Vegas HDV editing performance?

Sunfox wrote on 11/5/2004, 3:55 PM
I've been playing around with posted .M2T files from the HDR-FX1 camera, and am a bit concerned about the preview performance in Vegas 5...

I can paste the .M2T files (1440x1080) into the timeline without issue, but the preview window (320x180 set to Preview Auto) only seems to run at about 8-12 fps. This is on a Pentium-4, 3.2GHZ, 1GB DDR800 memory. The hard drive isn't doing much, but the CPU is running 55-65% load. Doesn't seem to make any difference what my project settings are (ie. 1920x1080, 1280x720, 720x480).

Is this normal?

Comments

JJKizak wrote on 11/5/2004, 4:33 PM
Well I figure that's about right when you consider you have about 4 to 6 times the normal amount oof data on the timeline.

JJK
BJ_M wrote on 11/5/2004, 5:49 PM
it is to bad that vegas doesnt use the built in hardware mpeg HD decoding present on many graphics cards -- would speed straight playback up of mpeg files instead of using software rendering (IF you have a graphics card with this feature - as most now do)

farss wrote on 11/5/2004, 6:02 PM
This is very normal. It's a long GOP mpeg-2 stream which means massive amounts of decoding back from the nearest I frame.
To the best of my knowledge nothing can cope with this in its native format.
I've seen Edius Pro edit it in RT, including FXs and composites but they use an intermediate codec, FCP uses proxies and the current Cineform solution for Vegas also converts to an intermediate codec.
Bob.
Sunfox wrote on 11/5/2004, 8:09 PM
Anyone have any first hand experience with how well the Cineform codec will work for HDV?

Although I'd home that Vegas might come up with some sort of solution (you know, their camera, their software.... :-)
Spot|DSE wrote on 11/5/2004, 8:15 PM
The Cineform transcode/conversion allows Vegas to behave ALMOST as well as a straight ahead DV stream.
JJKizak wrote on 11/6/2004, 5:38 AM
I have used the Cinefrom codec with HD-WMV's and 2200 x 2200 stills
and PTT to the JVC-DVHS deck and it works very well. It will capture and convert 19.4-19.7 MPEG2 data streams but will not convert copyrighted materal. It will capture anything but will not convert it to avi if it is not in the MPEG2 data stream. In my case it will not convert anything that I capture from the JVC-D-VHS tuner.

JJK
Laurence wrote on 11/6/2004, 6:57 AM
I'm sure that plenty of people here know but have signed non-disclosure agreements, but not me so I'll speculate:

I'm absolutely positive that Sony and Cineform have got some kind of deal going that will be announced shortly that will give us (hopefully at a steep discount) some form of an HDV version of Vegas which will in essense be Vegas packaged with the Cineform codec, probably with the codec only available to Sony applications. Now that the new Sony HDV cameras are shipping, I expect it will be a short wait until it's official.