Good day, everyone.
I got really excited about Vegas supporting MKV footage but got thoroughly disappointed when I had observed the atrocious performance of MKV playback compared to MP4. I am told that it is because MKV footage editing is not GPU accelerated. Will it ever be? I have 2-3 hour footage that's about 40 - 60GB in size and I have to convert it to MP4 every time to get reasonable editing experience. This is on Ryzen 7, RX3070. Does Vegas 19 support GPU MKV editing?
What's in the MKV?
https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-how-to-post-mediainfo-and-vegas-pro-file-properties--104561/
This is recorded with OBS. There are multiple audio tracks and several hours of footage per file.
General Unique ID : 16614713249413817512996787392849101796 (0xC7FE09BBE2306C556788BA72CFBC3E4) Complete name : D:\The Forest\Milo\2021-04-10 13-57-17.mkv Format : Matroska Format version : Version 4 File size : 64.5 GiB Duration : 3 h 47 min Overall bit rate : 40.7 Mb/s Writing application : Lavf58.29.100 Writing library : Lavf58.29.100 ErrorDetectionType : Per level 1 Video ID : 1 Format : AVC Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec Format profile : Baseline@L4.2 Format settings : 1 Ref Frames Format settings, CABAC : No Format settings, Reference frames : 1 frame Codec ID : V_MPEG4/ISO/AVC Duration : 3 h 47 min Nominal bit rate : 40.0 Mb/s Width : 1 920 pixels Height : 1 080 pixels Display aspect ratio : 16:9 Frame rate mode : Constant Frame rate : 60.000 FPS Color space : YUV Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 Bit depth : 8 bits Scan type : Progressive Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.322 Writing library : x264 core 157 r2945 72db437 Encoding settings : cabac=0 / ref=1 / deblock=0:0:0 / analyse=0:0 / me=dia / subme=0 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=0 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=0 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=0 / weightp=0 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=0 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=0 / rc=cbr / mbtree=0 / bitrate=40000 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=40000 / vbv_bufsize=40000 / nal_hrd=none / filler=1 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=0 Default : Yes Forced : No Audio #1 ID : 2 Format : AAC LC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity Codec ID : A_AAC-2 Duration : 3 h 47 min Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel layout : L R Sampling rate : 44.1 kHz Frame rate : 43.066 FPS (1024 SPF) Compression mode : Lossy Title : Track1 Default : Yes Forced : No Audio #2 ID : 3 Format : AAC LC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity Codec ID : A_AAC-2 Duration : 3 h 47 min Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel layout : L R Sampling rate : 44.1 kHz Frame rate : 43.066 FPS (1024 SPF) Compression mode : Lossy Title : Track2 Default : Yes Forced : No Audio #3 ID : 4 Format : AAC LC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity Codec ID : A_AAC-2 Duration : 3 h 47 min Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel layout : L R Sampling rate : 44.1 kHz Frame rate : 43.066 FPS (1024 SPF) Compression mode : Lossy Title : Track3 Default : Yes Forced : No Audio #4 ID : 5 Format : AAC LC Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity Codec ID : A_AAC-2 Duration : 3 h 47 min Channel(s) : 2 channels Channel layout : L R Sampling rate : 44.1 kHz Frame rate : 43.066 FPS (1024 SPF) Compression mode : Lossy Title : Track4 Default : Yes Forced : No
Here are suggested OBS settings for use in Vegas Pro: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-what-obs-studio-settings-work-well-with-vegas-pro--109925/
Here are suggested OBS settings for use in Vegas Pro: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-what-obs-studio-settings-work-well-with-vegas-pro--109925/
Well here lies the problem. This asks to record in mp4...
Here's the problem with mp4... Your lights go out, your computer restarts, OBS crashes, Poseidon himself decideds to fart funny, and that MP4 file is corrupted... irreversibly. No matter what recovery software I've tried, I could never repair the corrupted mp4 footage file.
So MKV it is. MKV is protected. You can even go to the task manager and force close OBS or even pull the plug out of your PC, the MKV file will be intact.
We've lost too much footage to MP4 corruption.
So back to the question of this thread. Is vegas ever going to be able to preview and render MKV files with the same speed as MP4? Is that present in Vegas 19?
At this point I'm giving Davinci Resolve a try and so far it does open and preview MKV files. I've paid for Vegas 17 and 18 but something tells me I'm not gonna get smooth MKV editing any time soon...
It's just a container, while I haven't had any reason to test MKV I think what's in the container also matters. Try a test of OBS without hardware encoding (x.264- I assume OBS can do this, Handbrake can). Aren't there other capture formats you can try like AVI (UT, for example)?
