Vegas 21 update omits legacy-hevc decoding checkbox

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 11/8/2023, 1:34 PM

To better understand what's up with the hevc-legacy checkbox being gone in the vp21 build 187 update, I did some quality analysis compared to vp20 whose numbers I already had handy. All these are from my laptop with Nvidia 3060 for gpu and either Intel IrisXe QSV decoding or Legacy-Hevc.

It's a morass of numbers but pretty obvious to "Vegas Pro-CSI" that the new Qsv is based on the old Legacy-Hevc. And that the old Qsv is evolving into the new Experimental Hevc. The metrics being much like decoder fingerprints. I'm so happy the quality of the old Legacy-hevc has not gone down the tubes! Next I've got some performance analysis that's been keeping me busy. Give me a few moments.

Comments

VEGASDerek wrote on 11/8/2023, 2:50 PM

An official explanation...

The original HEVC decoder, which used the mxhevcplug module, was originally going to be deprecated in favor of the new So4CompoundPlug decoder which was using some new GPU paths to help with performance. We had several issues with the new So4CompoundPlug module, especially for use with HEVC media and that led us to turn it off by default in favor of the slower but more stable mxhevcplug decoder. This original decoder was referred to as the "legacy HEVC decoder." As we began work on our new decoding engine, it became apparent that the So4CompoundPlug was not the right approach and the mxhevcplug, which is based on the very successful decoder used in other Magix products like Movie Studio, Video Deluxe and Video Pro X, was a more viable option for us in the future. So the "Legacy" preference option had its behavior altered and we changed the name to "Experimental" referring to the troubled So4CompoundPlug HEVC decoder. You may still experience some better GPU usage with the "Experimental" plugin, but we do not intend to do additional development on it and will instead be integrating some exciting and impressive improvements to the mxhevcplug module. You will already see some decoding improvements with build 187 from work we have done with the mxhevcplug module, but we will have more extensive changes as we create an improved video engine and media pipeline in VEGAS.

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 11/8/2023, 3:25 PM

Just posted performance charts in it's own thread.... cudos to the development team on making the old and pokey but higher quality decoder born again. And so much more competitive in performance.