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Vegas & .avi from Canon Still Digicam
Hi,
Canon still digicams can also shoot video, in the .avi format.
This particular flavor of .avi is not palatable to Vegas.
(Apparently some codec is needed.)
However, Windows Movie Maker will accept the Canon .avi, and under the “make movie” command will convert it to .wmv format, which is then acceptable to Vegas for editing.
Question: Is there much quality loss in this conversion? I’ve used it and it works, but it’s hard to tell how much quality is preserved or lost, because I can’t compare it on-screen.
Thank you,
John -
9 Replies
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As wmv is a compressed format, there will be a quality hit doing this.
Try this instead.
Load your avi into VirtualDub (free) and resave it (as an avi using “direct stream copy” mode) under a new name. This apparently rewrites some header info so that Vegas will now read the file. -
Thanks, Mike.
I will shoot a short video, run it thru WMM and the Virtual Dub and compare what Vegas’ final product looks like. -
The VirtualDub route should be better as it’s not further compressing the original video.
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Why not just download and install the necessary codec so that Vegas *CAN* see the video? What format is the video? If it’s MJPEG (like many still cameras are) then just download and install the proper codec and you’ll be done.
Edward Troxel
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Edward, I used to recommend that (I bought the Morgan codec myself) until I read about the VirtualDub trick on a video forum somewhere. To my surprise, it works – and it’s a free alternative 🙂
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Makes sense. Will report after the trial.
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Gentlemen, here is my report.
Apparently I must have downloaded and installed the “right” codec (among many others, for other purposes,) because Vegas now “sees” and accepts the Canon digicam .avi OK, right-out-of-the-SD card.
However, I went ahead and did some testing, as follows:
Using the Canon (Model A620 point-and-shoot still cam) I copied a color slide*, in “movie mode”. This created an .avi video clip.
{{* Making a movie of a (still) slide allowed for later capture of an identical “photo” during video playback. See below.}}
I then copied the clip from the Cam’s SD card to the HD of the PC.
Using Windows Movie Maker, I loaded the original clip, and had it “rendered” into a video .avi.
Using Virtual Dub, I loaded the original clip, and had it re-saved as an .avi (Note, I could not find the setting for: “resave it as an avi using “direct stream copy” mode” so I could use some more direction, please.
Then, I placed the three clips one after the other (original Canon, plus the WMM and VD results) on the same Vegas timeline (adding titles so I could differentiate which one was which) and then rendered the whole as a single high quality NTSC MPEG2.
I then played the MPEG2 using WinDVD, in a good Sony 19″ Monitor. While playing, I tried to note differences in the video (not the audio), and could not; they looked identical. I captured “stills” and blew them up 400% and could detect no differences between them.
Either my test method is flawed, or the compression algorithms are “so good” that they don’t affect the quality to any significant degree. (One thing I noticed was that the original Canon audio is monaural – only one microphone – but the WMM created a stereo.) -
[John Gregoriades] “One thing I noticed was that the original Canon audio is monaural – only one microphone – but the WMM created a stereo”
Vegas can too… if that’s what you want.
Edward Troxel
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Still got trouble doing this trick. I mean – VirtualDub works fine I guess. When I resave my Canon-recorded AVI-file using “Full processing mode” Sony Vegas accepts it but because the resaved file is so big (440 MB for just 2 minutes) it takes forever to render it. And my machine isn’t even that old (1,5 GB RAM).
When I try resaving it in “Direct stream mode” I still only get the sound from video when I try to import it in Vegas.
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