It always depends on the video and audio codec used within the (MOV) wrapper.

Standard h264 in a MOV wrapper is what my Olympus mirrorless cameras output. I also believe most DSLR cameras also output MOV wrapped video clips.

MOV files containing H.264 have been supported for many years without Quicktime. I just checked again with a Canon 7D 1920x1080 29.97p H.264+PCM MOV file. It opens in Vegas Pro 10 with compoundplug.dll. Of H.264-in-MOV-files, it's mostly just iPhone/iPad videos that needed Quicktime before VP15.

Pending an answer to my last question in our private message chat, my advice would be to stop using Cineform unless you really need alpha channel, and just use your native camera footage on the timeline.

MOV files containing H.264 have been supported for many years without Quicktime. I just checked again with a Canon 7D 1920x1080 29.97p H.264+PCM MOV file. It opens in Vegas Pro 10 with compoundplug.dll. Of H.264-in-MOV-files, it's mostly just iPhone/iPad videos that needed Quicktime before VP15.

Pending an answer to my last question in our private message chat, my advice would be to stop using Cineform unless you really need alpha channel, and just use your native camera footage on the timeline.

Just sent you a PM but that has been my thinking about just using the native clips now - that will greatly reduce the amount of time in prepping files to go to post... Thanks @NickHope

And please seriously consider stopping trying to do GPU acceleration with your old GPU and old driver. You probably don't need it.

And please seriously consider stopping trying to do GPU acceleration with your old GPU and old driver. You probably don't need it.

I'm looking for a new graphics card now... I realized my ancient GTX-660ti is not going to cut it any longer for video. Works great for editing stills though. Timeline playback performance is my #1 need - is AMD still the way to go on that?

And please seriously consider stopping trying to do GPU acceleration with your old GPU and old driver. You probably don't need it.

I'm looking for a new graphics card now... I realized my ancient GTX-660ti is not going to cut it any longer for video. Works great for editing stills though. Timeline playback performance is my #1 need - is AMD still the way to go on that?

Unfortunately I don't know.

My advice, bearing in mind your old GPU and your habitual use of Cineform is:

1. Start using your native camera footage directly on the timeline, unless you really need alpha channel for something.
2. Turn OFF GPU acceleration of video processing.
3. Revisit this post; there is A LOT you may be able to do to get smoother playback, and it's always worth a check. For example, using Preview (full) preview may look pretty much the same as Best (full).
4. If you things get clunky after adding multiple FX, then try disabling so4compoundplug. Compoundplug may still be a bit snappier.
5. If things are still clunky, you still have the option of proxies, and switching back to your original media for final render.

@NickHope - I think it has more to do with certain Vegas accelerated FX I use - although sparingly. I do use Neat Video which brings any machine to it's knees from what I've been reading. The Motion Title graphics generated in Vegas stand out to me in dropping my playback from normal to sluggish (30fps down to as low as 10fps). I have to stop playback in order for Vegas to catch back up. would retrying the iGPU on my i8700K help with that? More RAM?

@NickHopeI think it has more to do with certain Vegas accelerated FX I use - although sparingly. I do use Neat Video which brings any machine to it's knees from what I've been reading...

But I still think there's a very good chance that you'll get smoother playback when those sort of FX are applied to your original media than Cineform intermediates. Vegas does very well with regular 8-bit 4:2:0 AVC files, which I believe is what you're using. But yes, Neat Video is probably so "heavy" that the relative difference won't be great.

...The Motion Title graphics generated in Vegas stand out to me in dropping my playback from normal to sluggish (30fps down to as low as 10fps). I have to stop playback in order for Vegas to catch back up....

How are you generating the titles? Protype Titler for one is apparently not GPU accelerated.

@NickHopewould retrying the iGPU on my i8700K help with that?...

Maybe. Test it! Easy to do. I give it at least as good a chance of success as your GTX-660ti. If it gives you stability issues, then one slightly radical thing you could try would be to completely disable your GTX-660ti in the Windows Device Manager for Vegas sessions, so it only has access to the Intel graphics. Having both Intel + AMD/NVIDIA GPUs available has recently been a cause of instability for some users, which is the reason for the new preference to disable QSV. But apparently disabling the discrete GPU (instead of Intel QSV) can also resolve the conflict.

