This is the most rediculous advice I've ever heard!
Other NLE's manage to support a wide variety of cameras. Why should anyone pick a camera to match their NLE. That's quite simply, counter-intuitive. As a professional editor, am I to tell my customers that I don't want their business if they don't shoot on a Sony camera? Has Vegas become so decrepit that it is relegated to a software that's bundled with Sony products as an add on?

Johnny, that post needs to be turned into a sticky, it is 100% right on the money and everyone on the forum needs to read it and understand what it means. I use Vegas v9.0c and deal primarily with DV, HDV and EX1 footage and Vegas is every bit as stable as it has ever been.

Bill Ravens, you never pass up a chance to take a shot at Vegas no matter what forum you're in, are you sure you're last name isn't spelled "Ravings"?

Don't forget the rather incredible number of hardware/software upgrades and changes in the last few years either. Windows has changed a number of times. CPU's have changed drastically...32 bit systems.... 64 bit systems... blah blah

It all used to be pretty simple but not anymore. It all reminds me very much on buying a new car... which depreciates about 20% the second you drive it off the lot. Buy a computer part and it's pretty much outdated by the time you get it home and installed.

Programs today have to work on any one of hundreds if not thousands of different software/hardware combinations. Writing a program today must be just a daunting task and I feel for those that have to do it.

Posted by: VRodder, Date: 12/28/2009 7:08:15 AM
So now, I've been forced to begin learning another NLE for HD work and so far no problems; just works, like Vegas used to.
What NLE are you using? Just curious.

"Been using Vegas off and on since v4 as a hobbyist. This past summer picked up a Sony HDR-XR500V and am now trying to put together a hi-def video."

I should say for the record that I do have a 520V and Vegas 9c. I have no issues at all with low memory or anything else of that nature. It all works fine. Maybe you have a hardware issue?

I think his inability to preview issue is because V8 changed the game a little by making the preview appear in the trimmer window, unless you select otherwise.

"Bill Ravens, you never pass up a chance to take a shot at Vegas no matter what forum you're in, are you sure you're last name isn't spelled "Ravings"?

What I can't figure out is if he dislikes the program so much then why is he even here??? I think Avid is a hunk of junk but I certainly wouldn't waste my time stating so in the Avid forums. What the heck does that accomplish??? Is this guy really that board with his life?

I am using a Sony HDR-XR520 with Vegas Pro 9.0c. Running on Vista Ultimate 32bit w/4gig of memory. Vegas works fine with the video from the camera but I haven't done anything with it for Blu-ray. Just render it as MP4 using the MainConcept CODEC. However, some of the problems are with Vegas, as I have memory issues working with DV and also a sluggish time line that wasn't a problem before version 9. To render anything in the one hour range I have to shut down most everything running on my system, never had to do that with version 8. One render I fixed the errors by removing a border I had placed on the track (prior to that I had rebooted the system and ran only Vegas but still got the memory error). I had to take a major project I was working on and break it into multiple projects just to be able to edit it.

Strange. I wonder what the heck the difference is??
I'll render typically 3 hours or so of avchd easily for blu ray (with V32bit) complete with transitions and effects with no issues at all. (Q6600 and 6 gig ram on windows7 64). The time line is real time playback except for the transitions which I will use dynamic ram for.

Is the Sony HDR-XR500V not AVCHD? The media properties on the clips indicate that is what it is...

It's good to hear some folks are having good luck with 9c and HD. The video I'm working on also has a lot of JPG still images from a digital camera, plus a series of bmp and tga image sequences as well. Perhaps that's adding to the potential for problems... One of them is a giant map with an animated route that is quite large.

All I can say is that I've recreated most of the thing in Edius Neo 2 Booster (I'm running on the trial version thus far) after working through the learning curve, and it renders out fine in HD. Same source media, same effects, etc., etc.

