Technical question about AVI files and Vegas at DVinfo.net

Adam Sturman · April 15th, 2009, 01:50 PM

Hi, I just sent this message to sony support, and I'm waiting to get a decent reply from them... Can you guys help me? I searched the forums a bit, but couldnt find anything specific to this issue...

----------------------------------------

Greetings, I have a very technical question here, which may not be a fault of Vegas (8.1), per se, but I wanted to know if this was a bug and if there is a workaround.

This issue also pertains to Vegas 8.0c, and 8.0c seems to do a better job at masking the issue.

Issue is as follows:

I understand that Vegas uses the VFW interface for handling AVI files. I am very experienced with dealing with VFW codecs, and my workflow works fine with both 8.0 and 8.1 with regards to VFW codecs.

Basically, it appears to be a limitation on the amount of times that a VFW codec can be called in both Vegas 8.0 and 8.1. If i import 20 AVI files, all of the same exact video codec, not all of them will function properly on the timeline at once. Only about 12-16 of the avi's (of the same codec) seem to work properly at once. Vegas 8.0 seems to be better at masking this fact, because if I play the timeline through on 8.0, all of my avi clips tend to playback properly, but on 8.1, I notice that some .avi's will have blank playback in the preview window.

The only workaround for making the entire project render properly (not only are the clips black on the preview window, but are blank if i try to render the project) is to split the project into parts and render that way. I have not nailed down an exact number, but I can only seem to have 12-16 avi files of the same codec opened at once.

Attached are 2 jpgs which should help clarify my issue. Please, where is the issue located? Is this a limitation of the VFW interface, Vegas or the particular VFW Codec?

In the two pictures you can see the issue I am describing. In vegas 8.0, if I locate an avi that does not show up properly in the project media window, and "select timeline events", those events in the timeline TEND to play back fine.

In vegas 8.1 it is much worse, i do the same thing, with the same exact project and "select timeline events," the video will not play back in the preview window, or if it does, it will drop random frames.

Please help. This occurs with both sony avi codecs (one of them was the sony mjpeg codec), and 3rd party codecs (XVID and HUFFYUV).

my computer is a brand new Core i7 with 12gb of ram and over a 1tb of storage. All of my drivers are new and up to date.

-Adam Sturman

Adam Sturman · April 15th, 2009, 01:52 PM

Forgot attachments...

Christian de Godzinsky · April 19th, 2009, 07:52 AM

Hi Adam,

It seems you are on to something. At least your feeback to SCS is put together excellently, they should be able to understand what you claim...

It struck me that it MIGHT be a memory issue. Have you checked this thread in the SCS forum:

Sony Creative Software - Forums - Vegas Pro - Video Messages

It could be worth giving it a try, especially if your project(s) is huge...

Appreciated if you really can post here the SCS responce - if you get one :)

Christian

Adam Sturman · April 21st, 2009, 09:38 AM

Here is the first message I received from Sony:

Hi Adam,

Thank you for contacting Sony Creative Software. If you have determined that the file is DivX or Xvid, be aware that Sony Creative Software does not officially support any version of these codecs. At this point, we would suggest that you find a way to save the DivX or Xvid file to some other supported format, then open it in the Sony Creative Software program. This link on VideoHelp's website discusses a third party application that is capable of this conversion:

MOV to AVI

Please keep in mind that we do not offer technical support or service on third party software. I would attempt to convert your files to one of the supported formats for Vegas (non-xvid):

Supported File Formats
Opens: AA3, AAC, AAF, AIF, ASF, AU, AVI, BMP, BWF, CDA, DIG, DLX, DV, FLAC, GIF, IVC, JPG, M2T, M2TS, MTS, MOV, Sony MXF, MP3, MP4, M4A, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, MPEG-4, OGG, OMA, PCA, PNG, PSD, QT, SFA, SND, SWF,* TIFF, TGA, TS, VOX, W64, WAV, WMA, WMV

If you still have a follow-up question on this particular incident, please feel free to update it. If you have a completely different question, please create a new incident.

Sincerely,

Kevin K.
Customer Service
Sony Creative Software Inc
Sony Creative Software - Vegas video - ACID & Sound Forge audio editing

My Reply to this message is as follows:

Kevin,

I was slightly enraged to see your answer, since it reflected a total lack of either, reading my question, or technical understanding (this is technical support, isn't it???).

