I am looking to buy a Go Pro video camera. I see it does 5K format and I also see 1080P. I am using Vegas Pro 18. I don't believe I can edit 5k with that version. I suspect I can choose the 1080P resolution but they (Amazon and reviews) don't address that. Anybody have any experience with GoPro using Vegas?
The forum search box will be your best resource, and expect plenty of results.
1080p gopro may not need proxies on your machine, but 5k will need them on most.
GoPro is an acquisition format, without any thought for ease of editing.
I tried the forum search box and did not get any results. I used keywords like Go Pro gopro and editing. Am I missing any good keyword to get good results. Thanks for your quick answer. Your comment about Go Pro being an acquisition format is likely true. I would imagine most Go Pro users show there video with any thought of editing.
https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum-search/?query=GoPro
3,000 hits, not all relevant of course.
I am looking to buy a Go Pro video camera. I see it does 5K format and I also see 1080P. I am using Vegas Pro 18. I don't believe I can edit 5k with that version.
I tried 5.3K gopro 16:9 on VP18. It edits ok at preview resolution best/quarter, and VP18 will encode it at 5.3k. There's a problem I'm seeing though, there are black frames on timeline, and the black frames also show in render, this is after doing the usual fixes such as dynamic ram preview 0.
That would mean you could not use use your raw gopro files for direct playback and you can't use proxies with your raw files, you would have to transcode it. On VP21 prores is a good editing codec, but not sure if VP18 supports that.
You can use it with VEGAS of course. Will it work well is a different question. Try to download some samples that are available online.
For settings in the GoPro I'd avoid HEVC if AVC is an option and if your only GPU is NVIDIA may have issues with decoding the latest GoPro files. Maybe that will be improved in an upcoming release; we can always hope.
Converting to ProRes or even plain AVC using ShutterEncoder is a free if time-consuming option.
@Peter-Nowinski My GoPro 11 only creates HEVC files, they generally play ok on my PC in VP21 as there have been improvements in reading HEVC since VP18 but my PC isn't your PC,
Can you click your icon at the top of this page - My Profile & fill in your Signature with the full name of your CPU, GPU & amount of RAM, also inc the Windows & Magix version, this will then show at the bottom of your comments,
I think you will be just as happy rendering your 5.3K video at 2160p (4K). You want to record your video with the bitrate set to high on the GoPro and render it at about 80K bitrate (average) to keep the artifacts from showing up in the dark (black) areas. I never use proxies. However, the current version of Vegas (21/208) is way more stable than the version 18 you are using. You may experience more freezes. Magix made GoPro video rendering enhancements after version 18 that made it more stable, and the current version is actually quite good with the GoPro video. I just finished editing 5.3K-60 8x7 format GoPro video and experience no freezes during editing or rendering. However, I rendered it at 2160p (not 3680x3360).
Here's a link to the GoPro video. 
It should be viewed at a minimum of 1440p.
GoPro 12 has a mode that stabilizes and keeps the horizon level; 4K is great for that mode. With GoPro HEVC, my I7-8700K keeps up with decoding using the on-die UHD630 (using V21). 4K transitions and effects will be a different story of course.
HAMILTON 53 Why is the image 4:3 and not 16:9? 1920 X 1080 29.97 (30) FPS is the resolution I am happy with. I don't understand all this 4K stuff. Is this another way of saying 1920 X 1080 29.97 (30) FPS?
@Peter-Nowinski The 2 5.3K resolutions are 5312x2988 16:9 and 5312x4648 8:7
With the latter you could do a lossless 16:9 render at 3840x2160 or 2160x3840, in that format you are recording areas of video that will never be used, but gives flexibility if you want to do landscape and portrait versions
Peter summed up the reason for 8x7 well.. more vertical to work with. However, if you upload to Instagram you can use all the vertical by uploading in a 1080x1920 format (think tall and narrow). You will get a full frame display on a phone/tablet.
For YouTube, I've taken to uploading my video in the 8x7 format and not losing the vertical. It still looks good. Many devices (phones, tablets) have switched to the 4x3 format in lieu of 16x9 (or 16x10).
I keep a cheat sheet handy when editing GoPro Formats (see pic)
1920x1080 would be referred to as a 1080p format. So, it would be 1080p at 30FPS.