...More RAM?

Possibly, but 16GB is not a mean amount. Monitoring with the Windows Resource Monitor should indicate how much RAM is being used.

@NickHope - I've been experimenting with using transcoding XAVC variants via Catalyst - I'm still testing the native footage as well to see what - if anything improves.

The only way I've discovered so far to create Cineform files from my Olympus cameras is via Adobe Media Encoder since my cameras create h264 MOV files and GoPro Studio crashes when trying to import them. My attempts at using ffmpeg to rewrap to mp4 totally mangled the audio so I gave up on that.

I'm still testing the performance differences between native files and transcoded files - but now I'm testing the differences between XAVC-I and XAVC-L and so far I like what I see IQ wise. XAVC-I creates larger files than even Cineform and of course Premiere Pro CS6 throws a generic error and can't import them which isn't surprising given it's age, so I'm doing as you have suggested and testing native clips vs XAVC encoded clip variants in Vegas.

With regards to RAM - I read some place else here on the forums that Vegas can't utilize more than 32GB of RAM - is that correct? I currently have 16GB installed and was thinking about installing another 16GB for a total of 32GB of RAM in addition to getting a newer discreet GPU.

...With regards to RAM - I read some place else here on the forums that Vegas can't utilize more than 32GB of RAM - is that correct? I currently have 16GB installed and was thinking about installing another 16GB for a total of 32GB of RAM in addition to getting a newer discreet GPU.

I'm afraid I don't know, and I don't recall reading that. An extra 16GB certainly won't do any harm, particularly if you want to do other intensive stuff on the computer while it's rendering, but this 3-year old discussion indicates that 16GB is enough. I got 32GB on my current machine, but really because I was building a machine for the long-run and just wanted to make RAM a non-issue.

Cliff. Check out the new thread I post about .MOV files. You can see it for yourself. You are wasting to much times for doing conversion. Back in the day, many people using an intermediate because back then computer/graphic card are not as powerful as today. Edit straight from the camera native footage is the way to go. Unless you editing 3-5 tracks with 4K and multicam editing. Then yeah, that should convert to a much friendly codecs for smooth edit/play back. Just my 02 cents.

@BruceUSA Can you please post that on this thread instead of starting a new one?

...With regards to RAM - I read some place else here on the forums that Vegas can't utilize more than 32GB of RAM - is that correct? I currently have 16GB installed and was thinking about installing another 16GB for a total of 32GB of RAM in addition to getting a newer discreet GPU.

I'm afraid I don't know, and I don't recall reading that. An extra 16GB certainly won't do any harm, particularly if you want to do other intensive stuff on the computer while it's rendering, but this 3-year old discussion indicates that 16GB is enough. I got 32GB on my current machine, but really because I was building a machine for the long-run and just wanted to make RAM a non-issue.

That has been my thinking about "future proofing" in the longer term for RAM. It seems though that Vegas utilizes RAM more efficiently - something that Adobe has never gotten right - They recommend the more ram the better and machines built from companies like Puget Systems, etc clearly show that - bragging about how you can spec as much as 128GB of Ram to run Premiere and After Effects... And I'm guessing Resolve as well.

Glad to know Vegas is easier on hardware specs - but still would like to see a proper DIY hardware list KNOWN to work well and rock solid stability with Vegas (especially recommended graphics cards for either/both smooth timeline playback AND rendering - just like the other NLE options out there. As those other companies say - deviate from our recommended list, YMMV on stability/performance.

VP 15 Timeline performance with native files. I7 4930K @4.5ghz r9 290X.

https://vimeo.com/272093533

@BruceUSA

Cool. So that's gh5 4k 10 bit footage playing back best / full real-time with a few "light" effects. Looks good.