If it works okay in Vegas but just doesn't perform well for playback, right click on it and "create video proxy." I have to proxy about everything in Resolve, so no difference there for me.
Haven't heard of any improvements with MKV support in VP 19.
Since you have HOS, I'd suggest using the ImportAssist tool to easily rewrap your MKV's into an MP4 container. It's very fast since it just "copies" streams. It's much faster than transcoding. By default, there is a VFR to CFR conversion. If your footage is already CFR, you can select the Media Type as generic and only do a rewrap.
Just a note that the screen shot shown is from the next build and looks a bit different than the current dialog. There is a new Trimmer dialog that can also be used for media files that are to be rewrapped.
It's just a container, while I haven't had any reason to test MKV I think what's in the container also matters. Try a test of OBS without hardware encoding (x.264- I assume OBS can do this, Handbrake can). Aren't there other capture formats you can try like AVI (UT, for example)?
If it works okay in Vegas but just doesn't perform well for playback, right click on it and "create video proxy." I have to proxy about everything in Resolve, so no difference there for me.
Haven't heard of any improvements with MKV support in VP 19.
https://snipboard.io/JBx8FZ.jpg
These are the available options and only MKV, TS and m3u8 wrappers provide a corruption proof solution. Currently I have to convert MKV to MP4 via VLCPlayer converter tool. It works and allows me to edit footage in Vegas but that also adds about an hour of extra conversion and double the hard drive space used just to convert. I'm not brave enough to delete the original MKV after conversion.
If you don't use the hardware encoder does it perform any better in Vegas?
Haven't attempted to convert anything in VLC in a while (initial experience wasn't positive) but is it capable of high quality transcodes? I'd just do x.264 AVC in Handbrake.
If your MKV contains H264/H265 video and AAC audio, you can just remux to mp4 for editing in Vegas with no need to re-encode anything. OBS lets you do this from File > Remux Recordings. And as it doesn't re-encode anything, this process is super fast and results in zero quality loss, as it's the exact same data.
Since you have HOS, I'd suggest using the ImportAssist tool to easily rewrap your MKV's into an MP4 container. It's very fast since it just "copies" streams. It's much faster than transcoding. By default, there is a VFR to CFR conversion. If your footage is already CFR, you can select the Media Type as generic and only do a rewrap.
Just a note that the screen shot shown is from the next build and looks a bit different than the current dialog. There is a new Trimmer dialog that can also be used for media files that are to be rewrapped.
I've looked into it actually. Only question - does using it result in double footage? My original footage goes from 40-60GB for a 2-3 hour length vide. So far from my tests.
"Only question - does using it result in double footage?"
If you mean, "does file size increase", the answer is No. The two file sizes should be virtually the same. Here's a MediaInfo screen grab for both the original mkv and the rewrapped for a 24 min video. The overall file size was reduced since only one of the eight audio streams was copied. However, the size of the video stream were identical.
More importantly, if you transcode using VLC or Handbrake, you always lose some quality plus it takes time to encode. Rewrapping using HOS or inside of OBS as suggested by @DrinkyBird maintains the same quality since it "copies" the video stream and is much quicker.
@Miles-Thatch Suggest you find a different way to record your audio/video projects. OBS is great at live streaming but not so much when it comes to recording. If Vegas Capture works on your setup, you could be capturing audio and video to their own tracks right in Vegas... I'm guessing your audio interface provides a device for each input if OBS is able to capture it to aac. Btw, capturing aac as a multitrack audio recording format yields pretty low quality, particularly if you decompress/recompress it multiple times for fx and mixing... if you really want to do that, the mov container would be a better and more compatible choice for video with higher quality uncompressed 24-bit multitrack pcm audio. I've never tried it myself but Nvidia also has a capture facility called Shadowplay that you might want to try.
"Only question - does using it result in double footage?"
If you mean, "does file size increase", the answer is No. The two file sizes should be virtually the same. Here's a MediaInfo screen grab for both the original mkv and the rewrapped for a 24 min video. The overall file size was reduced since only one of the eight audio streams was copied. However, the size of the video stream were identical.
More importantly, if you transcode using VLC or Handbrake, you always lose some quality plus it takes time to encode. Rewrapping using HOS or inside of OBS as suggested by @DrinkyBird maintains the same quality since it "copies" the video stream and is much quicker.
I see. VLC has a transcoding setting where it just copies the stream into a different wrapper. Takes about 30 minutes to rewrap about 3 hours of footage (It has multi channel audio so each track adds a good 10 minutes).
Also, the Otter Scripts wrapper seems to be achieving the same result as VLC in terms of resulting in 2 video files - original and transcoded. This is already the case with my VLC process but perhaps your solution would do it simply faster.
