Sony Vegas Preview Lag

[John Bean]

More RAM, a QUAD Core CPU, and an OpenCL capable GPU video graphics card that has lots of RAM!

OR …

Have faith that Vegas will do what you want it to do.

If you want re-assurance, then just rendered out a test of the desired region in your project. You don’t need to render out all of your project. If you keep your selected region to a few seconds, the render shouldn’t be too long.

As well, if your source media files uses a video codec that is very CPU intensive to decode, you should re-encode it to some more expedient video codec that Vegas can more easily work with if you want better quality real-time preview.

For example, AVCHD (H264) is a highly compressed codec that requires a lot of CPU work to decode. But if you re-encode to some intermediate codec that is less compressed, it will give Vegas more time to focus on transitions and effects instead of decoding.

[Michael Pece]

The files are wmv format. Also, when it’s playing that part of the clip, the RAM is only using about 1GB, so I don’t think it’s that. So it’s the processor or graphics card?

[John Bean]

Upgrading your computer will improve things, but if you have a lot effects and transitions, it is still going to be very poor preview.

It is still just a PREVIEW window!

You can step through your timeline manually (using mouse and keyboard) to see how each frame looks in the PREVIEW window. But even still, with a lot effects and transitions, the PREVIEW is still just a PREVIEW and will still be quite different from what the actual rendered-as output will be.

So for very intense sections of your project, you will need to render it out if you want to see a more accurate view.

[Mike Kujbida]

[Michael Pece] “The files are wmv format.”

A core 2 duo is not the fastest computer around and WMV is a mastering format, not an editing format which helps explain why it’s so sluggish.
Out of curiosity, why WMV and not an easier format to edit?

[Michael Pece]

My clips are from Call of Duty, and they are captured in some weird format, and my HD PVR comes with a converter that converts them to wmv. What would be a better format?

[Michael Pece]

Oh wow, turns out it WAS caused by wmv! So much stress. THANKS MICROSOFT ¬_¬

Thanks for your help guys!

P.S. My converter has the option to convert to MP4, and that works fine =)

[Mike Kujbida]

Glad you got it sorted out 🙂

[Michael Pece]

Ugh, the quality is bad on the MP4 format 🙁

[Mike Kujbida]

What other options do you have as far as video formats are concerned?

[Michael Pece]

The converter can convert to .MOV format.

I am going to try and render a .wmv clip as .avi, then re-render that as a .wmv again to see if .avi has the problem too.