Problems Rendering AVCHD Video due to Hardware?

roweder wrote on 8/1/2010, 4:30 PM
My computer meets and exceeds the hardware requirements for this software, but still I cannot render the videos taken by my CX550V, I can edit them just fine, but when I try to render them in HD, the beginning comes out fine, but then as it comes to around 6 minutes of normal video (without effects or transitions) the picture starts to lag, and the sound keeps going on, and the picture continues to get worse and worse.

I'm not sure what is causing this issue, does my hardware need an update? I am already planning on updating it, but I want to make sure it will help.

I am running the ASUS P5N-D Motherboard, Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz E6600, ASUS nVidia GTX 480, and Corsair 8GB DDR2 Memory at 800MHz (and a 750w PSU).

I'm thinking of upgrading to the ASUS Rampage Extreme iii, Core i7 930, same video card, and Corsair 6gb DDR3 Memory at 1600MHz

is my current setup really not enough? and will the new one work better? please let me know and thanks in advance!

-Derek

Comments

Markk655 wrote on 8/1/2010, 7:20 PM
My setup is just a bit better (C2D, E6700 2.66GHZ) and don't hav issues with this. What settings are you using to render? Are your clips full 1920x1080/60i (or 50i)?
musicvid10 wrote on 8/1/2010, 8:22 PM
roweder,
I understand this is your first post, however it is sufficiently vague as to make an informed response very difficult without some specific information.

Your hardware setup may affect your Preview or Playback, but should not affect your Render, other than the amount of time this takes. You need to be absolutely sure which of these you are talking about.

1) The Preview in Vegas is processor-heavy. Sometimes the most powerful Quad or I7 systems do not preview AVCHD smoothly in Vegas. That is why so many of the professionals use Cineform, or another lossless intermediate, on the Vegas timeline (look up any definitions you do not understand, as opposed to making assumptions).

2) The Playback of your rendered file depends on its bitrate, your hardware system, and the software Player you are using. Lots of variables here, so a brief explanation wouldn't begin to cover it.

3) The Render of your file is determined by the Properties you used to create it. Without you providing that essential information, it is impossible to determine if smooth Playback is going to be reasonably possible on your system.

-- Once you are clear as to these differences, feel free to post your specifics so someone can make an educated guess as to what you are actually talking about.
roweder wrote on 8/1/2010, 8:51 PM
I'm rendering the videos in:
Sony AVC (*.mp4;*.m2ts;*.avc)
AVCHD 1920x1080-60i 5.1 Surround.

I'm pretty sure that my computer is fully capable of playing a correctly rendered video, I watch blu-ray movies on it without a problem, so I wouldn't suspect that it is incapable of playing the video back smoothly, and I'm pretty sure that when it renders videos, it does not produce them correctly, and it creates a corrupt video file, or something like that.

I understand that playback and preview will most likely not play smoothly, and that's not what I'm looking to fix or trying to describe.

I am running Windows 7 64 bit if that makes any difference.
musicvid10 wrote on 8/1/2010, 9:33 PM
You still haven't said which player you are using, and the bitrate of your rendered video.

But I am going to hazard a guess that smooth Playback of Sony AVCHD on a dual-core machine is going to be very difficult to achieve, regardless of the bitrate or which software player you are using. I certainly haven't been able to achieve that on my dual-core laptop. However, I wouldn't consider a major hardware upgrade on that basis alone.

Nor would I consider Sony AVCHD my playback format of first choice. The MainConcept AVC encoder may give you better playability on your machine.

lprakash-xavier wrote on 8/2/2010, 12:38 AM
I'm having exactly the same problem!!!!!!

I'm trying to preserve the same quality as the source files but seem to have this problem of playback after render.

Once I render it as a .m2ts file..it plays for about 3~4 mins properly and lags afterwards. I'm using windows 7.0 media player to play back my videos. Playback of mp4 files is not an issue at all.

Normal playback of raw .m2ts is perfect with rich colors and is smooth.

my source files are .m2ts shot on XR 520E and 550V

No issues with preview on vegas

Hardware ASUS Motherboard Intel core i7 930, 6GB RAM, nividia N240 1gb
pierreontheair wrote on 8/2/2010, 12:53 AM
Same problem here too !

I had described it in a separte post already, where I was warning that there was an isue with Sony AVC rendering.

The common thing we have in common is Windows 7 64 bits. My video does not play on either Windows Media Player or PowerDVD as far as I am concerned. I am using RAdeon HD 5750 GPU, and others use Nvidia GPU.

To repeat, my videos play fine on another Vista 64 bits PC, and other AVCHD videos not created by Vegas play fine on my Windows 7 PC.

