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Sony Acknowledges AVCHD Rendering Defect
Hello there,
To provide you with a brief rundown; I purchased Vegas Movie Studio 9.0b as it was one of the only Video editing softwares to support my requirements of rendering to AVCHD and 5.1 surround sound. The moment I downloaded the trial I should have known how poor this application really is! It has caused nothing but frustration for me.
In summary, there are two inherent issues with this software:
1. AVCHD rendering crash:
===========================I have been faced with a frustrating issue whenever you try to render to Sony AVCHD template (1920 x 1080i NTSC 5.1 surround) the application would always crash instantly!! I’m not certain it relates to other AVCHD resolutions, but I would imagine it would. It was not until i found this workaround below with CFF Explorer that resolved this issue:
https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=6502172. Choppy Video – Out of sync with Audio
=========================================Once I applied the hack (this is what this essentially is!) from the above link and finally got Vegas PE to render to Sony AVCHD template (1920 x 1080i NTSC 5.1 surround), I found that everytime the final video output got past 2min in length, the video would always starts to become choppy and out of sync with the audio. I could not find any resolution so I created a ticket with Sony. Once Sony confirmed the issue they sent it to their Engineering department for further investigation. Basically they too were able to reproduce the issue and here is the response they provided to me:
“For my tests, I was seeing this behavior if my Vegas rendered file exceeded 3 minutes with playback getting out of sync around the 1:45 mark.
I’ve had problems playing back AVCHD files (especially large ones) on 3rd party AVCHD players. The video often gets choppy and lags behind the audio. It gets progressively worse the longer the clip. In some cases, the video will just freeze-frame while the audio continues on.
After consulting with other team members, we don’t think this is a Vegas problem. Vegas plays the rendered files fine in all cases. Apparently, the PS3 has some problems playing back AVCHD files as well. Other players I’ve tried, like VLC, don’t play more than 5 seconds of video (if that) before freeze-frame occurs.
Other notes:
– No difference between a stereo or a 5.1 rendered file
– The AVCHD template used to render the file is irrelevant.
– Occurs no matter which Vegas app rendered the file (VMSPE or Pro)
– Able to repro with other source footage.The only workaround I can think of is to keep those rendered files short in length.”
Take note of that last paragraph. They want me to keep my video short in length!!! lol. This is simply inexcusable when they clearly advertise the ability of this software to edit and render to HD including AVCHD format. Well i obviously did not accept that response so I fired back and told them howcome my original, unaltered AVCHD files are able to play on the same players succesfully? Low and behold they admited to this inherent defect and now are looking into updating the application. Here is the response they provided:
“Our Engineering Department performed some more tests and it appears that there is an issue with Vegas-rendered AVCHD files. We want to thank you for bringing this to our attention. The Engineering Department is currently working to resolve the issue and if they develop any suggestions within the coming days, I will let you know right away. Otherwise, please check back with us in the future as this will, hopefully, be resolved in one of the next updates of Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, but do appreciate your patience and understanding.”
So looks like they are working on a fix. But I’m VERY surprised that this issue is only getting to their attention now, wasn’t Vegas 9.0 out for sometime. I’m sure i’m not the only one who is trying to render to AVCHD!!! Also this affects Vegas Pro 9.0 as I was able to replicate the same chopy-out of sync playback.
So what do i do now that they are looking into this issue. I really doubt they would come up with a fix anytime soon. So what do i now???
Anyways, please post your thoughts here on this response from Sony and if you have found a solution to item #2.
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25 Replies
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I wouldn’t worry too much about the time it takes for them to repair. Once they’re able to reliably reproduce the issue and officially state it as a bug, then they’re usually pretty fast at finding a solution and patching it up. The battle is getting them to reliably reproduce… but that has been done here.
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Thanks for the update and for being persistent in getting the problem to the right people. A while back I did something similar and getting to the developers is key. I agree with the frustration as none of us has not had to find a workaround for many issues. Let’s hope this gets top priority.
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[Rob Franks] “Once they’re able to reliably reproduce the issue and officially state it as a bug, then they’re usually pretty fast at finding a solution and patching it up. The battle is getting them to reliably reproduce… but that has been done here.”
I had an issue involving Vegas 9 Pro crashing when I used any firewire preview device and had to deal with the Sony team. Once they were able to reproduce it they said they’d work on a fix. Then eventually they launched 9.0a, and the problem was fixed, but of course there was that horrible title-erasing bug they had. So later on they released 9.0b, and the firewire crash was BACK IN! Then when 9.0c came out it was still there! The moral of the story is that Vegas is full of problems and you can’t bank on Sony fixing them. Try workarounds and if they don’t work out you can wait and hope for the best, but if they don’t fix it you’ve got to just start looking for an alternative.
I’ve just really enjoyed the Vegas interface since version 4 and I’m not interested in switching, so I’ll stick with Sony no matter how little they care about fixing issues.
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I don’t have any problems rendering from 9c with 1080 avchd from either Panasonic HMC152 or Canon HF10. My videos are usually 20 mins long and exported 720p m2t. Audio remains in syc, PC is only a Core2duo XP,4gb ram, so not everyone is having problems. Same on my Window 7 laptop, no problems.
All these videos rendered on Sony Vegas Pro 9c
https://rambos-locker.blogspot.comCheers Rambo
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I haven’t tried 720p but the issue is when outputting to 1080i.
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Hello guys.
I share your frustration. I stumbled upon this thread as I was Googling my problem. I’m trying to render AVCHD 1080i 50. Source files are MTS from my Sony SR11. Playing through Windows Mediaplayer in Win7 it starts to jitter after approx 2 minutes into the movie. I’ve tried to monitor the details of the symptoms and though the problem presents itself roughly at the same time, the ‘jerks’ never apppear to be 100% the same i.e. not the same frames dropped each time I duplicate the problem by playing the file again.
Hope the people at Sony will be able to figure this out soon. I really like this product but it truly sucks not being able to render movies into the native AVCHD format after paying almost $600 for this.
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Hmmm, as someone who has about used up my 30 day trial, and has been putting a lot of time in to make sure that Vegas is the way to go, I’m more than a little worried about this. I am planning to purchase Video Vegas next week, for use rendering out AVCHD from my Panasonic HMC150, I may have to reconsider whether or not to go this route. So far I’ve not encountered this, but instead of laying out $600 next week, maybe I’ll just bite the bullet and go buy a MacPro and live with FCP and Prores… I don’t want to get dozens of hours into my next project and find that I should have used a different NLE for my specific video camera format….
Or is this ONLY related to studio and not to Vegas Video Pro? One of the guys here said he hasn’t encountered it yet. I do intend to do 720p rather than interlaced, so maybe this isn’t an issue, yet.
Alf
Panasonic HMC-150 & Vegas Video 9.0c on Win7/64bit -
I have not come across this when rendering mpg or avi. I think this may be isolated to AVCHD 1080i. I’ve tried this on two different computers, one of which is:
4gb Ram,
win7 32bit,
core2 Quad 2.85mhz
Nvidia 9600 (cuda)Played through HDMI to a Hi-def (1080i/p) Sony TV.
So this is definitely not hardware issue. -
I’ll try render one of my 20 min projects in 1080i for you see what happens, not had a problem i can remember when i have done this previously. Get back here soon.
Cheers Rambo
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Hi,
I have exactly the same issue when rendering into AVCHD, 1080i. End result gets choppy after about 2~3 minutes.
Using i7 920, Win7-64, Vegas Pro 64, GForce 285, 6Gb. No problem viewing any of the source files.
I tried rendering smaller parts separately then collating them, same poor result.
I will contact Sony to increase the number of voice to be heard.
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