as I said in my post: XAVCS 4k 10bit 422, and as I said I don't want to have to use proxies. I won't do any testing either, as I'm not going to adapt to a weaker codec in a high end camera just to fit the limitations of my NLE. I'd just as well keep my old gear then. Do people actually read posts before answering?

The capacity of Vegas to deal with the codecs of modern cameras is just rather bad and really needs an overhaul.

Do people actually read posts before answering?

Yess, I did and therefore gave you first no reaction.
Because your quoted question : Here no complaints about the codecs of my cameras and those of the people I make small videos for.
My suggestion to you is to ask the producer of your camera (Sony 😇) to start making a NLE that uses its codecs fluent without the need of proxies.👈😉

You did not say it was 10-bit 4:2:2, you just said XAVCS 4k which is uselessly vague and then became insulting. Sorry to try to help you, perhaps I shouldn't make that mistake again.

Since it's 4:2:2 the only GPUs that decode it are Intel. So get a new Intel CPU with iGPU (11th gen+) if I recall or an Intel Arc GPU and enjoy. This table refers to Premiere but really applies to all modern NLEs: https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/What-H-264-and-H-265-Hardware-Decoding-is-Supported-in-Premiere-Pro-2120/

Otherwise you'll need to get more flexible with your choice of acquisition formats and stop blaming your tools.

the title reads 4k 10 bit.

I wasn't insulting, I was just telling you that you gave an answer to a question i said I didn't want an answer to, namely I said proxies are no option for me. I have every right to "blame my tools" when they don't do the job they're made to do. 4 hours of editing with stuttering and lagging preview and random constant crashes at an increasing frequency is pretty much a reason to "blame my tools" in my books.

XAVCS is being decoded , just not very efficiently.

Do people actually read posts before answering?

Yess, I did and therefore gave you first no reaction.
Because your quoted question : Here no complaints about the codecs of my cameras and those of the people I make small videos for.
 

j-v sorry I absolutely do not get what you want to tell me. I film and edit for a living. The "people I make small videos for" actually pay me for it.

j-v sorry I absolutely do not get what you want to tell me.

I tried to answer the question you asked in the last part of your O.P.

I can confirm X-AVC is the 2nd best codec for editing, direct after ProRes.
I only own some footage from here by forum fellows, all of them - 10bit420/422 in 4k mostly - can play smoothly back, even after CGP-colorgrading.

Project settings: 4k60fps, disabled resample
View conditions: Good/Half
Monitoring Tools: Vectorscope/Wave-Composite/Histo-Luma
Graphics: AMD SAM disabled

@Yelandkeil by what I can see, I think you're working with .mxf files, which is XAVC-I and decodes much better tham XAVC-S.

@Mindmatter Look at the CPU use, most of the cores aren't being used. Nothing you can do about that. Legacy HEVC doesn't work for this codec.

My OBS can only capture in HDR10.
I transcoded it into SDR with low bitrate so the quality suffers.
Three clips are 120p, if go slow motion, also full speed.

By playing back the HW performance looks like so. Watch the VRAM and RAM usage!

@Yelandkeil Try the balloon Jellyfish video I used https://www.amazon.com/photos/shared/5g5LpnKuQUe_bRo0JO15OQ.G0FUQK_QW-iaiHkqDAuV3R

@Former user, you are kidding me.
My machine can't deal with a.10bit422HEVC, b. high bitrate AVC/HEVC with heavy motion (say 400Mbps and above).
I use swap for editing.

Even with mediaplayer such footage sucks all CPU resource away.

@Yelandkeil Yes, I understand now, I kept reading XAVC S as The XAVC HS, and thought this post was about the problem with HEVC, however, you can also see Resolve will play it no problem with a 5900x(no gpu decode), and you have a 5950x, so actually your system could playback the file fine, but not with Vegas currently.

Anyway now I understand why your playback was so good relative to what I was seeing

@Former user, my interest is how to combine VEGAS with my HW bestens for editing and how to avoid/solve problems.

