Codecs for Vegas

robwood wrote on 12/22/2009, 9:14 AM

one thing i used to like about Vegas was that almost any video/audio file i threw at it, it could read.

this isn't the case as often anymore i find... for instance just now i couldn't read the audio from an mpga file, but Premiere could... go figure...

anyway, i put this down to
1) Vegas not being so much a swiss-army-knife and more just a regular NLE
2) more effort having to be made by the editor to gather up useful codecs.
3) i'm sure there's other reasons but i don't care, i'm stopping at #2

so is there a list of top ten codecs that every Vegas editor should hunt down and install, along with a step-by-step for the trickier ones?

for instance (again), i collated a step-by-step for installing Lagarith/Huffyuv on 64-bit OS's at DVInfo a while back.

i'd like to be able to read just about ANYTHING... i realize some formats just don't wanna be read, but others will read on Vegas 7 but not Vegas 9. wtf is that?

anyway, is there anything out there i can use/study/add so i can read more of the wacky formats i get handed?

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 12/22/2009, 10:13 AM

Rob,
I too remember when Vegas could handle anything I threw at it -- with the exception of that occasional MJPEG-AVI.

I think the main reason for the number of unreadable file types is:

4) The proliferation of lower-end, point-and-shoot, pocket, and SLR camcorders. Although many claim to be HD, I dare say most of them are nowhere close to real AVCHD, which Vegas honors.

Just from trolling these forums, I have seen these mutations:
MOV/MP4/M4V AVC AC3
MOV/MP4/M4V AVC AAC
AVI MJPEG
AVI AVC (why would anyone want to do that?)
DIVX/XVID (or that?)

And those are just some of the more common ones. Sony does a good job of keeping up with documented formats, but if they were to issue a patch every time a Chinese manufacturer conjures up another codec / wrapper flavor, I dare say professional development would cease. They also have some licensing agreements, which might have to be renegotiated any time they want to support a different codec / wrapper combination (I know, that's not "our" problem).

Add to that the number of obsoleted legacy formats in Vista / Win7, and continually updated AVC profile / level definitions, and Sony ends up getting blamed for a lot.

That being said, there are workarounds for most of these issues, from simply renaming extensions, to installing a third party codec, or rarely a third-party encode, and since getting these files to open in Vegas has been kind of a hobby of mine, my impressions are that most users are OK with using a workaround, that Sony does pay attention to the forums, and that the fixes are often incorporated into the next update release, sometimes silently. That's a game of catchup, and Sony may be ahead or behind other NLEs on any given front.

So at a less than perfect point in digital video evolution, with development of cheap hardware solutions and no real standards for non-professional formats, our
(and Sony's) best strategy might be to wait and see where the technology eventually settles, and employ innovative workarounds in the meantime.

History repeats itself, and some consensus will emerge, with the likelihood of giving birth to some new industry standards in the foreseeable future (remember mp3?). Just wanted to offer a different point of view on this, and let Sony off the hook for the moment, because it is unlikely that any of these portable video manufacturers gave any advance notice of their codec and wrapper choices.

There is a list of current workarounds in my tutorial, however they are not all-inclusive and are necessarily a work in progress.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=12&MessageID=660127

jabloomf1230 wrote on 12/22/2009, 4:39 PM

This is a commonly mentioned problem, which is due to the way that Vegas accesses codecs. All NLEs, including Vegas, come with built-in codecs that cover the gamut of audio and video formats that one normally encounters. Unfortunately, Vegas will not utilize 3rd party DirectShow (the Microsoft Windows present standard) codecs, which forces developers like Cineform, etc. to provide, at a minimum, a Video for Windows (VFW, the previous, legacy MS standard) decoder, just to get Vegas to properly read files.

And since Vegas will not utilize 3rd party DS video decoders, if a video file codec is even a bit non-standard, there is almost no way of getting the file to be opened correctly in Vegas. You are pretty much stuck with buying some intermediate video conversion program and hoping that the output format will work in Vegas.

PerroneFord wrote on 12/22/2009, 6:02 PM

There are also some one-way conversions.

