Vegas 9 and Sanyo VPC-FH1

rich__r wrote on 6/10/2009, 10:31 AM

I can provide some information since I have a VPC-FH1. However, I don't run any 64-bit versions of Vegas. The Sanyo records in h.264 video and AAC audio in an mp4 wrapper (it's pretty close to AVCHD video, but differs in audio).

Vegas 8.0c will reliably crash when you try to open a 1920x1080/60p clip (unless you already have a clip with a different framerate loaded first!). 8.0c will handle the other Sanyo formats fine (well I'll talk about fine later) - 1920x1080/60i, 1920x1080/30p, and 1280x720/30p all load Ok. However, just like AVCHD Vegas struggles to preview any of these formats (preview framerates are generally on the order of 7fps on my system a Core 2 Duo at 2.4 GHz, 3GB ram, nVidia 8600 series graphics, Vista 32).

I convert my files to Cineform using Neo Scene. In 8.0c the Cineform files preview about 3 times faster (still doesn't get the full framerate but much better). The Neo Scene conversion takes about 2x time.

Vegas 9.0 has made some improvements. I can now load the 1920x1080/60p files directly without crashing Vegas -- at least most of the time. It seems there are still some limitations - I have a 20 minute clip that crashes Vegas 9.0 if I load it, but smaller clips work fine (I don't know exactly where the issue starts most of my clips are much less than 5 minutes and they all have no problem). I can seemingly add many of these smaller clips to the time line with no problems, so it seems to be some kind of memory handling issue with the larger file (the 20 minute clip is 2.7 Gb).

Unfortunately Vegas 9.0 preview performance with Cineform is much worse than 8.0c. There is hope that will be addressed by Cineform and Vegas.

In the meantime I have been using the Proxy Stream script to convert my clips from the Sanyo format to Sony mxf. This works quite well, except for the 1920x1080/60p format clips since Sony mxf does not support that combination. I generally use the 1920x1080/30p format for most of my work and only use the 60p framerate when I want nice slo-mo or an shooting high motion scenes (which is pretty rate).

Vegas 9.0 renders the original 1920x1080/60p files fine. Its just preview that is poor. I plan on making use of some of Proxy Streams actual design intent for these files. I have a template setup to use Proxy Stream to render mpg proxies in place of the original 60p files (lower resolution, but still 60p). I will use the proxies for editing and then use Proxy Stream to switch back to the source 1920x1080/60p for final render.

Of course using Proxy Stream to render this way adds some significant time to the workflow - rendering the Proxy files is pretty slow (much slower than the Neo Scene conversion). It is on the order of 5x for the highest resolution files.

I would not be surprised if Vegas 9 64-bit handles the large 1920x1080/60p files better than the 32-bit version. But don't expect significantly better preview performance.

On a side note: I too was considering several cameras (Canon HF100, Canon HF S100, Panasonic HDC-TM300, Panasonic DMC-GH1, and Sanyo VPC-FH1). I really want the DMC-GH1, but decided to hold off for at least a year to give it time to mature). So my decision was largely based on getting a reasonable HD camera at a relatively low cost. I expect to replace it within 18 months. The biggest deficiency of the Sanyo camcorders is their image stabilization sucks. I knew that going in and was not terribly bothered by that since I normally use either a monopod or a tripod (and also have the proDad Mercalli plug-in just in case). I am quite pleased withe FH1 for my purposes, but if you shoot a lot of handheld video, the Canon will be a better choice).

Rich

hoodoo wrote on 6/10/2009, 10:50 AM

Thanks Rich, that was extremely informative and helpful. One more thing, if you don't mind... can you post a very short clip of one the VPC-FH1's files just so I can see how it handles within Vegas on my setup (not so new laptop). 1920x1080/30p would be fine, as I do not intend to use 60p much, but I like that the option is there.

