You need to tell us which version of Sony Vegas you have exactly. AVCHD does work on Vegas *Platinum Edition* as is, no reason for AVI.

Sorry - it's Movie Studio HD Platinum Suite

Yeah, this version works with AVCHD just fine. If you can't automatically add the .mts files on Vegas, simply find all the .mts files in the SD card of your camera via Windows Explorer, and copy them onto a folder, and then make a Vegas project with them. The right .mts files are the ones that are very big in size. No need to copy the rest of the files found in the SD card. If you can't see the file extensions, then configure your Windows Explorer to be able to do so. I hate how Microsoft disables this by default.

Thanks Eugenia - you're correct of course that it works in the sense that it will import the clips OK. I only tried the AVI conversion malarkey to try and get some clips that would display like a video and not a succession of still photos. So I've tried again importing the AVCHD directly from the camera and they look very nice. As still images.

I have either got a computer that is underpowered or I'm doing something very wrong or this software is rubbish - and I don't know which it is!

Yes, your computer is not very fast for AVCHD. Just await for a free update of Platinum 10. If Sony brings their h.264 DLL version on par with the Vegas Pro 10 version, you will see an additional speedup.

In the meantime, follow the preview tips here: "Optimize Vegas for speedy video preview" http://eugenia.queru.com/2008/12/19/sony-vegas-hints-and-tips/

Alternatively, you can buy Cineform NeoSCENE, which transcodes AVCHD to Cineform AVI without loss of quality (something that might be happening to you right now if you transcode to a random AVI codec). Cineform is faster to decode than AVCHD. Costs $100.

Thanks Eugenia - I have carefully followed the suggestions in the link you supplied - but there is no improvement. I didn't really understand the preview - auto - quarter bit, I can either have preview/auto or preview/quarter - but not both. In any case the preview still says it is 480 X 270.

Your comment "Despite Sony’s claims, you need at least 2 GBs of RAM for HD editing. Otherwise, Vegas will start swapping sooner than later and everything will get really slow." is pretty telling. The wording on my box says "2 Gb RAM recommended for HD" and "Multicore or multiprocessor CPU recommended for HD". In my experience this is seriously misleading - please correct me if I'm wrong but my system surely exceeds these recommendations by some way.

Still disappointed, but thank you very much for your answers. I will be attempting to contact customer support for their input.

"HD" can mean a lot of things. For example, HDV HD works just fine on your PC. But AVCHD HD is not adequate on your PC. I think you should have researched first before you bought the AVCHD camera. AVCHD speed preview problems are very common problem on forums.

I suggest you download the trial version of Cineform NeoSCENE and try it. A lot of people who don't want to upgrade their PCs, just use Cineform with their AVCHD camera. They transcode all their MTS files to Cineform AVI, which is faster to decode than AVCHD -- without losing quality. Surely, $100 for Cineform is cheaper than a brand new PC. Besides, it's not like other video editors will be faster with AVCHD on your PC. Even the brand new Premiere Elements 9 is only marginally faster in AVCHD than Vegas 10 Platinum. And always hunt for Vegas free updates!

As for the preview setting, you only use one, not all at the same time. For example, use "Draft/Auto". This should help things a lot. The rest should be according to the tips in that article. For example, the project properties must be set properly. Also make sure that no other third party Windows services are running while you run Vegas (because they might take away your CPU cycles, CPU that you need to decode AVCHD). But even then, there's only so much you can do with an underpowered PC.

Eugenia - thank you for your reply. You say "I think you should have researched first before you bought the AVCHD camera" - but if my video clips run very smoothly in HD Writer - which came with my camera and Windows Moviemaker which came with the PC - then one is entintled to expect them to run smoothly in Sony Vegas which was sold to me on the basis that it could handle AVCHD files with a less powerful computer than the one I am using. HD Writer and Moviemaker are inadequate for proper editing but at least they can string more than two frames together in a coherent way.

Thank you for the suggestion about Cineform NeoSCENE. I will try it - at the moment I am also considering buying an Apple Mac. I will research it. I am not a technical computer user - but neither am I a complete beginner - 15 years and now 4 computer systems in this household and daily use of photoshop, web design software etc etc but I am amazed at the indulgence some people show to software providers whose products are at times seriously flawed and underdeveloped. Some adjustments to settings with new software may be acceptable but having to fiddle around with 3rd party programs to get any sort of result is unacceptable. I have already tried one such program and am disinclined to try another.

Thank you for your efforts - my disappointment is with Sony - and certainly not with yourself and other members of this forum who, I can see, provide a valuable service.