2160p is 3840 x 2160 or 4K
The GPro will shoot 5312x4648 (8x7). One of the main advantages to this format is it can be cropped and still look good because there are a lot of pixels to work with. You can upload 5.3K to YouTube, but I can tell the difference between that and 4K after it goes through their render compression.
I rarely use the 4x3 mode, in favor of the 8x7 format.
In the answers which are well detailed I am seeing all kinds of resolutions that are of very high quality. However I prefer 1920 X 1080 29.97 (30). Is there a GoPro that stoop so low to do that resolution? I don't care how outdated it is?
I believe all GoPro's will shoot in 1920x1080 x 30FPS; Your version of Vegas (18) will be much happier editing in this format than 4K. - Not a GoPro forum, so I'll leave it at that.
Ok Thank you. I will consider that the solution and try to seek more information from GoPro or a user group. Thanks for all your help.
You should consider other options, buying a 5.3k camera, recording in 1080p due to the limitation of current editor not a good idea. Recording something you may never see or experience again. If you record in 4K instead you can then choose 4K H.264/AVC recording option and I just tried it in VP18, very smooth experience previewing in BEST/FULL. Recording in 4K you have a lossless 2x zoom where required.
Other option record 5.3K, transcode to 4K AVC. You sound happy enough to be creating 1080P videos currently but if your source is at a higher resolution you have the option to make a REDUX 4K or 5.3K in the future if your video was a big hit.
I like recording in 4k for my 1080 projects because I can then zoom in using Pan/Crop all the way down to 1080 size without losing any resolution
I like recording in 4k for my 1080 projects because I can then zoom in using Pan/Crop all the way down to 1080 size without losing any resolution
+1
I think you will be just as happy rendering your 5.3K video at 2160p (4K). You want to record your video with the bitrate set to high on the GoPro and render it at about 80K bitrate (average) to keep the artifacts from showing up in the dark (black) areas. I never use proxies. However, the current version of Vegas (21/208) is way more stable than the version 18 you are using. You may experience more freezes. Magix made GoPro video rendering enhancements after version 18 that made it more stable, and the current version is actually quite good with the GoPro video. I just finished editing 5.3K-60 8x7 format GoPro video and experience no freezes during editing or rendering. However, I rendered it at 2160p (not 3680x3360).
Here's a link to the GoPro video.
What settings are you useing? This last release made my gopro footage hard to edit, and made rendering almost impossible.
300 made decoding of it with NVIDIA a lot faster if you have such a GPU. Try NVDEC in preferences, file io.
Is there an dummy book like video setting for dummies? I don't understand half of what you guys are talking about.
@Peter-Nowinski Hi, I had a quick look through your previous posts & comments, I didn't see MediaInfo mentioned..?
so forgive me if you know this - there's an App called MediaInfo, everyone here uses it to share media/video info, download it, it's free & a fast download with no added adverts or any of that rubbish. https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo
After downloading, right click on the media file in your Windows folder, open MediaInfo, choose Text from the options at the top, this will show all the info that is within the media container (MP4, .MOV etc, are called containers, they'd a little bit like folders on your PC & within them hold the info needed), you'll have to Google what you see in there but for this post & to begin just look & Google what I've highlighted in red, I'm sure others will add to what is important or what I've missed but these parts should get you started. Once you understand this then you'll be able to understand the other things about Vegas settings a bit better.
I don't understand all this 4K stuff
4K , UHD (Ultra-high-definition), HD ( High-definition), FHD (Full-high-definition) etc are just the size of the video / aspect ratio, you say you prefer 1920x1080, that's FHD but is often referred to just HD, (my phone creates 1920x1080 videos & calls them FHD, it also creates HD videos which are 1280 x 720)
PS. Google AVC vs HEVC, I can't explain it but basically it's how the media information is compressed/squashed to fit within the container without making the container too large (file size), AVC was used for yrs & is still used but HEVC was created more recently to accommodate the bigger 4K videos that are more widely used now, there's also a lot about how & the quality of the video after it's been compressed. Like i say I can't explain it very well but this post & the performance of Vegas with GoPro HEVC is something that is being worked on, HEVC whatever aspect ratio is something that puts more pressure on the software & your PC compared to AVC.