I don't use and compare with other NLEs.
I tried Resolve due to BMfootage but it's 2 Nr. higher than my brain. 😇😇

I like my UI in VEGAS, perhaps you see I'm the only one who does it that way.
Learnt something from you: XAVC-HS=HEVC.
Thanks.

@Mindmatter

"An no, sorry, I don't like the idea to have to create proxies for hours after a shooting just to be able to work normally."

Would you be willing to use proxy files for editing if the camera made them for you while you are out shooting?

From the ILME-FX3 manual: https://helpguide.sony.net/ilc/2035/v1/en/contents/TP1000282137.html#:~:text=1%20Proxy%20movies%20cannot%20be%20played%20back%20on,4%20Movies%20cannot%20be%20edited%20on%20this%20camera.

Thanks john_dennis, I'm aware my FX3 can do that. I'll likely have to resort to that as there seems to be no other immediate solution, except maybe shoot everything in MXF, apart from the slow mos, as the max card speed won't allow them in XAVCI.

Since you are a very experienced Vegas user, I wonder what we can do here. The playback behaviour in Vegas - even for mxf XAVCI - is still not so great as I would like it to see (but with preview/half you can edit it). That it is worser for the long gop XAVCS footage is not great - but I still wonder what the project settings are, and what the settings of the dynamic ram preview.

@Former user, my interest is how to combine VEGAS with my HW bestens for editing and how to avoid/solve problems.

I don't use and compare with other NLEs.
I tried Resolve due to BMfootage but it's 2 Nr. higher than my brain. 😇😇

@Yelandkeil I don't think there is a perfect substitute for Vegas, but when you said your 5950x is not up to task of playing back XAVC HS I disagree because all of the NLE's installed on my computer right now will play the file at reasonable frame rate, except Vegas with a 5900X (Windows video editor does not support the codec). I make the comparison to show what we should expect on Vegas.

This is just theoretical, I don't think people should really be editing 4K 422 10bit HEVC without a proxy if not GPU decode, and the OP's camera generates 1080P AVC proxies at the time of recording, so as John Dennis showed, there's no reason not to use proxies, but still it's hard to be proud of your favorite NLE when it performs so badly compared to it's competition.

Here is the first 10seconds played on 5 NLE's, Vegas is the odd one out.

(NLE's set to playback at full resolution/quality for test)

The playback behaviour in Vegas - even for mxf XAVCI - is still not so great as I would like it to see (but with preview/half you can edit it). That it is worser for the long gop XAVCS footage is not great

@Wolfgang S. Render engine needs to be updated, but someone might have a tip for you other than using proxies.

I think we discuss here not so much the rendering, but more the decoding required for a nice playback during editing.

@Wolfgang S. The problem you have, and what I show is a weakness in decoding and rendering the frames for timeline preview, it is also the problem for encoding, and why Vegas is slower than other NLE's at encoding. The encoding speed not such a big deal (for me) but it is a problem if the speed of rendering the frames for timeline preview is slower than the frame rate of your source files.

You could try legacy avc or untick the GPU decoder in file IO to reduce the slow down that can occur there. This is possible for AVC and a limited extent HEVC if you have enough CPU power, which you do, but not fast cores, so could be hit or miss. I'd imagine you know all the hints and tips anyway, and you've exhausted them all.

Well, I personally have no problem here. I do not use the XAVCS footage really, and the XAVC-I footage from my FS7 could decode better - but it works on my machine in an acceptable way. The long GOP footage from my EVA1 works nice, too.

But to increase decoding speed would be a great idea. The new grading features are nice even for HDR.

Indeed, 4k MXF 422 10bit from my FS7 decodes way faster in Vegas.
I also do not really care abourt render speed, I can even let that run over night if I need to.But tha preview speed has been a major issue in Vegas ever since I started using it, and that must be like 10 years now. My upgrading to my latest PC also did not improve things as much as I hoped it would.

(AMD Ryzen 9 5900X, 12x 3.7 GHz
32 GB DDR4-3200 MHz (2x16GB), Dual-Channel
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070, 8GB GDDR6, HDMI, DP, studio drivers)