"Same here with the EX HQ clips."

Yes, Piotr, I should have included that as a qualifier. Thanks for the reminder.

Pretty much the same here, seems about the same as V8.0b.

HOWEVER!
I have XDCAM EX HQ on the timeline and despite all the hype about how good it is it is relatively easy on the CPU. It is easier on the CPU than EX SP, no pixels need stretching. That is easier on the CPU than HDV as the audio is PCM. That is easier on the CPU than AVCHD.

I mention this because I'm amazed at the ongoing angst over editing high compression codecs. They were never designed for editing. No doubt one day Moore's law will come to their rescue but I'll wager by then someone will have found a way to compress video even more for the masses with palmcorders and we'll have another few years of people bitching about how hard THAT is to edit.

Bob.

Been trying VP9 32-bit on the laptop with large images. Get loads of memory issues and can't render because of it most time (Core 2 Duo - 2GB RAM). Being as I use NeoScene for my intermediate codec, I see no point in testing VP9 on my production platform yet until they fix at least that part.

My concern about all those waiting for 9a, is how many people are still waiting for 8d to fix the issues, i.e. Sony may or may not fix issues. I am glad I did not pre-order. Hopefully VP9 will be fully functional by June pre-order cut-off.

"I mention this because I'm amazed at the ongoing angst over editing high compression codecs. They were never designed for editing."

I couldn't agree more, and this needs to be taken into consideration when editing stuff like native avchd. To expect smooth realtime playback during dissolves, composting... etc I think is a little unrealistic for any NLE

xander, i'm ordering 9, but sticking with 8c till 9a is released - and like lars, the sooner the better. however, i was holding out for 8d as well, which i would have hoped solved the list of outstanding problems....

i don't remember (though as my wife is wont to point out - i don't remember much in general anyway) any vegas release being so 'twitchy' (nice turn of phrase) as it appears 9 is.

personally i've downloaded the trial and on my e6600 with 3gb ram under xp 32bit it seems okay, though it takes an inordinately long time to load the i/o management section, and the preview scaling thing seems to be more 'twitchy' than running it without. (for lars - pal hdv on timeline with .png graphics).

i haven't used it for anything too complex as yet (i don't have the time to be a beta tester!), but i'm profoundly surprised that no official beta tester picked up the chroma eye-dropper bug. i've read a number of comments about whether scs actually use real life beta testers (ie. people with real world work), because it does seem a very clear bug in a fairly common situation.

then again, since i make my living out of vegas, i doubt whether i'd want to be a beta tester - it could prove very costly......

in anticipation of 9a

leslie

After having had a chance to work with Pro 9 [32bit & 64bit] for a little over 5 hours yesterday I didn't come across any major issues and no crashes to report. Even the stutter I was getting last week while previewing clips seems to have disappeared.

Tonight I'll see if come across anything when I install my Contour Shuttle Pro and try to burn a Blu-ray

Intel Q9550 @ 2.83 / Vista Ultimate 64 / 8GB DDR2

** I hope with the next update they address the ability preview HDV during capture [64bit]

I don't think it's unfair to expect that Vegas, which built its reputation on being an affordable, small-footprint, PC-optimized application, would priotize smooth editing abilities of what has become a leading consumer/prosumer video format, if not the standard for cameras in the lower price ranges.

I've been on Vegas since 6.0 -- my previews have always run smoothly through dissolves and most transitions if I use "Preview Auto" - something has changed in 9.0 whereby the same exact media will not run smoothly in 9.0 but runs fine in 8.0c on the same system with the same codec loaded etc. etc. .. The other condition is that 9.0 seems to work best when it first opens and then slowly things happen and it degrades in performance ... I've tried unchecking the new "optimal" playback feature in preview window. Has not helped.

Just tried something on my i7 920 / win 7 RC box.

I installed AVCHD Upshift. I converted some Pana HCM 150 files, that was hard to preview before, using the default 50 Mbit template.

I placed 2 of the MTS on the timeline with a long dissolve. Over the transition I placed 3 PIP's at 1/4 screensize each. At preview/Full I got full fps playback.

This is only a playback test of 20 sec. clips. No long project and no render, but I definatly think you need to convert AVCHD, and atm. M2T works better than Cineform Neo (considering playback at 'full' setting).

