AVC a PAIN!

Arthur.S wrote on 2/5/2012, 5:38 AM
I normally produce m2t for Blu-ray (using the TMPGEnc no compress method) but I was asked by a client to produce final output to AVC for BD and MPEG2 for a DVD version. My normal workflow is to work in 'chapters' rendering each one as it's complete, then smart rendering the 'whole' afterwards. Much better quality control - for me at least. I chose Sony AVC, but no version/flavour of it would smart render (which I knew before I started). After a 7hr render, I've just noticed a 1sec glitch. That means another 7hr render! Madness. I'll be very recluctant to use any form of AVC again - unless it's a short project. ;-)

On the good news side, the client supplied a mixture of HDV, .MOV, and H.264 files. 9e coped very well with all of them on the same timeline. Something I was worried about. :-)

Comments

PeterDuke wrote on 2/5/2012, 7:15 AM
" I chose Sony AVC, but no version/flavour of it would smart render "

Sony AVCHD will smart render in version 9c (the last version that will). Other brands of AVCHD may not.

Be prepared for a few crashes, so save often.

It doesn't like images mixed with AVCHD (the image thumbnails turn red and/or the images turn black). You might be lucky with a single image here and there, but I normally have to render the images to AVCHD first in another instance of Vegas.
Arthur.S wrote on 2/5/2012, 8:14 AM
Yeah, I remembered that just in the nick of too late Peter. Though from memory, it was very hit and miss. A strange decision by SCS to discontinue it altogether.
PeterDuke wrote on 2/5/2012, 4:44 PM
If you trim the start or add a subtitle at the start of a clip it takes quite some time before it starts smart rendering (longer than what the GOP is, I would think), so if you have lots of short clips with trimmed start you might never see smart rendering.

AVCHD smart rendered with other tools such as VideoReDo or Smart Cutter don't smart render in Vegas 9c either, if my memory serves me right. I should revisit that aspect some time. I've got a list of about a dozen apps that are supposed to smart render AVCHD that I should check.
musicvid10 wrote on 2/5/2012, 7:12 PM
"A strange decision by SCS to discontinue it altogether."

AVC has a very long and complex GOP structure. Sony put smart rendering with reindexing on the back burner because it was not ready yet. Even VideoRedo h264, which is probably at the head of the class, still has some tweaking to do to make it bulletproof, and its fulltime developers have spent years working on it. Kind of like trying to put the milk back into the cow.
Steve Mann wrote on 2/5/2012, 10:10 PM
"A strange decision by SCS to discontinue it altogether."

Everyone wanted GPU support.
Be careful what you wish for.....
Arthur.S wrote on 2/6/2012, 3:45 AM
From memory, what happened with AVC smart render (for me anyways) was, it would start off fine, and then randomly go back to full render. Never seemed related to anything in particular. Sometimes it'd SR for a minute, sometimes a few minutes. But as soon as it went back to full render, that was it. SR over. :-( I can remember a few people getting success with it by some template customisation, so it couldn't have been too far away from a fix surely?
PeterDuke wrote on 2/6/2012, 6:35 AM
Were these AVCHD files from a Sony camera, and what bit rate for the video? About 18Mbps? Those are my specs. I seldom have any really long clips so perhaps that may be why I have not noticed your problem specifically.
Arthur.S wrote on 2/6/2012, 9:00 AM
It's along time since I've used 9c Peter, but from memory, the clips were originally m2t HDV from my Canon cameras. Rendered to the 15mbps Sony AVC template.
PeterDuke wrote on 2/6/2012, 10:08 PM
HDV is MPEG2 so there is no way you could smart render that to AVCHD. Do you mean that the AVC that Vegas produced from it would not subsequently smart render?

There has been other threads about DVDA wanting to re-render HDV but that is another matter.
Arthur.S wrote on 2/7/2012, 5:35 AM
Do you mean that the AVC that Vegas produced from it would not subsequently smart render? Yes.

As I said above, I use TMPGEnc AW4 to smart render HDV for DVDA. Works perfectly.
PeterDuke wrote on 2/7/2012, 7:45 AM
I understand that it also smart renders HDV while authoring a Blu-ray, while DVDA doesn't.