Fastest CODEC to render with?

Altzone wrote on 1/2/2015, 5:58 PM

I used to use XDCAM output for my 1080p 25fps video in order to generate an intermediate file that then went to Handbrake for final transcoding, I used XDCAM because it was the fastest, at about twice real time.
But I have now switched to 50fps and 60fps 1080P video and XDCAM does not support these higher frame rates it seems. So I have had to use the Sony AVC codec, and now my render times are four to fives times slower!
And Sony AVC seems to be the fastest out of those codecs available. MainConcept is horribly slow.

Anyone know the fastest CODEC to use to render?
Doesn't have to be loss-less, but certainly not heavily compressed, as there is the 2nd Handbrake step. The rendered intermediate file gets deleted anyway.
Is there one that can be plugged into Vegas or Movie Studio?

Thanks
Dave.

Comments

wwaag wrote on 1/2/2015, 6:26 PM

Why not frameserve directly to Handbrake and avoid an intermediate altogether? There is an excellent script by Marco for doing this. Works very well. Just do a search on his user name.

wwaag

Altzone wrote on 1/2/2015, 6:34 PM

I have tried that before without success. Will check out the script, thanks.
Just got x264vfw64 installed and working in Movie Studio, so that allows me to use the same codec as Handbrake but directly in Sony. Haven't benchmarked it yet though.

musicvid10 wrote on 1/2/2015, 9:06 PM

AVC is arguably not an intermediate codec, except in a true lossless form, which is s-l-o-w.

Any MPEG-2 format is fast in Vegas. I haven't personally examined which wrappers would actually support your source frame rates at high bitrates, which you need with that codec.

Next would be Cineform and Avid DNxHD for speed and compression. Both are visually lossless. They both have the advantage of cross-platform exchange.

Next down the line (because they are huge) are true lossless AVI. Of these, UT codec holds the top spot for speed. Sony YUV probably has the best 4:2:2 quality, just after RGB 4:4:4.

Beyond that, I haven't tested exclusively for speed.

hth

dxdy wrote on 1/2/2015, 10:33 PM

Is it possible to get x264vfw64 installed for Vegas Pro?

I wonder how one would conjure up a template for it, if it really is what makes Handbrake so great.

Edit:
Found this:

http://technotesandthings.blogspot.com/2012/10/sony-movie-studio-12-platinum-vegas-and.html

Edit 2:
and this:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/Forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=629798

Has anyone done this with Vegas Pro 13?

relaxvideo wrote on 1/3/2015, 1:54 AM

Great, it works with V11/64b
But the rendered file is avi, and i need mp4.

Is there a free utility to remux it to mp4?
thx

musicvid10 wrote on 1/3/2015, 2:39 AM

AVI is a primitive wrapper, so the most important h264 compression features are missing -- including b- frames.
So there is little advantage over mpeg-2 compression. Yes, x264vfw should work just fine in Vegas 13.

VMP wrote on 1/3/2015, 10:17 AM

Avi uncompressed ;-)

VMP

videoITguy wrote on 1/3/2015, 10:49 AM

Magic YUV is a far better choice for sheer speed than AVI uncompressed - because it won't task your harddrive access spec, it is still completely lossless, and it works well inside of VegasPro as a DI.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/3/2015, 12:48 PM

Render to a BMP/PNG image sequence. That seems to go pretty fast.

johnmeyer wrote on 1/3/2015, 1:38 PM

Just to reinforce what has already been said:

Frameserve, frameserve, frameserve.

This solves absolutely everything, and since there is no encoding, you completely eliminate that part of the render. Just to be clear, rendering in Vegas starts with doing all the compositing and fX, but ends with encoding using a codec. It is this last stage that is eliminated by frameserving. You also totally, 100%, eliminate the disk space taken by the intermediate file.

The only issue you need to deal with frameserving is the colorspace. When developing a new woorkflow (using Handbrake in your case), I always render 1-2 seconds of video using the workflow, and then bring the result back onto a new track in Vegas, on top of all the other tracks. I then A/B between the rendered result and the original tracks while watching both the Vegas videoscope, as well as the preview. As I watch, I make sure I don't see any levels shift (the most likely problem) or color shift (doesn't happen often, but can happen with some workflows).

IMHO, you should not be considering any other alternatives because frameserving beats them all. The only time I would render an intermediate is if I needed it for some other project at a later time.

This is the fastest solution: no other workflow can be faster. Therefore, it is the "Fastest CODEC to render with" as your subject title requested.

relaxvideo wrote on 1/4/2015, 2:50 AM

exactly..

ushere wrote on 1/4/2015, 4:44 AM

whilst i agree 100% with jm, i ALWAYS end up rendering a 'master', beit hdcam ex or .mxf since i rarely keep the full edit but do require an archival copy.

that said, small projects i simply dump complete to ex hd - though again, keeping a 'master' as backup

Altzone wrote on 1/4/2015, 5:41 PM

If I can encode directly to the x264 vfw codec why would you need to use frameserve if you are going to handbrake anyway that uses the same x264 codec?

Laurence wrote on 1/4/2015, 5:53 PM

That makes sense except that for some reason that I don't understand, h264 looks way better at a given bitrate coming from Handbrake than it does from Vegas or any other NLE. This is especially obvious at low bitrates.

PeterDuke wrote on 1/5/2015, 12:04 AM

But Vegas does not normally have the x264 implementation of the H264 codec. Not all implementations are created equal.

musicvid10 wrote on 1/5/2015, 3:32 AM

Altzone, I explained that.
No native vfw b-frame support means lower compression efficiency and worse quality at a given bitrate.
As Laurence pointed out, the difference is big!