To me, that would at least suggest it's possible... :)

I suppose it could be something with my particular hardware as well... I guess I figure if I'm using a current model Sony camera with current rev Sony software, and they say it should work, why doesn't it?

And maybe the render process isn't actually running low on memory processing the AVCHD video clips, maybe it's the bmps, jpgs, or my image pans... who knows?

I should add that my big project was running perfect the day before Vegas 9 was released and that very first time I opened the Vegas 8 project in Vegas 9 I had the sluggish time line problem which basically has never gone away for that project. Smaller project response time is fine. I tried a lot of different things to improve the time line speed but nothing worked. The video from the HR520 works great and I have not had any problems. However, the FX are few and the run time is under 10 minutes.
I uninstalled Vegas and reinstalled it. SCS recommended that I reload the operating system which I didn't do. I am setting up a dual boot system with Windows 7 Professional 64bit this weekend and the first thing I will test is the big HD project to see how it works.

Rob Franks Wrote:

Maybe PART of the solution would be for Sony to institute an open beta cycle before final release, I wonder how much less flak they'd have received had they sent out 9.0 as a 3 month open beta, where people would not try and install it on production equipment right away, but still run it through it's paces.

Sony can only test so many permutations in-house, and I'm willing to bet that not two of us run the exact same system setup.

@VRodder
I do jpg's too without issue... I do however stay away from the tga's, bmp's.

Neo is a fairly good program... a heck of a lot better than than broadcast at avchd anyway. Nice RT play back. However once you get into it i believe you'll find it's sub par to Vegas in terms of overall effects and abilities. I found Vegas final output to be a bit better as well. (I don't own the product but like you I dabbled with the trial).

V, I think the complexity of a project might be causing the problem regardless of video file type. The project I have problems with is HD but has 22 tracks, over 40gig of video files and at least 6 FX applied to each clip with several layers of compositing. Hundreds of subclips and Deshaker as well. It worked fine in Vegas 8 and I could edit on the time line with no problems. The second I opened it in Vegas 9 it just wouldn't work like it did in Vegas 8. I would hit play and 4 seconds later it would respond. I drag the end of the clip and wait 4 seconds for it to respond. Horrible and impossible to work with. I managed a work around. The only true test would be to start the project all over again sourcing nothing from the Vegas 8 project and do everything in 9 but that was over 5 months of work that I would have to repeat. I hope that this weekend I will see an improvement with Windows 7 64bit but I really don't think that will happen.
Screen capture of the project:
http://photos.bhagavideo.com/Movies/Payment-In-Blood/10617581_g7Qyd#738567933_jB7PU-A-LB

> Other NLE's manage to support a wide variety of cameras.

So does Vegas. The question is how wide? Most Pro apps support most Pro camera formats. However some, like Avid and FCP don't support ANY cameras formats! They transcode every single piece of video into their own proprietary format. Try asking a FCP editor to ingest the HD footage from your Sony EX1 and you won't get MPEG4 MXF files in their native format... you'll get ProRes422 files (Apples proprietary format) in a Quicktime wrapper. What's up with that?

Premiere has just as much trouble with all of these H.264 files as Vegas does. Some h.264 files Vegas can edit and Premiere can't, others Premiere can edit and Vegas can't. I've had some files load into Premiere but the audio goes out of sync, while the same file loads into Vegas and plays perfectly. It's a gamble that I wouldn't bet my business on.

> Why should anyone pick a camera to match their NLE.

Oh I don't know... maybe because they actually want to edit their footage? I'm talking about the junk that comes out of the rash of $99 HD h.264 consumer cameras here. Not pro cameras. Sorry if I wasn't clear. If you are going to buy a camera that uses a proprietary format, then you need to either be happy with the software that comes in the box, or buy a camera that shoots an industry standard format that most NLE's can handle. That was my message.

> As a professional editor, am I to tell my customers that I don't want their business if they don't shoot on a Sony camera?

