Mpeg Rendered In Vegas Won't Play In Quicktime

merlyn60 wrote on 12/15/2004, 7:09 AM

Hello guys. I'm new to the video thing and I've rendered an mpeg-2 video clip that won't play in Quicktime 6.5.1 even though other mpeg-2 play with no problem. Is there something I'm not doing properly in the render process in Vegas 5.0? The error says "couldn't open file because it's not a file the that quicktime understands". Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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albatross1 wrote on 12/17/2004, 11:14 PM

One good reason to buy the quicktime pro for 19.95 is that it will give you many more options on what you can render out of Vegas 5. When you add QT Pro, you will be able to render MPEG 4 out of Vegas 5. It will also allow you to render out 1080i QT's so that you can supply files to your FCP friends. It impresses the hell out of them..

You don't have to do anything to Vegas, it just detects that the QT encoder is there and it uses it. So if you're doing a 1080i project, just choose Qt , go to the video tab. Select render at project settings. You might want to select sorrenson 3 encoding and set the I frames at 3.

You'll use up tons of storage, but you'll get some really nice looking HD. You might want to start with some HDv from the Sony HDR-FX1.. You can doi this in Windows Media and Real as well, but your FCP friends will be out of luck....

Dan

scdragracing wrote on 12/17/2004, 11:17 PM

b_jm, you didn't pay attention to his original post:

"Hello guys. I'm new to the video thing..." .. and apparently he's not the only newbie out here.

you should NOT be using mpeg2 for this application, it was designed for ntsc interlaced video, not frame-based computer displays... there are newer, far more efficient codecs that should be used.

B_JM wrote on 12/18/2004, 4:28 AM

i think perhaps you are new to video - so i will give you a break ..

mpeg playback on pc based systems (both dedicated purpose built systems and desktop systems) is VERY common ..

MANY high end media systems use the QT engine to decode codecs for their applications ..

I program such systems in a certain application....

therefore -- QT needs to playback mpeg2 , as much material sent in is in this format ....

If he wants to play back mpeg2 on QT - and since he paid apple the fee's to do so .. and since apple advertises that QT can do so ..... well QT should damm well do it ..

you clearly dont understand frame and field based mepg encoding or the fact that both hardware and software playback applications can compensate for this.

Even DVD mpeg encoding for interlaced TV's with interlaced sources is encoded frame based for DVD compliance - so I don't even see your point ..

MPEG2 is a very efficient codec, and yes, there are many other codecs around .. each have their plus's and minus's ...

And a last note -- if what you say is true -- i guess that leaves people using PAL out in the cold .. or any film based 24p source for that matter.

scdragracing wrote on 12/18/2004, 10:36 PM

i did assume that he was using ntsc-sourced material, and that he did not de-interlace it.

you apparently have never encoded anything but mpeg2, or you would have seen how much better the new codecs are... i can't help you with that, but maybe you could ask yourself why nobody streams mpeg2 over the internet.

if you want wmp and qt playback, mpeg2 is the wrong choice.

B_JM wrote on 12/18/2004, 10:41 PM

I have had a little experience encoding with a wide variety of codecs ...

'better' is both subjective and quantitative -- depends what you need to do ...

nickle wrote on 12/18/2004, 11:10 PM

This is getting interesting.

merlyn60 wrote on 12/19/2004, 7:46 PM

Thanks Vitamin D. Any Sony guys hanging out in here that could shed some light on this?

dshaw wrote on 12/20/2004, 9:38 PM

Does your rendered file have AC3 audio?
Quicktime MPEG-2 plug in will not work if the file contains AC3.
From Quicktime: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/mpeg2playback/faq.html

Awesomesean wrote on 12/20/2004, 10:12 PM

another post said if you have quicktime pro(which I do) you can render out of vegas 5.0. I mine I can't. I don't see the option there. Is there something you need to do?

I also tried to play mpeg2 in QT and had no success I have 6.5.2 with the 6.4 pro key. I even tried to change the extension but this didn't help. I have not finished reading the rest of the posts yet I just wanted to reply about the pro key working in 5.0

ottowr wrote on 12/21/2004, 7:59 PM

I have just rendered an mpeg2 file (pal 4:3 +audio 256k) using Vegas5b and it plays fine on a Mac G4 (OS-X) running Quicktime 6.5.1. I don't know if it will play on a PC with Quicktime coz I don't have the mpeg playback module for it. Looks fine on a mac though...