/Ulf

I've spent perhaps 6 hours tinkering with V9 - mostly trying to open old projects that never would render gracefully in V8. I have not yet been able to get any of the long projects to open.

All starts well, with preview screen, thumbnails starting to appear, etc. On some projects, I'm even able to get the first minute or so to play from the timeline.

But then a "sorry, Vegas has to close" message, or sometimes no message at all. Sometimes I get a "Problem Report" window that then opens, and when I click on "show problem details" I see that it reports m2tsplug.dll, fault address of 0x03E1B320, followed by an offset number.

After trying all sorts of changes (no preview window, no thumbnails, no waveforms, etc.) I did get a 2-min. project with lots of effects to open and play tolerably well. I even was able to render it out with the PicVideo MJPEG codec. Same with a simple test project that I created. So not all is broken.

I really don't want any new Vegas features, I just want it to render and not choke on large still images (I haven't yet tested large stills, but I read on the forum that the stills problem is no longer the problem that it was in earlier Vegas versions)

So far, my impression is that V9.0 was shipped on time but unfinished.

As often happens when a large parent company is facing harder economic times, SONY may have pressured the Madison group into releasing V9 as early as possible to get a revenue stream going. Mind you, this is merely conjecture based on my experiences in the corporate world.

No problems here. Using V9 on a XP32 bit Quad-Core & an XP Core 2 Duo Laptop. V9 seems to load faster than V8. I haven't rendered yet just captured & edited m2t files. I like having the NewBlue effects - I plan to use them.
Will report again after rendering.

"I mention this because I'm amazed at the ongoing angst over editing high compression codecs. They were never designed for editing."

I totally disagree. Any mainstream video format HAS to be designed with editing in mind, even if not for professional editing. From the moment that they decided AVCHD was going to be in most of the HD camcorders for the next few years, they had to realize that it was going to be edited in some way or another.

To expect smooth realtime playback during dissolves, composting... etc I think is a little unrealistic for any NLE

Well, have you tried Premiere CS4? Because I just loaded the same footage files from my Canon HF100 in it and not only they play perfectly fine at full fps, also without even rendering a cross dissolve transition, when the cursor goes through the transition it doesn't even stutter, with High Quality selected as preview quality. This is probably because I have a Quad Core with 8 GB of RAM, a fact that Vegas seems oblivious to.

Also absolutely smooth in Premiere: when going through simple cuts from one take to the next, whether I made the cut in Premiere or it was the original beginning of the take. In Vegas 8, each time the cursor goes through a cut, it will stutter at the beginning of the next take. In Vegas 9, it's just painful to watch, that same stutter that lasts 3 or 4 seconds is also present at the beginning of each take or event. It's just pathetic.

They were never designed for editing. No doubt one day Moore's law will come to their rescue

Moore's law is not what this is about. This is about Sony Creative Software simply not having the resources or not caring about delivering a good NLE. Because even if you don't compare Vegas to other NLEs, when you have a version that when you press play on the timeline it starts playing right away at full speed, and then they release a new version that when you press play on the timeline it stutters for 4 seconds until it gets to full speed, that is not a serious company. Nobody will make me believe that when they were testing it that nobody realized this. They are trying to get people hiped with some new features but they didn't fix old bugs, and even worse, they introduced new ones.

It's really sad that a product that has the potential to be really great because of its interface and some usability features is currently in a pathetic state because the company behind it just can't or won't do what's necessary to make it work right. They should sell it to another software company with the will and resources to take it in the right direction.

Avanti...

I am running Vista 64bit with a Q9300 and 8gB ram. Have you tried outputting to an external monitor from the trimmer window?

No matter what kind of footage I put in the trimmer window the system freezes when I try to output to external monitor. I have to go to the task manager to end it. External monitor from preview window works fine. Also can send trimmer to preview window and then to external monitor works, but not directly from trimmer window.

Thanks,

Galen


Th

"Any mainstream video format HAS to be designed with editing in mind."

Not at all. The industry is already well versed in the use of both proxies and digital intermediates. Even when I edited 16mm decades ago we used a proxy, a work print. This process is still with us today even in the digital realm. The full res files are only used in the final grade and finishing process.

