Vegas Pro 20 randomly freezes during working on a timeline

Dexcon wrote on 9/3/2023, 7:05 AM

Some months ago, a forum member linked to the following YouTube video about HEVC and sluggishness in many NLEs: The take-away from that YT video is that the greater the video's compression (e.g. HEVC), the harder it is for NLEs to deal with that video.

With a GoPro 11 and a new Samsung S23 Ultra phone - both HEVC - I need to transcode to .mp4 as well as for the additional reason that I need to transcode to 25 fps for my PAL country (why don't GoPro and phones cater for 25/50 fps countries - a huge market?)

Lukke wrote on 9/3/2023, 7:14 AM

Huh, "PAL country"? These days, every device (monitor, TV...) plays 30/60fps. So WHY transcoding some 30 fps footage to 25 fps? It WILL be laggy. A lot. And with S23+ you can directly shoot 24 fps if you wish...

RogerS wrote on 9/3/2023, 7:17 AM

Consider transcoding to constant framerate AVC and see if it helps. The framerate itself isn't the issue.

j-v wrote on 9/3/2023, 7:31 AM

@Lukke
1. Check Enable Legacy HEVC decoding in File I/O and use the latest drivers for your IGPU (from Intel)
2. If that does not help you convert your sourcefiles to staedy framerate with a free converter because Vegas does not like variable framerate
3. Is your Nvidia with the latest drivers selected at Options/Video?
4. If possible place here a link to a short sourcefile stored on the internet so we can try an unharmed file.

Dexcon wrote on 9/3/2023, 7:41 AM

These days, every device (monitor, TV...) plays 30/60fps. So WHY transcoding some 30 fps footage to 25 fps? It WILL be laggy

Wow! How dismissive? And just plainly wrong. HEVC from GoPro 11 and the S23 is still laggy in Vegas Pro even with properties set at 24/30/60 or whatever - isn't this what you are complaining about? Changing properties to 25 or 50 fps makes no difference to HEVC video in Vegas Pro in my experience.

Lukke wrote on 9/3/2023, 8:57 AM

@j-v THank you - 1) but when I check "enable legacy HEVC" I am unable to play the files on the timeline - it's extremely laggy. This is preview video with enabled "legacy HEVC":

2) which easy converter would you recommend? I bought the Vegas for a lot of money and now I need to obtain another software to transcode just to work my files in Vegas? I didn't find the way how to turn off the variable framerate in S23 phone.

3) Yep. The latest drivers and NVIDIA selected in GPU acceleration.

4) https://1drv.ms/v/s!AvZwodqPRij3hYU1E4ah9oNK6__66g?e=ExbVv7

RogerS wrote on 9/3/2023, 9:14 AM

Legacy HEVC or modern HEVC decoder work best for certain varieties of HEVC. It sounds like with your Intel iGPU you have better success with the modern one (as do I).

Yes, it's annoying that not all HEVC formats play well in VEGAS. Personally I use the free ShutterEncoder to batch convert known problematic file types for editing in VEGAS. Use output format h264 (or ProRes if space is no issue), set a bitrate to a reasonable CQ (17 or so is quite high quality) and in advanced settings limit the GOP to the framerate for best editing performance (though the default is usable.) https://www.shutterencoder.com/ It's quite fast.

There likely isn't a way to turn off variable framerate for phones, even with apps like FilmicPro.

Former user wrote on 9/3/2023, 8:17 PM

I didn't find the way how to turn off the variable framerate in S23 phone.
3) Yep. The latest drivers and NVIDIA selected in GPU acceleration.

4) https://1drv.ms/v/s!AvZwodqPRij3hYU1E4ah9oNK6__66g?e=ExbVv7

All phones encode in variable frame rate so if an editor can't edit such material, it's for the editor to be fixed, because the way phones record isn't changing.

I was looking at your file and noticed Vegas will read all tracks underneath it even when there's no reason to do that, so combined with Vegas's poor GPU decoding it multiplies the problem by decoding tracks underneath which can't be seen and do not contribute to output. In this comparison with Resolve, Resolve does the logical thing and ignores all tracks that don't contribute to the output.

I remember this problem being discussed in VP15, I don't know if 6 years later they never fixed it or the problem has come back. It's becoming more obvious why people complain about poor playback then post the file by it'self, users will report plays fine, but that doesn't necessarily mean it will play fine in a project when Vegas is reading hidden video tracks for no reason.

And btw only the top clip is your original file, the 2 underneath are AVC transcodes

RogerS wrote on 9/3/2023, 8:42 PM

I also notice that with one track of suboptimal footage VEGAS is fine but add more and VEGAS starts to fall apart with stability issues. I don't want to deal with that so transcode to formats that I know VEGAS can work well with.

My own phone is set to shoot HEVC so don't really deal with this and with QSV decoding haven't had many issues with AVC transcodes.

john_dennis wrote on 9/3/2023, 8:56 PM

@Former user said: "Vegas is reading hidden video tracks for no reason."

There is a reason to process hidden video tracks. Vegas is a compositor while other editors may not operate in the same way. Search for very old, very long threads on the issue. I vaguely remember one started by @johnmeyer. There were others.

Former user wrote on 9/3/2023, 9:51 PM

@RogerS The AVC transcodes are fine with no video tracks underneath, it's when Vegas has to decode multiple items simultaneously it exhibits this 'overloaded decoder' problem, which has nothing to do with actual physical hardware decoder, it's how Vegas communicates with it.

@john_dennis This is Resolve with composite changed to difference for top 2 tracks, you can see it then behaves like Vegas because it must decode all 3 tracks, but it only does that when it needs to. Also you can see what the GPU decoding should look like, decoding goes up, but doesn't overload and spike like Vegas does causing the dropped frames.

I"ll check out those old threads, they sound interesting