Trying to move to 4K files but previewing is doing my head in

m1ke_a wrote on 10/14/2023, 10:58 AM

Hi all

I am very much an occasional, hobby user but have been slowly upgrading to shooting 4K footage, first via an Android phone and most recently a Canon R6 mark 2.

Trouble is I constantly struggle with getting smooth preview playback and it keeps putting me off trying more video work.

PC is W10 22H2, AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 64GB ram, RX6600 XT 8GB card and an assorment of PCIE and SATA HDDs. Vegas 19.0 651.

Most recent experiment today was shooting the Canon at 4K, 50fps, IPB CLog3 (HEVC, 10bit??).

Canon DPP4 plays the files but latest VLC won't, neither will Resolve 18, apparently cos the free version only does 8bit?

I'm pretty sure I've tried every permutation of settings I've found in posts such as https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/preview-lag--134369/, including a reinstall of Vegas, which made no difference.

As I only dabble, I don't really want to try another editor so can anyone help please?

Comments

RogerS wrote on 10/14/2023, 4:02 PM

Try shooting video formats that work well in VEGAS. Your Canon does a variety of file formats, so try a few and see what works for you. 10-bit HEVC is likely to perform poorly, though you can experiment with preferences/ file io and see if unchecking legacy HEVC decoding helps.

If you want to stick with the current footage you can also right-click on it in the media bin and "create proxy file" which should work much better. Try viewing them at preview/full quality and see the originals by changing preview quality to best/full.

Reinstalling VEGAS is likely a waste of time.

If your need to shoot a certain type of footage (say C-log so that means 10-bit to avoid artifacts) but performance is VEGAS is poor, as an alternative to creating proxy files you can convert the originals to ProRes 422 or 10-bit 4:2:0 AVC with a tool like ShutterEncoder (free).

Grazie wrote on 10/14/2023, 4:23 PM

Try shooting video formats that work well in VEGAS.

@RogerS - Yes, when ever I’ve scoped a new Camera, always Canon, I’ve often taken an SD card to the Shop to capture a short piece using all the formats, bring it back to VP and try them out.

m1ke_a wrote on 10/15/2023, 2:28 AM

@RogerS

Thank you.

I think the 4K files from my phone are also HEVC so can you give me some pointers on what formats Vegas does like? I can't imagine I'm the first to encounter such issues especially as I'm just starting to use formats / res that have been around for 3+ years?

Trying permutations of preview sizes, legacy encoding, dynamic ram and matching video size have made no difference. I've never created proxies before or transcoded to something else. This sounds like a lot of extra work so am I being picky or is this just one of those things people just accept (with Vegas)?

Looking at the EOS movie specs section here - https://www.canon.co.uk/cameras/eos-r6-mark-ii/specifications/ would we agree that my above test would have been

Bitrate / Mbps

MP4 H.265 Canon Log / HDR PQ: On
4K (59.94p/50.00p): IPB Approx. 340 Mbps

Colour Sampling (Internal Recording)

4K/ Full HD - YCbCr4:2:0 8-bit or YCbCr4:2:2 10bit ?

Former user wrote on 10/15/2023, 3:46 AM

@m1ke_a Hi,

Can you click your icon at the top of this page - My Profile & fill in your Signature with the full name of your CPU, GPU & amount of RAM, also inc the Windows & Vegas version, this will then always show at the bottom of your comments,
There's an App called MediaInfo, download it, it's free & a fast download with no added adverts or any of that rubbish. https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo,
After downloading, right click on the media file in your Windows folder, open MediaInfo, choose Text from the options at the top, Copy & paste the information in a new comment on here 👍 Like this
You could share a short clip from each camera, place them in a zipped folder & put them on Google Drive -
Open Google, top right is a sq of dots - Open Google Drive -
Drag that video onto the Google Drive window, let it upload.
Right click on the file on screen - Share.
A window will pop up, General Access - choose anyone with the link - Copy link.
Then on here in a new comment at the top there's a chain button, paste the link on there
Click Comment
Your phone (what is it?) will most prob have a setting HDR, HDR10+, High Bitrate Videos, these options produce HEVC (H265) videos, even tho it's been around for a few yrs it's still not fully compatible in many pieces of software, so if you turn these options off it'll give you an AVC (H264) video which is almost 100% compatible with all software, HEVC & AVC both produce MP4 files, the difference is how the information is compressed for storage, A similar thing goes for 10bit vs 8bit, If you're just "an occasional, hobby user" 8bit is more than good enough for you.