These apps don't do full editing, as you mentioned. When an application has to mostly preview, rather than do background work for extensive editing, then it's easier to decode. This is why Vegas is slower than this apps, because it's a real editor.

As for a Mac, it's also slow for AVCHD. Either you're be asked by iMovie/FCE to get ProRES proxies, or by default it will import your videos in 540p, or you will have slow performance too. So if you're going for a Mac, go for a very fast one, and make sure your iMovie doesn't import in "i-frame" mode.

Hi Disappointed Beginner,

VMS is a great program; I have been using it to edit video for many, many years. You should know that the current version has some pretty serious problems that I believe will be fixed with an update. I own a quad core i7 920 (2.7ghz) computer with 6 gig of ram and the program is not running properly on that. I guess I could have a faster computer, but this setup should run it very smoothly and it does not.

I guess what I am saying is that when the first "bug fix" comes out, I expect the program to run much more smoothly.

Thanks for the replies. I have made progress! I have now installed the program on a different computer - 2.4GHz Quad core - and it is now running smoothly enough as to be usable.

Still misunderstanding a few things - but I will start a separate post about them.

I still think it is wrong of Sony to be so unrealistic with their minimum system requirements/recommended system statements. Luckily I can workaround it by using a different computer - not a solution instantly available to everyone.

Sony did not lie. As I told you, different FORMATS in HD requires FEWER resources. As I mentioned, HDV mpeg2 -- which is also HD -- can run smoothly on a 5 year old PC. It's AVCHD and dSLR footage, which is mpeg4 instead of mpeg2, that require lots of resources. So when Sony says "minimum for HD", it obviously means HDV. Because HDV is the easiest to decode from all the HD formats. The problem here is that you didn't research online about the camera you were buying. If you had researched, you would see that AVCHD is very difficult to decode fast-enough. It's the price to pay for not using tapes and mpeg2.

For your information, I had an HDV camera. I have a modest PC, so I use that instead of AVCHD. Then, I bought a dSLR, and since dSLR footage is EVEN more difficult to decode than AVCHD, I got Cineform. That's the way to go around these formats. These modern video formats are highly compressed, so they require a lot more CPU cycles than older formats, like mpeg-1, or mpeg-2, or even XViD.

The reason the industry decided to use these difficult-to-decode formats is because they can pack more quality in smaller filesize. So a 12 mbps mpeg4 is ideally about 2x better visually than a 12 mbps mpeg2 stream! The price to pay for this, is slowness when trying to decode these complex algorithms that give you the extra quality. Obviously, people prefer to upgrade their PCs and get these new cameras, than stay with older PCs that can't handle h.264 mpeg4.

And then there are the smart ones. Who only pay $100 for Cineform, instead of $1000 for a new PC. ;-)
Cineform's transcoded AVI files, are up to 5x larger than the original h.264 mpeg4 AVCHD streams. So you "uncompress" the complexity of the h.264 algorithms, and you don't lose any quality, and you gain decoding speed. But what you lose, is space on your hard drive.

There are always compromises in this business.

Eugenia - I can see we are not going to agree about this. The wording on the box for my version of Vegas movie studio HD platinum says - "Easy import from HDV,AVCHD, and DVD camcorders." - Well strictly speaking that's true - the import of AVCHD was easy. But not much use after that. Ford may as well say easy import of lemon juice into the fuel tank - equally true - but about as much use.

Never mind - your explanation of compression, decoding and compromises was very interesting and useful. Video is running smoothly on the faster computer - now I only have the program freezing and crashing on a regular basis. Today I will try your Cineform solution.

I would agree with I_I that SV or any form is under engineered. IF AVCHD is so good but you cant render it what good is it at all?

I have no issue importing from a Sony 550 HD cam on my Sony i7 8 core 6G laptop. But SV 9 P cant handle complex AVCHD.

At the end of the day a guy wants to go to the store and buy the program to edit his HD. and he wont be able to do it with out massive research. I have tried every fix on this forum and Creative Cow and no solution in over 70 or more hours of work... " Think i finished the internet" :-)

what a joke example of " Mainstream" software...

Oldredm3, this is the 2nd time I caught you trolling here. First you said in the other thread that this forum sucks, and now you say that Vegas sucks.

It's WELL known that Vegas Platinum 10 and Vegas Pro 10 have immense h.264 optimizations, so if you're still on Platinum 9, then that's your fault. Sony optimized h.264 formats around the same time other editing companies did so too, so it's not like they're late in the game.

So until you install Vegas Pro or Platinum 10 on your PC, please don't talk like that. You can install their trial version on the parallel of your Platinum 9, so nothing gets overwritten.