I mainly film my girls (3 yr old twins) handheld but I do like to plan shots with a tripod as well. The Canon is nice, but the lack of 1920x1080p really turns me off. I am hoping the stabilization issue is not too bad.

warriorking wrote on 6/10/2009, 10:52 AM

My experience with Vegas 9 64Bit and footage from my Canon HG21 at 1920x1080/60p have been pretty smooth, even with footage consisting of a little over 2hrs ..no crashes with 9, and the renders have been flawless...My recent project consisted of footage from 2-HG10's and 1- HG21...Multi camera setup and editing with transitions, titles ...other than the sluggish performance in the preview window, Vegas 9 completed the project to both Blu-ray as well as MPEG 2 DVD without a hitch...

rich__r wrote on 6/10/2009, 11:22 AM

Sure. I'll try to get something posted on Vimeo tonight.

hoodoo wrote on 6/10/2009, 11:38 AM

Thanks, I really appreciate it.

rich__r wrote on 6/10/2009, 7:55 PM

Its still in process of uploading. I have no idea what Vimeo is going to do the the raw footage. You should be able to download the raw footage. It is about 30 sec of 1920x1080/30p completely raw.

http://www.vimeo.com/5104567

Rich

hoodoo wrote on 6/11/2009, 5:06 AM

Downloading now. Thanks.

EDIT: Download complete. Video loads in fine with no "slowdown" or evident issues. I went ahead and made the order. Camera arrives tomorrow. Upgrading from a SD 3CCD to HD... I hear "A Whole New World" from Aladdin playing in the background. LOL.

Again, thanks for your quick response and knowledge.

VanLazarus wrote on 6/12/2009, 7:00 AM

I own the Sanyo HD2000 (pistol grip version of the VPC-FH1) and love it! The 1920x1080 60p mode is amazing! As mentioned before the image stabilization is poor, but it's low price, great low light performance and 1920x1080 60p video makes it the right camera for me.

I've done some editing with the 60p video (I almost always shoot in this mode) within Vegas 9.0 and Vista x64 with similar results to what others have mentioned in this thread.

Stay away from using Windows 7 though. Vegas 9.0 will crash repeatedly and is unusable for editing the video from the VPC-FH1 or HD2000. (although by renaming the mcmp4plug.dll and installed Quicktime you can avoid the crashes but get poor perfromance).

VanLazarus wrote on 6/15/2009, 11:28 AM

I spoke too quickly.... It seems Vegas 9.0 (and 8.0c) is completely inconsistent when editing MP4 files generated by Sanyo's latest HD cameras (HD2000 and VPC-FH1).

On my new i7 machine with Vista 64 bit, I can't get Vegas (9.0 or 8.0c) to edit these MP4 files. It will either show red for thumnails and play only the audio for these clips. Even weirder.... it worked on my Windows 7 RC 64 bit OS for about 30 minutes, playback and editing was amazingly smooth.... and then Vegas started showing red for clips.... and then playback become choppy.... and eventually all clips showed red on the timeline.

I feel like I'm loosing my mind. There is absolutely no consistency with Vegas and MP4 files!

rich__r wrote on 6/15/2009, 12:22 PM

Can you provide a bit more information. As you know the Sanyo's can shoot in several different formats. What format are you using? Have you tried different formats?

I am using Vista 32 so my experience does not directly correlate with yours, but my experience differs. The 1920x1080/60p version is very problematic - it crashes 8.0c always and sometimes crashes 9.0.

I have tried various conversions for the 1920x1080/60p files and Cineform using Neo Scene works. I wanted to convert to mxf format, but there is no support for 1920x1080/60p in mxf. The Cineform files work in both 8.0c and 9.0 but the best I see is about 25 fps in the preview window (even with the new aviplug.dll).

It is interesting to note that I get a full 29.97 fps for the original mp4 file and the Cineform 1920x1080/30p format. I can only conclude that Vegas does not handle 60p HD files very well. BUT the 30p files continue to work very well for me. I was using Proxy Stream to convert the 1920x1080/30p files to mxf, but with the new version of Neo Scene and Vegas' new aviplug.dll I plan on going back to Cineform -- largely because the conversion is signficantly faster -- although the file size is much larger than the equivalent mxf.

Bottom line is that I see some performance issues with 60p files I am not seeing any of the issues you mentions.

Rich

VanLazarus wrote on 6/15/2009, 1:22 PM

Yes, I just found out that MXF will not support 1920x1080 60p. :(

When I refer to MP4 files, I'm refering to 1920x1080 60p. I shoot almost all of my video in this format.... I think I might have to revert to 1920x1080 30p in order to edit within Vegas.

