h264 rendering in Vegas?

Martin L wrote on 10/24/2011, 2:56 PM

Hi everyone!
I am still in Vegas pro 10e, contemplating to upgrade to v 11. Anyway, here's my question:
Is it possible to render to .h264 in Vegas?
Quite recently several of my clients have demanded their films to be in h264 and I can't find it in the "Render to" list of formats.
To be even more specific, my clients want "QuickTime .mov - Compression: QuickTime H.264". The Render to list in Vegas has Quicktime h263 but not h264.

I have written emails to Vegas support but no answer at all even though 3 weeks have passed, just the issue received confirmation email. but no answer.
I have searched this forum and others about the topic but haven't seen any reliable answer. some say MainConcept mp4 and Sony AVC mp4 actually is h264 but with another name, some say it is not.
Then how about the QuickTime H.264, is that possible in Vegas?

I also have Abode Premiere Pro CS5 and it has the explicit h264 setting both with mp4 and Quicktime. So i render my film in Vegas to AVI uncompressed and then import it into Premiere and render it to Quicktime h264. But that is a big hassle and TIME CONSUMING as well as HD space demanding.

So please, you out there who actually know the facts, please help! If you are not sure, please don't guess.
Yours,
Martin

Comments

Steve Mann wrote on 10/24/2011, 4:13 PM

Short answer: No.

If your world is Mac, then all video is Quicktime.

You can't encode Quicktime H.264 with Vegas, but you can buy Quicktime Pro and render uncompressed MOV out of Vegas and then convert it to H.264 MOV in Quicktime Pro.

Render as:
QT7 (MOV)
Default (uncompressed)
Frame Size - Custom 1440 x 1080, PAR=1.0

Open with Quicktime
Export

Ya gotta ask yourself... is it worth $29.99 to shut your client up?

larry-peter wrote on 10/24/2011, 5:26 PM

When providing spots for stations that demand QT h.264, I render an MP4 from Vegas with the appropriate bitrate, audio, etc per their specs, open it in QT Pro, "save as" to a self-contained movie. It's instantaneous. Open it up then with QT's video inspector or any other codec "inspector" and it says "h.264." I haven't had a spot rejected yet.

MTuggy wrote on 10/24/2011, 5:35 PM

Is Avid DNxHD codec an h.264 codec? If so, I have installed the free version and rendered that out in Vegas as an MOV file. Looks great - but big files though not as big as uncompressed by any means.

Also, I though the Sony AVC mp4 files where h.264 based. Is that not correct?

Mike

PeterDuke wrote on 10/24/2011, 6:12 PM

There are two considerations: the codec and the container (wrapper).

H.264 is a codec identical to MPEG4 AVC (MPEG4 part 10).

MOV is a container, as is MP4 which was derived from it and standardised as MPEG4 part 14.

AVCHD is H.264 in a MPEG2 transport stream (.m2ts).

musicvid10 wrote on 10/24/2011, 7:31 PM

Avid DNxHD is not h264.

In Vegas, there are two h264 renderers. They are Sony AVC and Mainconcept MP4. They both render the h264 codec to an .mp4 extension.

Files rendered as such will open natively in Quicktime. If a station engineer says they require an h264 MOV file, you can rename the extension from .mp4 to .mov
The actual differences in the wrappers are so small as to be insignificant, and it is unlikely anyone will know the difference.

If you are a stickler for detail, import an intermediate file from Vegas and render to h264 MOV in Quicktime Pro.

Steve Mann wrote on 10/25/2011, 12:07 AM

h.264 is not itself a Codec but there are several codecs which use the h.264 specification. h.264 is MPEG4 Part 10, AVC (Advanced Video Coding) and is the official specification for video compression

Martin L wrote on 10/29/2011, 4:24 AM

Hi! Thanks for your answers: Quite interesting. Today I got the response from Vegas Support. They say "Vegas does have Quicktime (mov) but not with h264". (As you said Steve Mann) "The only h264 Vegas does is the Sony AVC which is h264".
Then, how about MainConcept AVC/mp4? was my reply to them. Let's see what the answer will be.
Now, Steve Mann, you said the render settings to Quicktime should be ....Frame Size - Custom 1440 x 1080, PAR=1.0. Is that important? The framesize?

Atom12, when you render to mp4 within Vegas, what settings do you use? Sony AVC or MainConcept?

musicvid10 wrote on 10/29/2011, 7:59 AM

"Frame Size - Custom 1440 x 1080, PAR=1.0."
The correct dimensions for Quicktime are 1920x1080, 1.0 PAR
Since Quicktime does not support anamorphic in Vegas, you must specify the correct pixel dimensions.

Marco. wrote on 10/29/2011, 8:44 AM

AVC in general is H.264. So definitely both Sony AVC as well as MainConcept AVC means H.264 encoding.

Don't know if Google translation is useful. -> Here is a website info about using AVC/H.264 in Vegas Pro.

Martin L wrote on 10/31/2011, 10:27 AM

Now I got another response from Support:
"The MainConcept encoder is also H.264. The issue you might run into, as I stated, is that there are different versions of H.264, and I fear that the one you are looking for may not be the same (especially if this person is looking to use this on a Mac, as they have many proprietary codecs). If that is the case though, I believe either one of these files should at least open on a Mac, as well as the Quicktime MOV format."

And, thanks Musicvid and Fuchs for your clarification. Google Translate is not perfect but it helps sometimes. I could understand the article. Thanks.

TechEAI wrote on 1/24/2013, 9:59 AM

Hi Steve,

Using Vegas 11 Pro. Do not see where vegas offers an uncompressed option under QT7. I love the Idea but it seems to bottleneck at max of 3Mbps offered by vegas.

Have I missed something?

musicvid10 wrote on 1/24/2013, 11:07 PM

Uncompressed is but one of many Custom Render formats in the MOV Video dialog. It is not a template.

musicvid10 wrote on 1/25/2013, 8:19 AM

"To be even more specific, my clients want "QuickTime .mov - Compression: QuickTime H.264".

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