What is wrong with Vegas

Marius Boruch · April 11th, 2008, 02:35 AM

>It doesn't matter how fast your gfx card is. If the video is very heavy to decode, there will be a performance hit, no matter if you have the greatest gfx card on earth.

not exactly (and that's why I bought 8800), some plugins - like Magic Bullets - use ONLY GPU processor to render it. Vegas alone would render the file at 3-4 fps while using GPU it renders in real time. (I am using it frequently). I do video for a living and I have to have fastest possible system, I need to see the video in the best possible quality all the time (even in editing) that's why I am so picky.
Thanks for your help. I see you are using HV20. Have you ever render 24p from it on Vegas?

Eugenia Loli-Queru · April 11th, 2008, 02:39 AM

BTW, I will have to ask for a last time: have you used the right "project properties" template? If you don't use the right one, or if you don't click the "match media settings" (third icon on the right of the project properties window) to select one of these EX1 files to make the project properties window fill up with the right video information that mirror your footage, you will get LESS speed out of Vegas. Vegas runs faster when you have the right project properties. So have you done that?

Marius Boruch · April 11th, 2008, 02:41 AM

Eugenia,
this is the first thing I do (and everybody should) when I open the project. I set up properties/tem files etc...
I do 10 hrs of editind daily!
I am not sure if you are aware that those EX1 files are full HD (not some funny HDV files) recorded in 35MBs!!!!

Eugenia Loli-Queru · April 11th, 2008, 02:43 AM

>like Magic Bullets - use ONLY GPU processor to render it.
>Vegas alone would render the file at 3-4 fps while using GPU it renders in real time

Not on my PC. I have an nvidia 8600GTS 256 MBs, which is a pretty fast card too, and even with GPU usage, Magic Bullet is never real time here. I never had Magic Bullet running faster than 12 fps in HDV footage with GPU assistance.

>Have you ever render 24p from it on Vegas?

Yes. This 24p video of mine was exported via Vegas Pro in MP4 h.264/AAC 720p: http://vimeo.com/466491
Tutorial on how I did it, here: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/1...-for-vimeo-hd/

Marius Boruch · April 11th, 2008, 02:44 AM

Thanks for your help. I have to go it is after 3am in Chicago

Kim Olsson · April 11th, 2008, 04:50 AM

If not happy with Vegas, which is under 500 bucks, Buy a avid suite or something with external hardware as decoder for about maybe £2000 or 3000 dollars...

Glenn Chan · April 11th, 2008, 11:27 AM

Check that the Video scopes are not set to playback when the video is play. It's one of the icons on the video scopes.

2- You can make sure the project properties match by going
file
project settings (or properties, can't remember the exact name)
close to the area where you select the templates, there is a floppy disc icon. Click that and it will bring up a window where you can match the project settings to a particular file.

Richard Hunter · April 11th, 2008, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eugenia Loli-Queru

>like Magic Bullets - use ONLY GPU processor to render it.
>Vegas alone would render the file at 3-4 fps while using GPU it renders in real time

Not on my PC. I have an nvidia 8600GTS 256 MBs, which is a pretty fast card too, and even with GPU usage, Magic Bullet is never real time here. I never had Magic Bullet running faster than 12 fps in HDV footage with GPU assistance.

Hi Eugenia. That's strange. My card is a 7600 GT and I can play clips with MB applied in realtime as long as I don't add any other filters.

Richard

David Hadden · April 12th, 2008, 01:39 AM

DO NOT TURN YOUR THREADS DOWN, this setting is there to allow for proper distribution of work to multiple cores when the plugs etc... are able to do it. Leave your threads at 4!!!

That being said, usually playback doesn't use more than about 28-30% of the proc because i'm pretty sure that playback may not have been optimized to mulit-core properly (though i could be wrong).

to the moron who said Vegas is not a pro software, tell that to nightline news (they use it) and I don't think you get much more "pro" than that, and they're just one of many.

In all this you haven't said what your HDD's are doing? are you using dedicated drives for your source footage separate from the System drive and destination drive.

I also don't know if you said if you're playing back just one stream, or many, so I could use some details there.

