Vegas Movie Studio, Proxy Audio Files and Importing .AVI File

[Edward Troxel]

How did you “get” this AVI file? What format is it?

What if you try capturing the tape from Vegas Movie Studio?

Edward Troxel

[Irm_02446]

The ~12GB file was captured to my PC hard drive via FireWire from a Canon DV camcorder and saved in the highest resolution format available to me. It was given the .avi extension at the time it was captured. I could try capturing the file again, BUT the camcorder was on loan by a family member and it is no longer in my possession nor readily available.

[Edward Troxel]

Ok, here’s the deal:

Capturing via firewire would yield a 12-13Gig for 1 hour of footage. If you have nearly 1 hour, 12 Gig would be about right. That should be a standard DV-AVI file but there is no “quality settings” that can be changed – it’s a direct transfer of information from the tape to the hard drive (sort of like a file copy). VMS would read DV-AVI files just fine.

How long is your footage? Use something like GSpot to determine what format the audio really is. “AVI” is just a wrapper for many different types of video and audio. You need the proper codec installed for the type of video and audio you are using.

Edward Troxel

[Chuckb]

Jumping in – Gspot tells me I have the correct codec on the computer when it looks at the Canon AVI file (from a P&S digital camera). It also says the file contains motion jpeg video. But, when I import it into Vegas 5.0 all I get is the audio.

Open it in Windows Movie Maker and it works fine. I can export it as an WMV file and open that in Vegas, but the quality is shot (compressed more than 10:1).

How can I load/use/whatever a codec to *read* the Canon AVI file?

Thankx – ChuckB

[Edward Troxel]

You have to have a vfw codec for Vegas to use. DirectShow codecs will work with Windows Media Player (which is why you can see it there) but Vegas requires a vfw codec.

Most digital cameras require an MJPEG codec. If that’s the problem, the answer may lie here:
How do I open AVI files create by still cameras?

Edward Troxel

[Irm_02446]

At the recommendation of Sony technical support, I’ve downloaded and installed the Morgan M-JPEG codec V3 but still no success regarding the audio track. I was, however, able to use a different program to extract the audio track from my file to use it as a separate file. I’m afraid this isn’t a great way to proceed and will ultimately complicate the editing process, though. I used the GSpot program and, if I read the results correctly, the file is an AVI-Type 1.

[Chuckb]

I downloaded the Midvid freeware codec, ran its install program, shut down the computer and restarted, and it made no difference. (Odd that I should be getting audio and not video, while the person who started this thread is getting video and not audio…..) So I used Help and tried unchecking the preferences box for excluding 3rd party codecs. Restarted Vegas and still no change.

The question is, am I installing the codec properly? Is installing it as a system dll enough, or do I need to put it in the Plugin folder in Programs>Sony>Vegas? Are there specific setting in Preferences I’m missing? If this one doesn’t work, fine, I’ll try another, but before laying out the cash I’d like to be sure I’m doing it right.

Thanx again – ChuckB

[Tom Smarch]

Open your .AVI file in Sound Forge. Select the entire file and save it as wave file. The audio will be saved in a seperate wave file.

Now open up your .AVI file in Movie Studio. Ungroup the video and audio files by selecting them both and hitting the CRTL and U keys. Now delete the audio track, but only after you unselect the video portion. Now drag the wave file underneath your video track and you are good to go. You can group them together again if you want to be selecting the video and audio tracks and then hitting the G key.

[Juliet Zhu]

When I try to import these avi files into Sony Movie Studio I get an error message saying “codec missing or unavailable.”