How does it do with transitions and other composited elements in the timeline ? I noticed the basic text overlay was no problem, but maybe moving text, or a lower third with a gradient wipe.... Would be nice to know. 😀

@BruceUSA

Cool. So that's gh5 4k 10 bit footage playing back best / full real-time with a few "light" effects. Looks good.

How does it do with transitions and other composited elements in the timeline ? I noticed the basic text overlay was no problem, but maybe moving text, or a lower third with a gradient wipe.... Would be nice to know. 😀

OK. I am working it. I will have something upload later on.

Here it is. I added anmiate text and crossfade still playing back best full.

https://vimeo.com/272121887

Thanks for that; much appreciated.

Doesn't seem like a prohibitively expensive setup: A grand for the CPU + mobo, and another grand for the GPU, memory, etc. and you have a great Vegas rig.

Thanks for that; much appreciated.

Doesn't seem like a prohibitively expensive setup: A grand for the CPU + mobo, and another grand for the GPU, memory, etc. and you have a great Vegas rig.

No problem. We are here to share information to help each other for the better. I have been running this set up for almost 5 years and its is still a very good combo as of now. This is now as my secondary editing rig. My primary editing rig is the new AMD1950X with Frontier Edition card. A lot more powerful system and much more enjoyable editing experience.

@BruceUSA as much as I'd love to upgrade to the latest AMD Vega GPU, it's just too rich for my bank account - What other card would you recommend? TBH, I have a max budget of $300 and have been looking at older R9 290/390 GPU's on eBay. TBH, I'm pretty soured by nVidia performance in general with Vegas and PPro CS6 (The latter is mediocre in performance in general but it bailed me out when I started projects in previous versions of Vegas that were crashing) - the idea of going back to Premiere is not something I want to consider now that Vegas 15 seems really stable for me. I still have my old Radeon 6970 in a drawer from the last time I tried Vegas and didn't see any appreciable improvement in playback of the timeline (or stability). I need to keep my old nVidia 660ti in my machine until the two projects I'm working that I edited in Premiere get the official ok on the final revisions I've sent for review as it doesn't support any AMD cards. After that, I'm done with Premiere Pro (I hope)

@BruceUSA as much as I'd love to upgrade to the latest AMD Vega GPU, it's just too rich for my bank account - What other card would you recommend? TBH, I have a max budget of $300 and have been looking at older R9 290/390 GPU's on eBay. TBH, I'm pretty soured by nVidia performance in general with Vegas and PPro CS6 (The latter is mediocre in performance in general but it bailed me out when I started projects in previous versions of Vegas that were crashing) - the idea of going back to Premiere is not something I want to consider now that Vegas 15 seems really stable for me. I still have my old Radeon 6970 in a drawer from the last time I tried Vegas and didn't see any appreciable improvement in playback of the timeline (or stability). I need to keep my old nVidia 660ti in my machine until the two projects I'm working that I edited in Premiere get the official ok on the final revisions I've sent for review as it doesn't support any AMD cards. After that, I'm done with Premiere Pro (I hope)

Cliff. As you can see in my video, the r9 290X doing very good in TL performance with 4K footage. Its will chewing thru your 1080P footage super smooth without any issue. As you have mention Neat Video. Neat Video is known to slowing down the system quiet a bit. But as you have said in your other thread. You only apply neat video at the very end before you render. Graphic card are so damn expensive now a day. With your limited budget, a used any one of this 290/290X/390XFury X will serve you fine. Your 8700K with 4.5ghz + and the mentioned card will give you smooth play back on the TL. Remenber, your 8700K is more powerful then my old 4930K 6 cores. You have got a very good system there.

The only down side with the older cards mention here. They don't support hecv. But you still get AMD VCE. AMD VCE rendering is very fast. On my testing. I was not able to render 4K with AMD VCE, getting error. But I can render AMD VCE with 1080P just fine. I don't know this is just at my end or any other having the same issue or not. But I can still render 4K without AMD VCE but painfully slow.

On my other system with Vega 10 Frontier edition . I can 4K 2160P with AMD VCE, no problem. That something to consider about newer AMD card.