If you are using best then Vegas has to do CPU intensive Tri-Linear filtering on every frame of video, this can be a real hit to the full framerate playback.

(I assume you are not foolish enough to leave a Virus scanner running or windows defender scanning while you're working are you? )

I know plenty of people that get full frame rate playback on HDV on machines quite literaly half as powerful as yours. I have no problems on my quad with 8800GT. Course I use preview quality and run one of my 24" LCD's as a monitor so there's no scaling (I disable the preview window when I'm playing back using my secondary 24" monitor as preview monitor so that it's not playing in 2 places).

Beyond that, I'd say you're doing something to it, because that machine has some juice and there's no reason it shouldn't be screamin. I'm running a modest 2.8Ghz Quad core and it's not having any problem keeping up, even with EX-1 Footage.

Just make sure your transparency is at 100 everywhere, and make sure you have no filters, run it at preview or Good quality and don't scale your output, just make your secondary monitor with all your non timeline windows on it jump to a preview display and don't show in preview window when you're doing that, make sure you're playing your files from a separate HDD than the System OS drive, and make sure that your Video Ram preview settings are at Default. If you're applying effects, you may drop frames here an there (even with MB on 8800GT512 i see a frame drop now and then, but I stay pretty close to full). Also make sure if you're not making Vegas mess with framerates too, as that can be a source of problems.

one thing you should know is that when you're using Magic Bullet you CPU usage will be lower because it's doing GPU (obviously) so even final rendering will see lower than full CPU usage with MB GPU accelerated effects on it, and there is some overhead in having to push everything to the GPU and back. Also don't use 32bit because even the fastest machines are going to struggle with that due if for no other reason than the fact that you're dealing with 128 bits per pixel accross your whole image and I'm guessing there's going to start being a problem with how much data can go to and from the CPU and RAM and HDD in real time.

Dave

Danny Fye · April 12th, 2008, 11:26 PM

I use 'Good Auto' and get full frame rate even with two tracks for Infiniticam.

I always have the project settings set for the video I use. So with HDV I use the HDV 1080-60i (1440x1080, 29.970 fps) settings.

My preview settings are: Default Background, Simulate Device Aspect Ratio, Show Toolbar and Show Status Bar. All other settings are not checked.

This is by way of right clicking on the preview window.

The preview window has display sizes of Project = 1440x1080x32,2970i, Preview: 320x270x32,2970p and Display:480x270x32.

I can make it such that the Preview is 720x540 and the Display is 960x540 and still get full rate.

I use 8 bit for editing.

If I use 'Preview Auto' I will get a ton of black and red frames. So, on my system I must use 'Good Auto' or I don't edit native *.m2t files.

Seems to be system specific...

Hope this helps.

Danny Fye
www.vidmus.com/scolvs

Sherif Choudhry · April 13th, 2008, 10:40 AM

I started a thread on this topic some months ago on why Vegas preview is slow (and discovered so had others way back).

* I am getting your preview rate of 13-14fps on my average Quad Core 2.4Ghz 2Gb RAM with 32 bit processing plus 2 heavy colour correction filters on the timeline. So you should be getting full frame rates on standard m2t files with no filters.

But as I understand it there are only small-marginal improvements in preview rates as you up the PC spec (unlike say rendering).

I have had countless discussions with a custom PC builder who will NOT let me spend money on a faster PC to improve Vegas preview rates (but will if it is to improve Vegas render rates).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marius Boruch

I just get new CPU/mobo - super fast Quad Q9450 with 12 MB of cache memory on it and SSE4 instuction for video encoding; 4 GB of PAM and fast Nvidia 8800GTS (with 640MB RAM ); my mobo runs 1333 MHZ. Prety decent system BUT... when I edit HDV video in Vegas preview rate is just 13-14 fps!!!!!!!!! When I play that HDV video in WM player or VLC it plays full resolution 29 fps. What's wrong with Vegas!? Only time when I have 29fps preview is when I set it to Best/Quarter. It sucks.

Kris Bird · April 21st, 2008, 06:13 PM

Am I the only person still seeing weird behavior with "Dynamic Ram Preview Max" set to "zero" or "not zero"?

