Editing GoPro footage in Vegas 13

[Matt Smitherz]

You should “convert to avi” (having a cineform less compressed footage to edit) only parts of those files.

you can do that in gopro studio, and transcode to avi those video parts you are interested in.

You can specify multiple in-out avi files to render from the same mp4 file.

[John Rofrano]

[William Diels] “After I convert it to AVI, it takes 46 GB, 8x as much.”

What Encoding quality are you using? CineForm defaults to Filmscan1 which, as the name implies, is for scanning in 35mm film. You should set the encoding quality to Medium. That will give you more than enough quality for your GoPro footage.

[William Diels] “I have already ordered an additional 2TB portable hard disk, but we all know that importing footage from a portable hard disk into an editing application is not desirable, at least so do I think.”

I edit on an external USB 3.0 disks all the time with no problems. As long as the external disk is USB 3.0 or eSATA and not USB 2.0 or Firewire 400, you should be fine. Unless you are using multiple camera angles but a single stream should be fine.

[William Diels] “I am also unsatisfied with the AVI-files in general, as I believe the quality of the footage does slightly decrease.”

There’s only one way to find out… place the original footage on a track in Vegas Pro. Place the rendered AVI file on a track above it in Vegas Pro. make sure you line them up to be frame accurate. Then change the Tracks Compositing Mode on the top CineForm track to Difference. Set the Preview to Best (Full) and see if you see any difference. You should see completely black preview because the 10-bit Wavelet technology in CineForm is near lossless, but if you do see anything other than black, then that’s the difference from rendering.

[William Diels] “I have tried importing the GoPro MP4 directly into Vegas Studios. In general, this should work I think. The problem is that the footage gets shaky/jerky and slow, which may very well be because of my laptop? I am not sure. Any tips to solve this issue would be great as well.”

I am assuming that Movie Studio 13.0 suffers from the same slow GoPro playback that Vegas Pro 13.0 and 12.0 do. I think you have to go back to 11.0 or 10.0 to get GoPro footage to play back smoothly. There isn’t anything you can do about this until Sony fixes it.

[William Diels] “How should I edit and use all the footage?!”

You’re not going to like my answer but I would not use Movie Studio 13.0 or Vegas Pro 13.0 if my main objective was to work with GoPro footage.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Wayne Waag]

I just completed a 12 day road trip documentary project using roughly 8 hrs of 2.7K 60P GoPro footage. Here was my workflow.

1. For each day, import GoPro footage directly to Vegas Pro timeline and do cuts editing. Even with my limited spec video card (Nvidia 650), I could still get 50 to 60 fps preview set to Preview Full–certainly good enough for cuts editing. In this way, I kept roughly 20% of the original footage.

2. Correct for fisheye distortion. I have a script that uses the Defish filter in Avisynth to correct distortion. I select the events to be “defished”, and the script renders a lossless avi into Avisynth for processing. Virtualdub then writes a lossless “defished” file which is then added as a Take to the original event in Vegas. The process is pretty automatic–simply select the events, run the script from Vegas, and it processes all of the selected events and adds the result as a Take–pretty slick IMHO.

3. Apply whatever pan/cropping that seemed appropriate for each event.

4. Then batch render converting the lossless “defished” avi’s using an XAVC S Long Gop 1080 60P template.

Once happy, I would then delete the lossless avi files and simply use the XAVC S files in the final project. In this way, there was simply no need to convert the original GoPro files to avi and waste a lot of storage space.

wwaag

[Thayalan Paramasawam]

Hi Sir (Mr.John Rofrano)

I am really having probleum with gopro footage,its not playing smoothly in SVP 12 time line.What should i do?

In previus forums we discuse(use gopro studio to convert to cineform)

In cineform they is 2 format….mov and avi…which should i use?

Thank you
Thayalan Paramasawam

http://www.jptsskyvision.com
System Details:
Motherboard – Asus M5A99X-EVO,HardDrive1 boot C:SSD Kingston,Processor – Amd FX 8350 4.0/4.2 GHZ,Ram – 16 GB,Graphic Card – Asus Gtx 650 1GB DDR 5,Blu Ray Writer – Plextor PX-B950SA,Operating System – Window 7 Pro 64 Bit and Editing Programe – Sony Vegas Pro 12

[John Rofrano]

[Thayalan Paramasawam] “I am really having probleum with gopro footage,its not playing smoothly in SVP 12 time line.What should i do?”

If you have Vegas Pro 11 see if it edits smoother in 11. Vegas Pro 12 & 13 has broken GoPro support.

[Thayalan Paramasawam] “In cineform they is 2 format….mov and avi…which should i use?”

You want to use AVI which is the native container for Windows. QuickTime MOV is the native container for Mac and should be avoided with Vegas Pro. You also want to use Medium encoding quality in GoPro Studio. That is what Vegas Pro originally used when it shipped with the CineForm codec back in the Vegas 6 days.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Wayne Waag]

[John Rofrano]

Vegas Pro 12 & 13 has broken GoPro support.

Not completely correct. There was a major GoPro “fix” in Build 453 in V13. Using my Hero 4 Black, I did an hour long shoot yesterday at 4K. Just to confirm, I imported the footage onto the timeline this morning. At 4K project settings (3840 x 2160), the preview at Best/Full remained at 29.97 fps. I then added a Color Curves Fx and a Sharpen FX. Preview remained at 29.97 fps, even with my weak video card (Nvidia 650). I even changed the Project Settings to HD (1920 x 1080) and preview performance remained the same. For me at least, there are no problems with GoPro footage in the latest V13 build.

I then opened the same project in V12 and I can confirm that smooth playback is impossible. Even at the Preview/Auto setting, preview fell to roughly 2 fps, completely unusable. Conversion to an intermediate is essential.

wwaag

[John Rofrano]

[Wayne Waag] “Not completely correct. There was a major GoPro “fix” in Build 453 in V13.”

OK, I didn’t realize that Build 453 fixed the GoPro problem. That’s good to know and document here. Thanks!

So the answer to Thayalan is to upgrade your Vegas Pro 12 to Vegas Pro 13 Build 453.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[William Diels]

So, if I understand correctly, an upgrade to Vegas Pro 13 build 453 should allow me to work with the GoPro mp4 files in Vegas Pro 13 without having to convert them first?

[Wayne Waag]

[William Diels]

So, if I understand correctly, an upgrade to Vegas Pro 13 build 453 should allow me to work with the GoPro mp4 files in Vegas Pro 13 without having to convert them first?

Yes. It works well for me for 2.7K 60P and 4K 30P footage, so I presume it would be even less taxing for less resolution such as 1080 60P. Suggest you download the trial version and see if it works for you.

wwaag

[Thayalan Paramasawam]

Thank You very much MR.John Rofrano and MR.Wayne Waag to solve my probleums.

Thank You
Thayalan Paramasawam

http://www.jptsskyvision.com
System Details:
Motherboard – Asus M5A99X-EVO,HardDrive1 boot C:SSD Kingston,Processor – Amd FX 8350 4.0/4.2 GHZ,Ram – 16 GB,Graphic Card – Asus Gtx 650 1GB DDR 5,Blu Ray Writer – Plextor PX-B950SA,Operating System – Window 7 Pro 64 Bit and Editing Programe – Sony Vegas Pro 12