Problems with Sony EX HQ footage in Vegas 8c

fausseplanete wrote on 10/7/2008, 5:37 AM
Sony PMW-EX3 HQ (35Mbps) footage was converted by Clip Browser 2.0 to "MXF for NLEs". In Vegas's Explorer, selected all and right-clicked. Vegas became painfully slow to respond. Eventually used File>Import, which seemed to work better. Dragged some small files from Project Media to Timeline OK. Then tried dragging a 26GB file, but while a corresponding Event appeared on the TimeLine, all its frames were red and Vegas went into "Not Responding" mode, with no CPU use. Had to terminate it from Task Manager

On the other hand (in a fresh Project) if I dragged the 26GB file from Explorer onto the timeline then (after painful wait for Drag icon to appear) the expected Event finally appeared there .. except that the audio waveform was not displayed, even though I could hear it in Preview). No such problem when a small file (5MB) was dragged in after it.

Anyone encountering the same kind of experiences? Is file size a factor? I have read elsewhere of issues in past when file>2GB, maybe this still applies?. Incidentally my operating system is XP SP2 with NTFS. Any workarounds? Like maybe some external tool to split the MXF into smaller segments?

Then there's a question over sync...

I just tried one possible workaround, namely Cineform Neo HD, using its HDLink to convert MP4 straight to Cineform AVI. This doubled the filesize. More seriously, when I differenced a Cineform track against a MXF (from Clip Browser) track and slid it in Timeline until no differences were visible, the audio waveforms were offset. Something's losing sync somewhere!

I hope to try AviSynth/VFAPI as a workaround soon. Anyone already done that?

Anyone else having such a rough journey ? Are these known issues? Any developers want test feedback to help diagnose and solve any problems ?

Comments

kkolbo wrote on 10/7/2008, 12:06 PM
I have found that smaller files respond much better. It makes sense since the operating system that feeds the files from the disc has to seek through the file to serve up the frames desired. Keep your files broken into smaller chunks.
fausseplanete wrote on 10/7/2008, 12:57 PM
Aha, smaller chunks! The shoot itself being one long live event, there is then the question how can it be split up? I notice that, in the BPAV folder (etc.), the footage is stored not as one big MP4 file but as a set of sequentially numbered MP4 files e.g. 4 GB. So in that case I guess it would be preferable to generate a separate MXF file for each MP4 rather than the single MXF file that Clip Browser generates, at least by default. I wonder if that thinking is correct and whether there is some simple automatic way (e.g. standalone app) to split up an MXF file into chunks. It does seem fussier than the HDV/m2t world though. If only there was some way for the MFX to have an index to speed up or avoid the seeking. I guess one difference is that it's VBR not CBR like the tape-based HDV and maybe that complicates things (?).

EDIT: Just discovered documentation at http://pro.sony.com/bbsccms/assets/files/micro/xdcam/downloads/25593_XDCAM_Vegas8_FR3.pdf confirming that the 4GB max MP4 size is by design. Makes me wonder what's the point of recombining them if it just creates a seeking problem.
farss wrote on 10/7/2008, 1:23 PM
I don't know if smaller chunks is going to help at all. Last time I checked Vegas cannot join mpeg-2 clips without dropping frames.

Bob.