Chris Young
Forum Replies Created
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Your .MOV files are H264 AVCHD files. This problem is cropping up time and time again because people think AVCHD is a suitable editing format. AVCHD .MOV files are the worst thing in the world to edit with. To help solve your problems you might find some useful suggestions at:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/906738
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Bruce ~
What one has to realise is that all long GOP files have to be decoded because of their ‘Interframe’ GOP structure. Without getting too technical, every time you do an edit with any long GOP (Group of Pictures) file the file has to be decoded and then re-encoded to match up the GOP structure of the file it is going to be joined with in your edit.
The more complex your editing the more decoding/re-encoding you will do and the more hits your quality will take. By decoding once to the Cineform codec you create an ‘Intraframe’ file where all information for each frame is contained within each frame. When you do an edit between two frames all that happens at render time is that they are stitched together, unless there is a dissolve or transition etc in which case it creates a new Intraframe file. There is no having to decode back to previous frames to recover missing information.
With long GOP editing one has to ensure that the edit point occurs at the end of a GOP to coincide with an I-frame, this negates the possibility of an unclean edit through trying to link to a motion-estimated frame or broken reference. Well unless your artistic decision to create an edit at any given point happens to be on an ‘I’ frame the edit point you have just created will have to be reconstructed from the preceding frames in that GOP and re-encoded with the incoming edit material to recreate an new contiguous unbroken GOP. In other words a complete decode and re-encode of the sequence of frames that are involved on both the outgoing and the incoming bit streams involved at that edit point. Not a nice way to edit!
Believe it or not Vegas 8.xx had the Cineform codec built in as part of the ‘render as’ templates. This was a 1440×1080 Intermediate template specifically designed to handle the long GOP structure of HDV files when editing. FWIW I believe from hearsay that Cineform and Sony couldn’t agree on going forward with this partnership with Vegas 9.0. A shame I think. For me Cineform in Vegas is like the ProRes codec in Final Cut Pro and like the DNxHD codec in Avid.
Regarding your question re 4:2:0 or 4:2:2. Cineform is 4:2:2 when you convert your files. This broadcast 4:2:2 ITU.Bt.709 HD compliant color space and the Intraframe codec structure is by far and away the best thing to edit with, it’s very robust. You can go through more levels of compositing and color correction with less quality loss plus have the benefit of a smoother running timeline to boot. As we say in Aussie “It’s a no brainer Mate!”
For us down here the networks are now taking XDCam 1920×1080 4:2:2 50-mbit MXF files on XDCam discs for broadcast. No more expensive VTRs required. Couldn’t be better for us.
For output to Blu-ray/DVD we just use our master XDCam 1920 files or uncompressed files [large!] in DVD Architect as it handles them fine.
We don’t do much for the web but some colleagues use Canopus Procoder or its big daddy Carbon Coder for H264 or Flash output. The main thing is to maintain the integrity of your original image as much as possible. Good luck on project.Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
H264 is NOT an editing codec. A lot of us have been through the heartache you are suffering. Seriously if you want some peace of mind read what we have done to sort out these sorts of problems. It’s been plain sailing ever since. Check out:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/906738
Read the whole thread while you are at it. You are not alone. Your quality will be good!
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Personally with EX footage I use Sony Clip Browser, current version is 2.6 a free download from Sony, and export the EX clips as ‘MXF for NLEs’, a pretty quick process on an i7. The MXF files are much nicer and smoother to work with than the EX MP4 files. These files are also smaller than if you had converted them with the Cineform codec.
Mind you I use the current Cineform codec frequently and without a doubt if you have a lot of compositing to do with the EX files Cineform is the way to go. On your i7-820 both options work very well in Vegas.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Suggestion. On each menu page look under the ‘General’ tab. The top entry in the list is headed ‘Reduce interlace flicker’ and make sure it is turned on for all menu pages. You may then find an improvement in the final render. I find that this varies considerably depending on the fonts used on the menus. Some work well some are nightmares when rendered.