I archive to MJpeg2000. Vegas will happily write that format with the quicktime version into a .MOV, or into an AVI file with my installed Morgan Multimedia. However, Vegas will NOT then open the AVI file for reading. I tries, but all it gives are red frames. Fortunately, VirtualDub will read and write it. And I suspect anything that uses Directshow will also.

Honestly, in a professional application, I don't care that Vegas Pro doesn't support every little format that comes along. But at a MINIMUM, it should have excellent support for the SMPTE/ISO standard formats. Obviously, it supports the Sony pro formats, though XDCamEX was a bit slow in coming. But really, DVCProHD, CanopusHQ, and the quicktime codecs should move well on the timeline. Either that, or build in a good intermediate. Preferably a Wavelet one with 8-bit and 10-bit support.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/22/2009, 6:46 PM

However, Vegas will NOT then open the AVI file for reading.

Installing the trial version of the MainConcept MJPEG codec may allow you to open these files. John Meyer found this one.

PerroneFord wrote on 12/22/2009, 6:52 PM

MJpeg is not the same thing as Jpeg2000. They use entirely different compression technology. And again, I installed a codec to WRITE the format. It allows all my other applications to read the format. Vegas just can't.

robwood wrote on 12/22/2009, 7:31 PM

thx musicvid, i'll read ur posting over supper :)

and yeh PerroneFord, not expecting Vegas to read all formats all the time but it used to be my rosetta stone for video, whatever NLE i might be using for a project... but seems like last 3 years or so i can't rely on Vegas for that... sigh... not so much an issue with software being professional... that's MY job: i just like it to be convenient :)

and what's the video conversion app of choice now?

PerroneFord wrote on 12/22/2009, 9:03 PM

How many new formats have been introduced over the past 3 years? I know Sony has introduced several, Panasonic 3, I believe, Canon has a new one, JVC came up with 1 or 2, and then there's the ones from the phones, the point and shoot cams, the new intermediates, there's Dirac, MJ2K, VC-3, VC-1, etc. And that's just the video side.

You have to draw the line somewhere...

TLF wrote on 12/22/2009, 11:36 PM

I use the free software Format Factory to convert/split/mux audio and video files. Does the trick for me, and versatile enough for my needs.

http://www.formatoz.com/index.html

Grazie wrote on 12/23/2009, 12:38 AM

TFL? Or anybody? Just what is WRONG with this Free software?

I downloaded. I installed and it has just the best ever GUI - it just WORKS!! - What is the "catch" here? What isn't it capable of doing and so on? If it is as easy as it appears at first usage, I'm going to use this instead of Enright's (Ensoft?)"SuperC".

TFL thanks for the heads-up. So nice to have a straightforward GUI and so on . .

Grazie

TLF wrote on 12/23/2009, 1:13 AM

Well, it tries to install the Ask toolbar, and puts a link to ebay on the desktop.

I did a conversion of HDV to MJPEG, and it looked terrible! Howver, it was no worse than I've had from Super.

But it's been invaluable when converting an unsupported .mov format to AVI (video shot on a kodak stills camera).

Personally, I use it more for stripping audio from YouTube (flv) files.

Grazie wrote on 12/23/2009, 2:08 AM

Thanks - g

Chris N wrote on 12/23/2009, 11:26 AM

So I'm confused about the mainconcept codecs. I used to use the Mainconcept mpeg-2 codec for blu rays.

It is still an option in Sony Vegas, but when I render these files there is no video, just sound.

So has Sony stopped including support for this format in Sony Vegas Pro 9.0, or is this just an issue that my media players can no longer play the format.

Or have I done something wrong in setting up the render? I've checked all settings and they seem to be the same as before.

musicvid10 wrote on 12/23/2009, 11:32 AM

The MainConcept DVDA and Blu-Ray templates are video-only by default.
This has not changed from previous versions.

It is expected that you will render a separate AC-3 (or PCM) file to complete the audio portion of your project. Both files are then imported into DVD Architect to author your DVD or Blu-Ray project.