"Well, have you tried Premiere CS4?"
Only CS3 to date, yet to install my CS4 upgrade. However I have noticed PPro CS3 build proxies and Adobe and other's documentation and training also make considerable mention of the use of proxies.

I'm not making excuses for SCS here. There is room for valid criticism of them for not making the use of proxies native to the application and the whole offline / online workflow is impossible with Vegas. The only area where they natively support it is XDCAM Optical as the proxies are generated in the camera. The RED camera also has a method of generating low quality proxies for editing.

For those who want full raster full frame rate editing of these modern high compression codecs then the lack of support for what is now very cheap hardware acceleration is also a valid complaint.

All that said I still standby my original statement that acquisition codecs are not designed with editing in mind. The post / editing process is solved by not editing the native material. Acquisition codecs are designed for minimal bandwidth and low power consumption. The lower the pricepoint of the camera the more imperative those design constraints become.
We have a quite nice camera that uses a variant of the same wavelet technology used in AVCHD. The footage is realitvely easy to edit however the camera uses over 50W of power and eats large batteries very quickly. Such technology simply cannot be used in a palmcorder.

Bob.

"Well, have you tried Premiere CS4? "

No.
But I did do a google search on "cs4 avchd playback problems" and got lots and lots of hits. Quite funny actually because if you read through some of the various forums there are angry cs4 users threatening to leave Adobe for Sony Vegas Pro.

Look... when you get into this stuff you fast learn that although the problems may be slightly different.... the head aches as a result are all the same.

While I have NO experience with CS4 at all.... from what I have heard, it's not quite as crash happy as CS3... but it's still quite the mess.

Admittedly, Vegas timeline playback is not the greatest and it really is time for SCS to start thinking of something new, but that's the only serious problem I see with it... and even with that there ARE work arounds... like SHIFT-B for example. Now you can go the CS4 way if you want but in the long run... you'll just be trading one set of head aches for another.

HD preview is more like a slide show. The cineform incompatibilities are already documented. Rendering to _progressive_ HDV M2T fails after about half a second, even after installing the V8c m2tsplug.dll in place of the V9 one.

For now, I cannot use V9, and have gone back to V8c.

But I did do a google search on "cs4 avchd playback problems" and got lots and lots of hits. Quite funny actually because if you read through some of the various forums there are angry cs4 users threatening to leave Adobe for Sony Vegas Pro.

Well, my guess is that when they start using Vegas Pro, at least for AVCHD, especially if they use v9, they will run back to CS4.

Admittedly, Vegas timeline playback is not the greatest and it really is time for SCS to start thinking of something new, but that's the only serious problem I see with it... and even with that there ARE work arounds... like SHIFT-B for example. Now you can go the CS4 way if you want but in the long run... you'll just be trading one set of head aches for another.

RAM preview is a great feature in Vegas, but it's completely unacceptable to me that I will have to use it for something so simple as starting to play a take smoothly instead of in stuttery slow motion. That's just pathetic. RAM preview is supposed to be used for transitions or previewing intensive filters at full fps.

Well Sebaz, all I can tell you is stop complaining and do something about it. I'm certainly having my fair share of audio issues this morning... run into what appears to be 2 bugs so far that are really slowing me down:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=654848&Replies=3
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=654874&Replies=0

I'll file my bug tickets and for the moment I think I'll take my work over to Adobe Audition until they get it sorted out. But in spite of this Vegas is GREAT program and I will continue to use and enjoy it.

Now if you think CS4 is your answer to your problem then for heavens sake stop wasting time complaining about Vegas and go give CS4 a shot.

See, I think I have all the right to complain, because I may have gotten Vegas 8 for cheap, but it still cost me money. But apart from that, I want to complain because it's extremely aggravating that a product that is so great is certain aspects is made into a mediocre one because of a few bugs that the company behind it doesn't care to address, and even worse, they think that starting a playback in slow motion is OK. That's why I remark that SCS has to sell Vegas to a company that will take it and fix those bugs to make it the great product that it has the potential to be.

Here works fine, Q9400 2GB, HD EX1 (1440x1080i, 50) clip with gaussian blur + superimpose title, all in real time at all sizes.

Cheer SCS, bravo!

Erni