Why does Vegas choke on GoPro 1080p60 files

NormanPCN wrote on 12/19/2013, 2:44 PM

I have a GoPro Hero3 Black. Putting 1080p60 files on the timeline and playing is simply awful. Very low frame rate. Okay high bitrate High profile AVC files are hard right? Well no so fast. I downloaded a Panasonic GH3 1080p60 clip and it plays just fine. It is actually 50% higher bitrate than the GoPro.

Both are listed as High profile level 4.2 using CABAC encoding. What could the GoPro be doing that causes Vegas to choke? Deblocking filter enabled? Mediainfo shows the GoPro is using a canned IPB sequence and the GH3 does not. Can that matter?

The GH3 plays at full frame rate, Preview Auto (which happens to be half).
The GoPro starts at about half frame rate but slowly deteriorates to a few frames per second as it continues playing. That has nothing to do with file position. It always starts about half and deteriorates.

Since the GH3 generates a MOV file I used Avidemux to mux the video into an MP4 file to get quicktime out of the picture in comparing GoPro to GH3. The video stream was simply copied to the MP4, not re-encoded.

Using Media player classic, either file plays just fine at a similar CPU percentage. Vegas seriously dislikes GoPro files.

A lot of GoPro's out there and we action types like the higher frame rates.

Anyone know of a video stream analysis tool?

If you are interested in investigating.
Here is a link, 270MB, with a zip file containing a GoPro and GH3 1080p60 clip and a VEG file. No effects, project matches source properties.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/51868591/1080p60%20test.zip

edit: Updated files. Recorded new GoPro file as some did not like that avidemux was used. VEG includes a clip for an XAVC-S media. You can render this yourself from the GoPro clip. Saves download size.

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Comments

wwjd wrote on 4/4/2014, 3:35 PM

This is an OBVIOUS BUG that needs fixed BY Sony, before they try to sell us 13.

>:( <-- angry unhappy meanie face

OldSmoke wrote on 4/4/2014, 5:21 PM

@Norman

Sorry, I forgot to answer you with regards to the API Monitor. I used this one: http://www.rohitab.com/

wwjd wrote on 4/6/2014, 7:22 PM

wow. just wow.
I just firmwared by GoPro 3+ Black to do 1080 60p files, and before switching to this DLL, I was getting around 1.5 FPS playing it back. After putting in replacement DLL, I get a solid 59.940 even at Qualty: BEST (FULL)

nice!

OldSmoke wrote on 4/6/2014, 7:54 PM

Yes it is a bug but that is one that MC has to fix; the decoders are written by MC in Germany and not Sony but it is Sony's responsibility to make note and get them to fix it.

wwjd wrote on 4/6/2014, 10:35 PM

but your DDL fix is from Sony itself... they already have the code properly to fix this. they just need to do it rather than work on a new version.... that will probably have this same issue! :D

AndyMac wrote on 6/11/2014, 3:57 PM

I'd just like to add my note of huge thanks to 'OldSmoke' too - today I put some 1080-50p GoPro Black 3+ footage on the timeline in v13, and clips which played flawlessly in Windows Media Player, reduced a fairly beefy HP Z600 to an absolute crawl - I was getting under 1fps in the preview window - just awful.

With the replacement .dll from V11, it plays back at 50fps.

SCS... seems to have dropped the ball on this one... it'd be great to get it into a bug-fix! ;-]

Oh, and a big 'thanks' to the forum members too, for providing such a great and useful resource. I use Vegas pretty much every day for work - sadly don't have much time to spend here, and tend to drop by when I have a technical issue (which thankfully doesn't happen too often) - I continue to be heartened by the support and info available here from Vegas users - much appreciated, all.

Andy

DerekB59 wrote on 10/6/2014, 11:04 PM

I am posting just to keep this alive in hopes that Sony will fix it.

I had the same problem previewing GoPro 1080-60p video on VP 13 and was able to fix it by OldSmoke's discovery (see his post on 4/3/2014). I own VP11, which will play back the 60 fps files just fine. I skipped VP 12 and just bought VP 13 on 09/25/14, build 373. So I was able to go into my VP11 folder per OldSmoke and copy the DLL to the VP13 folder, and it worked perfectly. I renamed the original DLL just to keep it around.

