Sony Vegas 12 64-bit – MP4 container + AAC ??? Can Vegas perform well?

[Norman Black]

Mediacoder is using the x264 encoder which is the best encoder available for H.264 encoding at low bitrates. 2Mbps is pretty low for 720 video.

To use x264 you can generate an intermediate format, or very high bitrate some else, and use Handbrake or mediacoder to get the final low bitrate result. I use DNxHD as my intermediate and Handbrake for the output. Handbrake uses the x264 encoder also.

[Jerome Grenard]

Hey Norman,
thanks a lot for your answer!

You’re right; 1-2Mbps are pretty low for 720p.
But x264 can still afford “acceptable” results for iPad devices.

I’m now partly going through your suggestion = not using Vegas for hard compression, but using MediaCoder.

It’s just that this makes my pipeline more complex and time consuming! Tight on schedule here…
So, according to you there is no way to use this x264 encoder in Vegas???

So, in case this could inspire anyone, let me share my pipeline now for batch encoding several Video in x264 by using external Audio file.
Writing the followings is also convenient for me so I can keep it for project my post-mortem 🙂

Cause I have more than 100 videos to deal with, I can’t afford to have to render everything a 1st time in Vegas at high bitrate, and then re-render everything a second time through another soft (as I may have to do some Sound adjustments later on; would be a mess to restart everything again and again).
And I’m afraid that the more I render a files, the more I will mess up the its content and having less effective results once going through hardcore compression (but maybe I’m wrong to think this way…?)

More over, I noticed that using more than ~10 of my original 1080p video files in a single Vegas project was not that stable anymore (my computer is pretty decent = i5+8G RAM…). Which means would need to split my 100 videos between ~10 different Vegas session = limited batch working & not convenient at all for any adjustments.
Do you think I could have match my 100 1080p videos within one project?

**01**
In Vegas, I Batch-rendered in PCM all my Audio works only (let’s say 100 files generated for my 100 videos)
I stayed in Vegas cause I started in Vegas though…

**02**
Then my idea was to drop all my 1080p Video files into MediaCoder and use the “Audio from External file” feature so I could merge Video files with my Audio files I rendered through Vegas in step **01**
(Handbrakes doesn’t allow to merge Audio from separate audio file into a Video though).

But then I discovered that MediaCoder crashes when trying to merge Audio from external file with a Video that has NO audio content – DAMNED!

**03**
So then I used Avidemux to merge all my 1080p videos with their dedicated Audio by applying “copy original settings” for the rendering = Audio/Video output were now merged in a very fast way (cause none Audio nor Video are being processed).
-> Painful process here cause I had to import Video one by one in Avidemux (this soft can’t batch) + input dedicated Audio for each video also one by one…
-> Problem was that Audio rendering wasn’t that good (start & end of each Video = not precise) once merged in the Video out of Avidemux… so I didn’t want to use this Audio rendering for x264 compression.

BUT at least all my Video had now an Audio content to avoid MediaCoder crashing while using “external Audio file”, and even if any changes later I don’t need to do that again (cause I won’t use this Audio – refers to step **4**)
 
**04**
I dropped all my Full quality Videos merged with Audio I got from Avidemux into MediaCoder and then had once again to manually link one by one each Video with its dedicated Full quality Audio out from Vegas (cause, to remind, Avidemux Audio rendering was not good to me = need to overight Audio content).
Also a painful operation, but once done once I could save my project files Queue; so I can recover everything set up this way next time.
And then MediaCoder doesn’t crash anymore.

**05**
Last step was just to start MediaCoder batch x264 encoding process that worked perfectly and achieved totally decent rendering according the low bitrate I had to use.

Note that this is a heavy pipeline for sure.
But once everything has been done, if any change needs to be made I just can switch directly from **1** to **5** in where I can directly load my Media File Cue (no need to re-link Audio manually cause I will overight the Audio source file) and re-encode the file(s) I need to by selecting.

So, all of these JUST because I didn’t figure out how to use x264 rendering Vegas… (possible???)
Could have been so simple if was possible = just directly batch render Full quality Audio & Video from Vegas and done…

Welcome any comments/suggestions/criticism/enlightenment/…

Good luck for everything~

[Norman Black]

I wish there was a way to use x264 in Vegas. There exists an old, no longer developed, Video for Windows codec using x264. This would give you an AVI file.

x264 is a Open source program under GPL license. This means a comercial program like Vegas cannot include x264 in its product unless Vegas itself is open source and GPL.

I am no legal expert, but I believe if Sony published the interface to the codecs in Vegas, then they should be able to provide the x264 codec so long as the source to that is released.

If that is not possible, just having the interface would allow someone write the Vegas x264 codec. I would do it if I knew what the interface to Vegas is.

If Sony could interface to a codec via a piped console program, then all we would need is to download the x264 executable and point Vegas to that. This may too complicated as it might not fit the data flow of how Vegas does things. Just throwing out possibilities.

x264 is as fast as the hardware encoders in its superfast mode at similar quality, and nothing best it in qualty when working in those modes, and we are stuck with a two step workflow to use it in Vegas. Actually other NLE’s are in the same boat as Vegas.

[Jerome Grenard]

Thanks for sharing all of these Norman~

I’m really thanks full to you for your consideration; REALLY.
Awesome to be able to understand more why things are the way they are; I was guessing for sure they had good reason but couldn’t figure it out myself…

Your customized script idea is a good one; I wonder if would be possible.
True that Vegas has a script function available, but now idea how powerful and flexible it is.

Working in a video-game company, I have a bunch of programmers around me that should be able to enlighten me by having a look.

I will investigate into this one and let you know if ever any good news!

Be fine with your things

NOTE
I need to update my pipeline I posted previously for the step **1**
Still in case one day can help somebody

**1**
Because my Audio tracks were EXACTLY matching the length of my original videos, I encountered some cracking issues at the end of each video on my final x264 encoded ones.
Why?
I suppose (but not sure) that during the x264 encoding I lost maybe couple of frames that then made the video slightly shorter, which means also cut the Audio track before its perfect end = crack occurs.
Then I had to trim in Vegas all Audio track (CTRL+A; not a big deal) also from couple of frames + fade out to safely avoid this issue.