Sony Vegas and AVCHD performance problems
by James Souter
on
Aug 17, 2008 at 12:40:36 am
G'Day All
I recently purchased a Sony SR12 AVCHD camera, built a new computer and with it got a copy of Sony Vegas Pro 8.
My computer specs are as follows
Quad Core - Q6600
6 gig of ram
Windows Vista x64 SP1
The problem is that the preview of my video is very slow. It seems to be acceptable when previewing the main chunk of a file but when any transitions, effects or even just a simple swap to another video file (without transition) comes up in the timeline the framerate drops down to about 5/6 and skips along making it very hard to determine if the scene I just put together is any good.
I have the preview settings on Draft/Quarter. I understand I can use Dynamic Ram preview but this isn't a great solution going forward as it is time consuming.
The project contains only approx 47 AVCHD files at the moment whose size is around 6 gig total and the project runs for about 25 mins
I believe my computer should be up to specifications to handle these AVCHD files, can anybody shed any light?
Re: Sony Vegas and AVCHD performance problems by Tony Archer on Aug 18, 2008 at 2:35:14 am
Odd, my PC handles it fine. I mean the preview isn't renderriffic unless I prerender in memory, but I have no complaints with it.
I have a Q9300 (45nm 2.5 quad) and 4 gig ram.
Also, I am unnaware of what if anything Vegas uses your video card for, but when I am previewing or rendering my GPU's fan goes off the wall. (again, that could just be cause the CPU is heating up and making the GPU want to cool down, but maybe it does use it for preview?
Re: Sony Vegas and AVCHD performance problems by Danny Hays on Aug 18, 2008 at 2:35:18 am
Actually no computer can play back any HD, HDV at full frame rate without the help of other hardware. Vegas is a CPU based program where the video card will not help with the preview speed. Other NLE's like Avid can use hardware like a Mojo or Adreniline to give you real time preview. Setting the preview to preview auto and keeping the preview window size small will help. Also selecting the important effects or transition areas and use the build dynamic ram preview option. Vegas is still better than others with this though. Try After Effects once and you'll be happier with Vegas. On a good note, your quad core will make a drastic improvement with render speeds. Hope this helps. Danny Hays
Re: Sony Vegas and AVCHD performance problems by James Souter on Aug 18, 2008 at 7:29:22 am
Thanks for all the help guys, it has been very helpful.
I actually use After Effects quite a lot and am just learning. Currently I am outputting to 1920x1080 Animation files (around 2 gig for 30 seconds) which also understandably brings the computer to a halt. I will start rendering two files from AE, a high quality final render and a low quality proxy.
Yeah I have actually started using the Vasst products, I accidentally purchased upshift instead of gearshift however! lol.
In anycayse - Gearshift is certainly a workable solution, but I am skeptical about the fact that my computer shouldn't be able to handle AVCHD for the following reasons
1) My friend has a standard home Mac (can't remember which one, but def less powerful than my PC) with final cut pro. They are pretty non technical users but when I asked them about working with the same camera they said they haven't had any problems with the editing process at all and definitely no slowdown. I guess it's possible that final cut makes proxies from the AVCHD files but I am not aware of this.
2) He used to have a PC and has a copy of Pinnacle Studio. I borrowed this and found that the AVCHD files playback with no slowdown at all, and the transitions are also smooth. It does appear however that the transitions are pre-rendered, still the AVCHD files playback without a hitch.
Tony - Our CPU's are quite comparable really so it's interesting you can confirm acceptable framerates. I am not looking for renderiffic framerates either, just workable. Are you using vista or XP? Your comments also seem to confirm that I should be able to work directly with the AVCHD files without the hassle of the conversion.
Re: Sony Vegas and AVCHD performance problems by Ashok Sharma on Aug 22, 2008 at 6:50:17 pm
James - With the kind of system specs you have I am sure you should not have issues previewing AVCHD. Just keep the preview setting as preview (auto) and you will be fine. With preview set to 'best' there might be issues with the frame rate and happened with me as well on my Q9450, 4 GB ram based pc.
Re: Sony Vegas and AVCHD performance problems by Danny Hays on Aug 22, 2008 at 7:21:33 pm
There is a point where faster computers have no effect on the speed of the preview framerate. We just upgraded from an older duo core to a new fast quad core and the preview has no noticable change. The render speed is dramaticlly faster though. One thing that will help with this and AVCHD and HDV is to convert them to Cineform interemediate format AVi which is more efficient in Vegas. This format can handle multiple renders without quality loss, and it comes with Vegas 7 and newer. Also I think it keys better as the color space is converted to 4.2.2 from 4.2.0 in HDV, I think..... Danny Hays