PS, VLC Player can be grumpy, so i have MPC Player which plays pretty much anything i throw at it https://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcbe/

Former user wrote on 10/15/2023, 4:11 AM

I can't imagine I'm the first to encounter such issues especially as I'm just starting to use formats / res that have been around for 3+ years?I've never created proxies before or transcoded to something else.

This sounds like a lot of extra work so am I being picky or is this just one of those things people just accept (with Vegas)?
4K YCbCr4:2:2 10bit

I tried encoding 1minute of R6 4K camera footage above to 1080P via Hardware encoding. The reason for 1080P is because I"m interested in how fast Vegas can read the camera file, not how fast it can write. These are results

Vegas 3m29s

Capcut 23s

Resolve 20s

So from those results if there were to be no losses we could expect Resolve and Capcut can play the 24fps camera footage at 2x - 3x speed and not drop frames while Vegas is only capable of 7fps. So as far as hints or tricks to gain over 3x the performance of the Vegas render engine in order to play 24fps smoothly, there are none.

I also have the 5900x, and you'll notice the same problem, Vegas isn't capable of utilizing our CPU's using only 15% to read and process the file, Capcut using 85% and Resolve 65% . Both our systems do not have GPU decode for these 422 files, but the workflow is much more flexible in other editors which are able to edit without transcoding or proxies if required.

RogerS wrote on 10/15/2023, 9:59 AM

MPC player also has MediaInfo built into it. Open a file and go to properties.

The file you described of 10 bit 422 HEVC isn't going to play back well in VEGAS. Proxy or convert.

RogerS wrote on 10/15/2023, 8:33 PM

I think the 4K files from my phone are also HEVC so can you give me some pointers on what formats Vegas does like? I can't imagine I'm the first to encounter such issues especially as I'm just starting to use formats / res that have been around for 3+ years?

VEGAS likes 8-bit AVC and 10-bit 4:2:0 AVC works fine, too. ProRes is another great option though file sizes are larger.

You are certainly not the first to encounter these issues and while HEVC isn't new it's not a great combination with VEGAS at present.

I use ShutterEncoder to batch convert files that VEGAS doesn't like. ProRes422 is safe. Output codec x264 is another one I use. If you're in a hurry there are also GPU encoding options available. Try one and "replace media"in VEGAS and see how it performs. I bet it's a day and night difference.

m1ke_a wrote on 10/16/2023, 1:55 AM

Thank you all. 👍

I had a VERY quick play transcoding to ProRes and it seemed to behave itself. But I need to properly sit down and digest your comments and reply accordingly.

mark-y wrote on 10/16/2023, 6:22 AM

@m1ke_a

It seems most cameras and phones today are HDR capable, and in order to show off its features, HDR shooting is turned on by default. Computer hardware and software is constantly playing catch-up with the latest video formats, it has been this way for two decades.

In your case, the HDR features that are taxing your system so heavily are the ones in bold:

MP4 H.265 Canon Log / HDR PQ: On
4K (59.94p/50.00p): IPB Approx. 340 Mbps
Colour Sampling (Internal Recording)
4K/ Full HD - YCbCr4:2:0 8-bit or YCbCr4:2:2 10bit

Even though Youtube accepts and delivers HDR, relatively few viewers will enjoy its benefits yet either because of their hardware or internet speed.

