@jetdv Nah, playback still gets choppy when I do that. Crud. Someone mentioned in another post to hit 'shift + m' which produces a 14 gig file, which seems a bit better to work with...

Can't you just uncheck the Fx in the Fx chain and check it again before render?

Skype video quality probably is pretty low to begin with so you could just stick to MagixAVC.

@RogerS Yeah, I did that, but playback is still choppy. Frustrating. 'Shift M' is now producing something called "Vegas Pro Prerendered Video File..."

Did you uncheck it in the Fx chain or bypass it in the preview window or both?

Shift-m is a prerender to disk.

Can anyone suggest an alternative intermediary format that is a bit more efficient?

Skype video is low resolution and fast streaming. No need to use a Cadillac intermediate when a 1990s Volvo will do the job. XDCAM-EX is your most efficient choice in my experience.

@RogerS All permutations. Same Max Headroom results.

@Musicvid Thank you.

Yes, you can go into video event fx (or media fx, or any other fx layer) and uncheck the denoise effect, and it will bypass rendering that effect until you check it again, which should speed your decoding back up again.

Also, instead of intermediates, you can also consider proxies. To use proxies, right click on the media in your project media window and select "create video proxy". From there, it will build the proxies. When finished, set the preview window to either "draft" or "preview" quality, and it will enable the proxies, which decode much faster.

I always wait until the very end of the project to do noise reduction and coloring.

Hint: Proxies are "guess what?" Yep, XDCAM-EX

@fr0sty I work on an ongoing series that showcases emerging electronic music, sometimes profiling labels and artists, with a dash of retro because I also like some older stuff. So I have this interview with an artist via Skype, but I also cut to album covers + stills or music video clips, transition graphics, etc.. Sometimes I am lucky enough to do in-person interviews with my gear. Audio is all-important, video quality is sort of secondary. I have this large interview I want to cut down to size and it seems easier to denoise it as one piece vs hunting for shrapnel on my timeline and applying effects. Each episode is about an hour and change and sometimes the timelines get messy. I am newish at this and episodes look/feel clunky to my taste, but am trying to refine and get to a point where I am happy with results.

Make it easier on yourself... if you see a clip that needs noise reduction, create a new track, call that track "noise reduced" , and move that event to that track. Work your way through your project, and once you get to the end, apply noise reduction to that track as a track effect. This will dramatically cut down on render time as well, as only those events on the track will get the performance penalty of having noise reduction applied.

@fr0sty This project is a nightmare from the start. I used Vegas capture which spits out a variety of files and audio/video is not synced. So I gotta try to eyeball it. Then I got this higher quality audio file which I had the interviewee send me and I am worried about that not syncing with the video if the bitrate is off. I try a bit of denoising for the video and discover it is a mega problem. Intermediary files seem problematic too, so I will try your suggestion. I keep ripping this project apart and trying again.

That's the best way to learn. Each time you try again you get a little bit more efficient at it. Eventually it'll be second nature to you, you won't even have to think about it.

@Former user, you might try VegasSTREAM next time. I like how you can import the stream and everything be in full sync. Certainly be sure and test it out first.

...and I am worried about that not syncing with the video if the bitrate is off.

Audio / video sync is not a function of bitrate; it is a function of respective clock frequency, offset, and drift. Since your sources were not slaved, this is where AudioSyncR by the maker of Happy Otter Scripts is at its best.

tools4vegas.com

@fr0sty This project is a nightmare from the start. I used Vegas capture which spits out a variety of files and audio/video is not synced. So I gotta try to eyeball it.

If you're often doing this, try OBS, creates a single audio/video file. Never seen this desync issue. Not to say it couldn't happen if your CPU hit 100% for some reason and caused a large drop in frames. OBS is well maintained , the beta version already has support for the rtx 4090's hardware AV1 encoding which was only released a few days ago.

Worth noting, VEGAS does not yet support AV1.

@Musicvid Thanks, another tool for the arsenal! I wish Magix could list all available 3rd party tools for Vegas users. I have Vegasaur, but only recently learned of Excalibur and now Happy Otter Scripts. Do you know of any more?

Unfortunately, I learned the hard way about bit/sample/drift from multi mic set ups for clients on video shoots and wondering why audio was not syncing perfectly. Video shoots sort of dwindled since covid.

@Former user Here are more from VASST : http://vasstsoftware.com/product/ ;

http://www.nfatoys.com/moasoftwarellc/

https://github.com/AlienArc/VegasBluff

And here is a Sony & Magix Vegas Portal

@Former user

Other aids for Vegas. https://www.magicautoma.com/

Works well and stable. Scripted shortcuts library included plus you can easily create your own.

One of VEGAS' strongest points is its ability to write custom scripts to do certain things, as well as the custom GL transitions... it's the most customizable NLE out there (if they could only allow us to theme it...)

@lan-mLMC @diverG Thanks! I have to pace myself, but want to get all of them. It looks like I have time. I am on Vegas 19 Edit (with goodies), and some of these plugins, like VASST Software only go up to Vegas 18. I need to make a shopping list somewhere on my machines....