the astonishingly bad response I am getting from Apple, I’d say stay away from that company all together. If their support is anything to go by, and the quality of QT the same, I’d say they are generally cr@p. Compare the two support problems I have had to deal with lately:

Issue 1, Company Apple, product QT 7. Problems:
– It doesn’t read DV-AVI files in 16:9 format properly.
– It crashes 99% of the time part way through the encoding process
– It is astonishingly slow

Send email to Apple support, get answer back after 48 hours saying essentially: RTFM and RTF Website. Answer back that I have, and that the problems with their software persists no matter what I read. Apple responds that they are sorry for my problems. Have a nice day.

Issue 2, Company Microsoft, product Windows installer. Problem:
– Latest version of Windows installer will not install.

Send email to Microsoft. Get a call back in about 2 hours. Asks me to connect to their website. Takes a look at my problem. Asks if I will allow him access to my PC. I say yes. He takes control while I watch exactly what he does. He fixes one or two registry settings. Asks me to re-boot. Problem solved.

If support is anything to go by, Microsoft still has a glorious future ahead of it, and Apple is doomed.

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Terje A. Bergesen