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The trouble with MP4 editing
Hi. everyone. I’m using a Lenovo y50- i7 4710HQ 2.5 GHZ. 8GB of RAM. Nividia GTX. – and it’s perfect for editing even really long .MTS files from my old Sony RX100 camera. But now, I bought a new camera that uses the brand new MP4 codec of H.264 so I have to convert it back to the old H.265. However, this old format is still incredibly difficult to edit because it lags and doesn’t give me proper previews even at the lowest quality settings for the preview window.
1. I have tried to create proxy files using Sony Vegas Pro 13, but they seem to help a little bit but still is extremely laggy. After I right click on create proxy file, what else am I supposed to do?
2. Do you know any software to convert H265 or H264 to something easier to edit but maintains its quality without being too big? I looked into softwares like Wondershare, but they condnse all footage down to 30 fps, when I record at 40 frames.
3. My camera records in 4K, but it’s impossible to edit 1080p- so What can I do to edit 4K without the software crashing?
Thank you for your help.
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4 Replies
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H.265 is an extremely new codec and not older than H.264. Did you mean to type H.263 (which is Xvid/DivX), or mpeg-2 per chance?
Anyway Vegas cannot ever import Xvid/DivX in an MP4 container. Maybe in an AVI container with proper Video for Windows AVI codecs installed.
40 fps? Is that a typo?
[Kyle Le] “After I right click on create proxy file, what else am I supposed to do? “
Wait for the proxy encoding to finish. Vegas proxies are XDCAM mpeg-2. If you cannot edit that smoothly then it is not likely anything will edit smoothly on your machine. MPEG-2 is very fast/easy to decode.
Editing 4K is likely to involve proxies for edit/cutting the video at least. Hey it is done like that in big budget films. In cutting you want smooth play to get the feel for the flow and you don’t need 4K to cut/edit.
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Norm is right. Convert all of your .MTS footage to XDCAM-EX.mxf. If you cannot not play that format back, then you need to consider a new hardware configuration.
Vegas can play the role of batch render tool with the right script that comes with Vegas. Search for other threads on batch scripting.
Some file containers and codecs are more optimized to edit in Vegas. h264.MTS, h264.MOV, DNxHD.MOV these formats are not optimized under Vegas, and people post endlessly on the problems. For editing intermediates, and workflow simplicity, stick with codecs that Vegas renders as .MXF.
Laptops with mobile chipsets are generally 1/2 the compute power of desktop versions with the same numbers. This is great hardware manufacturer con of the last 10-15 years. Most people think that games are the hardcore app, and video editing is a light duty application that can run on any gaming system. The opposite is actually the truth.
@Norm – h.263(Dvix)- you should look at Dvix today, they are well past h.263, and have been one of the 1st h.265 systems for some time now. The .MKV container still limits peoples wide acceptance of the format.
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[Aaron Star] “@Norm – h.263(Dvix)- you should look at Dvix today, they are well past h.263, and have been one of the 1st h.265 systems for some time now. The .MKV container still limits peoples wide acceptance of the format.”
Yea. DivX is a company name and not a codec name but the MPEG-4 part2, aka H.263, codec was the first thing for them and they were primary of that at the time, I just lumped the company name and original codec together. Almost like making a copy and Xerox.
DivX currently owns Mainconcept. A name many Vegas users all know and love, err hate, since nearly every video/audio encoder/decoder in Vegas is sourced from Mainconcept. The AVC decoder in Vegas is quirky/problematic to say the least.
x264 wipes the floor with every other AVC encoder out there, in quality and speed, and over time x265 will likely get to a similar place. Multicoreware/x265 has licensed rights to the x264 code/algorithms/concepts. Even for commercial purposes. I doubt SCS will ever license either one.
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Actually, H.264 needs a lot of processing power to decode, so it is difficult to decode on the fly. So how to get around this? It would be to change H.264 files to a lossless format that is easier to edit for Sony Vegas Pro. Vegas proxies are XDCAM mpeg-2. If you cannot edit that smoothly then it is not likely anything will edit smoothly on your machine. MPEG-2 is very fast/easy to decode.
https://format-changes.over-blog.com
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