MPEG-4 editable in Vegas 5?

prairiedogpics wrote on 5/11/2004, 12:23 PM

I'm would like to use some public domain video from archive.org in a project of mine.

I have the choice of using MPEG-2 (which I know Vegas will open) or "Editable" MPEG-4 (which apparently Final Cut Pro can handle).
Does Vegas edit MPEG-4? Which one should I use?
Will the MPEG files be compressed again when I render the timeline to an MPEG2 file?

Thanks,
Dan

Comments

Spot|DSE wrote on 5/11/2004, 12:26 PM

If you have the QT authoring tools installed, Vegas will open and edit them fine. Yes, they'll be recompressed when you render to MPEG 2 (or 4), and they would be in FCP as well.
While there are MPEG stitching tools, I'm unaware of an NLE that will edit and transcode MP4/MP2 without recompression.

BJ_M wrote on 5/11/2004, 12:33 PM

bear in mind - without knowing what files you have there, there are apx. 8 -12 types of mpeg4 files (at least)

prairiedogpics wrote on 5/11/2004, 12:50 PM

Thanks Spot and BJ_M.

Just to clarify:
Vegas 5, by itself, will load and edit MPEG2 files, but in order to edit MPEG-4 files, I need the QT authoring tools installed. (By edit, I mean place them on the timeline, cut, add transitions, etc.)

Is this summary correct?

BJ_M: BTW, the site says they used "FlasK MPEG" to create the MPEG-4 files (and they converted them from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4).

Spot|DSE wrote on 5/11/2004, 12:55 PM

You should be able to open converted files from Flask.
BJ_M, remember when they told us MPEG 4 would be ISO? :-)
Yeah, right. And we were supposed to have condos on the moon by 1999.

prairiedogpics wrote on 5/11/2004, 1:01 PM

Okay, so I should be able to open and edit both MPEG2 and MPEG 4 in Vegas 5. As far as achieving the best quality image (and assuming their encoding was the best they could do for both types), which one would be preferable to use? (They have a choice of formats to download, and I'd like to download the preferred one from the get-go, considering these are 300 MB files and I don't have the speediest of connections.)

Thanks,

Dan

PS. "remember when they told us MPEG 4 would be ISO?" - what does that mean?

BJ_M wrote on 5/11/2004, 1:58 PM

it was all supposed to covered under one set of ISO's - is what spot means .. loosly what we have now (in part), and add divx3, divx4, divx5, xvid(many types), wmv9 and others - its all mpeg4 under the skin (NOTE - SOME TYPES OF MPEG4 WILL NOT WORK IN VEGAS. go to www.videohelp.com and download "gspot" and see what type of mpeg4 you have and ONLY install the codec you need) :

What are the different parts of the MPEG-4 Standard?
Currently MPEG-4 is broken down into 8 Separate parts, some of which are still under development and are not available for purchase from ISO.

ISO/IEC 14496-1 (Systems)
Contains tools such as BiFS, Object Descriptors, FlexMux, MP4 File Format, etc.
ISO/IEC 14496-2 (Visual)
Includes natural and synthetic coding as well as Facial and Body Animation.
ISO/IEC 14496-3 (Audio)
Including Speech coding, General Audio Coding, Structured Audio, Text to Speech interface, Parameteric Audio.
ISO/IEC 14496-4 (Conformance)
Specifies tests to be performed to verify whether bitstreams and decoders meet the requirements of parts 1, 2, 3, and 6.
ISO/IEC 14496-5 (Reference Software)
Unoptimized software implementation of the MPEG-4 specification.
ISO/IEC 14496-6 (Delivery Multimedia Integration Framework
Provides a means for transparent access and delivery of content irrespective of delivery technologies.
ISO/IEC 14496-7 (Optimised software for MPEG-4 tools) -- Under development

ISO/IEC 14496-8 (4 on IP framework) -- Under developement
A framework for transmitting MPEG-4 over IP neworks

BJ_M wrote on 5/11/2004, 2:00 PM

as for which to download -- if there is a choice and they are same size file -- go for the mpeg4 which SHOULD be higher quality for a given bitrate ..