Still waiting for Cineform to sort out my activation/deactivation mess with NeoScene.... So I'm unable to work on my projects right now. :(

VanLazarus wrote on 6/15/2009, 2:29 PM

Unfortunately, it now seems that the latest version of NeoScene (1.3.2) cannot detect the AAC audio steams within the MP4 files generated by my Sanyo HD2000.

rich__r wrote on 6/15/2009, 7:06 PM

Hmmm...

I just tried a 1920x1080/60p and a 1920x1080/30p generated by a VPC-FH1 using Neo Scene 1.3.2 and the generated files audio seemed fine. Something certainly seems different between our systems.

VanLazarus wrote on 6/16/2009, 3:33 AM

I have no idea what is wrong.

NeoScene says its building the conversion graph. Then it says no audio stream detected. I've tried previous mp4 files that worked fine with a previous version of NeoScene on a different system... maybe the different system is the deciding factor.

Does it matter if I have ffdshow installed, Quicktime, or any other codec installed?

LReavis wrote on 6/16/2009, 10:43 AM

I had to uninstall ffdshow in order to get .FLV renders out of Camtasia; you might try that too . . .

VanLazarus wrote on 6/17/2009, 2:57 AM

From Sony regarding Vegas 9.0's handling of the mp4 clips generated by my Sanyo HD2000:
---------------------------------------
Thank you for contacting Sony Creative Software.

Taking a closer look at that .mp4 file I noticed that it is encoded in the .h264 format. Vegas supports the .mp4 format but the .h264 format is not something that is supported. Many camera manufacturers have created proprietary licensed formats and codecs. For each different format, there is additional licensing cost and cost of resources for developing support within our software. We must decide which formats to support based on the needs of our collective user base. Each format we pick raises our cost of production and we cannot support all of them as this cost would eventually be passed onto our users.

However, if this is a format that you would like to see added as supported, we are always open to your input and your suggestions. Please feel free to send a product suggestion request at the following link - it goes directly to the development team: http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/support/productsuggestion.asp

For now, you may want to look into converting your video to a format that is more universally supported in Vegas, like Uncompressed AVI.

This link on VideoHelp's website discusses a third party application that is capable of this conversion:

http://www.videohelp.com/oldguides/mov2avi

If you still have a follow-up question on this particular incident, please feel free to update it. If you have a completely different question, please create a new incident.
-----------------------------------------------

I don't understand their surprise that my mp4 is encoded with H.264..... Isn't H.264 actually AVCHD which Sony states is supported by Vegas 9.0?

What other formats contained within the mp4 wrapper are they expecting?

rich__r wrote on 6/17/2009, 6:39 AM

Sounds to me like someone at Sony is a bit confused. (-:

Certainly Vegas supports AVCHD which is video compression as MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and audio recorded in Dolby Digital (AC-3). The Sanyo Xacti camera's mp4 uses the same video format as standard AVCHD (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264), but records the audio as AAC. Vegas certainly support both .h264 and AAC. So I am a bit surprised by their comment.

It's even more confusing since I can generally work the the Sanyo mp4 files in Vegas just fine (some exceptions to that noted earlier in this thread). Of course, I would prefer a bit better handling of these files and hate to see Sony discounting this format.

rich

LReavis wrote on 6/17/2009, 9:27 AM

I'm thinking of buying one of the sanyo cams - 2000 or FH1, but worry about reliable editing. Would Super be able to convert it to a format more acceptable to Vegas?

Jay_Mitchell wrote on 8/30/2009, 5:51 PM

I purchased the Sanyo VPC-FH1 and am having issues with importing 1280x720P/30 files into Vegas Pro 9. I see that this original post and threads are from June and am wondering if there is now a more workable solution to the issues mentioned.

Am using a new Acer Laptop w/ Vista 64bit, 2.4GB, 4GB RAM, 8600GT Video Card and have tried VP 9.0a and now 9.0b w/ no success.

The issue is that I can only import about 40 (3GB each) of the MP4/h.264 1280x720p/30 files into a new Vegas project then it will crash.

So, I originally thought that this must be a RAM issue because the crash would generate a low memory warning message. Now, after reading these threads - I see that this is an issue of Vegas not liking the Sanyo mp4 files.

I have not tested or purchased NeoScene. But I would gladly do so if this is the fix that will allow me to edit these files. The Sanyo FH1 comes with a Nero Essential editing suite that will allow importing of all files and successful burning to DVD. But of course I want to use Vegas to edit.

