Still not 64 bit?

Huffygalore wrote on 6/10/2011, 12:30 PM
I was looking forward to this release since I first heard about it. VMS 10 required me to use third party software to reencode the file from my cam so Vegas could recognise it. Performance also seemed a little sluggish.

The new features seemed interesting... 3D, GPU support... It would almost certainly be available in a 64 bit version wouldn't it?

Errr... No.

Have to say i'm quite surprised by this. Seems they spent all their time on the 3D stuff perhaps...?

So, what are the chances Sony will relese a 64 bit patch down the line? Given the lack of updates for VMS 10 I doubt it. Still... VMS 12 is only a year away...

Comments

Eugenia wrote on 6/10/2011, 1:40 PM
There was no reason to start a brand new thread about this, since you could have mention it on the VSM11 thread, where this problem is already mentioned.

>VMS 10 required me to use third party software to reencode the file from my cam so Vegas could recognise it.

What kind of camera/format is that?
Jøran Toresen wrote on 6/10/2011, 1:55 PM
Huffygalore, what do you mean with "a 64 bit patch"?

Jøran Toresen
Huffygalore wrote on 6/10/2011, 2:14 PM
That's YOUR opinion. Are you a moderator? No.

By your reckoning there would only be a handful of threads in the VMS forum.

I started this particular thread to discuss a specific aspect of VMS. That aspect being the lack of 64 bit support - what we can do about it and what Sony plan to do about it (If anything).

These days a lot of people are running a 64 bit OS. 4GB is now considered the minimum memory you should have and many people who are getting new machines have more. I'm not saying that it should only be 64 bit. There should be 32 & 64 bit versions so that those with 64 bit OS's and more than 4GB of RAM can use it and see the performance benefit.

It's odd that we're now at VMS11 in 2011 and it's still only 32bit.

It's a type of AVI file. Vegas won't import it unless I convert it to another format. From what I can remember it had something to do with the audio rather than the video.

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'Patch' possibly wasn't the best phrase. I hope they release an update that includes a 64 bit version. You would then have both the 32 and 64 bit versions of VMS.
Eugenia wrote on 6/10/2011, 2:19 PM
>the lack of 64 bit support - what we can do about it

You can't do anything about it. It's in vain. Apart from upgrading to Vegas Pro.

>and what Sony plan to do about it

If Sony has any plans, they won't tell you. Companies never comment on future features like that.

>It's a type of AVI file. Vegas won't import it unless I convert it to another format.

Load MediaInfo and give us the output of that AVI format, so maybe we can find a better workflow for you. As I see it, that's the only real issue that can be discussed in this thread that's not completely out of our hands.
Huffygalore wrote on 6/10/2011, 3:05 PM
Hi Eugenia,

The general format is AVI

Video format: AVC
Profile: Main@L4.0
Codec Id: H.264

Audio = ADCPM, 2 Channels, 48k, 4 bit.

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that it was something to do with the 4bit audio. Either way, when I try to import the video into VMS10 the programme just hangs.

The way I got round it was to convert it to either mp4 or WMV.

I'm not sure if VMS 11 has the same problem. I'll download the trial over the weekend and have a look.

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My main field is professional music production. It's a different world there. Most software has been 32 & 64 bit for a while. Most software has at least a couple of updates through it's life cycle and the creators (sometimes) bend over backwards to help out and address any issues.

The reason most music software went 64 bit was simply because of the limitations of 32 bit. Those same limitations apply to video to.

It's not a deal breaker, more of a minor irritation at the moment. As I say - it's just a little surprising that they haven't made the move to 64 bit software with this release or VMS 10 for that matter and i'm a little cynical of the reasoning behind it.
Eugenia wrote on 6/10/2011, 3:15 PM
Vegas does not support h.264 in the AVI container, unless a third party codec is installed. Try the latest build from here http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/files/SVN%20builds%20by%20clsid/generic%20builds/
Then, from the program menu, open ffdshow folder, and load the audio decoder configuration dialog, and "enable" the three ADPCM codecs mentioned there. From the video decoder configuration dialog, enable h.264/AVC. Now try one of these files on your VMS 10 or 11. Let us know if it works.

If it doesn't work, or if it works but it's super-slow, then please upload a 10 second such AVI video somewhere where I can download it, and I will get you a workflow that makes the h.264 AVI as h.264 MP4/MOV with AAC, which is both faster, and compatible with VMS10/11. The trick in that option is that the video does not get re-encoded, only the audio is, making these transcodings super-fast, and without losing any video quality at all. If you just "convert" to MP4 or WMV, and the video re-encodes in the process, you lose quality, you see. There are ways to avoid that.
Huffygalore wrote on 6/10/2011, 4:40 PM
The FFDshow codec works perfectly! You're a star!

It's a shame we've got to go hunting down 3rd party software to make things work. These companies have us round the proverbials don't they?!

To be honest I didn't notice any degeneration in the video quality when converting to mp4 or wmv so long as I didn't change the bitrate too much or re-scale the video. Though it's inevitable that some loss of quality did occur. It's great to be able to just load the file into VMS without the extra hassle!

I going to have to give the VMS11 trial a good look over the next few days to see if the upgrade cost is justified. So far it isn't but i'll need a few days to make my mind up.
Eugenia wrote on 6/10/2011, 4:59 PM
Glad to see it's working.

>It's a shame we've got to go hunting down 3rd party software to make things work.

Actually, h.264 in the AVI container (rather than MP4 or MOV) is not that standard. It sprang out at the beginning of h.264's reign, around 2005, because there was no Quicktime for Windows at the time, so it was the only real option for Windows users. The early pocket digirecorders featured the format, but it was a dead-on-arrival format: h.264 was becoming popular in MP4, MOV or .mts containers instead. Most pocket camera manufacturers have moved to h.264/MOV now instead of h.264/AVI.

Besides, there are about 100 codecs out there, no single video editor can support everything. Some of the less popular container-format combos are not supported, no matter the video editor. For these cases, third party codecs are needed.

>give the VMS11 trial a good look over the next few days

If you buy a newer camera (for a cheap but good HD camera I'd suggest the $140 720/30p Canon A2200), that uses h.264/MOV/MP4, then VMS11 becomes a necessity, as it's faster with that format/container in question. You won't see a speed up for your current h.264/AVI though, because the decoding is done via ffdshow for that combo format, not via Vegas' own decoding libraries.