But, I shall subdue my anger to re-iterate some previous points from my original question.

1. My question is about AVI, which is a supported container format.

2. My main question INCLUDED A SONY SUPPORTED CODEC (in AVI), which i am having problems with. Namely the SONY MJPEG CODEC (This was also in one of the two images I attached.)

Please, review those two points I just made.

And to strengthen your own understanding of these technical issues I want to review the link you sent me in your original reply.

1. I hardly use XVID for editing in vegas, buy my XVID video CERTAINLY ISN'T IN .MOV, QUICKTIME FORMAT.

2. Assuming that I ignored that fact, and went ahead and downloaded that program, and used the MJPEG codec suggested in that page, I would STILL HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM NOTED IN MY ORIGINAL QUESTION. Since my original question included an issue with SONY'S MJPEG CODEC (which is the codec which would be used to decode the avi.)

I apologize, my tone, obviously, was slightly agitated in this response. Hopefully you can understand why. I took the time to make my issue as clear as possible, and waited over a day for reply.

You seemed to have zero'ed in on a SINGLE word (XVID), and ignored the rest of my question.

A VERY loyal sony vegas user,
-Adam Sturman

And here is the response I received today...

Hi Adam,

Thank you for writing back and for your suggestions, your feedback is valuable. Concerning your MJPEG questions:

If your video files do not import properly into Vegas software, it is likely that they are encoded as an MJPEG codec.

I would therefore recommend converting the files first to DV-AVI using the free video converter made by STOIK, which you can download from the following link:

STOIK Video Converter 2.0

Once you have converted the files to DV-AVI, please try importing them into Vegas again.

Vegas Pro does support most .avi formats, but not all. Many camera manufacturers and developers have created proprietary licensed formats and codecs for this container format. For each different format, there is additional licensing cost and cost of resources for developing support within our software. We must decide which formats to support based on the needs of our collective user base. Each format we pick raises our cost of production and we cannot support all of them as this cost would eventually be passed onto our users.

However, if this is a format that you would like to see added as supported, we are always open to your input and your suggestions. Please feel free to send a product suggestion request at the following link - it goes directly to the development team: Sony Creative Software - Support - Product Suggestion

For now, you may want to look into converting your video to a format that is more universally supported in Vegas, like Uncompressed AVI.

If you still have a follow-up question on this particular incident, please feel free to update it. If you have a completely different question, please create a new incident.

Sincerely,

Kevin K.
Customer Service
Sony Creative Software Inc
Sony Creative Software - Vegas video - ACID & Sound Forge audio editing

I dont know what to do now, i think this is a road to nowhere.... At least I have vegas 9 to fantasize about...

-Adam

Adam Sturman · April 21st, 2009, 09:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Christian de Godzinsky

Hi Adam,

It seems you are on to something. At least your feeback to SCS is put together excellently, they should be able to understand what you claim...

It struck me that it MIGHT be a memory issue. Have you checked this thread in the SCS forum:

Sony Creative Software - Forums - Vegas Pro - Video Messages

It could be worth giving it a try, especially if your project(s) is huge...

Appreciated if you really can post here the SCS responce - if you get one :)

Christian

Thanks for the heads up! I am going to try this with Vegas 8.1, since I use it almost exclusively. I know that vegas is HARDLY a fully 64bit app, so I am going to apply this to the "filesurrotate" and to the plugin dll's.

I'll report back!

-Adam

Bill Ravens · April 21st, 2009, 09:52 AM

Adam...

welcome to the wonderful world of Sony vegas support. For some reason, they seem to be quite adept at missing the issue and finding some non-sensical response to a well presented question. They've victimized me so many times that I no longer even use Vegas.

I would guess there's some high school idiot with a book of troubleshooting issues and canned responses. How else could they perpetrate such worthless info?
In many ways, this type of response is worse than no response whatever.

Adam Sturman · April 21st, 2009, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

Adam...

welcome to the wonderful world of Sony vegas support. For some reason, they seem to be quite adept at missing the issue and finding some non-sensical response to a well presented question. They've victimized me so many times that I no longer even use Vegas.

I would guess there's some high school idiot with a book of troubleshooting issues and canned responses. How else could they perpetrate such worthless info?

I have a sinking feeling that more verbal abuse will just end in more frustration...

I'm gonna let this discussion with sony die for now, in hopes of a potential solution posted above, and Vegas 9.

