From DGates: Plain and simple, AVCHD is an acquisition format. It's not Sony's responsibility to worry about making it play nice in their NLE.

So, SCS should not claim "Comprehensive AVCHD and HDV Support" about Vegas.

"We're using preview/full for all the edits these guys are doing, and they're very happy with performance similar to what DV was doing 10 years ago."

I have to say I cannot get V9.0 to do with DV what V6 was doing with DV, maybe 5 years ago. Back then I was running, in fact still run, a 486 with 0.5GB of RAM and IDE drives. One track of DV, no cuts, no FXs. 2,000 audio clips, 20 tracks, no problem, smooth as silk.

Same kind of project, Quad Core, 2GB of RAM, SATA drives etc. V9 coughs and splutters so bad even the director asked "How the hell do you put up with that, I just cannot watch it". Just so there's no confusion this is 90 min of vanilla SD DV rendered out of Vegas, no FX's 2 cuts, under 20 tracks of audio, 8 busses and 2,000 audio clips. Lots of pan, volume and gain envelopes and that's it.


So all I can say is, forget about what other NLE vendors are doing, forget about AVCHD, SCS cannot even compete with their own products from 5 years ago. Oh sure XDCAM EX is not too bad, Vegas drops a frame or two at every cut which would make a real editor spew but I can sorta live with it. I've even managed to edit a few hours of AVCHD. Render speeds are fine, darn fast actually. My problem is the very basics of editing, what Vegas used to excel at have been sacrificed somewhere on the road to HD.
I suspect the problem is too much reliance on buffering. Using a buffer is all well and good until you decide to jump somehwere else on the timeline and then Vegas has to reload the buffer(s) and you wait and wait. Oh but you've already hit the Play key and it ain't, so you hit it again and again out of frustration and Vegas can tie itself in a knot. Oh, I've learned to be patient but when you've got a client looking over your shoulder it can get stressful. Thankfully that is not too often or what little hair I have left would be gone.

So yes, sometime in the future I'll revamp my SuperMicro system to 8 cores, 32GB of RAM and a FX4800 GPU. It'll have something else as well as Vegas on it though unless V10 pulls a rabbit out of a hat.

Bob.

Farss, on a side note, AMD is releasing their consumer 6-core 3.2G chip, for around $325 US +-$10. If MB manufacturers can get out some two socket MBs, you can have 12 cores at a great price. Of course, 32G to 64G memory at a minimum, couple SSDs, and a great disk array. ;-)

Transcode to what?

MXF has had issues. Other than Cineform there is no good AVI format that works well. MOV is out the window. Or do you mean transcode to DV?

I'm talking about same hardware/software configuration, which doesn't require an i7 to excel. In a Q6700 CPU with 8 GB of RAM, Neo Booster plays AVCHD footage like a champ, while Vegas, both 32 and 64 bit, struggle, sometimes miserably. Vegas cannot even play a simple cross dissolve at full fps, while Neo plays a cross dissolve and any other transition I throw at it without dropping a frame, without pre-rendering. Same goes for most filters and effects. Now, of course it won't play several tracks on top of each other without rendering (although it may in more powerful systems) but at least it saves me a great deal of time by not having to do a RAM preview on the next 30 seconds of footage just to be able to watch in it real time like I have to do with Vegas.

However, if the machine is configured well, with out any background processes, I'm not sure that being able to go 160mph is much better than being able to go 155mph, when there is less ability to control the vehicle.

I do try to keep my system free of extra crap, and it's leaner than most people's, but in order to keep it absolutely lean you would only need to have the OS, drivers, and Vegas, without antivirus and thus no internet connection, and that is not something I'm willing to do, because I would need to build a whole new computer just to run Vegas. My system, as it is, can edit AVCHD perfectly, but just not in Vegas, because Vegas is not fully optimized for the format.

[i]Plain and simple, AVCHD is an acquisition format. It's not Sony's responsibility to worry about making it play nice in their NLE.
]/i]

I'm afraid I have to disagree (although I once agreed with you).
Broadcasters are buying AVCHD cams like there was no tomorrow. They will NOT transcode. They don't have time. Like it or not (I don't) AVCHD is now an acquisition and editing format. It's a kiss of death for any NLE that can't manage it in some fashion, IMO. Vegas has sold several hundred seats in the sports world, simply because it can edit natively from the MSPD or SD card. It needs to continue down this path of optimizing the decode. Unfortunately, Sony relies heavily on Main Concept for this technology.

