I'm attempting to do basic split and trim edits to a .mp4 video made up of a recorded Zoom call. Every attempt to do a split or trim results in only the audio part being trimmed and the video going crazy with flickering and desyncing from the beginning. Any thoughts? Using Vegas 21 Pro Edit on Steam
Convert it into standard mp4/x264, constant framerate, in Shutter Encoder (free).
Explanation: Zoom recordings, to save bandwidth, use an insanely high GOP length of ~900 frames.
Vegas works best with Group Of Pictures of 300 frames or lower.
I highly recommend going into Zoom's recording settings and setting it to optimize recording for editing. Without that I got a lot of crashes and issues in VEGAS.
For existing media you need to convert it as stated. I'd set the GOP length to your framerate in Shutter Encoder's advanced settings to your framerate (25)- shorter is better in VEGAS.
I followed Mark-y's advice last night and it worked beautifully. I will keep that tidbit that RogerS brought up though. Keeping framerate shorter. Thank you both!
@mark-y said: “an insanely high GOP length of ~900 frames.”
I think anything over 15 is insanely high.
Let me see. I frames are compressed, P frames contain only difference data from past I frames, and B frames ask the decoder to delay recreating the frame until past and future reference frames are in the buffer. You couldn’t convince someone from another galaxy that it would even work.
If I was recording videos with motion, I agree with recommending lower GOP lengths. With talking heads where it doesn't really matter, the more I-frames I record makes the files proportionally larger and may slow down the encoding a bit.
I have no earthly use for b-frames, in any of their genetic mutations. The notion of using 'pyramid' b-frames as reference frames makes me queasy inside.
Zero Latency tune (which is essentially Baseline Profile + CABAC) and 150+ GOP is something I can live with for OBS presentations and tutorials (not game recording) and converted mushy Zoom meetings. I've gotten no nag screens from Vegas at GOP=300, however.