Jason Robinson · April 22nd, 2009, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Ravens

Adam...

welcome to the wonderful world of Sony vegas support. For some reason, they seem to be quite adept at missing the issue and finding some non-sensical response to a well presented question.

Bingo. I have a 1+ month issue with the support team and only at the end of it did the real problem & solution become apparent.

To summarize my conversation with support ....
(me) DNRS does not work with MPEG2
(them) over a dozen back and forths of "try this".... "now try this".....
(me) I've tried all those
(them after +1 month of back and forth) oh... we we don't support MPEG2 DNRS unless you buy a unique copy of Vegas for each networked machine.

So to summarize, Vegas does NOT support distributed network rendering to MPEG2, even if an intermediate format like AVI is used and the stitch host performed the final avi to MPEG2 render.

John Miller · April 22nd, 2009, 03:34 PM

It does state on p332 of the manual that render-only clients can't be used with MPEG2.

April 15th, 2009, 01:50 PM	#1
Adam Sturman Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Northern Virginia, USA Posts: 34	Technical question about AVI files and Vegas Hi, I just sent this message to sony support, and I'm waiting to get a decent reply from them... Can you guys help me? I searched the forums a bit, but couldnt find anything specific to this issue... ---------------------------------------- Greetings, I have a very technical question here, which may not be a fault of Vegas (8.1), per se, but I wanted to know if this was a bug and if there is a workaround. This issue also pertains to Vegas 8.0c, and 8.0c seems to do a better job at masking the issue. Issue is as follows: I understand that Vegas uses the VFW interface for handling AVI files. I am very experienced with dealing with VFW codecs, and my workflow works fine with both 8.0 and 8.1 with regards to VFW codecs. Basically, it appears to be a limitation on the amount of times that a VFW codec can be called in both Vegas 8.0 and 8.1. If i import 20 AVI files, all of the same exact video codec, not all of them will function properly on the timeline at once. Only about 12-16 of the avi's (of the same codec) seem to work properly at once. Vegas 8.0 seems to be better at masking this fact, because if I play the timeline through on 8.0, all of my avi clips tend to playback properly, but on 8.1, I notice that some .avi's will have blank playback in the preview window. The only workaround for making the entire project render properly (not only are the clips black on the preview window, but are blank if i try to render the project) is to split the project into parts and render that way. I have not nailed down an exact number, but I can only seem to have 12-16 avi files of the same codec opened at once. Attached are 2 jpgs which should help clarify my issue. Please, where is the issue located? Is this a limitation of the VFW interface, Vegas or the particular VFW Codec? In the two pictures you can see the issue I am describing. In vegas 8.0, if I locate an avi that does not show up properly in the project media window, and "select timeline events", those events in the timeline TEND to play back fine. In vegas 8.1 it is much worse, i do the same thing, with the same exact project and "select timeline events," the video will not play back in the preview window, or if it does, it will drop random frames. Please help. This occurs with both sony avi codecs (one of them was the sony mjpeg codec), and 3rd party codecs (XVID and HUFFYUV). my computer is a brand new Core i7 with 12gb of ram and over a 1tb of storage. All of my drivers are new and up to date. -Adam Sturman

April 15th, 2009, 01:52 PM	#2
Adam Sturman Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Northern Virginia, USA Posts: 34	Forgot attachments... Attached Thumbnails

April 19th, 2009, 07:52 AM	#3
Christian de Godzinsky Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Helsinki/Finland Posts: 131	Hi Adam, It seems you are on to something. At least your feeback to SCS is put together excellently, they should be able to understand what you claim... It struck me that it MIGHT be a memory issue. Have you checked this thread in the SCS forum: Sony Creative Software - Forums - Vegas Pro - Video Messages It could be worth giving it a try, especially if your project(s) is huge... Appreciated if you really can post here the SCS responce - if you get one :) Christian __________________ The future does not exist - we must invent it !