No. I agree. I wasn't talking about professional editors. I was talking about hobbyists that buy these proprietary H.264 cameras with no regard for how they will edit the footage. I would expect Vegas to support all professional formats which is why my advice to stick to professional formats like HDV and AVCHD.

If, however, you are going to allow your customers to shoot on anything they want, then you as a professional editor should be willing to transcode the garbage they give you into an intermediary format that edits it in Vegas. As a professional app, I don't think Sony should waste their time supporting every consumer variant of h.264. These are strictly consumer formats I'm referring to here.

~jr

> Is the Sony HDR-XR500V not AVCHD? The media properties on the clips indicate that is what it is...

You're correct. I did some more digging and that camera is AVCHD compliant. That's good. I'd bet the TGA images are the problem. I don't think Vegas processes TGA files natively, I think it uses Quicktime to do that. Any time Quicktime is involved that's another thing that can go wrong and take up memory/resources. Try and stick with PNG and JPG for Vegas. If the files are too big (e.g., 10MP) try and scale them down to something closer to your output resolution. HD is only 2MP. What you are doing is asking Vegas to resize a 10MP file to 2MP 30 times for every second of video. Better to resize it once and save Vegas a lot of processing and resource consumption.

~jr

"Sony should waste their time supporting every consumer variant of h.264. These are strictly consumer formats I'm referring to here."

Well I do think Sony is quite obligated to natively support at least THEIR line of cams... consumer or otherwise.

"However some, like Avid and FCP don't support ANY cameras formats! They transcode every single piece of video into their own proprietary format."

I realize that it's going to take a long time for this legacy issue to die, but this is just no longer true. Avid supports HDCam, XDCamHD, XDCamEX, AVC-Intra, DVCPro, DVCProHD, GFCam, DVCam, and DV, native on the timeline. I didn't believe it until I saw it for myself, on my own computer. It not only supports them, it supports them with realtime playback, in NTSC or PAL (mixed), interlaced or Progressive, all on the same timeline.

Yes, there is the option to transcode, and yes it does help when starting to pile on layers of effects, but under most circumstances, the transcode is just not necessary any longer. Even without the Avid hardware.

I just cut an XDCamEX / DV multicam show last week. I never transcoded a thing.

And for the record, Avid's DNxHD codec is not proprietary. It's a SMPTE standard (VC-3) and you can even download the source code if you like.

> Well I do think Sony is quite obligated to natively support at least THEIR line of cams... consumer or otherwise.

Yea, I agree there... but should their $540 pro editor support their $159 Webbie HD camera? I don't know. I guess it would be nice, but I have a long list of things I'd like to see in Vegas before that. ;-)

~jr

"I realize that it's going to take a long time for this legacy issue to die, but this is just no longer true. Avid supports HDCam, XDCamHD, XDCamEX, AVC-Intra, DVCPro, DVCProHD, GFCam, DVCam, and DV, native on the timeline."

Ah yes... so Avid is now even giving up this "single codec" stuff. They've seen the light have they? I guess they recognize how much it's hurt them :)

Refreshingly, the new management is really turning the company around. They do acknowledge many of the failings of the past openly, and are working diligently to correct as many as they can. It's a complete 180 that has taken many by surprise.

In fact, the LAFCPUG recently had an AVID day and invited in guest speakers who cut in Avid to speak. Avid also went through the hoops to certify FCP on it's SAN system. If that's not trying to open up and be collaborative, I don't know what is.

"Refreshingly, the new management is really turning the company around. They do acknowledge many of the failings of the past openly, and are working diligently to correct as many as they can. It's a complete 180 that has taken many by surprise."

They'll have to spend a loooong time proving that to me before I even CONSIDER biting. They'll also have to continue dropping the price because I don't even think it's worth $2500. With its rather 'incomplete' (for lack of a better term) disk authoring system I wouldn't shell out any more than $1500. They can keep their additional plugins too.... I already have most of them.