[Aaron Star]

The best way to get specific help with these types of issues, is to post more specific info on what you are trying to do.

Post details about your workflow from camera codec > timeline codec. List details about your effects or compositing you are trying to do in real-time. Show your project settings details.

List your system specs, or the way you have your system configured. Post a .speccy file, or post at least the summary section from SAVE AS TXT file. This helps understand overall how the system is assembled hardware wise.

Here are some things to consider:
CPU wise: The x5560 Xeon has less crunch power than a modern skylake CPU, so stop trying to push an old dog past its limits.

RAM: Dual CPU Xeons have 6 memory channels. There should be 64GB minimum of DDR3-1333 ECC memory of all the same JEDEC profile.

Board I/O: intel 5520 hub is only PCIe 2.0 capable and probably only on certain slots. Make sure your GPU/GPUs are actually running at 16x speeds. They may only be running at 8x in what appears to be a 16x slot. GPU-Z will show the Bus Interface speed, and can help with confirming your GPU interface operating at its max. Know your IO hub and where to optimally place boards.

While the dual CPU idea sounds like more power, I believe there are latency issues with the QPI connector that bridges the CPUs and IO HUB. The system is most likely designed to crunch CAD drawings frame by frame where frame rate is not so critical.

Vegas/NLEs require the lowest latency system possible to deliver frames on time. At 60 FPS, that is computing an entire video frame every 16 thousands of a sec. One frame that computes longer than .016 second and you start dropping frames. That means for stable playback you need a system that computes much faster than that. Add a dissolve between video clips or multi-cam, and that whole process needs to complete faster than .016 of a second for smooth playback. This is why system optimization of ram timings and bus slots versions is so critical.

According to Intel Ark:

Intel 5520 Expansion Options

PCI Express Revision: 1.1/2.0
PCI Express Configurations : 36 Lanes, 4×8, and 1×4
Max # of PCI Express Lanes : 36

My guess is that since your GPU is operating at pcie 2.0 speeds at 20% overhead, and you are sending 3x the video data over the bus, the connecting bus is not keeping up. 3X the video rate means you send video to the GPU for calculation, then send it back for more processing, then send the results back to the GPU again for display. Do the math on what RGB444 video data rate is at HD-4K, oversize your system bandwidths to allow for overheads. Even if you are working AVCHD at 8bit, all that video is converted to RGB444 for processing in memory.

The numbers are right there in front of you below the preview window. 3840x2160x128xFPS=???/sec

GPU: Vegas 11-14 works best with AMD cards 5770, 7970, R9-290x/390x, Fury-X, or newer XT class chips. GFLOP rating, highest compute core count, and the latest display port version is what you are looking for. Newer cards will step back down to the older PCIe2.0 standard, but clearly will be held back in terms of moving data from memory to memory on card.

Display make sure you are interfacing your display with display port or HDMI 1.4 or 2.0. Display port has the most bandwidth.

Storage goes without having to say that today you should be on SSD, old system or not.

Timeline codec can make a big difference in playback stability. If your system is spending to much time decompressing your codec, there will not be enough time left for the image processing. Always work in an intra-frame codec with a low overhead.

[Aaron Star]

Here is an example I did for changing slides on a monitor.

Its not easy in Vegas, and other software will track motion for you.

[Aaron Star]

Apply text to the plane image on layer 1

Create traveling matte of just the actor walking on layer 2, cutting out all the plane background. Keyframe the matte to follow the actor.

Then apply the actor layer over the background layer.

Once you start to rotoscope elements, you will see why shooting a plate shot and green screen layer will save time.

There is other software like Blender and Mocha that can do this type of stuff better. In that software, you edit only the shot you need, then reimport the composited footage back into vegas for editing.

[Aaron Star]

A short screen capture of the problem would help to understand this better.

[Aaron Star]

You are not very specific on what is not working for you.

As a Pro level Vegas editor, I find it hard to switch to another application because I tend to apply vegas logic process to the other application. You need to let go of how you do things in other apps and learn the logic behind how that app does things. I find Blender extremely hard to learn, because those devs are doing everything non standard just to be different or legally different.

I would start here.

Google: vegas tutorials youtube

The 1st 2 videos seem to be pretty well done, and show how the basics work.

[Aaron Star]

Render it Progressive 29.97, unless the source footage is 59.94 progressive.

I would look at what he majority of the footage is, and conform the rest.

Sounds like they are not that clear as to the frame rates and interlacing.

[Aaron Star]

Some odd things about the format:

Writing application : vlc 2.2.4 stream output

Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 738 pixels

Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 24.973 FPS
Minimum frame rate : 1.389 FPS
Maximum frame rate : 25.000 FPS

That’s an odd video format for hardware to be writing.

I would try re-encoding it with Handbrake or FFMPEG (if you know command line.)

[Aaron Star]

I agree with Grazie.

My thought is the White balance changed during recording, or you bumped the saturation so far that your red tones in your face are exaggerated. You can see also how the color of the tie changes color. You may be able key frame the white balance adjustments to correct this.

Make sure your camera is set to manual white balance correct for your lighting. Then make sure your lighting is brighter than your teleprompter to overpower any changes in light color balance from the display light.

[Aaron Star]

Xeon e5-2650 = 240 GFLOPs

XFX7770 = 1280 GFLOPs – Why would you not want to use this additional computation ability?

The GPU will help speed up timeline calculations and keep the render encoder fed. Certain project modes and codecs will also use the GPU+CPU hybrid to crunch frames and effects during playback. This will allow for higher sustained FPS with effects applied.

If all you are doing is rendering AVC with little or no effects, you will not see the GPU being used much. If you have several layers of compositing, work in 32-bit Float mode, or use effects like rays or blurs you will see render times improved.

Not using your GPU in Vegas is like walking across town vs driving. You car does specifically what you need very well.

There are no “good laptops” for editing. You give up serious speed and computational abilities due to a system designed for low power consumption.

[Aaron Star]

There appears to be nothing wrong with your codec and vegas, it just is not that typical for AVC and PCM audio to appear in an .AVI.

You might try and trick vegas by changing the .AVI to .MP4. Then seeing if Vegas will compensate.

Alternative would be to run a test file through “Handbrake” and seeing if that footage plays in Vegas.

The best solution would be to use FFMPEG and convert the media container to .MP4 using a command like.

“ffmpeg -I Filename.avi -vcodec copy -acodec copy Filename.mp4”

This will take the information in your video files and transfer it to the mp4 container, where vegas will more likely understand the contents.

The handbrake method will re-encode your footage and you will lose a generation.

“ffmpeg -I Filename.avi -vcodec copy -acodec libvo_aacenc -b:a 384k Filename.mp4” – will compress your PCM audio to AAC 384 which will make the file a very standard MP4 format like most cell phones and camcorders and youtube playback.