What started my investigation was I bought a Surface Pro 3 with i5 processor to use for casual editing while on vacation and such and borrowed a friend's Hero 3+ Black (I just ordered the New Hero 4). So I installed Vegas Pro 13 as my second installation and headed out last week (no time to "try things"). In the hotel I tried to edit my GoPro 1080-60p footage from the day and the playback was terribly slow and not useable at all. So I blamed the Surface Pro 3 and gave up. But when I got home, my desktop had the same problem. Once I found the fix by OldSmoke, I did it on my desktop and then the Surface Pro 3, and it works!! Yeah, I am so happy. I thought the Surface Pro 3 was the problem and got all dejected thinking it was a bad dog, but no, just a bad DLL!

Thank you OldSmoke !

It's really a shame to Sony. How long has this been going on? And with Go Pro files of all things. You gotta be kidding me!! And the fix is sooo simple.

NormanPCN wrote on 10/7/2014, 6:38 PM

It may not be quite so simple for SCS. The newer versions of the Mainconcept AVC decoder may have fixed some problem(s) where something did not work at all. GoPro files work in the current decoder. Only the performance sucks.

The problem is the performance of the decoder is critical to edit performance and not to be taken lightly as seems to be the case at SCS. As previously stated, I believe the GoPro is an important enough camera that proper support be taken seriously.

They also can't just take the position of, buy a faster CPU. I had the fastest Haswell CPU, and overclocked a bit. The AVC decoder is single threaded so more cores is of no help. Brute single core/thread speed is all that matters here to try and get GoPro 1080p60 files to work.

Percepto wrote on 3/7/2015, 4:40 AM

I am also posting to keep this issue alive.
I just bought a GOPro Hero 4 Black and the preview makes the footage completely unusable for editing.
Honestly no need to post my brand-new, custom-built laptop specs, it is more than capable of handling this.
There is no question that Vegas Pro 13 should be able to handle GoPro footage. It is not the "new kid on the block" anymore it is the market leader.
I will also post on the Vegas FB page because it is incredible to me that Sony have not at least addressed this.
There must be thousands of people buying GoPros about to buy Vegas Pro 13 and they might as well get a pirated copy of Vegas 11.
I have been purchasing and upgrading Vegas for over 10 years. I expect some loyalty and at the very least a response to this long-standing issue.
I will try the dll fix, as it seems many people have had success with it. That said, I am more than a little hesitant to do so in case I lose functionality elsewhere.
Respect and praise should also be given to the posters here who made this even possible.
Thank you for your efforts which allowed many people (hopefully me too) to use Vegas for the purpose for which they bought it!
Cheers

musicvid10 wrote on 3/7/2015, 8:04 AM

It has been addressed.
GoPro Studio.
If that's not enough for you, Sony would love to look at your code submission.

Percepto wrote on 3/7/2015, 3:59 PM

Update:
Just copied the dll and tried it with the GoPro footage that was unworkable previously.
The preview is ok and I can work without problem, but it isn't what I would call "smooth", as some people here are reporting.
Are there any settings I should be aware of that I can tweak to improve it further?
Thanks for any input.

NormanPCN wrote on 3/7/2015, 8:06 PM

Others may have gone "smooth" using the old VP11 AVC decoder because their machine is faster than yours. Your machine may still be marginal for 1080p60 GoPro AVC video.

The only 100% way to work around the problem is to get away from the GoPro AVC into something else that Vegas on your machine is able to decode at speed. Directly via something else or by using proxies.

I successfully used the Vegas smart proxy feature. Transcoding to XDCAM EX should work just fine, but you are limited to HD. Converting to Cineform via GoPro studio has been mentioned.

NeilC1 wrote on 3/18/2015, 4:01 PM

Deciding to film and edit my own footage seemed a good thing to do. £2k later (new PC, GoPro and SVP13) imagine my horror when I discovered I would be editing 'blind' due to the 1fps preview window.

Endless research and many useful and not so useful suggestions later I was almost resigned to having to edit blind for eternity and then I found this thread!

To every contributor I'd like to say a big thanks. Firstly to OldSmoke for being a Jedi, Norman for sticking with it and all those who tried OldSmoke's method and reported that it worked (which gave me confidence to try it). A big thanks to you all

As for SCS? well they must know about the issue. Whether they don't want to fix it because it may affect the performance of the decoding from a different camera (as OldSmoke eluded to) or whether they don't want to fix it for another reason is anyone's guess. Either way I'm slightly disappointed but I'm beyond relieved I've found a solution.