So, I would appreciate any updates to the original thread info on how to edit the footage from this wonderful and highly recommended camcorder.

Jay

MTuggy wrote on 8/30/2009, 9:35 PM

I have a Sanyo HD1000, an earlier generation but I believe the same MP4 file format is created. The problem I had in Vegas was poor playback frame rate in Vegas in general so edit was slow. The other issue was using other footage from other cameras - mixing the footage (MTS files from one camera with MP4 files from the Sanya) in the same project really gummed up any preview playback or slow motion in final renders could get really choppy with artifacts. The problem was that most HD formats are shot UFF (upper field first), whereas the Sanyo is LFF. So if the project is UFF, if you try to slow down the Sanyo footage, it becomes useless. I ended up converting the files to m2t format (UFF) but in that process, lost some resolution.

Just my experience but it drove me to stick with just one camera brand in HD (Sony) - the quality of the color and sharpness of the video is consistent in my 3 Sony cameras.

Mike

rich__r wrote on 8/30/2009, 9:37 PM

Well I can't say that I have tried that many files at once. A couple things you could try: (1) break up into smaller chunks and used nested vegs (2) break up into smaller chunks and render to an intermediate (maybe Sony mxf) (3) Use the "Proxy Stream" script to convert your mp4 to Sony MXF.

I have had great success with #3, but I have used all of them. When I have a slightly smaller number of files, I just use the raw mp4 files.

Rich

Jay_Mitchell wrote on 8/30/2009, 10:59 PM

Hey Rich,

I'm shooting american football games with the Sanyo VPC-FH1and each file is a separate play. The games average between 60-80 plays/files. As you know, each file is a start/stop with very little footage that would need to be excluded. The funny thing is that Vegas is crashing at about 40 imported files that total about 1.3GB. 65 files in a recent game shoot equaled only 1.98GB and I could not import all of them w/o a crash.

I will read up on using the "Proxy Stream" script as you suggest. I am new to editing HD and have not yet learned all of the ins and outs and workarounds.

As a side note for those of you who shoot high action sports video: This Sanyo VPC-FH1 and HD2000 is not prone to motion blurring on fast pans as I have seen from other HDV cameras. This camera mounted on top of a Manfrotto 561b monopod is a dream rig. The 1280x720p/30 is perfect for sports. The 1920x1080p/60 is awesome. I was at the Grand Canyon in July and shot a group of condors flying within a 100' of the rim at 1080p/60. The footage is stellar!

Now, if we can figure out how to edit it would be very cool.

Jay

Eugenia wrote on 8/30/2009, 11:53 PM

> Certainly Vegas supports AVCHD which is video compression as MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and audio recorded in Dolby Digital (AC-3). The Sanyo Xacti camera's mp4 uses the same video format as standard AVCHD (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264), but records the audio as AAC. Vegas certainly support both .h264 and AAC. So I am a bit surprised by their comment.

It is not confusing if you understand how Vegas works. MP4/h.264 uses Quicktime as a decoder, while AVCHD uses a special decoder. So while internally it's the same format, a different decoder handles the two versions. And so it happens that Vegas absolutely sucks in its Quicktime handling (very long standing issue, completely known), while it does better with its AVCHD decoder since it was specifically optimized and stabilized for it.

As for the actual Sony reply that it doesn't support h.264 etc etc it's just rubbish. It's just a poor reply to cover the fact that their quicktime support is really bad.

And the problem is not with just Sanyo files, but ANY digirecorder that shoots in either MOV or MP4 h.264. And because people these days prefer to buy such devices rather than real camcorders, I better see Sony get into work and fix their issues, or I wont' be very happy. I am already not happy about it: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2009/06/29/the-top-10-must-fix-features-for-vegas/ (check #1 point)

Jay_Mitchell wrote on 8/31/2009, 12:33 PM

Eugenia,

Thanks for explaining the current MP4/h.264 issues in Vegas. I'm very glad that you replied because not only did I get a better understanding of this issue - but after clicking your link and reading the pertinent Vegas info and tutorials - I learned why the mp4 files rendered for the web in Vegas don't stream correctly. I downloaded MP4 FastStart and will test it today.

Jay