April 21st, 2009, 09:38 AM	#4
Adam Sturman Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Northern Virginia, USA Posts: 34	Here is the first message I received from Sony: Hi Adam, Thank you for contacting Sony Creative Software. If you have determined that the file is DivX or Xvid, be aware that Sony Creative Software does not officially support any version of these codecs. At this point, we would suggest that you find a way to save the DivX or Xvid file to some other supported format, then open it in the Sony Creative Software program. This link on VideoHelp's website discusses a third party application that is capable of this conversion: MOV to AVI Please keep in mind that we do not offer technical support or service on third party software. I would attempt to convert your files to one of the supported formats for Vegas (non-xvid): Supported File Formats Opens: AA3, AAC, AAF, AIF, ASF, AU, AVI, BMP, BWF, CDA, DIG, DLX, DV, FLAC, GIF, IVC, JPG, M2T, M2TS, MTS, MOV, Sony MXF, MP3, MP4, M4A, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, MPEG-4, OGG, OMA, PCA, PNG, PSD, QT, SFA, SND, SWF,* TIFF, TGA, TS, VOX, W64, WAV, WMA, WMV If you still have a follow-up question on this particular incident, please feel free to update it. If you have a completely different question, please create a new incident. Sincerely, Kevin K. Customer Service Sony Creative Software Inc Sony Creative Software - Vegas video - ACID & Sound Forge audio editing My Reply to this message is as follows: Kevin, I was slightly enraged to see your answer, since it reflected a total lack of either, reading my question, or technical understanding (this is technical support, isn't it???). But, I shall subdue my anger to re-iterate some previous points from my original question. 1. My question is about AVI, which is a supported container format. 2. My main question INCLUDED A SONY SUPPORTED CODEC (in AVI), which i am having problems with. Namely the SONY MJPEG CODEC (This was also in one of the two images I attached.) Please, review those two points I just made. And to strengthen your own understanding of these technical issues I want to review the link you sent me in your original reply. 1. I hardly use XVID for editing in vegas, buy my XVID video CERTAINLY ISN'T IN .MOV, QUICKTIME FORMAT. 2. Assuming that I ignored that fact, and went ahead and downloaded that program, and used the MJPEG codec suggested in that page, I would STILL HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM NOTED IN MY ORIGINAL QUESTION. Since my original question included an issue with SONY'S MJPEG CODEC (which is the codec which would be used to decode the avi.) I apologize, my tone, obviously, was slightly agitated in this response. Hopefully you can understand why. I took the time to make my issue as clear as possible, and waited over a day for reply. You seemed to have zero'ed in on a SINGLE word (XVID), and ignored the rest of my question. A VERY loyal sony vegas user, -Adam Sturman And here is the response I received today... Hi Adam, Thank you for writing back and for your suggestions, your feedback is valuable. Concerning your MJPEG questions: If your video files do not import properly into Vegas software, it is likely that they are encoded as an MJPEG codec. I would therefore recommend converting the files first to DV-AVI using the free video converter made by STOIK, which you can download from the following link: STOIK Video Converter 2.0 Once you have converted the files to DV-AVI, please try importing them into Vegas again. Vegas Pro does support most .avi formats, but not all. Many camera manufacturers and developers have created proprietary licensed formats and codecs for this container format. For each different format, there is additional licensing cost and cost of resources for developing support within our software. We must decide which formats to support based on the needs of our collective user base. Each format we pick raises our cost of production and we cannot support all of them as this cost would eventually be passed onto our users. However, if this is a format that you would like to see added as supported, we are always open to your input and your suggestions. Please feel free to send a product suggestion request at the following link - it goes directly to the development team: Sony Creative Software - Support - Product Suggestion For now, you may want to look into converting your video to a format that is more universally supported in Vegas, like Uncompressed AVI. If you still have a follow-up question on this particular incident, please feel free to update it. If you have a completely different question, please create a new incident. Sincerely, Kevin K. Customer Service Sony Creative Software Inc Sony Creative Software - Vegas video - ACID & Sound Forge audio editing I dont know what to do now, i think this is a road to nowhere.... At least I have vegas 9 to fantasize about... -Adam

April 21st, 2009, 09:52 AM	#6
Bill Ravens Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: santa fe, nm Posts: 3,264 Images: 10	Adam... welcome to the wonderful world of Sony vegas support. For some reason, they seem to be quite adept at missing the issue and finding some non-sensical response to a well presented question. They've victimized me so many times that I no longer even use Vegas. I would guess there's some high school idiot with a book of troubleshooting issues and canned responses. How else could they perpetrate such worthless info? In many ways, this type of response is worse than no response whatever.

April 22nd, 2009, 03:34 PM	#9
John Miller Major Player Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Hillsborough, NC, USA Posts: 968	It does state on p332 of the manual that render-only clients can't be used with MPEG2.