No, the other stopped at 47.4% with a message:
"MP4/MOV error: Invalid H.264/AVC frame at position 5420941195"

The drive is formatted NTSF. The drive it came from might be.

You said that the original shooter had trouble getting the files off of the SD card, it sounds like the files have been broken since before you got them. Since these files were both over an hour, the camera had to split them into segments to fit on the FAT32 SD card, the original shooter needed to use the software that came with the Sony camera to combine these individual segments into the final file. I'm guessing that he messed up this step somehow.

No, sorry Fosko. I use Dropbox, but my limit is way below that. Give TMPGEnc video mastering works a try. There's a free trial. It may just work.

I will. Thanks.
The most puzzling thing is it works outside of Vegas fine. If I had another editor I'd try it in that.

Fosko

I do have Goggle Drive but more important is that you have Google Drive or something similar. You would have to upload it and share the location. I certainly don't mind downloading it and see what is wrong.

It would be helpful if you would install "Mediainfo" as I suggested and report back with the results from the original file and the converted file.

Also, there is another piece of freeware might give us some insight into why the original file is crashing Vegas, it's called "Bitrate Viewer", its function is to display a graph of the bitrate of a video file but in this case, we could use it to see if the file is corrupted somewhere in the middle because it reads/decodes the entire file to build the graph. If it crashes while reading the file, we'll know that the original file is corrupted. Bitrate Viewer is a handy piece of software to have anyway.

You can download it from this link:

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Bitrate-Viewer-2

John,
I think I misunderstood. I didn't know Mediainfo was something to install. I thought I could just go to the properties and copy the info from there ( which I did). WHere do I find this to install ?

I mentioned in a post above, this is what I said:

Go to the following link, download and install "Mediainfo" and then tell us what it thinks the properties are of the original file. However, pay careful attention when installing Mediainfo, opt out of any extra software it wants to install.

http://mediaarea.net/en-us/MediaInfo

Along with BitRate Viewer and G-Spot, MediaInfo is my go-to Media information gatherer to get to KNOW my Media. Oh yes, it also appears as a right click on ANY file on my system so I can easily interrogate the media.

MediaInfo at Cnet

Grazie

Bit rate Viewer
File 1
Total Time: 1:02:56
Average Bit-rate: 14999
Peak: 34439

File 2
Total Time: 1:23:53
Average Bit-rate: 14999
Peak: 27768

OK, so Bitrate Viewer was able to read both files, were these the original files or the ones that you converted in VLC?

Those are the original files. For clarity...I'll use VLC in the VLC file names.

General
Complete name : C:\Users\eef\Documents\foskomedia\Projects\Soul In Motion\30th Anniversary\CONCERT\Tape 1.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 6.66 GiB
Duration : 1h 2mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 15.2 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2014-04-22 07:56:50
Tagged date : UTC 2014-04-22 07:56:50

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1h 2mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 15.0 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 20.0 Mbps
Width : 1 440 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Original display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Bottom Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.322
Stream size : 6.59 GiB (99%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2014-04-22 07:56:50
Tagged date : UTC 2014-04-22 07:56:50

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 1h 2mn
Source duration : 1h 2mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 157 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 260 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : 33ms
Stream size : 70.8 MiB (1%)
Source stream size : 70.8 MiB (1%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2014-04-22 07:56:50
Tagged date : UTC 2014-04-22 07:56:50

General
Complete name : C:\Users\eef\Documents\foskomedia\Projects\Soul In Motion\30th Anniversary\CONCERT\Tape 2.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 9.09 GiB
Duration : 1h 25mn
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 15.2 Mbps
Encoded date : UTC 2014-04-26 23:42:21
Tagged date : UTC 2014-04-26 23:42:21

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=4, N=33
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 1h 25mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 15.0 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 20.0 Mbps
Width : 1 440 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Original display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Bottom Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.322
Stream size : 9.00 GiB (99%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2014-04-26 23:42:21
Tagged date : UTC 2014-04-26 23:42:21

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 1h 25mn
Source duration : 1h 25mn
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 157 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 259 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Delay relative to video : 33ms
Stream size : 96.7 MiB (1%)
Source stream size : 96.7 MiB (1%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2014-04-26 23:42:21
Tagged date : UTC 2014-04-26 23:42:21

Eh? John, what is CODEC - MP42? Is that another version of the MP4 envelope? If so would this be VEGAS Compliant too?

Interesting....

G

MPEG 4 PART 2 - WIKI

Says it shouldn't be confused with MPEG 4?

G

I see three things a little bit unusual in the Mediainfo reports:

There are 4 ReFrames (Reference Frames) where typically, Sony cameras use 2. H.264/AVC, allow the use of multiple reference frames. This allows the video encoder to choose among more than one previously decoded frame on which to base each macroblock in the next frame. While the best frame for this purpose is usually the previous frame, the extra reference frames can improve compression efficiency and/or video quality. However, when decoding, reference frames must be stored in memory until they are no longer needed for further decoding. This can considerably raise the memory usage of the decoder for videos with large numbers of reference frames. 4 is not necessarily big, but it's twice the size of typical Sony camcorder footage.

Secondly, the GOP (Group of Pictures) is M=4, N=33. The GOP structure is referred by two numbers, in this case, M=4, N=33. The first number tells the distance between two anchor frames (I or P). The second one tells the distance between two full images (I-frames): it is the GOP size. Sony cameras typically use M=2, N=15.

Lastly, the video is HD interlaced, but the field order is "Bottom Field First", I've never seen HD that uses BFF.

None of these three things are strictly "illegal" just out-of-the-ordinary, any one of these things might possibly be causing the Vegas AVC decoder to choke.

------------------------
>> Good catch, Grazie. << MP42 is not strictly MP4 compliant. Fosko: Here is a link that describes a method to re-encapsulate a video losslessly using VLC. It's about 6 messages down in this thread:

http://community.wd.com/t5/WD-TV-Live-Hub-Discussions/Unable-to-Play-MP42-Codec-MP4/td-p/202290

Can I change any of them to see if that is the case ?

First, try the VLC conversion method I just linked at the bottom of my last message to one of the original files.

I've gotta think that Vegas should've spat this out from the get-go, with some advisory information about incompatibility in usage.

G

I just did a Forum Search. MP42 is kinda rampant: Vegas Crashing

G

First time I got error code
"Streaming / Transcoding failed:
VLC could not open the encoder."

I must have done something wrong. Your version of VLC is slightly different than mine, but the basics are the same. Tried it again,.. and it's running. It's going to take about an hour or so.. I'll report back in the AM (or later in the AM).
Thanks for all the help.