From my current test with Davinci, it seems to playback my original MKV files without stuttering and it also offers a tool with which I can achieve the same effect as the Loudness to Opacity script of OtterScripts. Not to mention it offers nested timelines which I use very often, but which, in Vegas involves can only be achieved by nesting projects, which of course results in abysmal performance.
I bought Vegas 17 and 18 before Davinci Resolve supported MKV editing. It's a shame that if Magix ever introduces adequate GPU acelerated editng of MKVs it won't be in a version of Vegas I paid for. Now, not only does Rexolve support MKV editing right out of the box, it also supports it with GPU acceleration too. For comparison, a 15 minute MKV file in Vegas renders at about 1-2 hours (in part due to edited footage containing several other graphical layers overlaying the video) so conversion is an must if I want to keep my sanity. This saves me on hard drive space and render times.
This is really making it a tough case for Vegas. With Davinci I'd save money and time by not using the very software I paid for :/
@Miles-Thatch Suggest you find a different way to record your audio/video projects. OBS is great at live streaming but not so much when it comes to recording. If Vegas Capture works on your setup, you could be capturing audio and video to their own tracks right in Vegas... I'm guessing your audio interface provides a device for each input if OBS is able to capture it to aac. Btw, capturing aac as a multitrack audio recording format yields pretty low quality, particularly if you decompress/recompress it multiple times for fx and mixing... if you really want to do that, the mov container would be a better and more compatible choice for video with higher quality uncompressed 24-bit multitrack pcm audio. I've never tried it myself but Nvidia also has a capture facility called Shadowplay that you might want to try.
Knowing Vegas track record, I do not trust it to record for 3 hours straight without crashing and corrupting the video in the process. For audio quality - Duly noted. I'd use it, if not for a single issue: If OBS or PC crashes - the file is corrupted. I've lost far too much footage to crashes or power outages to even remotely consider these wrappers for recording purposes.
Tick this option
Tick this option
That would be helpful
If your MKV contains H264/H265 video and AAC audio, you can just remux to mp4 for editing in Vegas with no need to re-encode anything. OBS lets you do this from File > Remux Recordings. And as it doesn't re-encode anything, this process is super fast and results in zero quality loss, as it's the exact same data.
Here in lies my confusion on this topic. From my understanding both MKV and MP4 are containers.
OBS is able to record in MP4 or MKV containers without any other changes when switching between them. As well as remux to MP4 afterwards as you described. Therefore, I have to assume that the actual audio and video codecs inside each of those containers are the same. Therefore, what would be the technical reason one would work better in Vegas than the other and why would there be a need to remux back and forth between the container type to make Vegas perform better?
RogerS seemed to be on the right path of asking about the details of what is inside of the MKV container since that would technically seem to matter. So why would a MP4 recorded from OBS perform better in Vegas than one which was recorded as an MKV ?
Sorry, unrelated to the Topic. I did not knew that wayne is into martial arts anime hehe.
@Howard-Vigorita "OBS is great at live streaming but not so much when it comes to recording."
What experience have you had that led you to this conclusion? I've found OBS to be great at recording everything from the screen to multiple video and audio inputs at the same time. Much much much more reliable than Vegas.
So why would a MP4 recorded from OBS perform better in Vegas than one which was recorded as an MKV ?
That's what I'd like to hear too.
Sadly however even if Magix decided to implement fully supported, adequately performing, GPU accelerated MKV editing (rather than current hidden feature one that is slow as heck and crashes a lot), it will be in Vegas 23 for yet another $200 upgrade fee :(
@Howard-Vigorita "OBS is great at live streaming but not so much when it comes to recording."
I would also like to know what is your basis for this? Perhaps it's something I don't know about and I should be weary of myself. As far as I have experienced, It can record a plethora of wrappers and encoders, you can even get uncompressed footage from obs. The reason I explicitly choose MKV is due to it's crash corruption resistance.
If your MKV contains H264/H265 video and AAC audio, you can just remux to mp4 for editing in Vegas with no need to re-encode anything. OBS lets you do this from File > Remux Recordings. And as it doesn't re-encode anything, this process is super fast and results in zero quality loss, as it's the exact same data.
Remuxing is what I already do now. I'm trying to minimize the unnecessary time and hard drive space costs. Remuxing results in a 2nd file taking up just as much hard drive space as the initial file and these are 2 - 3 hour 50kbit video recordings resulting in 40BG - 60GB files. We do a few of these in a day. I'm not too keep on trashing the original either, so I'm in search of a solution that can allow me to edit MKV's directly. So far that solution is Davinci Resolve, as miffed as I am since I paid for Vegas.
