My preview window lags a lot!

[John Rofrano]

What setting are you using on the preview window? Try setting it to Preview (Auto) and that should help.

Also make sure that your project settings match the footage settings. Having the project set wrong will cause the footage to be interpreted on-the-fly which may slow things down.

You may also want to play with enabling or disabling GPU Acceleration under Options | Preferences | Video. Sometimes disabling actually makes it play back faster depending on your graphics card.

~jr

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

[Stephen Crye]

[John Rofrano] “Try setting it to Preview (Auto) and that should help.”

Wow – this actually helped me. I’m surprised! On the “red car” test project it resulted in giving me nearly 29.97 throughout the entire video. This was a big improvement over using Good (quarter), and it was not terribly blurry.

[John Rofrano] “Also make sure that your project settings match the footage settings. Having the project set wrong will cause the footage to be interpreted on-the-fly which may slow things down.”

Sure … but what do I do when the project has mixed footage? For example, my current project has 1080 60i, 1080 30p and 1080 60p, plus a bunch of AVI stuff rendered with HuffYUV and VirtualDubx64.

So confused …

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T7500, MultiTB SATA, 12GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000, Vegas 12, 11, 10, 9 DVDA 6.0 & 5.2(build 135) Sony HDR-CX550V, Panasonic GH3 with LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm / F2.8 ASPH, LUMIX G X VARIO 35-100mm / F2.8

[John Rofrano]

[Stephen Crye] “Wow – this actually helped me. I’m surprised! On the “red car” test project it resulted in giving me nearly 29.97 throughout the entire video. This was a big improvement over using Good (quarter), and it was not terribly blurry.”

This is what Premiere Pro and FCP X are doing under the covers. They just don’t let you control it. The problem with people is that they always turn everything up to “10”. So because Vegas Pro allows you to set the preview to Best(Full) they set their preview to the highest setting and then complain that their playback lags but it plays great in Premiere Pro or FCP X, but what they don’t realize is that PPro and FCP X are changing the quality while they play to make playback smooth and then switching back to full quality when they stop playing and you are none the wiser. IMHO, Sony should not allow you to manage the quality, it should just do that on it’s own like other NLE’s.

[Stephen Crye] “Sure … but what do I do when the project has mixed footage? For example, my current project has 1080 60i, 1080 30p and 1080 60p, plus a bunch of AVI stuff rendered with HuffYUV and VirtualDubx64.”

You set it to the footage that is predominant but that’s why NLE’s like Final Cut Pro give you the option to transcode to ProRes. If you want a smooth editing experience, you prepare all of your footage to be edited. On the PC, CineForm use to be a good digital intermediary to use. Now that GoPro bought them, I have no idea what to think about them. I still use CineForm Neo but I don’t think GoPro supports it anymore.

So if you want a really smooth editing experience with widely mixed media, convert your “1080 60i, 1080 30p and 1080 60p, plus a bunch of AVI stuff rendered with HuffYUV and VirtualDubx64” to a a common digital intermediary format just like Mac users do with FCP X and ProRes.

I use CineForm Neo because it comes with a batch encoder. So you just run everything through CineForm Neo and the results is all of your footage in a consistent format that’s easy to edit. I beleive you can download CineForm for free as part of the free GoPro Studio and it will do the same thing. I just haven’t tried it because CineForm Neo is still working for me when I need it but I mostly still shoot HDV which edits smoothly anyway.

~jr

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

[Stephen Crye]

Thanks for clarifying that, John.

Hrm … as I edit, I’m always experimenting with things, doing intermediate renders, tweaking the VeeDub64 decimate settings to get a different time lapse value, etc. To constantly be converting to Cineform or some other intermediate would greatly disrupt my work flow.

However, I will start looking for the “predominanat” source type and setting the project to that.

Thanks again,

Steve

Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T7500, MultiTB SATA, 12GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000, Vegas 12, 11, 10, 9 DVDA 6.0 & 5.2(build 135) Sony HDR-CX550V, Panasonic GH3 with LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm / F2.8 ASPH, LUMIX G X VARIO 35-100mm / F2.8

[Abhi Nash]

Thank you so much for the help John!
I will try those tips!

I will stick on to Premiere for now,I have to adjust to Vegas’s workflow anyways.

[John Rofrano]

[Stephen Crye] “Hrm … as I edit, I’m always experimenting with things, doing intermediate renders, tweaking the VeeDub64 decimate settings to get a different time lapse value, etc. To constantly be converting to Cineform or some other intermediate would greatly disrupt my work flow. “

You would convert everything to CineForm first. Then you would tweak the CineForm files in VirtualDub. You never stop working in CineForm format. CineForm is a very high quality digital intermediary which will hold up far better than your original source video ever would when tweaking.

~jr

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

[John Rofrano]

You’re welcome.

~jr

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