If I set it to say 128MB then I get multi-threaded rendering (up to 100% max), BUT MY TIMELINE PERFORMANCE ISN'T GREAT-- it plays full framerate sometimes, but stutters other times.

If I set dynamic ram max to 0MB, then rendering is limited to one CPU only (25% on my quad), BUT MY TIMELINE PLAYBACK IS ROCK SOLID, absolutely, verifyably better ... I've seem this behavior on all my PCs, back to vegas 7.

To the original poster --- try setting "dynamic ram preview max" to 0 and see if your timeline performance improves

To anyone else-- have you seen this? either now, or in the past? I find some similar accounts from previous posters, but the conversations always faded out without real conclusion.

Kris

April 12th, 2008, 11:26 PM	#25
Danny Fye Major Player Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Independence MO. Posts: 318	I use 'Good Auto' and get full frame rate even with two tracks for Infiniticam. I always have the project settings set for the video I use. So with HDV I use the HDV 1080-60i (1440x1080, 29.970 fps) settings. My preview settings are: Default Background, Simulate Device Aspect Ratio, Show Toolbar and Show Status Bar. All other settings are not checked. This is by way of right clicking on the preview window. The preview window has display sizes of Project = 1440x1080x32,2970i, Preview: 320x270x32,2970p and Display:480x270x32. I can make it such that the Preview is 720x540 and the Display is 960x540 and still get full rate. I use 8 bit for editing. If I use 'Preview Auto' I will get a ton of black and red frames. So, on my system I must use 'Good Auto' or I don't edit native *.m2t files. Seems to be system specific... Hope this helps. Danny Fye www.vidmus.com/scolvs __________________ www.dannyfye.com

April 11th, 2008, 02:35 AM	#16
Marius Boruch Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 421	>It doesn't matter how fast your gfx card is. If the video is very heavy to decode, there will be a performance hit, no matter if you have the greatest gfx card on earth. not exactly (and that's why I bought 8800), some plugins - like Magic Bullets - use ONLY GPU processor to render it. Vegas alone would render the file at 3-4 fps while using GPU it renders in real time. (I am using it frequently). I do video for a living and I have to have fastest possible system, I need to see the video in the best possible quality all the time (even in editing) that's why I am so picky. Thanks for your help. I see you are using HV20. Have you ever render 24p from it on Vegas?

April 11th, 2008, 02:39 AM	#17
Eugenia Loli-Queru Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Bay Area, CA, USA Posts: 348	BTW, I will have to ask for a last time: have you used the right "project properties" template? If you don't use the right one, or if you don't click the "match media settings" (third icon on the right of the project properties window) to select one of these EX1 files to make the project properties window fill up with the right video information that mirror your footage, you will get LESS speed out of Vegas. Vegas runs faster when you have the right project properties. So have you done that?

April 11th, 2008, 02:41 AM	#18
Marius Boruch Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 421	Eugenia, this is the first thing I do (and everybody should) when I open the project. I set up properties/tem files etc... I do 10 hrs of editind daily! I am not sure if you are aware that those EX1 files are full HD (not some funny HDV files) recorded in 35MBs!!!!

April 11th, 2008, 02:43 AM	#19
Eugenia Loli-Queru Major Player Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Bay Area, CA, USA Posts: 348	>like Magic Bullets - use ONLY GPU processor to render it. >Vegas alone would render the file at 3-4 fps while using GPU it renders in real time Not on my PC. I have an nvidia 8600GTS 256 MBs, which is a pretty fast card too, and even with GPU usage, Magic Bullet is never real time here. I never had Magic Bullet running faster than 12 fps in HDV footage with GPU assistance. >Have you ever render 24p from it on Vegas? Yes. This 24p video of mine was exported via Vegas Pro in MP4 h.264/AAC 720p: http://vimeo.com/466491 Tutorial on how I did it, here: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/1...-for-vimeo-hd/

April 11th, 2008, 02:44 AM	#20
Marius Boruch Major Player Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 421	Thanks for your help. I have to go it is after 3am in Chicago

April 11th, 2008, 04:50 AM	#21
Kim Olsson Major Player Join Date: Oct 2007 Location: Sweden Posts: 263	If not happy with Vegas, which is under 500 bucks, Buy a avid suite or something with external hardware as decoder for about maybe £2000 or 3000 dollars...

