Has anyone experienced being able to playback on the timeline smoothly footage shot on GH5ii 10 bit 420 59.95 fps ? I was running Vegas Pro Edit 15 and just updated to Pro 19. The 1 min. clip will not playback smoothly, even watching in Draft version.

 

I updated my driver for GPU

It would playback fine in VP15, but not in VP19, is that correct?

There is probably more overhead in VP19, making it slightly slower, the main difference would be GPU decoding, that VP15 does not have on your computer. You could try turning off GPU decoding in FILE IO section of preferences by selecting "Hardware decoder to use" and choosing OFF.

Gpu decoding is supposed to make videos play back smoothly but on Vegas especially with high frame rates and 4K it plays back worse

EDIT: Actually there is no 10bit GPU decoding for AVC, but if your files are HEVC, turning off GPU decoding probably won't help but you could try

Could you share MediaInfo for this file? Instructions here.

Has anyone experienced being able to playback on the timeline smoothly footage shot on GH5ii 10 bit 420 59.95 fps ? I was running Vegas Pro Edit 15 and just updated to Pro 19. The 1 min. clip will not playback smoothly, even watching in Draft version.

I have AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 12-Core Processor               3.80 GHz

32GB Ram

Nvidia 2060 Super GPU

I updated my driver for GPU

The issue has been resolved, the problem was that my video media footage was on my c:/ (NVME m.2) and so was Vegas Pro 19; I moved the video media footage files to my D:/ (SSD) and now the files pay smoothly on the VP 19 timeline.

Panasonic Cameras record their 10 bit 4k files in the AVC 4:2:2 format, and unfortunately there are no GPUs currently on the market that can decode that in hardware, so you're stuck relying on CPU-only decoding for those files. This is why proxies are required in many cases, especially with multicamera editing. I too shoot that format.

I'm choosing 4k - 4.2.0 - 10-bit > Is there any other options to get smooth playback other then proxy video?

10 bit GH5 footage is best previewed and edited using a Proxy. Search your Vegas Help.

Any other options besides the Proxy video workaround? Also, If I do not plan on doing color correction is this a waste of time shooting 10-bit?

In reverse order:

2. It is not directly a matter of color correction; It has to do with how you plan to format and deliver your video, and whether or not you will be zooming into the source during editing.

1. Yes, in addition to rendering a proxy, you can render a digital intermediate file, from which you can render directly rather than your pre-proxy source.

Panasonic Cameras record their 10 bit 4k files in the AVC 4:2:2 format, and unfortunately there are no GPUs currently on the market that can decode that in hardware, so you're stuck relying on CPU-only decoding for those files. This is why proxies are required in many cases, especially with multicamera editing. I too shoot that format.

I can play these same files in Adobe and Resolve at almost full framerate without a proxy (just using CPU playback)- This is a Vegas issue that never gets resolved in regards to these Panasonic 4k 10 bit files.

@Richvideo I was trying a particular 4K60 10bit 422 AVC camera file recently, 80+percent CPU use dropping frames, very poor playback, I changed project to 50fps, conformed video file to 50fps(very slight slow motion) CPU use went down to 30-40% playback good. Seems unusual for CPU use to be so different due to a variance of 10fps

I haven't done any testing, but I wonder if the playback problems Vegas can have with high frame rate video is really a 60fps problem, but at 50fps it's much more competitive as far as playback efficiency

@Richvideo I was trying a particular 4K60 10bit 422 AVC camera file recently, 80+percent CPU use dropping frames, very poor playback, I changed project to 50fps, conformed video file to 50fps(very slight slow motion) CPU use went down to 30-40% playback good. Seems unusual for CPU use to be so different due to a variance of 10fps

I haven't done any testing, but I wonder if the playback problems Vegas can have with high frame rate video is really a 60fps problem, but at 50fps it's much more competitive as far as playback efficiency

Download the free version of Resolve and drop the file in there and test how well it plays with it compared to Vegas without a proxy -curious to hear how it works for you

https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/

10 bit GH5 footage is best previewed and edited using a Proxy. Search your Vegas Help.

Any other options besides the Proxy video workaround? Also, If I do not plan on doing color correction is this a waste of time shooting 10-bit?

If you're shooting standard Cine-D and you like the look of it you could just do 8-bit without running into artifacts. Just try to get white balance correct in camera. If you are shooting V-log or the like you can take advantage of the extra bit depth. Of course V-log requires color correction in post.

 

I haven't done any testing, but I wonder if the playback problems Vegas can have with high frame rate video is really a 60fps problem, but at 50fps it's much more competitive as far as playback efficiency

Download the free version of Resolve and drop the file in there and test how well it plays with it compared to Vegas without a proxy -curious to hear how it works for you

@Richvideo I have Premiere,Resolve and Vegas installed. at 50fps CPU use and playback was very similar, at 60fps Vegas eats up all my cpu and can't play smoothly.while the other editors CPU use did not change.I concluded in this particular camera file example that Vegas is more sensitive to high bandwidth, happily played the file at 50fps(482Mb/s) but at 60fps(579Mb/s) it became very CPU hungry and inefficient. Another user with a 32core CPU could still play smoothly but my 12core could not.

 

I haven't done any testing, but I wonder if the playback problems Vegas can have with high frame rate video is really a 60fps problem, but at 50fps it's much more competitive as far as playback efficiency

Download the free version of Resolve and drop the file in there and test how well it plays with it compared to Vegas without a proxy -curious to hear how it works for you

@Richvideo I have Premiere,Resolve and Vegas installed. at 50fps CPU use and playback was very similar, at 60fps Vegas eats up all my cpu and can't play smoothly.while the other editors CPU use did not change.I concluded in this particular camera file example that Vegas is more sensitive to high bandwidth, happily played the file at 50fps(482Mb/s) but at 60fps(579Mb/s) it became very CPU hungry and inefficient. Another user with a 32core CPU could still play smoothly but my 12core could not.

I have the same CPU as you with a RTX 2080 Super card and when I last tested a similar Panasonic 4K 10 bit file from the Panasonic AG 350 camcorder it would not play a full framerate in Vegas 18 or 19 but it played much better in Resolve and Adobe without a proxy

Now your files are 60FPS and mine are 29.97 so of course, that is going to be a factor

These are the properties for the file I normally shoot in

The .MOV file properties (Panasonic AG-CX350 camcorder)

Format                      : MPEG-4
Format profile              : QuickTime
Codec ID                    : qt   2011.07 (qt  /pana)
Overall bit rate mode       : Variable
Overall bit rate            : 154 Mb/s

Format                      : AVC
Format/Info                 : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile              : High 4:2:2@L5.1
Format settings             : CABAC / 1 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC      : Yes
Format settings, Reference  : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP        : M=1, N=15
Codec ID                    : avc1
Codec ID/Info               : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                    : 4 s 505 ms
Bit rate mode               : Variable
Bit rate                    : 149 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate            : 180 Mb/s
Width                       : 3 840 pixels
Height                      : 2 160 pixels
Display aspect ratio        : 16:9
Frame rate mode             : Constant
Frame rate                  : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
Standard                    : Component
Color space                 : YUV
Chroma subsampling          : 4:2:2
Bit depth                   : 10 bits
Scan type                   : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)          : 0.599
Stream size                 : 80.0 MiB (97%)

Color range                 : Limited
Color primaries             : BT.709

If you had an x264 encode from handbrake - default settings as some sort of standard, then measured editing and scrubbing performance over a range of camera AVC files you would find a large variance in their ability to be played back on vegas, some perform better than x264 and many worse, with the other editors playing everything back fine without the same problems as Vegas.

To someone that understands AVC Long GOP compression this can't be a mystery as to why some things playback well and others don't in Vegas. Collect a ton of camera files, screen captures too, test and rate how they perform in Vegas, compare the file structures. I don't know enough about this.

It may be possible to simply say to a person with a particular camera file of a given resolution and frame rate that they won't ever have a pleasant experience editing this file in Vegas, and getting an Intel 12900K, 128GB ram and 3090ti won't change anything:- Try a transcode or proxies instead.

This is 3 different camera files, 3 different GOP structures

Also, If I do not plan on doing color correction is this a waste of time shooting 10-bit?

Yes. You only want 10 bit if you are aiming for HDR video or if you need to be able to color correct it in post. You'll have more flexibility in 10 bit, like if you forget to set your white balance, the color correction will look way nicer if you start in 10 bit, but if you aren't shooting VLOG, then 8 bit is just fine for your uses. You also don't get the 10 bit advantage when VEGAS' project settings are set to 8 bit, only if at 32 bit.

I am using 10-bit HEVC media and Vegas won't play it right and is really choppy. It also crashes regularly, and editing is a nightmare. Everything about the program is just slow and choppy with the 10-bit media. I have a $6,000 Dollar computer with a $1,000 graphics card, so the problem is not my computer. The only way I can even begin to edit is by reverting back and enabling legacy AVC and HEVC decoding. This apparently disables my graphics card, but this is what seems to work best. In the preview window, I use "Preview-Auto." Even so, the program crashes regularly (and they are big crashes) so I have to shut down all other programs and restart my computer. I manually save my work about every 10 seconds because of the number of crashes. It just seems like the 10-bit media is just too heavy for Vegas so it strains to work with it and, therefore, crashes regularly.

I hope and pray Vegas devotes some serious effort to deal with this issue as 10-bit HEVC is the future.

@Todd-Fink Hi, would you go to your icon at the top, click it - My Profile, & fill in your Signature with your Vegas version, Windows version & system specs, full name of CPU, GPU, & amount of RAM etc. this will then show at the bottom of the comments, also if poss share one of your 10-bit media on Google Drive or another sharing site so it can be tried ?

If you had an x264 encode from handbrake - default settings as some sort of standard, then measured editing and scrubbing performance over a range of camera AVC files you would find a large variance in their ability to be played back on vegas, some perform better than x264 and many worse, with the other editors playing everything back fine without the same problems as Vegas.

To someone that understands AVC Long GOP compression this can't be a mystery as to why some things playback well and others don't in Vegas. Collect a ton of camera files, screen captures too, test and rate how they perform in Vegas, compare the file structures. I don't know enough about this.

It may be possible to simply say to a person with a particular camera file of a given resolution and frame rate that they won't ever have a pleasant experience editing this file in Vegas, and getting an Intel 12900K, 128GB ram and 3090ti won't change anything:- Try a transcode or proxies instead.

This is 3 different camera files, 3 different GOP structures

@Former user  Ah ha, now this is interesting. In Sony Vegas 13.0 all my files played beautifully. But after I upgraded to Vegas 19.0, with its modern GPU decoding, I wondered why my Mavic Mini 2.7K files played choppy, even with an RX 6800 XT, whereas my 4K files from my Panasonic G80/85 and GoPro played smooth. All 25fps AVC on a 1080p 25fps project timeline. BUT, in trying to gain programme stability, I switched my GPU driver from the Gaming version to the Pro version and then the Mavic Mini 2.7K files played smooth.

As it happens, the only way for me to prevent crashes is to enable Legacy AVC Decoding so all the files play smooth again anyway. But I just thought I’d throw the driver bit in the mix.

And, you got me wanting to learn about GOP now!! ;)