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Editing H.264 files in Vegas
Hi,
I have used a Contour HD camera to capture some footage. The camera saves files in the H.264 codec in a .mov container.
I have tried to edit these files in Sony Vegas and the process is painfully slow. A bit of googleing showed that H.264 needs alot of processing power to decode, so it is difficult to decode on the fly. That’s all fine and dandy.
So now my biggest question is how to get around this?
I would think that I would convert the H.264 files to a lossless format that is easier to edit. So I tried both Huffyuv and Lagarith. I used VirtualDub to produce avi files in each format. All the files play back in Media Player Classic just fine.
Now, I drop the files and Vegas and it’s a no-go. When I drag the files on Vegas, it says “None of the files dropped on Vegas Movie Studio Platinum could be opened.” When I select the files by File –> Import, Vegas says: “Warning: An error occurred while opening one or more files. The number of channels is not supported.”
I’ve tried this solution and gotten the same result on two different computers. One had XP the other ran Windows 7. Both had Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 8 installed and both computers had overclocked (and very stable) quad core CPUs, 2GB or 4GB of RAM, and a WD Raptor or SSD installed.
Am I doing something wrong? Have I missed something? Any help or advice is greatly appreciated.
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4 Replies
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> “Warning: An error occurred while opening one or more files. The number of channels is not supported.”
I’m guessing that you encoded the audio as 5.1 or some other multi-channel format and Vegas Movie Studio 8 cannot handle this. Try converting the audio to just stereo. I use Lagarith and Huffyuv files in Vegas all the time so I know the video stream is compatible.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks for the reply. I checked the audio with Media Info and it only has 2 channels. Here’s all the info Media Info gave me about the videos. Nothing appears to me as out of the ordinary.
General
Complete name : D:\Tots\FILE0005.MOV
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : QuickTime
Codec ID : qt
File size : 56.8 MiB
Duration : 56s 239ms
Overall bit rate : 8 467 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2010-01-19 10:53:30
Tagged date : UTC 2010-01-19 10:53:30
AMBA :Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 56s 239ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 59.940 fps
Minimum frame rate : 59.920 fps
Maximum frame rate : 59.960 fps
Stream size : 55.8 MiB (98%)
Title : Ambarella AVC / Ambarella AVC
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2010-01-19 10:53:30
Tagged date : UTC 2010-01-19 10:53:30Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format version : Version 4
Format profile : LC
Format settings, SBR : No
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 56s 213ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Resolution : 16 bits
Stream size : 878 KiB (2%)
Title : Ambarella AAC / Ambarella AAC
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2010-01-19 10:53:30
Tagged date : UTC 2010-01-19 10:53:30 -
Convert the audio to uncompressed PCM wave. I’m guessing that Vegas did not expect to see AAC audio in an AVI container.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
I’ve just realized that I’ve totally misled you in my previous post. I posted the Media Info output for my source file (which works, although slowly) instead of my Huffyuv file (which doesn’t). Please disregard that info.
Despite this, you still hit the nail on the head. In Virtual Dub, I didn’t touch the audio. Usually this is ok, because DV cameras record as PCM. (IIRC) But I hadn’t realized that the Contour HD saves audio as AAC. Converting the audio to PCM solved my issue as Vegas now recognizes and plays both the audio and video.
Thank you very much sir. 🙂
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