Compression question
by Ryan McRobb on May 9, 2012 at 3:30:08 am
Hello,
My workplace are currently upgrading our stock footage from DVD quality, 720 X 576 4:3 footage, to HD, 1920 X 1080 16:9 footage. We are starting by downloading free footage from xstockvideo.com. The footage is intended for use in our video editing courses attended mostly by school students.
I have been downloading the 1920 X 1080 .avi footage from the site, and then converting it to 1920 X 1080 .mov format using the H.264 codec in AVS converter, so it can be opened by Vegas. The xstockvideo site also gives the option of downloading a .mov file, however I was concerned that Vegas might not be able to deal with the large file sizes. See an example here: http://xstockvideo.com/p2/download/0157_blueinkinwater.mov.htm
Once they are converted to .mov from the .avi file, the file size is drastically reduced(about 7MB, whereas on the site the file is 270MB), and to my eye I can't tell the difference.
I am concerned that if I use the compressed footage, Vegas will have to constantly decompress the footage thus increasing CPU load? I really don't understand how Vegas deals with the footage, can anyone give me advice on whether to either:
a) Keep downloading the 1920 X 1080 .avi footage(with smaller file size) and then converting it to .mov using the H.264 codec
or
b) Download the 1920 X 1080 .mov footage with the larger file size direct from the xstockvideo website?
Re: Compression question by Stephen Crye on May 9, 2012 at 5:28:28 am
Hi;
Ryan, I'm a little confused when you said " ...so it can be opened by Vegas."
Vegas can open .AVI fine, I use lots of .AVI files. File size is only a problem if you are short on disk. In fact, Vegas likes uncompressed files - editing them is usually faster than editing compressed h.264 or AVCHD files.
Am I missing something?
You are correct in thinking that Vegas works harder when dealing with compressed formats, but this is not a huge worry. If you want to save space, and because you stated you are happy with the quality of the compressed footage, use the compressed versions.
I really, really like the Huffy AVI lossless compression utility. Of course, it will not squeeze things anywhere close to h.264, but it does compress. I work with AVI primarily when I need to use Virtual Dub for decimation, when I need to do time-lapse but don't want any inter-frame motion blur, as in these projects:
Steve
Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM, nVidia FX 570, Vegas 10e (and 11) x64 DVDA 5.2(build 133) Sony HDR-CX550V
Re: Compression question by Ryan McRobb on May 9, 2012 at 6:21:27 am
Hi Stephen,
thanks for your response.
I have found that Vegas won't open all .AVI files, and the ones found at this site will not open in our version of Vegas(Vegas Pro 10). http://xstockvideo.com/p2/download/0260_carameldrop.mov.htm
If you wouldn't mind testing this yourself, you could download the larger .AVI file from this site. Only the .MOV files from this site will open in Vegas, at least on our computers.
We will probably have enough disk space to store the larger .MOV files, therefore if they are easier for Vegas to handle I will go through and download those. Our computers have 8Gb of RAM, and as most student projects don't run for longer than 90 seconds, I doubt that will cause too many hassles. Thanks for the advice!
Also, do you or anyone else out there recommend any other free of paid stock footage sites for students? I would love to obtain footage in which the students could create varying narratives for their films. People footage on green screens, or with alpha channels would be ideal. Any ideas?
Re: Compression question by Mike Kujbida on May 9, 2012 at 2:42:08 pm
[Ryan McRobb]"I have found that Vegas won't open all .AVI files, and the ones found at this site will not open in our version of Vegas(Vegas Pro 10)."
I had a look at that file and MediaInfo says it's a DivX MPEG-4 file so you'll need the DivX codec for Vegas to be able to play it.
A lot of folks don't like to install the codec so you're better off with the MOV file as that plays for you with no problems other than the much larger file size.
Re: Compression question by John Rofrano on May 10, 2012 at 12:20:57 pm
[Mike Kujbida]"I had a look at that file and MediaInfo says it's a DivX MPEG-4 file so you'll need the DivX codec for Vegas to be able to play it."
You don't want to work with DivX in Vegas. Even if you install the codec so that Vegas can read it, they will never render correctly. Just avoid DivX/Xvid for editing.
The QuickTime MOV files on that site are already H.264 so there should be no need to convert them. Just download them and use them In Vegas.
Re: Compression question by Mike Kujbida on May 10, 2012 at 12:31:43 pm
[John Rofrano]"The QuickTime MOV files on that site are already H.264 so there should be no need to convert them. Just download them and use them In Vegas."
John, that's what I thought too but I couldn't get them to open in 32 or 64-bit Pro 10.0e with the latest version of QuickTime installed :(
Re: Compression question by Mikhail Petrushin on May 9, 2012 at 6:58:27 am
Vegas likes uncompressed files - editing them is usually faster than editing compressed h.264 or AVCHD files.
It depends.
Uncompressed video files are huge and for working with them your HDD have to read incredible amount of data. For example my HDD (7200rpm SATA2) are not fast enough even for working with 1080-50p videos compressed with huffyuv codec. However, it works OK with the same video compressed by lagarith (a bit better compression).
Just "numbers":
- My HDDs max linear read speed -- <150 MB/sec
- Bitrate for uncompressed 1080-50p video -- >2500 MB/s
If your footage has smaller resolution or framerate you will not have such problem.
Re: Compression question by Stephen Crye on May 13, 2012 at 5:43:31 am
Hey Mikhail ... I've been hearing about the Lagarith Codec, would like to try it, particularly since Huffy seems to not be actively supported any longer.
Questions:
* Is Lagarith lossless? (I need lossless because I do a lot of intermediate processing and quality suffers at the end of the pipeline if there is any loss)
*Do you know if there is a 64-bit version that can be installed so that it appears as a Vegas render option? Links to the latest version?
I am a bit confused by what you said about uncompressed 1080 50p (for me it is 60p) having too high a bit rate. Sure, if I just try to play them back, VLC is choppy. But when I drop them into the timeline and then render, everything is fine ... what am I missing here?
Thanks,
Steve
Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM, nVidia FX 570, Vegas 10e (and 11) x64 DVDA 5.2(build 133) Sony HDR-CX550V
Unfortunately, looks like Lagarith + Vegas are not fully compatible. If your sources are lagarith-encoded and you render your project (8-bit colour depth) into Mainconcept MP4 that the resulting video will be darker :(
> But when I drop them into the timeline and then render, everything is fine ... what am I missing here?
When you edit it on timeline in Vegas, Vegas do NOT read all frames. As a result the navigation looks OK. However, when you start preview in Vegas it will be choppy as well.
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