AVCHD rendering problem with LARGE files

trojanrobmc wrote on 12/9/2011, 5:31 PM
I've posted about this issue before, and while it seems other people have had similar problems, I don't know if anyone's been able to figure it out yet.

First off, my system: Sony VAIO Z laptop, i5 processor, 8GB ram, SSD drive, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. I'm running Vegas Platinum 11 HD.

I'm trying to render a movie in the Sony AVC format (AVCHD, 1440x1080, 60i). If I render anything that's 8 minutes or less, it seems to render with no problem. However, longer files (10-12 minutes or longer) seem much less stable when fully rendered. For example, even though the render completes withou any kind of error, once you try to play it back, the first part of the movie pays fine, but toward the end of it, it's very jerky and choppy.

Why is it doing this? I've monitored my memory use during the render, and it doesn't appear that I'm running out of memory. Could it be that my processor is overheating? I tried rendering it while keeping the processor at 50% max speed, and it didn't seem to get hot, but it still produced a bad render. I had this same problem with Vegas 10, but it was much worse. With Vegas 11, I've had some success rendering longer files, but have still had problems.

Thoughts?

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 12/9/2011, 7:34 PM
Yours is a playback issue, not a rendering issue.
The effects of sustained high bitrate are cumulative, so the cpu may not start to falter until later in the playback.

That being said, AVCHD is not a recommended playback format, period. It is an acquisition format that is unfriendly by nature to software playback.
A couple of options are to render 720p for computer playback, or to a more friendly playback format, such as x264 in Handbrake. And back off your bitrate.
pierreontheair wrote on 12/11/2011, 5:53 AM
I had similar issue with Vegas Studio 10, not Studio 11 so far (thought it was fixed with new version). Anyway, what I did with Vegas 10 issue, was to process the final rendered file in tsMuxer; this takes a few minutes and fixed my problems then. tsMuxer as a free utility you can easily download; just use the default settings.
trojanrobmc wrote on 12/12/2011, 5:55 PM
Pierreontheair,

Wow, you are the man! Processing the renders in tsMuxer seems to have done the trick. I wonder why I need to do that? Oh well, no everything seems to be working fine with it.

Thanks
pierreontheair wrote on 12/13/2011, 3:48 AM
I am happy it worked, less happy that Sony did not fix its AVCHD rendering in version 11. Well at least there is a fix. By the way, I do not know what tsMuxer does exactly.
trojanrobmc wrote on 12/14/2011, 3:01 AM
Yes, thank you very much. I just rendered a 24 minute AVCHD file 1440x1080/60i...which took about 1.5 hours on my PC. It did not play well UNTIL fixed by tsMuxeR...which took only 15 seconds to fix the file. Now it works fine.

You said it right...why couldn't Sony fix this problem?!?! It seems so easy with tsMuxeR.
TOG62 wrote on 12/14/2011, 3:50 AM
I seem to recall someone saying that the 'fixed' files are not so good for DVDA, if the intention is to burn discs.
alain38330 wrote on 12/21/2011, 9:20 AM
It is precisely when I created AVCHD DVD disks with tsMuxer (it works perfectly), that I discovered the .m2ts files of the STREAM folder were stable and sound/video "in sync", while the .m2ts entry (from Sony AVCHD standard format VMS10) were unstable,not "in sync" and often not re-importable in VMS10...

Later on I found the same "solution" in an other forum (US) to a problem which seems several years old and is going along several VMS releases including VMS11.

I didn't found any explaination to the extend that I posted in this forum a question regarding the "usage" Sony think we must do with its own .mt2s format.

The post is untitled
"Sony AVCHD m2ts rendered files question mark"
and remains un-answered at this stage.

By the way, the reason why I am using TsMuxer to create AVCHD DVD Disk and not Sony PMB is the following: PMB re-render the entire m2ts file issued from VMS10, so that means time and loss of quality, while TsMuxer just recopy (with a miraculous small change) without rendering again the Sony m2ts file in a xxxx.m2ts file in the STREAM folder of the BDMV folder.
aquaholik wrote on 12/21/2011, 2:24 PM
Fixed files or not fixed files .m2ts files rendered by VMS10 are not good if your intention is to burn blue ray disc using DVDA. Use the mainconcept mpeg2(.m2v) blue ray templates and render the audio separately with the same files name and DVDA will handle it.

For playback on hard disk media player, .mp4 is more universal. Every set top box and built in media player on most TV, blu ray player, Seagate, WD, Logitech Revue will play those files without a problem in 1080p. There is hardly a reason to put anything on blue ray disc anymore since it is so much easier, cheaper, and more flexible with a hard drive base media player.
alain38330 wrote on 12/22/2011, 8:18 AM
which bring us back to my question one month ago (11/21/2011) :
"Does someone have an idea of why Sony is proposing this format?"

not readable, not re-importable.
aquaholik wrote on 12/22/2011, 11:26 AM
Let's just put it this way. The rendered .m2ts files created by VMS10(or 11 in your case) won't even play correctly on Sony's own PS3. While I say that, I love VMS10(using 11 now) and it is remarkably stable once you apply the CFF Explorer fix. That and this quirk with .m2ts files is the only two issues that I've run across except for maybe a few black scene with the Kodak playsports.

Other than that, it's been rock solid in blue ray disc creation from AVCHD camcorder and various files format from different cameras. Compare that to the super buggy Premiere Elements 8 that I came from and it is night and day. Like anything else, it gets more intuitive the more you use it and it has been 99% problem free since the CFF fix.
alain38330 wrote on 12/23/2011, 6:22 AM
I am using VMS10 for a few months now and refering to this small experince, I basically agree with you.
I was previously using Pinnacle with DV and realy I like much more VMS (excluding the DV versus HD effect).

I am just surprised that Sony has never reacted to a many years old problem affecting its own m2ts format and just continue release after release to serve a buggy stuff to their customer.

This being said I will probably go to VMS11
Tim48 wrote on 12/29/2011, 6:02 PM
I was having the same problem with VMS HD Plat 10 for 1920x1080 video files with 5.1 surround sound and durations longer than 3 minutes. I fixed them with tsMuxeR and I didn't notice any degradation even after burning to Blu ray.

With VMS HD Plat 11 build 283 I haven't seen the problem yet.