Conclusion is that there is a compatibility issue between Vegas and Windows 7.

COULD SOMEONE FROM SONY PLEASE HELP ?
(and please stop trying to blame HW configuration).

Pierre
roweder wrote on 8/2/2010, 6:04 AM
It can't be a playback issue, because it's being rendered in 16Mb/s, but the raw files that play absolutely fine are in 24Mb/s. I'm using windows media player, it plays the raw files just fine, and can play them for hours without disturbances.
musicvid10 wrote on 8/2/2010, 6:43 AM
It seems like the common thread maybe Windows 7, so I'll bow out.
It's never been a great playback codec for me on Vista, either.
I use an external x264 solution most of the time for delivery.

Since you are in agreement, I think a support ticket is going to be the most productive route.
roweder wrote on 8/2/2010, 7:20 AM
should I write the support ticket? or both of us?
pierreontheair wrote on 8/2/2010, 7:41 AM
I would say, the more the better.
roweder wrote on 8/2/2010, 7:54 AM
You were right, it must be some weird sort of incompatibility between Sony AVCHD rendering and Windows 7 64 bit, I just rendered a 21 minute video in Mainconcept AVCHD and it worked fine, but the sound was on the quiet side.
dalemccl wrote on 8/2/2010, 10:34 AM
I am using Windows 7 64-bit and render AVCHD from my Sony XR-500V at 1920x1080 60i with 5.1 audio successfully so I don't think the problem is Win 7 64-bit.

I am currently using VMS 10 HD Platinum and haven't rendered anything with it yet, but when I was using version 9 Platinum, the rendered file always started getting audio/video sync problems at about 2-3 minutes into the video. There was a forum discussion about this problem earlier this year or maybe late last year. Someone posted a cure that worked for me. Not sure if it applies to you, but it might be worth a try.

I tried to find that post so I could provide a link to the discussion, but couldn't find it. Basically you take the .m2ts file rendered by VMS and run it though the freeware program tsMuxeR. (http://www.smlabs.net/tsmuxer_en.html). Download the program and unzip it. If I recall correctly, there is no installation program and it doesn't change the registry or anything else in Windows. You just run it from the folder where you unzipped it to. (Run tsMuxeRGUI.exe)

1. Start the program.
2. "Add" the .m2ts file to tsMuxerGUI using the "Add" button in the upper right corner.
3. Use all the defaults except:
4. choose the button for ".m2ts muxing" as the output type, and specify the location where you want the output file to go
5, click "Start Muxing".

It runs very fast (it doesn't re-render). I'm not sure how it fixes the problem but it may correct some flag or field in the rendered file that Movie Studio did not set up correctly.

Like I said, it solved the audio/video sync problem for me. Maybe it will for you.
Markk655 wrote on 8/2/2010, 12:19 PM
"were right, it must be some weird sort of incompatibility between Sony AVCHD rendering and Windows 7 64 bit, I just rendered a 21 minute video in Mainconcept AVCHD and it worked fine, but the sound was on the quiet side."

Musicvid solved this one for me a short time ago - make sure AGC is unchecked in the audio project properties box. before rendering.
pierreontheair wrote on 8/2/2010, 12:42 PM
Thank you so much dalemccl. I followed your steps, and the file now plays seamlessly on W7 64 !

By the way, I'd be happy to hear if you can render something watchable with VMS 10 (prior to the tMux step); I have the impression that Sony broke something in the version 10 as they changed the Sony AVC rendering to enable GPU acceleration.

Still appears to be a bug, so will send a note to Sony, but thank you so much for providing this workaround !

Pierre
dalemccl wrote on 8/2/2010, 1:26 PM
Glad to help. I wish I could remember who to give credit to for discovering the fix. I just followed their advice.

I will try render some AVCHD clips to a 1920x1080 60i DD5.1 Sony AVC m2ts file of 10 minutes or more with VMS 10 and see if it has the sync problem. I'll report back when the render finishes.
dalemccl wrote on 8/2/2010, 8:11 PM
>>By the way, I'd be happy to hear if you can render something watchable with VMS 10 (prior to the tMux step); I have the impression that Sony broke something in the version 10 as they changed the Sony AVC rendering to enable GPU acceleration.<<
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Using VMS 10 HD Platinum, I rendered AVCHD clips to Sony AVC 1920x1080 60i DD5.1. There were probably close to 100 clips. The resulting 13 minute .m2ts file played perfectly. I didn't need to run it through tsMuxer like I always had to with VMS 9 Platinum..

Since you mentioned GPU acceleration, I should point out that I have an ATI card, not NVidia, so I am unable to determine whether GPU acceleration would cause a problem.