Spot says: ” Unfortunately, Sony relies heavily on Main Concept for this technology.”

What are the alternatives to Main Concept? And why does not SCS use these alternatives?

Jøran

"AVCHD is now an acquisition and editing format"

Yup.
Even old stick-in-the-mud Avid now recognizes this and the new and upcoming MC5 will support avhcd.

Yeah, Vegas support for AVCHD is extremely lacking. And Sony needs to fix this now!

Pull out all the cliches you want it doesn't change the fact.

Why is that so hard to swallow for the fan boys who eat their words every month when a the HD arena settles a little more making their previous statements completely wrong? The egos here are just amazing.

Sony Vegas get your act together by version 10 or lose more customers.

FishEyes, I don't know if you're the type of customer they want anyway.

"Why is that so hard to swallow for the fan boys who eat their words every month when a the HD arena settles a little more making their previous statements completely wrong? The egos here are just amazing."

Well here's a real productive statement that solves problems left,right, and center. Do you have any more statements to share that shatter the earth and make us all stop in awe?

"Why is that so hard to swallow for the fan boys who eat their words every month when a the HD arena settles a little more making their previous statements completely wrong? The egos here are just amazing."

I agree, but I see how FishEyes comment was prompted by this really lame comment:

"Plain and simple, AVCHD is an acquisition format. It's not Sony's responsibility to worry about making it play nice in their NLE. Shoot. Transcode. Edit. Easy."

That's a very unproductive comment, and rather insulting, it's like saying "Stop whining and do your job." It IS Sony's responsibility to worry about making it play nice in their NLE, since they claim support for it and since it's the best format for consumer and prosumer we ever had. We used to have to waste time capturing the footage from tape in real time to be able to edit, now that's done in about a quarter of the time, and it's not from a flimsy tape that can break and have drop outs.

So it is their responsibility to make sure it works.

"So it is their responsibility to make sure it works. "

It does work.
Now maybe it's not working to your particular level of satisfaction, but then neither is Edius is it, otherwise you wouldn't be here talking about Vegas's above satisfactory lay out and interface as compared to Edius.

Vegas has a preview problem when it comes to avchd, there is no doubt about that. It will ALWAYS have this problem so long as it relies strictly on the rather old fashioned VFW technique. I know that SOMEDAY they will upgrade the preview system and I'm hoping that it comes in my lifetime. But....if you're willing to swallow the preview issues (which I am) then Vegas works fine. However, it seems that every time one of these threads comes up there are 2 sides... the dissatisfied ones.... and the.... "fanboys". Now why is it that those who are satisfied are labeled "fanboys"??? A silly meaningless term used by inept people who may be a tad jealous at the level of satisfaction others are seeing.

BTW... my take on Edius (5.5) vs Vegas.... Really great r/t preview. It puts Vegas to shame.... but then it absolutely stinks in just about every other respect... soooo... pick your poison.

It does work.

It doesn't, at least not completely, for this particular format. Now, for HDV, it definitely does work. But the present and most definitely the future is about the end of tape in any format, and that's a great thing.

Now maybe it's not working to your particular level of satisfaction, but then neither is Edius is it, otherwise you wouldn't be here talking about Vegas's above satisfactory lay out and interface as compared to Edius.

You're comparing apples to oranges. That Edius lacks in some features compared to Vegas doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It means that it has a set of features and you either like them or not, but it doesn't claim to have features that it doesn't have, and it doesn't claim to support AVCHD and it doesn't properly.

And I never said that I considered Vegas' layout and interface "above satisfactory". I said that of all the NLEs, it's my favorite interface, but it's not good for everything. Actually, I find myself editing way faster in Edius because of its interface, and while I wish I could bring in a few features from Vegas into it, there are also a few things that I'd copy from Edius into the Vegas' interface.