FixitMad0 wrote on 3/20/2015, 12:16 PM

@OldSmoke

Are you able to repost that dll from 4-24-2014? I tried and that link is just saying connecting and not going anywhere.

Can anyone confirm that file is still available on DropBox?

Edit: I finally got it but it seriously took over 5 min. Not sure if DropBox was having an issue or me. The main DropBox page came up ok.

Please disregard my message.

Thanks.

MattAdamson wrote on 3/20/2015, 6:23 PM

I tried this fix with 1080p 120fps files from my go pro black edition. It still seems very slow to preview although this is still whilst using proxies oddly enough. I thought the creation of proxies always provided quick performance.

NormanPCN wrote on 3/20/2015, 10:30 PM

What was the proxy size and format? Vegas Smart Proxy?

Proxy does not by definition mean quick, a suitable proxy should be quicker. Quicker may still not be enough depending on machine speed.

The only time I have played with GoPro 120fps files is when I was slowing them down to 30fps for slow-mo. Vegas may have trouble trying to do 120fps at full frame rate.

NormanPCN wrote on 6/11/2015, 9:12 PM

This seems to be fixed in Vegas 13 build 453. At least maybe good enough. Hopefully for most. The AVC decoder version is now listed as 9.10 compared to 9.6 previously in V12 and early 13.

Performance seems good, Good/Full playback, on my current 4Ghz 4770k CPU with the same 1080p60 test project originally posted to this forum.

NickHope wrote on 2/1/2016, 5:03 AM

I recently bought a DJI OSMO with the Zenmuse X3 camera. I prefer to work in VP12 rather than VP13 most of the time, but I found that .MP4 files from the OSMO are much snappier in VP13.

I copied C:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas Pro 13.0\FileIO Plug-Ins\compoundplug\mc_dec_avc.dll over to the corresponding folder for VP12 and it has fixed the problem.

I also copied compoundplug.dll, which is the other updated file in that folder, but didn't notice a difference, so I have reset that.

If you do it, rename the original dll to mc_dec_avc.dll.original or similar.

So:

a) DJI footage suffers the same sluggishness in VP12 as GoPro footage. Presumably this applies to drone footage as well as OSMO footage.

b) You can fix this issue with the VP13 dll file, and if you have access to that file, and it's possibly a "better" fix than using the VP11 dll file as described above (as there may be other tweaks or new support in the VP13 version).

MTuggy wrote on 2/1/2016, 7:25 PM

I can confirm it is fixed in the latest build of V13. I had the same issue with V12 and the early versions of Vegas 13. Now the playback in markedly improved.

MIke

rdolishny wrote on 2/2/2016, 3:31 PM

All NLE's choke on GoPro. Transcode to Cineform, XDCAM ProRes or DNxHD.

NickHope wrote on 2/3/2016, 2:05 AM

VP13 build 453 rips through DJI OSMO 4K footage at Best (full) on my computer with GPU turned off. Smooth as you like. No need to transcode to anything.

OldSmoke wrote on 2/3/2016, 6:54 AM

@Nick
This seems to be the same trick I did two years back with VP11 and 12. Have you tried the VP11 dll before you used the VP13 one?

NickHope wrote on 2/3/2016, 7:09 AM

No, but I'm pretty sure I've tried the VP11 dll in the past for testing purposes when I was helping others out. I don't have a GoPro or VP11. Seems to me that if you've got the VP13 dll then may as well use that one in VP12 as there may be other "improvements" in it since VP11. I don't know of any current bugs introduced since VP11 that could be attributable to that dll.

relaxvideo wrote on 1/16/2017, 6:16 AM

For some reason V11/64 stutters with my Sony TD30 50p 2D files, even without any fx on it! Why?

Project properties set to 50fps, monitor set to 50Hz, and motion isnt smooth.

I'm sure this worked flawlessly before on this PC. I only upgraded ram to 16GB since then.
And i use Aero in win7. Without it i see horizontal tearing lines.

What is the secret for smooth motion? I have i7-2600 and 750ti card, gpu acc. off.