@Howard-Vigorita "OBS is great at live streaming but not so much when it comes to recording."I would also like to know what is your basis for this? Perhaps it's something I don't know about and I should be weary of myself. As far as I have experienced, It can record a plethora of wrappers and encoders, you can even get uncompressed footage from obs. The reason I explicitly choose MKV is due to it's crash corruption resistance.
I do mostly multicam and find it totally unreliable capturing multiple video streams no matter what the format. I personally think its unreasonable to expect anything but a really well optimized computer and network with dedicated hardware capture cards to succeed at that. But there is a new tech coming along called NDI with pretty solid looking multicam recording software behind it but I'm wary of that too. Having designed and implemented building and campus lans I know how low the chances are of getting the backbone right. I am averse to implementing a remote camera for recording for anything important without local capture in the camera. So far most of the dedicated NDI cams I've seen omit local media capture. In every case where I've had access to both, the locally captured audio and video has always been light years better in quality. And it's always there even when remote access is lost.
I have particular issues with OBS and the way it inserts itself underneath both audio and video drivers. Nvidia was doing that kind of thing for a while till Microsoft forced them to give it up. I mean it's great if you want OBS to operate as a front end tweaker to an unrelated app like Zoom whose own image control is inadequate. But the only way I know to bypass it when it's not wanted is to uninstall it. Which is what I do whenever I'm not using it.
I suppose I owe allot to folks who try to use computers in live theater settings. Can't tell you how many times I got to save the show while they rebooted.
So why would a MP4 recorded from OBS perform better in Vegas than one which was recorded as an MKV ?
That's what I'd like to hear too.
Sadly however even if Magix decided to implement fully supported, adequately performing, GPU accelerated MKV editing (rather than current hidden feature one that is slow as heck and crashes a lot), it will be in Vegas 23 for yet another $200 upgrade fee :(
What computer do you have?
I deliberately have GPU decode turned off, because editing is smoother without it turned on at 1080P60. I don't find the Vegas GPU decoder works well at 60fps, if you have Ryzen 5800 it should be a walk in the park, 5600 not sure
"Only question - does using it result in double footage?"
If you mean, "does file size increase", the answer is No. The two file sizes should be virtually the same. Here's a MediaInfo screen grab for both the original mkv and the rewrapped for a 24 min video. The overall file size was reduced since only one of the eight audio streams was copied. However, the size of the video stream were identical.
More importantly, if you transcode using VLC or Handbrake, you always lose some quality plus it takes time to encode. Rewrapping using HOS or inside of OBS as suggested by @DrinkyBird maintains the same quality since it "copies" the video stream and is much quicker.
So it appears yet again the world isn't ready for MKV editing. Looks like I'm going to have to stick with Vegas for a little while longer. Davinci seems near but still slugish. Back to the grind. - Looking into the Import assist.
What settings do you suggest I use for rewrapping the footage into something Vegas is comfortable with?
This is what I'm assuming I should use:
https://snipboard.io/j3uFx7.jpg
In the future, just don't use MKV as the output container for OBS recordings. Instead, output to MP4 and you will have save yourself a lot of time.
Within ImportAssist, there are 2 ways to rewrap your MKV's into an MP4 container. The best way is to select "mkv" as the type of import which is a two part process. It first "copies" the video and audio streams into the new mp4 container. It then rewrites the presentation timestamps to ensure that the resulting media files are indeed a constant frame rate (CFR) . Even if your original files were recorded using a CFR setting in OBS, copying streams from MKV to MP4 will usually result in a VFR media file. Hence, the reason for the second processing and another reason to avoid use of MKVs.
Second, you could select "generic mov/mp4/mpg" as the type of import which bypasses rewriting new timestamps which will be faster and may be OK for editing in Vegas. I'd suggest trying this option first, and see if it works OK for your media files. Or perhaps, do a test file trying both options and see which works best.
In the future, just don't use MKV as the output container for OBS recordings. Instead, output to MP4 and you will have save yourself a lot of time.
I honestly would... if it wasn't such a god awful risk when you're capturing real time live footage. Seriously speaking, light go out, Windows decides to update, Blue Screen or heck... even OBS decides to crash for whatever reason (which is really rare) = means say Bye Bye to the mp4 file. It's dunzo - corrupted beyond reparability, and believe me, I've tried a good number of possible solutions and software for restoration of mp4s. This comes from experience. We've lost far too much footage to corruption and we're talking about 2 - 3 hours of recordings of improvised jokes and commentary - that's not the sort of content you can just... redo ya know.