Jitter and slow in Vegas 8c

Shastasage wrote on 5/12/2010, 12:19 AM
Hello,

I have Sony vegas 8.0c

I have a weird situation. I have the new Sony nxcam nx5 and it uses .m2ts and when i open it in sony vegas 8 to edit the video never plays in real time...it lags and is jittery.
This happens in both my machines
One is a systemax desktop 4gb ram with 6700 intel duo 2.66 with a 512mb graphics card ...1tb storage 7200rpm
the other is a gateway FX laptop with 4gb ram intel core 2 duo p8400 @ 2.66 ghz 2267mhz...it has an nvidia gforce 9800mgts 1gb...and 320gb storage 7200rpm
It also jitters and is slow like the systemax
But i also have a older gateway lap top with 1gb ram and 128mb gpu 250gb storage 5800 rpm with around a 2.0ghz processor
And this old laptop plays videos in the preview screen as smooth as can be...i dont care how big a HD file i throw at it...it plays so smooth and renders almost as fast as the systemax.
But my two big and expensive machines have a heck of a time.
I have tried all kinds of settings on the time line and no improvement on the two machines. The older laptop still plays perfect even if there is a difference between the clip settings and the time line.

There is one difference...the older gateway laptop is xp and the two new machines are vista ultimate.

Is there any ideas that anyone has that can help me get these to play without having to replace vista with xp or windows 7?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank You.

Comments

Shastasage wrote on 5/12/2010, 7:40 AM
PS if i need to present more information please let me know....also any relevant posts i can go to would help...thanks
Shastasage wrote on 5/12/2010, 10:20 AM
any suggestions for another forum to go to...where someone might have the knowledge?
i am willing to pay someone to help me with this
John Gordon wrote on 5/12/2010, 10:31 AM
you are experiencing lag or stuttering because of the 32 bit environment you are working in. You can drop the preview setting down to draft to help, but you can also improve the preview playback by re-encoding the files to and intermediate format to edit them in, and then when time comes to render, replace the intermediate files with the original files. I would look to do a future upgrade to a 64 bit environment (Windows 7) and get either Vegas Pro 8.1 or Vegas Pro 9.

John
Shastasage wrote on 5/12/2010, 5:42 PM
Hello John!
First off thanks so much for the reply:-)

This is where it gets confusing to me because my older gateway is 32 bit xp
the newer FX gateway is 64 bit with Vegas 8.1 and 8.0c both on it and both do the same things....even when in draft view.
And yes when i render the files to 720 and pop them back in the time line they play perfect. They are going on a dvd @720 anyways so i guess i could do that.
I have about 8 hours of video that it says will take 20 hours to render...seems high.

As far as a new machine...i have been following this forum a bit and think i will try a new HP from Costco for about $1300 with windows 7 and the new intel i7 quad board and 8 gb ram. 64 bit.

Is it worth paying the extra for Vegas 9 right now? i am always concerned that i will buy it and a new version will com out next week. I did this with Camtasia once and got socked a few weeks later for $150 for the "New" version. Is Vegas 10 on the horizon?

Thanks again for the help!!!

TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/12/2010, 6:13 PM
10's coming out but nobody knows when. Even if it was announced tomorrow for next next month you'd still get it free because you bought 9 within 30 days of 10's release.

But anyway, is the issue with an HD file by itself or with you doing stuff to it? any FX/etc. will slow things down. Mpeg needs to be decompressed to be viewed too. But I can put a single m2t on the RL & 1440x1080 & have Vegas play it back just fine.

Is the drive it's on the same one as the OS or something else the system is accessing (ie swap file)? Is it firewire/USB or internal SATA/IDE? I get best performance from my internal SATA (contains all my captured video).
Shastasage wrote on 5/12/2010, 7:15 PM
Hello Happy!

Thanks for your input.

ok i didnt know about the 30 days...good to know

Strictly HD no FX....i have seen FX slow down my sd videos in the past
i have been using the content manager...but have tried .mts to the same jitters

i use internal drives...and have used externals and there is no difference on both all three machines.

this might be a clue...now when i review on the 32 bit xp machine ...lets say several ( 3) 20 minute clips...i notice even that machine starts to st-udder and jitter...but when i re-start the system..i can do 3 more smoothly.
Wndering if the 32 bit has a temp setting that might be wide open while the two vista machines have a lower setting...does this make any sense?

Thanks again!

Mark
TheHappyFriar wrote on 5/12/2010, 7:38 PM
I don't get any slowdown while previewing or putting HD clips on the TL. Count doesn't matter. (1440x1080 NTSC 29.97).

However, I did get slowdown if I had the project properties wrong. Could you double check that they're 1440x1080?

I've got XP 32, Vegas 8c 32, AMD Phenom 9600, 4gb RAM.

All that comes to mind is the drivers of your GPU/hard drive interface or the drive setup themselves. Do you have write caching turned on with the drive (right click on the drive in my comp, properties, hardware, double click on the drive, select policies in the new window).
Shastasage wrote on 5/12/2010, 8:26 PM
yes write caching is on in the fx gateway laptop
Shastasage wrote on 5/13/2010, 11:14 AM
another thing i notice is that these files play just fine on all computers when using the content management tool preview window.

seems to keep going back to vegas.

maybe it is the settings somewhere...any ideas on what settings?

Thanks!
Malcolm D wrote on 5/13/2010, 12:24 PM
Hi
The settings which can trip you up are not always obvious.
Check the Audio tab in project properties. It defaults to 44,100. Change to 48,000 if it is.
I always make sure the Ruler tab is set correctly as well.
If you have the scopes on screen turn off Update Scopes While Playing button.
This really chokes playback.
If using a secondary monitor turn off Display frames in Preview Window.
My Core 2 Duo 6600 plays HDV and XDCAM EX in real time but it does not take much to choke it.
Even something like the Video track level being off of 100% will kill playback speed.
Do the files play in VLC Player ok?
Malcolm
Jeff9329 wrote on 5/14/2010, 12:07 PM
Shasta:

I have the HMC-150 and have been editing AVCHD for about 2 years now.

Although your old laptop is performing a miracle, the fact is that it takes a Quad core CPU on a good machine to handle AVCHD. Its got nothing to do with 32 or 64 bit, etc., it's all about the CPU.

Vegas 8.0c is fully stable and compatable with AVCHD and is more stable than most Vegas 9 releases.

Do a few AVCHD searches on here, there is lots of valuable information. And get a GOOD quad core machine. There is no way around that. There is no comparison between playback of HDV or DV to AVCHD. AVCHD takes about 4X the CPU power HDV does to decode the file.
Jeff9329 wrote on 5/14/2010, 12:19 PM
A quick search:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=709471&Replies=4