Set up your menus and then use a sixty-second video clip and do a test render to check various font tests.Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
What may be happening is that you are running out of ram. If you try rendering while watching under the Performance tab in Task Manager you might see the ram consumption going up and up as the render progresses. If so try the following.
As you are in v8.0xx try this. Render as/(file name) select AVI then select Template as ‘HDV 1080-60i intermediate’, or 50i as the case may be. This is a Cineform intermediate ‘I’ frame based codec that was in v8.0xx but not in 9.0xx. This may solve your problem, as it doesn’t appear to be a memory hog. If you render out your project successfully then try rendering to MP4 from the Cineform file. Post again as to any success or lack of. Sadly Sony are having some serious problems with some of the long GOP formats when it comes to long timeline renders. Sony is aware of these issues and hopefully there will be answers soon.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Very hard to respond to your post as you give us no idea as to what PC system/configuration you are on, what your project properties are, what file formats you are working with and what sort of workflow you are following. Throw up as much info as you can re these and someone may have some amswers for you. There are thousands of us around the globe working very successfully with Vegas Pro and Vegas Platinum so that must tell you that there are answers out there.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Hi K ~
Didn’t you say originally that they required it on Digi-Beta? If this is still the case I would most likely export my rendered multi-track file as a Standard Def NTSC IMX Widescreen (720×486, 29.970 fps) MXF file from Vegas, there is a template with these specs, use that. I guess your project is widescreen if not use the standard template. This is the easiest way to export multi-track audio if you don’t have much experience doing it. I have posted a pdf file to help you set this multi-track project up at:
https://f1.creativecow.net/600/working-with-xdcam-in-vegas-90‘%3E600_workingwithxdcaminvegas9.pdf.zip
For some reason the whole download link is not hightlighted in my post preview so if this is the case just copy the whole link and drop it into a new page and download the pdf file.
Read this carefully especially the chapter titled “Setting up your project for multichannel audio”. Once you have rendered out your Std Def XDCam file find a post house that can export this file to an XDCam disc for you. It is then a simple job for them to run this disc in an XDCam player and output Std Def SDI with 4 embedded audio channels straight to the SDI input of the Digi-Beta deck.
A bit to learn and a bit to do but not too hard really if you go slow and steady. Others may suggest a simpler workflow but currently I can’t think of one to put forward. Good luck!
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Nick ~
Vegas is most likely not able to see the audio codec involved with your MP4 files. If you download the Gspot utility
https://gspot.en.softonic.com/
and interrogate one of your files with it Gspot will tell you which codecs are needed to decode it.
Better still download and install Ffdshow (Open Source software), you need the 64-bit version, it works well on Win 7. It’s the top listed download on the site as of today at:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/files/SVN%20builds%20by%20clsid/old%20builds/
In most cases this will fix most of the MP4 codec play back issues associated with Vegas.
If you really want to solve the problem read my posts starting at:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/906738
as this may help you in an easier and more efficient workflow for handling MP4 files in Vegas 9.0. If you still have problems post back again.
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney -
Basically you are correct. The AVCHD files are decoded and re-encoded to the Cineform codec, which can be best described as an intermediate ‘lossless’ high quality codec. There are preset options in Neoscene where you can choose the HD quality that you want Neoscene to use.
Once Neoscence is installed the Cineform codec is now available under the Vegas Render as, Uncompressed AVI, ‘Custom’ menu button where there are a host of coding options for rendering out if you wish to convert using Vegas. Cineform in Vegas gives us the workflow equivalent of ProRes in FCP and DNxHD in Avid. Short of going totally ‘uncompressed’ Cineform is going to give you about the best picture quality from AVCHD you will ever get.
Certain Cineform software packages can go up to Cineform ‘Raw’ coding as was used on the movie Slumdog Millionaire. To get a better understanding of how Cineform works try listening to:
Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney