Pro 64bit slower than Mov-Stud Plat 9b in Vista64

Don Stewart wrote on 12/16/2008, 7:32 AM
Hello all,

I bought Vegas Movie Studio 9.0b Platinum Pro Pack and since I am running Vista 64bit I thought upgrading to Vegas Pro 8.1 64bit would help me edit my Canon 5D Mark II 1080P video a little better. I was getting about 5-8 FPS previews and worse when I add effects etc... So I begged the wife and broke out the credit card and bought the upgrade last week.

However (Vegas Pro 8.1 64bit) is running far worse than (Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pack) on the same system. When previewing, rendering movies moving the sliders etc... I tested using a blank project with the same source video file with the same rendering output settings. All performance is worse. Argh...

System Specs:
Vista 64 Completely updated drivers ~ Core2 Quad Q9450 ~ 4GB DDR2 ~ 300GB 10KRPM WD VelociRaptor & 2 each 750GB WD 7200RPM in RAID 1 ~ GTX280 1GB PCIE video card ~ 37" 1920x1080 LCD DVI TV/Monitor

All would okay if I can get it to at least perform the same since it has added functionality.

Also a little side question: Is there anyway to have all the extra Pro Pack transitions and other tools added to my Pro Install?

Thank you for any help.
Sincerely
Don

Comments

GlennChan wrote on 12/16/2008, 9:20 AM
Take a look at your preview settings. Use good instead of best.

Turn off simulate device aspect ratio and resizing of the preview.

Turn off the real-time scopes.

Can't remember what else is there.
Don Stewart wrote on 12/16/2008, 7:29 PM
sorry for the long post/(story?)....but for anyone interested:

I used the settings you suggested and I used the "Match Media" option when creating the project and I verified every setting matched as closely as possible that I could find between each version.
However, simply previewing the video is still different:
My (average guestimate) preview speeds of direct 5D Mark II 1080P source video:
Vegas Movie Studio Plat 9.0b 32bit...... 6.3fps sec
Vegas Pro 8.1 64bit..................... 1.9fps sec

So.. I opened a ticket with Sony and they are looking at it from 2 angles, here is their responses:

1) ----------------------
It is possible that the files are encoded and utilizing codecs not native to Vegas Pro and the codecs being used are possibly not designed to take advantage of x64 hardware or OS environment.

Perhaps you could upload a sample file to our FTP server so that we could try testing with that here.
-------------------------

I uploaded a short 1080P@30fps source video directly from my 5D Mark II.
We'll see what they say.....


2) -----------------------
You can also try benchmarking both applications by downloading and test rendering the sample attached file.

It is a modified file that was setup to test rendering in Vegas Pro 8 by one of our users. I changed a few things so that it would open in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum also.

To test, download the attached file. First open in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum and use Project / Render As... Use MainConcept MPEG-2, and Blu-Ray 1920x1080-60i 25 mbps video stream.

Vegas will provide an elapsed time as it renders. Make a note of that time.

Next, repeat the exact same steps, but open the file in Vegas Pro 8.1 (Open Vegas Pro, use File / Open... then File / Render As when you are ready to render)

Do you see any differences between the two versions?
--------------------------


I ran the tests - and viola... Pro rendered faster...
Here are my results:
Vegas Movie Studio Plat 9.0b 32bit...... 1min & 10sec
Vegas Pro 8.1 64bit..................... 50 sec

So wanting to test the codec theory above, I threw the same exact sample file that I uploaded to Sony onto the end each of the separate 4 tracks (ensuring only one copy of the audio, from one of the tracks) Into the same exact project they provided. I then rendered using the same exact same settings as before.
Vegas Movie Studio Plat 9.0b 32bit...... 6min & 55sec
Vegas Pro 8.1 64bit..................... 48min & 24sec
(I was SHOCKED at this difference)

Next I performed the same test with a different 'non-5D' video file with a different codec:
Vegas Movie Studio Plat 9.0b 32bit...... 6min & 27sec
Vegas Pro 8.1 64bit..................... 6min & 33sec

This is pure conjecture:
Based on these results my belief is that Sony Vegas Pro 8.1 64bit is decoding the 5D Mark II files using the 32bit codec then upconverting it to 64bit for internal use and this process is slower than Vegas Movie Studio because it adds another extra conversion where the 32bit Vegas Movie Studio running on the 64bit OS doesn't need this step.

Until Vegas Pro 64bit develops support into their software for the codec used by the Canon 5D MarkII, I was considering resigning myself to using proxy files. This wouldn't be a terrible option, but.. It takes will take SO MUCH longer to render the final output.... aurghh...I can see this being a problem when I have to get a project done.


PS: If anyone knows someplace where I could upload these files to host, I could provide them for anyone who wants to do their own testing.
Himanshu wrote on 12/16/2008, 9:27 PM
Don,

The part about non-native 64-bit processing was mentioned in a thread about Vegas 8.0c v/s 8.1 speed comparison. Look for the word "surrogate" in the thread; currently it's the last message by jafbloom1230 that would be of interest to you.