But my point is, if Vegas aspires to be used as a pro tool, it has to bring the same level of editing that it has with HDV for AVCHD, and even more. I too, like you, was willing to swallow the preview issues in Vegas because I preferred those issues rather than having to waste time converting all the footage to an intermediate. But one day I got Neo Booster bundled with a camera, and I remembered what it was like to edit video without having to pre-render all the time just to be able to play the footage, like when I started editing DV in 1999. It's really nice to be able to apply a transition, or correct white balance and not even need to render to see the result at full frame rate. That is what Edius Neo gives me and Vegas does not, even though I wish it would.

And besides real time playback issues, Edius Neo also gives me the possibility of previewing the source footage and the timeline in the TV set in the same way I would see it out of the camera, since it has an option to send the video signal to the overlay video renderer, which the graphics card's software sends to the second monitor (TV set in my case). While Vegas has secondary monitor preview, it's a mediocre preview that either shows the two fields at the same time, or shows only one if you choose deinterlace, but it's impossible to preview interlaced footage as it was shot, and as it will be in the encoded timeline.

"You're comparing apples to oranges. That Edius lacks in some features compared to Vegas doesn't mean that it doesn't work. It means that it has a set of features and you either like them or not, but it doesn't claim to have features that it doesn't have, and it doesn't claim to support AVCHD and it doesn't properly"



Straight from the front page of Eduis website:

"EDIUS®

Now AC3 (DD5.1) is an official part of the avchd spec. Yet if I place a MTS file on the edius time line that includes 5.1, it does the same thing that Pinnacle studio, Power Director, FCE Corel, Avid MC (CS4 works but you can't output 5.1 without spending more money on an encoder)... etc does.... it either butchers the 5.1.... or it downmixes it. VEGAS is the only one that handles it correctly. In other words if I use any other product other than Vegas.... that $250 center channel mic I bought is rendered completely useless. Now in my book that makes the other products.... BROKEN

As I stated.... Edius has really great time line performance... but it stinks at just about anything else.

"Now AC3 (DD5.1) is an official part of the avchd spec."

OK, but so is AC3 2.0, which is what most cameras come with anyway. Yet, I recognize that Vegas has some better audio features than the other NLEs, but it sucks at others, for example to apply an audio filter to just an event or a group of them, you have to render it to a wav file. If you want to apply audio filters that you want to be able to adjust again later, you have to apply them at the track level, which is a royal PITA if you have to do envelopes because you end up with lots of rubberbands, as it happened to me editing a ceremony last year.

sebaz: why do you always try to wrap up your real message:

Now, if you want a decent NLE that will handle playback much better at full HD I recommend either Edius Neo 2.5 Booster or Edius 5. Booster etc. etc. blah.. blah..

quote from one of sebazz several - but clearer - former posts on this topic.

Btw: I'm editing 17-25 Mbps AVCHD every day and do not see the stutter et al that you much like to bring up as a Vegas problem - in order to promote ... well... ??

"OK, but so is AC3 2.0, which is what most cameras come with anyway. "

Yes.. and that's a great "rationalization"... but it doesn't wash because at the end of the day VEGAS is the ONLY product out there that handles avchd 5.1 correctly which is part of the official avchd spec.

And BTW.... all Sony consumer cams are now coming as 5.1 as well as almost all Panasonic consumer cams, so it's not "AC3 2.0, which is what most cameras come with anyway". That's just another "rationalization" you've drawn from the..... sky?

"I recognize that Vegas has some better audio features than the other NLEs, but it sucks at others"
Bringing us back to my point... pick your poison.

Btw: I'm editing 17-25 Mbps AVCHD every day and do not see the stutter et al that you much like to bring up as a Vegas problem - in order to promote ... well... ??

Lucky you, since most users seem to have rather mediocre AVCHD playback in Vegas. I see where you're going, but my intent is not to promote Edius, but instead to tell SCS to wake up because there's another company that has an NLE with excellent AVCHD playback and it doesn't make me waste time pre-rendering just to preview my footage. As I said many times, I do like Vegas very much in some other areas and I hope that some day it gets better code that will make it play AVCHD properly, all the time.

Editing native AVCHD in Vegas is like dealing with a hyperactive child. Transcoding the footage with NeoScene is like giving that same kid Ritalin. So much easier to deal with.

But with potentially undersireable side effects.

No side effects with NeoScene. Can't say the same with native AVCHD editing.