April 11th, 2008, 11:27 AM	#22
Glenn Chan Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: Toronto, Canada Posts: 4,750	Check that the Video scopes are not set to playback when the video is play. It's one of the icons on the video scopes. 2- You can make sure the project properties match by going file project settings (or properties, can't remember the exact name) close to the area where you select the templates, there is a floppy disc icon. Click that and it will bring up a window where you can match the project settings to a particular file.

April 12th, 2008, 01:39 AM	#24
David Hadden Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Fargo, ND Posts: 149	DO NOT TURN YOUR THREADS DOWN, this setting is there to allow for proper distribution of work to multiple cores when the plugs etc... are able to do it. Leave your threads at 4!!! That being said, usually playback doesn't use more than about 28-30% of the proc because i'm pretty sure that playback may not have been optimized to mulit-core properly (though i could be wrong). to the moron who said Vegas is not a pro software, tell that to nightline news (they use it) and I don't think you get much more "pro" than that, and they're just one of many. In all this you haven't said what your HDD's are doing? are you using dedicated drives for your source footage separate from the System drive and destination drive. I also don't know if you said if you're playing back just one stream, or many, so I could use some details there. If you are using best then Vegas has to do CPU intensive Tri-Linear filtering on every frame of video, this can be a real hit to the full framerate playback. (I assume you are not foolish enough to leave a Virus scanner running or windows defender scanning while you're working are you? ) I know plenty of people that get full frame rate playback on HDV on machines quite literaly half as powerful as yours. I have no problems on my quad with 8800GT. Course I use preview quality and run one of my 24" LCD's as a monitor so there's no scaling (I disable the preview window when I'm playing back using my secondary 24" monitor as preview monitor so that it's not playing in 2 places). Beyond that, I'd say you're doing something to it, because that machine has some juice and there's no reason it shouldn't be screamin. I'm running a modest 2.8Ghz Quad core and it's not having any problem keeping up, even with EX-1 Footage. Just make sure your transparency is at 100 everywhere, and make sure you have no filters, run it at preview or Good quality and don't scale your output, just make your secondary monitor with all your non timeline windows on it jump to a preview display and don't show in preview window when you're doing that, make sure you're playing your files from a separate HDD than the System OS drive, and make sure that your Video Ram preview settings are at Default. If you're applying effects, you may drop frames here an there (even with MB on 8800GT512 i see a frame drop now and then, but I stay pretty close to full). Also make sure if you're not making Vegas mess with framerates too, as that can be a source of problems. one thing you should know is that when you're using Magic Bullet you CPU usage will be lower because it's doing GPU (obviously) so even final rendering will see lower than full CPU usage with MB GPU accelerated effects on it, and there is some overhead in having to push everything to the GPU and back. Also don't use 32bit because even the fastest machines are going to struggle with that due if for no other reason than the fact that you're dealing with 128 bits per pixel accross your whole image and I'm guessing there's going to start being a problem with how much data can go to and from the CPU and RAM and HDD in real time. Dave

April 21st, 2008, 06:13 PM	#27
Kris Bird Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: UK Posts: 173	Am I the only person still seeing weird behavior with "Dynamic Ram Preview Max" set to "zero" or "not zero"? If I set it to say 128MB then I get multi-threaded rendering (up to 100% max), BUT MY TIMELINE PERFORMANCE ISN'T GREAT-- it plays full framerate sometimes, but stutters other times. If I set dynamic ram max to 0MB, then rendering is limited to one CPU only (25% on my quad), BUT MY TIMELINE PLAYBACK IS ROCK SOLID, absolutely, verifyably better ... I've seem this behavior on all my PCs, back to vegas 7. To the original poster --- try setting "dynamic ram preview max" to 0 and see if your timeline performance improves To anyone else-- have you seen this? either now, or in the past? I find some similar accounts from previous posters, but the conversations always faded out without real conclusion. Kris