Movie Studio Playback issues

[John Rofrano]

The interesting thing is that MediaInfo is saying that the footage is 30.00 fps which is where the problem might be in Vegas. Normally this should be 29.970 and not 30.000. If your project is set to the standard Vegas 720-30p setting, Vegas is using 29.970 which is the industry standard. If you footage really is 30.00 (which is non-standard) then Vegas is trying to convert it to 29.970 on the fly to play it back. Try converting the footage to 29.970 or the project to 30.000 and see if it improves playback.

~jr

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

[Patrick Mckenna]

Hi John,
Thanks for the reply. I tried both changing the project to 30fps and converting the footage to 29.970fps and it doesn’t really improve the playback at all. I am assuming that the problem doesn’t just lie with Vegas because when I try to view the .m2t footage on VLC media player, I am having the same problem. It looks like the media player is unable to keep up with the footage and it freezes every few frames like the footage is “buffering”.

I am guessing that my processor isn’t strong enough but the interesting thing is that I played back the entire project on the Vegas timeline one evening last week and it played through with no problem, then the following day it was stuttering.I had the same issue the previous week; the footage stuttered so I reboot my computer and it played back fine then. Unfortunately, rebooting the computer now no longer seems to resolve the issue.

I have read that the playback lag on Vegas isn’t a fault in the actual project and that when rendering it onto DVD or whatever should be ok but it is the whole headache of not having a fluid playback when trying to put the music on the timeline.

[John Rofrano]

The power of your CPU and amount of available memory will definitely affect playback. If you’re working in HD with anything less that a modern QuadCore then you’ve found the problem. I have an older QuadCore and my playback stutters once i start color correcting.

~jr

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

[Patrick Mckenna]

Yeah, my processor is a 2.2 GHz Core Duo and I have 3MB RAM so I was thinking that was the issue. Insofar as the playback, in a previous post you advised me to render parts of my project out and bring them back in as the 720p HDV mpeg2, which I did because when I tried to edit the original footage on the one project, I was getting a lot of red screen crashes. The footage of the actual project was shot in MOV format (mpeg2) and when playing the original scenes on the timeline when they are in MOV format, the playback on Vegas is fine. What is it about the 720p HDV mpeg that causes the stuttering?

Another thing is how is it on other previous occasions, the footage (720p HDV mpeg) played back smoothly on Vegas but now it doesn’t?

[John Rofrano]

[Patrick McKenna] “Yeah, my processor is a 2.2 GHz Core Duo and I have 3MB RAM so I was thinking that was the issue.”

That is definitely an issue. The “Core Duo” was a previous generation and slower version of the “Core 2 Duo” which is a much faster second generation chip. In fact, the Core Duo was slower than many single core chips so it is definitely not the right processor for HD video work. The current Core i3/i5/i7 are the latest processors so you are three (3) generations behind in your CPU technology. I’m sure this has something to do with your playback not being smooth.

~jr

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

[Patrick Mckenna]

Hi John,
Just verified there that my processor is actually a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo processor so it’s not as slow as we thought but does it still match up to HD video? One thing that I did check before I got Vegas Movie Studio 10 was if my system had all the specific requirements to run the program.

One thing still bothers me though. Do you have any idea why the system might be someway tempramental in the playback of the 720p HDV mpeg files (one day it plays back smoothly and then the next day it doesn’t)? And why is it that Vegas can play back the original footage (MOV – mpeg) no problem without any stutter? Was there something that I did in the rendering of the original scene when converting it to 720p HDV mpeg (m2t file) that causes the stuttering??

[Patrick Mckenna]

Hi John,
Further to my last post, I noticed that rendering times have really slowed down on Vegas. Even when rendering to MPG for DVD purpose, it seems to take much longer than it had ever before. For example when rendering to MPG to be sent to DVD architect, it renders the video first (in MPG format) and then it renders the audio (in AC3 formet). Usually the AC3 rendering takes only a minute or two at the very most, but now, when rendering a 5 minute clip of audio is taking over 20 minutes.

[John Rofrano]

Wow I don’t know why you’re having a general slow down like that. Try a reboot. Maybe something is constraining your memory (just a guess).

~jr

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

[Patrick Mckenna]

Hi John,
Well I finally figured out what the problem was regarding the playback on the Vegas timeline. I had the footage (individual clips) stored on my external hard drive. However, when I copied them onto my “C” drive, playback was fine without any freezing or stuttering at all. It must of been an issue with my external hard drive. Such a relief to sort that issue out.

There was just one quite minor issue that I was hoping I could pick your brain with. I think that I explained to you previously that the footage was shot on was 720p 30fps in MOV format (mpeg2). If I tried to edit the entire project on the one timeline, I was getting a lot of red screen crashes so you recommended that I could split up the project into individual scenes and render them out separately with a view to “stitching” them back together to complete the project. One of the render formats that you recommended was HDV 30fps m2t which rendered fine. However, I noticed a slight glitch during playback in the footage when rendered in this format; in some scenes, where there might be a panning shot or a fast movement by a subject, a horizontal flicker might occur across the screen. I viewed back my original footage that it was shot in to see if the issue was with the camera settings or the original footage itself but they played back without any problems at all. Is there anything that you could recommend that might solve this problem?

Kindest regards,
Pat