Sony Vegas Pro 13 opens some .mov’s, but not others.

[John Bolton]

Download a program called GSpot.exe . It will tell you what the makeup of the MOV container is. You also also try by renaming the .mov to .mp4 and see if it imports ..

[Seth Kopchu]

The renaming didn’t work – I had a feeling that’d be the case.

However, running GSpot gave me some information that may help me out here.

Here is a link that shows a screencap of the type of .mov that won’t open in Vegas Pro 13. The codec is xdvd.

Now here’s another link of a screencap of the type of .mov that DOES open in Vegas Pro 13. The codec is avc1, and it’s a H.264.

So I guess now I have to find a program that will re-encode the xdvd .mov’s over to what I need, the avc1-H.264’s. Any and all suggestions, let me know. I’ll assume this is what will fix my problem opening the non-compliant .mov’s into Vegas then, no?

[Norman Black]

That codec ID seems to point to an mpeg-2 format. Quicktime does not by default come with mpeg-2 decode ability. One can purchase an mpeg-2 codec for Quicktime.

Something like Handbrake or Cliptoolz convert or ffmpeg may be able to transcode that for you to an AVC or other format Vegas can import.

[Seth Kopchu]

What about Adobe Media Encoder? Could I use that to transcode the xdvd .mov’s over to avc1-H.264? Again though, regardless of the transcoding message, is there an issue of generation loss?

[Norman Black]

Don’t know Adobe media Encoder.

About generational loss.

Depending on the source video format, probably mpeg-2, and the audio format, there is a possibility of remuxing the data streams into a container Vegas handles. Vegas is very picky about what audio format can be with a specific video format. Maybe you can just split the audio and video into two files. Vegas will accept mpeg-2 video in stand alone files. Avidemux might be the easiest tool to try this with.

We really don’t know anything specific about your file(s). A MediaInfo report would/might help (free utility).

As for transcoding and keeping quality the same no flat answer can be given. If converting from mpeg-2 to AVC it is generally said the AVC bitrate can be half that of mpeg-2. So a bit above half should be “safe”.

[Seth Kopchu]

I’ll look into Avidemux.

Going with your suggestion to use Handbrake, I did, and it worked. It was able to convert one of the many .mov file’s that won’t open in Vegas to H.264. However, I now deal with the annoyance of trial and error – what are the most optimal settings for each .mov file to be re-transcoded that quality and generation loss (if any) won’t occur? Any suggestions are welcome.

Per your request, here is a link to a .txt file for a MediaInfo report on the one .mov file that does open in Vegas, and another report for the one that doesn’t.

[Norman Black]

That file that does not open is exactly what I thought it might be. It is an XDCAM file that for some reason was put into a Quicktime MOV file.

If you can get that stuff remuxed into an MP4 file then Vegas will handle it properly. MP4 and MXF are the container formats that Sony seems to spec for XDCAM, and that is the format Vegas generates as well.

Avidemux will not put PCM audio into an MP4 file. Avidemux does not support MXF. I am not sure what other GUI muxer does. A fairly simple ffmpeg command should do it.

ffmpeg -i input_file -c:v copy -a:v copy -chunk_size 64k output.mp4

If transcoding:
Don’t worry about optimal settings in Handbrake for each video. Once you figure out something you like then it will work for all. In Handbrake use the constant quality setting. For best edit/decode performance maybe use Baseline profile. Bigger file but edit performance can be better.

[Seth Kopchu]

Update: I may have found the solution to my problem.

The reason why the majority of the .mov’s won’t open is because they were transcoded to XDCam in a QuickTime (MOV) container. Apple specifically pays for that (and therefore charge you when you buy their software.) This is why my footage isn’t working. Apple doesn’t pay for/sell/own the XDCAM codec in the QuickTime wrapper in Windows.

A company called Calibrated software can license this for $149. I downloaded it, running it as a demo with its watermarks, and so far, it runs A-OK in Vegas Pro 13. It would seem that using this small piece of software (which extends QuickTime capabilities in Windows) I can natively edit the QuickTime (XDCAM) files that I’m struggling with. So far, I haven’t seen any generation loss (would there even be any?).

Now I move on to a separate challenge for creating an EDL from Avid Media Composer and try to send it over to Vegas Pro 13…

[Seth Kopchu]

See my reply here about the update to my situation.

[Norman Black]

Apple does sell an mpeg-2 decoder.

https://store.apple.com/us/product/D2189Z/A/quicktime-mpeg-2-playback-component-for-windows

It’s only $20. I do not know if it will work with your files.