I have pretty much the same set up except with Win764bit +8GB ram and the processor is overclocked to 3.33ghz. With 9c I can get 59.95 frames/sec for straight video with no effects - slows down for transitions where it slows as low as 17fps for a moment. This is at 917x516 (half res). Do you have video effects in the video you are seeing issues with? Adding an effect like fill light slows it down to 17fps before transitions. Adding 3 fx and letting auto take over I get 22 fps

"With 9c I can get 59.95 frames/sec for straight video with no effects - slows down for transitions where it slows as low as 17fps for a moment. This is at 917x516 (half res). Do you have video effects in the video you are seeing issues with? Adding an effect like fill light slows it down to 17fps before transitions. Adding 3 fx and letting auto take over I get 22 fps"

I get pretty much the same. Dynamic ram comes in handy for viewing the effects and such. Other than that it's pretty smooth sailing.

I have the same issue. V9 will eventually playout smoother / better than V8 until I try to edit with it. You may have to wait a while for it to get up to speed, then it plays out fine. Then you jump to somewhere else on the timeline and you're back to waiting for Vegas to refill some form of buffer. It feels like Vegas is building an intermediate in RAM. Even changing preview settings causes it to flush the buffer and then refill it at the new setting. Worst of all, while its in this buffer filling state it's not servicing the user interface.
As a media player V9 is excellent, as an editing system it misses the mark badly.

Bob.

What puzzles me is the difference in the preview playback between 8 and 9.

I load up the same project in each one, and in vegas pro 8 I can get 4-5fps which is usable to making music videos, compared to under 1fps in Vegas 9, though in vegas 9 it claims it is doing 4-5fps....

Infact the difference is so significant that I can't do any "real-time" editing with 9, as the nature of music videos (fast dance music) demands frequent previewing, and lots of jumping around the track.

I would like to know what exactly changed between 8 and 9 to cause such a problem.
And obviously whether there is anyway to "fix" it, as everything I have tried and read on the forum doesn't change my experience of the preview. Of course I could drop the resolution down in the preview, but it makes the experience sub-par, and unsuitable for what I do

"I would like to know what exactly changed between 8 and 9 to cause such a problem"

No one seems to have a definative answer. There's always been a lot complaints about playback performance and they seem to have addressed that in one sense but broke the editing functionality in the process.

"And obviously whether there is anyway to "fix" it,"

If you haven't already done so make certain your project properties are the same as your source media.

Bob.

Well there must be a reason for it, unless the people who programmed version 9, don't know what they have changed between 8 and 9. I mean I just finished off the video track in version 8, and to add further insult to injury, I laid another video layer over the top to make 10 in total and a layer of audio, and it didn't slow preview anymore, even with fx added to the video clips in the new layer.

My source media ranges from 768x576, through to 1280x760 depending on what resolution I rendered the animations (they are mostly 3d clips) at in the first place. Whilst the project (final output) settings are for 1280x720 (all 30fps). So I don't have the leisure or pleasure of being able to set my project properties to the same as the source media. ?? Unless I didn't fully comprehend you.

"Unless I didn't fully comprehend you."

You got me right. I regularly cut XDCAM EX and HDV on the same T/L and I can get one or the other to playback nice but not both. I could convert the HDV to 1920x1080 MXF and then everything should flow better.
If this is what is expected of us it is a backwards step in some regards and it would nice to hear from the makers if this is what they had in mind.

Bob.

Hi Bob,

First off thanks for taking the time to reply...

Unfortunately as I have five to eight+ layers of video layered running simulateanously on the time line with effects, I envitably end up having various sized clips.

It would seem more than a backwards step, but a partial crippling of the software if what you say is true. Anyway I have fired off a query to tech support, as the upgrade came with a years free tech support, so we will see what they say, when they get back from holidaying. And of course I will share any insights.

Knowing a little about programming, this really strikes me as bit of "sloppy" programming, a bug if you will, that probably has something to do with them implementing some new graphics calls, or similar with the preview.

Hi,

8.0c timeline playback behaviour is very different from the 9.0c (both 64 bit on W7 Ultimate). Clearly there has been some major structuralsw changes behind the curtains...

I get realtime 25 fps (I´m in PAL-land) playback of AVCDH on 8.c. So do I get also in 9.0c according to the fps number under the preview window - however the playback is jerkiy and for sure not really 25 fps!!!

Is SCS trying to fool us (as an intermediate fix) with this playback problem???

The application claims that the playback is 25 fps, but the preview is clearly NOT 25 fps. This compared to completetly smooth (real 25 fps) in 8.0c. Something spooky here...

I have BIG hopes for the 9.0d release, it MUST fix this playback issue!!! And SOON!!! My HW is ok (fast 3.8GHz Qx9650 CPU and 8GByte DDR3 ram @ 1600MHz bus speed).

Christian

interesting that everyone seems to have different experiences with 9c playback. I'm playing back AVCHD 29.9 1920x1080 source to 1280x720 and it's smooth as silk until I get to a transition. i have the preview ram set to 4gb but don't think that matters really. It did seem slower until I changed video cards to one that doesn't share the RAM with the MB RAM going from a 7300 to 9500 card but can't see how that would effect it either.

My system is modest compared with many of the Pros here (dual core Q6600, 8GB RAM, Vista x64) but I've just given 9.0c a test and it seems to be fine. Probably better than 8.0c for playback.

A hour of HDV clips, 50i and 25P captured using HDV Split from a Canon HV20
A handful of 5MP JPEG digial photos, with pans and zooms and crossfades/fade ins/outs, cropped to project size, from a Canon A560
A clutch of 4:3 30P AVIs from a Canon A560
A smattering of 4:3 MOV files playing at 24.005 fps from a Kodak stills camera

All on different tracks. Playback rate from 25fs to 12fps, which I think is acceptable given that 8.0c choked on the mov files. And I don't keep my system particularly clean. It's littered with video and audio tools and codec packs...

Clearly there is something wrong for some of us, and I guess I'm just lucky. My timelines would never normally be cluttered with different formats.

"Clearly there is something wrong for some of us, and I guess I'm just lucky."

I've managed to be both lucky and unlucky.
A similar mix of footage from 6 cameras in all played back pretty well however V9 managed to drop a frame or two at cuts which is not good. Each camera was on its own track. I was doing a multicam edit by hand.

On the other hand when I rendered out AVCHD 2 pass VBR from the MC encoder and one track of that onto the T/L it was a disaster. Worse, Task Manager showed two copies of Vegas running. At first I just thought my mistake I must have opened it twice but no, it was 100% repeatable with this video and terminating one of the Vegas programs killed both.

The other cause of things going wobbly is using the trimmer. I just did a long session of previewing XDCAM EX MXF, mark in/out, add to T/L. Got bored with that and decided to just playout all the clips and it was really, really choppy, back to seconds per frame. I tried flushing the trimmer history, same outcome. I closed the trimmer pane and everything is perfect.
I've tried once to repo this and failed but I have had it happen more than once. So it's something fairly specific that triggers this bug. Whatever it is though, killing off the trimmer cures play back on the T/L.

Bob.

trimmer

Ah, I NEVER use the trimmer; can't stand it! And I don't see the problem. I wonder then if it's somhow related to the trimmer. When I performed my tested, the only 'edits' were the transitions, fades, pans and zooms.

I'm not at my editing PC at the moment, so I can't test . But perhaps someone else can?