[Luc Enders]

By the way for Vegas 8 a 64bit option exists as well: 8.1 (=64 bit only). Provided you also have 64bit OS (which is really a must with memory > 4GB).

[Luc Enders]

When you choose AVI, what did you select under template setting?

I tried MPEG2 1440×1080 (HDV) and had no problems with DV and Sony uncompressed YUV. So it’s either issue with steady hand or you don’t have codec installed to playback the AVI file.

When you encode to same format, do you then see correct playback of resulting file?

[Luc Enders]

It’s exact same codec/profile and video dialog settings: select Sony AVCHD and click custom. Then in system only change ‘format’ (=container). Video settings don’t change. Audio will switch to AAC.

My expectations were simply too high. But I can always remux myself. I’ve done that before succesfully with m2t files (and recompress audio to aac). What I can’t workaround is the encoding quality of frames that require recompression. Too bad they don’t allow 2 pass like mainconcept. This is a big deal to get great quality so I’ll probably go back to uncompressed to YUV and use a 2nd renderer with better capabilities.

[Luc Enders]

It’s the exact same video codec, both are H264. The only difference is the container (MPEG2 vs MP4). Granted audio needs recompression.

I can do this skip video recompression manually without Vegas. E.g. use megui to demux mts and then remux again with MP4 muxer.

I guess I expected that it would be able to skip recompression of just the video codec by itself which is the most intensive. Hopefully next version…

For now a workaround would be to render as m2ts and then remux. Only downside is that I can’t have 2 pass m2ts files that require rerendering (which shows at times quality loss). I can see that’s not trivial since the entire file has to be same settings (but almost all AVCHD files are VBR).

Also anyone knows what the ‘=’ means in front of the template? It doesn’t seem to indicate potential skip recompression. E.g. sadly blu-ray format is still recompressed.

Also the problem that the m2ts output is not always played back properly in some players is worrisome. If anyone has experience with creating bigger m2ts projects let me know. Otherwise I’ll stick to outputting first to uncompressed YUV and use another multi-pass renderer.

[Luc Enders]

The AVI is only the container. You choose then the codecs in the template column. E.g. DV or uncompressed YUV. That said they all should work. I just tried a HDV file and rendered as DV and played back fine fo me.

2 thing could be happening here:
– renders correctly but you don’t have a player to playback AVI with codecs correctly
– And/or it’s not rendered correctly because of steady hand.

Questions:
1. What happens if you turn off the steady hand filter? Does that render AVI correctly?
2. While rendering, do you see video in the output render screen?
3. Have you tried different players with codecs like Videolan, K-lite codec pack/MPC or KMPlayer?

[Luc Enders]

Yes that should work. What kind of AVI file is it? What is the video and audio codec? Potentially you may need to convert/remux it first.

Also what are your project properties? 32bit or 8bit?

[Luc Enders]

The processor speed is certainly a factor but you can’t compare this until it’s the same chipset. See here an overview of perf times with different processors in Vegas:

https://www.legitreviews.com/article/896/5/

I have now a Core i7 3Ghz and found it’s about 6x faster than my Duo 2 core 2.4 Ghz. That said for HD material it still can take a long time to process even with i7 but it depends on your HD material. If it’s HDV/mpeg2 format you’re fine, if it’s AVCHD/MP4 be ready to wait a while when rendering (and preview might be jerky)…

Regarding memory I found Vegas crashes for me for larger projects and certain file formats. To mitigate I use the 64bit version to be able to use all memory. If you have 4GB installed and use a 32bit version most likely you will only see 3.5GB available.

[Luc Enders]

Actually I should correct this to say it ‘reports’ format as 1088…

[Luc Enders]

I tried Mercalli which is certainly rated good but I’ve yet to get a satisfactory result. It’s not that it doesn’t remove shaking well, but I do see at times slight jittery/shifting picture and I tried numerous combinations to no avail. I use upscale always and I can see that could cause weird transitions per frame (zooming differences).

If anyone knows how to get a reliable solid (HD) picture with any software let me know. It could be that I’m just too picky though.
For now I’ll definitely stick with a steadicam whenever possible.

[Luc Enders]

If this is for home archival I’d get the regular silver Taiyo Yuden and forego the printable ones. They do last little bit longer in theory (see also https://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media). Taiyo Yuden does produce DL silver ones but haven’t seen them for sale in the US unfortunately (except ebay I believe).

I agree use 2 pass VBR and limit to 8000 kb/s. The min and max bitrates are not an exact science but I’d typically avoid lower bit rates than 4000kb/s for min to avoid visible compression artifacts in any scene.

For max I typically add 50% of the average bitrate to avoid pulling down quality too much in other scenes but that solely depends on the source material (e.g. mix of scenes complexity).

If you source material is higher resolution than I’d prefer tmpgenc xpress since its downscaling algorithm is definitely better (I did a test last year with all methods and never could match it). Otherwise Vegas will do the job just fine.