List of all codec supported by vegas ?

[John Rofrano]

[Timothée Ferreol] “I just get sick of converting 5 times with Handbrake to finally find the one SVP accepts.”

Why don’t you write it down once you find one that works?

Seriously, I don’t think you will find a list. Vegas Pro is designed to edit video shot with a camera. If you are not using a camera, you need to find one that works and stick with it or convert it to a camera format that Vegas Pro likes.

~jr

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

[Timothée Ferreol]

Well this is more complicated than that.
This does not concern my camera, I often do videos that contain multiple cips found on the Internet in various places. Problem is, I can find a codec that works, but then the bitrates associated to it would decrease the quality so I’d have to go back and increase the bitrate, which is a very painstaking process…

I just wish I could have that list and be like “hey I might be able to install that codec” no need for conversion, vegas will work with it(DNxHD is a great example of that (maybe not the only one ?).

I’m just surprised there is no such list, seems to me like a basic thing, isn’it ? I mean there are so many different spec explained everywhere, why not codecs ?

___________________________________________

If you want to check out my work =) : https://vimeo.com/timof

[Norman Black]

There is no such thing as an equivalence spec for codecs. Meaning a certain bitrate for codec X equals a certain bitrate for codec Y. Too much ndepends upon the source material. Some codecs are capable of great compression and others not so much. How much compression you get depends upon the source material. The ratio between codec varies greatly.

For example consider a GoPro attached to a mountain bike bouncing down a trail and camera handle/tripod shooting people walking and talking. The later can get very great compression but certainly not the former. I have direct experience with the former. MTB footage, even stabilized, does not compress very well such that internet delivery bitrates provide good quality. It is just a fact of life and there is nothing I can do about it.

Also consider that cameras do little compression even if they generate codecs capable for great compression like AVC/H.264. They do not have the compute power or the time to do this level of compression. So they typically need a higher bitrate to achieve a similar quality to a lower bitrate a PC AVC/H.264 encoder can generate. Again, it all depends upon the source material.

There are no easy answers. Experience matters and your eyes are always the best and only final judge of quality comparing two separate encodes.

[John Rofrano]

[Timothée Ferreol] “I often do videos that contain multiple cips found on the Internet in various places.”

Here’s the problem: There are codecs designed for acquisition, there are codecs designed for editing, and there are codec designed for delivery, and they are not always the same codec. If you are getting videos from the internet, then they are probably in a delivery format. If you want to edit them, you may need to convert them into an editing format. This is just a fact of working with video. Get use to it.

So if I told you that Vegas Pro works best with Intra-frame Video for Windows codecs in an Audio Video Interleave (AVI) container, and I listed several like:

• DV
• Motion-JPEG (M-JPEG)
• Cineform
• Sony YUV
• Lagarith

How would that help you? You are not going to find any videos on the internet that use those codecs because they are acquisition and editing codecs and not delivery codecs.

I can also tell you that Vegas Pro has a hard time with Inter-frame codecs in an AVI container like:

• DivX
• Xvid
• x264vfw

Don’t use these for editing. They will cause problems. These are delivery codecs.

What you are most likely to find on the Internet is MPEG4 AVC/H.264. The problem with this format is that the MPEG4 specification is so broad that no software can support all of the variations of profiles and settings. If you stay within an MPEG4 standard like AVCHD you can’t go wrong. But again, you’re not going to find AVCHD on the Internet because, while it is an acquisition, editing, and delivery format, the bit rate is too high for Internet delivery. It’s really for delivering on Blu-ray.

Bottom line is that anything you find on the Internet is going to be low bit rate delivery formats that are not optimized for editing and Vegas Pro will edit some of them and not others. There is no way to know which will work and which will not until you try them. Most professionals would take anything they find on the Internet and convert it into a digital intermediary codec without blinking an eye. That’s just what you do.

So having a list is not going to help you if you are editing videos you find on the internet because they are not going to use codecs on that list. You need to get use to converting them into something you can edit, or look for software that is designed for editing internet video (if such a thing exists). That’s just the way it is.

~jr

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

[Timothée Ferreol]

Got it ^^ !

Thank you guys for the time you spend explaining me all of this, I really appreciate and it helps me a lot to naviguate in the codec-compression-bitrate galaxy ;), a very interesting universe by the way.

___________________________________________

If you want to check out my work =) : https://vimeo.com/timof

[Aleksey Tarasov]

Recommended:
https://vimeo.com/104554788

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Vimeo framework” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.