As @Former user properly pointed out, the vast majority of what is viewed is 1080p 30/25fps 4:2:0 8 bit at ≤20mbps. The more HDR features you can turn off in shooting and still deliver to the majority of your audience, the smoother your Vegas preview and render times, and your overall editing experience.

gabgilson wrote on 10/16/2023, 10:43 AM

Welcome to the never ending quest for smooth playback with 4k files. There are many of us on the journey. I have a similar PC spec to you. It's the h.265 and high frame rate files I find Vegas can't manage smooth playback with. Proxies are a fantastic solution. It's boring having to wait for them to render, but playback is so much better with them, it's well worth it. You can be much more creative with the edit once it's playing smoothly. 4k files shot at 24fps h.264 should playback smoothly even with 10bit colour, so I tend to do all my interviews in that and just use proxies for the cutaways I've filmed at 60fps. I resisted proxies for several years, and tried fiddling and upgrades. Wish I'd just switched to them earlier, and not worried about higher spec GPU. Hope that helps a little.

m1ke_a wrote on 10/16/2023, 1:23 PM

Thank you again everyone

Sig is updated and I've downloaded MPC. It confirms my 'max settings test' is HEVC, 50fps 328Mbps, 4:2:2 10 bit.

@Former user phone is a Oneplus 9 pro and a quick check shows files are HEVC 8:2:0 8 bit.

Stuff I've predominately shot is (steam) trains and night time firework displays. The train stuff can be very contrasty so I thought it'd be good to have higher quality source files. The R6 mk2 is a massive step up from the 5D3 and 7D2 I've used in the past so I'm keen to improve my post processing skills

Night time torch lit processions are also obviously very contrasty and noisy (picture quality and audio!).

@gabgilson it really sounds like I need to try proxies so thank you for your recommendation. There's a number of Guy Fawkes bonfire celebrations coming up that I can have a practice at, and if nothing else at least I know Prores plays even if the file sizes are going to go through the roof

Former user wrote on 10/16/2023, 5:43 PM

I resisted proxies for several years, and tried fiddling and upgrades. Wish I'd just switched to them earlier, and not worried about higher spec GPU. Hope that helps a little.

@gabgilson The problem for him and his R6 is that each minute of 422 10bit footage will take a minimum of 3m30s to encode.

I tried the proxy generation in both Vegas and resolve for 2m20s R6 HEVC 422 10bit

Vegas 8m48s

Resolve 50s

I think there's (paid?) tools that can create the vegas proxy externally so doesn't incur the Vegas slow down although I could be confusing that with the 'replace media' method that RogerS was talking about.

I think it's natural to resist something that isn't efficient and you know could be done faster.

mark-y wrote on 10/16/2023, 6:10 PM

It confirms my 'max settings test' is HEVC, 50fps 328Mbps, 4:2:2 10 bit.

Yes, without Proxies or ProRes intermediates, Vegas in 2023 is going to have a cow.

RogerS wrote on 10/16/2023, 6:44 PM

To make proxies (and then to render the final video) VEGAS needs to decode the original file and that is slow, which is the problem to begin with.

If there are many files needing this, I prefer to just do a conversion outside VEGAS (ProRes or h264) and then edit as normal. For just a problem file or two, a VEGAS proxy file is totally fine.

Either are valid workflows.

gabgilson wrote on 10/17/2023, 2:37 AM

I hadn't realised how relatively slow the vegas internal proxy building solution is. I've been trying external proxy builders since reading this thread. Happy Otter is the fastest I've tried - it's a game changer for my workflow. Creates proxies approx 8 times faster than vegas, i.e. cup of tea length for a small project, rather than three course meal length. Only small downside is that you can't continue editing in the project while it's transcoding, but it's so quick, that doesn't matter too much. It has a 'switch proxy' function to replicate the Preview/Good switch with internal proxies. There's a free trial of most of these tools.