Video editing again...

OK so... After recommendations I tried PowerDirector, which I hated. So just got the trial for Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD, and it can't preview my videos effectively- HD MP4 from a Gopro HD- the preview constantly stutters
(before anyone says it's a system requirements issue, usage is below 50% on all 4 cores and on RAM, so I think I can rule that out- but checking forums finds loads of people complaining of the same. Converting seems to be the only way round it)
So... Vegas seems great to work with but the preview stutter makes it almost a dead loss, you have to be able to see what you're working with. I'm using it just now with a high quality .mov file from my TZ7 and it's ace. But I think I need some more options! Anyone using Elements?
(before anyone says it's a system requirements issue, usage is below 50% on all 4 cores and on RAM, so I think I can rule that out- but checking forums finds loads of people complaining of the same. Converting seems to be the only way round it)
So... Vegas seems great to work with but the preview stutter makes it almost a dead loss, you have to be able to see what you're working with. I'm using it just now with a high quality .mov file from my TZ7 and it's ace. But I think I need some more options! Anyone using Elements?
Uncompromising extremist
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http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/ ... bview=tab0
^ VideoStudio Pro X3
or you might make do with...
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/ ... bview=tab0
and if you buy, shop about because those prices quoted are horse puckey - and be careful solely going off online reviews of video editing software, there are some intelligent spastics out there, so decide for yourself based on your own experience
it needs the unlock codes for hd movies... but i have them too!
its pricey, but is the easiest and most powerful one i have used so far.
One problem I can foresee is that MP4 is not great to use as a source for editing. Mpeg2 used to have similar issues.
Anway, sorry to lead you on a wild goose chase then, I really honestly though Vegas would have opened it.
Even Adobe "WTF is optimisation?!?" Premiere managed to load them into the workspace without crashing.
Northwind
Your issue could be IO bottleneck. Put the videos on a different drive to where Vegas is installed. That made it run slightly better for me, but it still choked on 70 videos instead of 50.
Nah, not at all mate, it's a nice bit of kit for my purposes otherwise so it was a good shout. It'll open them OK, and edit them and all, it just can't preview them effectively so you end up editing by pure guesswork. Seems to be just the gopro vids it collapses on, it can handle big AVCHD files from the TZ fine.
Chedabob, I'll give that a crack, cheers
Blisterpus, thanks for the suggestions, I'll see what I can find there too
I first became aware of the problem when dubbing a TV show. We'd been given a compressed MPEG2 video stream as a guide for the visuals, and whenever we jumped back and forth across the timeline, the video would take an eternity to play.
Our video guy told us about the keyframes issue, and what he did to fix it for us was to take the entire MPG stream, and re-render it as a DV format AVI file. Even though that file was about 10 times the size of the MPG stream, it played perfectly.
The lack of keyframes in MPG meant that whenever we played from a certain point, the machine had to calculate where to play from, so it was effectively playing from the start of the file, and fast-spooling invisibly to where the timeline was, apparently.
With the AVI file, it has keyframes every frame or thereabouts, so it can instantly play from wherever the timeline currently sits, and jump around as we move from one place to another..
Something like that anyway.
+1 use it at school its great and easy to use
Those editing packages though are basically cheap, you pay for what you get. Often times they will impose an pixel ratio on imported footage without asking. The high end editing gear (FCP and prem) wont do this without letting you know and will pre-render. With a big file size (such as a HD) it will cause a noticeable stuttering effect as the prog is effectively rendering on the fly.
Not sure about yeehas explanation about keyframes, I think he's referring to the problematic bitrates of MP2, this does indeed cause jumpiness.
momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself.
Nah, just straight off the camera onto the PC then into the software unadulterated. Though it's .MP4 not .mov.