Sony Vegas Pro 8

[Jules2]

I put this in the newbie section because it might be considered a dumb question, but here it goes...

I was messing around with Sony Vegas Pro 8 just to find out what it can do. For the fun of it i opened a tv show and cut out some scenes i might use later. The tv show is about 23 minutes long and 338 mb. One clip is 44 seconds long and the output of rendering leaves me with a 159 mb clip. When i cut the same clip in WMM i got a 14mb clip.

So why does Sony Vegas creat such large clips? I know it wasn't meant for this type of thing, but when i need a specific clip, should i cut it as best i can in WMM or Virtualdub first and import it into Vegas later -for the effects- to avoid getting a very large clip?

Also, when ever i use clips in Vegas it leaves a .avi.sfk file or .wmv.sfk file. It doesn't really take up space, but i still find it annoying. I already turned off 'create project file backups (.veg.bak) which means those files aren't left everywhere.

Any idea how i can avoid the .avi.sfk files?


Thanks a lot!


Jules

[schematic2]

The size of the clip is going to be dependant on the options you choose when you render your clip to a format of your choice. The sfk files Vegas creates are for the graphical view of the audio track. You will find this view important as your experience increases with Vegas.

[Jules2]

I always save as .avi Should i save as .wmv or .mpg to make the clip size smaller?

[poisondeathray]

filesize is dependent on the bitrate, not format (ignoring a discussion on overhead for the container)

filesize = bitrate x running time

If you re-encode using a lossy format (compress), you will lose quality

It would probably be easier to edit in vdub first (direct stream copy, lossless) the segment(s) you want, then import into vegas

[Jules2]

Thanks for your answer poisondeathray, but I'm sorry. I don't understand. I tried to find out about bitrate the best i could, but i'm still confused.

Here are the specifics of the files.

1) clip cut with Vegas

Type: Video for Windows
Size: 210,89 MB (215.949.312 bytes)
Created: maandag 2 maart 2009, 14:05:26
Modified: maandag 2 maart 2009, 14:06:42
Accessed: maandag 2 maart 2009, 0:00:00
Attributes: Archive

Streams
Video: 00:00:56,790, 29,970 fps interlaced, 720x480x24, DV
Audio: 00:00:56,790, 48.000 Hz; 16 Bit; Stereo, Uncompressed

ACID information
ACID chunk: no
Stretch chunk: no
Stretch list: no
Stretch info2: no
Beat markers: no
Detected beats: no

2) clip cut with windows movie maker

Type: Windows Media Format
Size: 14,31 MB (14.653.969 bytes)
Created: maandag 2 maart 2009, 14:09:34
Modified: maandag 2 maart 2009, 14:10:38
Accessed: maandag 2 maart 2009, 0:00:00
Attributes: Archive

Streams
Audio: 00:00:56,761, 44.100 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo, Windows Media Audio 9.2
Video: 00:00:56,800, 25,000 fps progressive, 720x576x24, Windows Media Video 9

ACID information
ACID chunk: no
Stretch chunk: no
Stretch list: no
Stretch info2: no
Beat markers: no
Detected beats: no

Both are the same clip taken from the same episode. Both are 16 Bit. Why is one so much larger than the other?

I like vdub. Easy to use, but i didn't do it on my last project because i didn't want to lose quality and the more you mess around with clip, the more quality you'll lose, right? After you suggested it, i tried to open the tv show in vdub, but it is a .wmv file and it doesn't open in vdub. I got this message:

Not supported: Microsoft owns US patent #6,041,345 on the ASF file format, preventing third-party applications from extracting data from ASF files. ASF file format support was removed as of V1.3d at the request of Microsoft and to avoid patent infringement claims, and as such VirtualDub no longer supports ASF. Please do not ask for versions that do.


I don't really understand what that means, but i get that vdub won't help me cut the file. (maybe i should mention it is a european tv show) Which leaves me with Vegas or WMM.

On the one hand i don't want to lose quality when i cut in WMM and then edit further in vegas, but i don't want a very large file at the end of it either...


Any help is much appreciated!


Jules

[poisondeathray]

Again, filesize=bitrate x running time

e.g.

If I have a video 1000kb/s and it is 100s long,

1000kb/s x 100s = 100,000kbit = 100MBit = 12.5MB

If the bitrate was 2000kb/s, it would be 25MB by simple math

Ok so you source is .wmv ? You can use movica or asfbin to cut it losslessly then import into vegas or any other program (I'm assuming you need vegas or wmm for special effects or filters, otherwise it's a waste of time). The other option is to encode to a lossless format (e.g. lagarith, huffyuv), then import that into vegas and do everything in there, or edit the lossless intermediate then import.

What is your final format goal? i.e DVD? flash video? AVI, wmv ? etc..?

[guns1inger]

In additions to Poisondeathray's math, you have to understand that AVI is not video format, but a container in which video/audio is stored. How the video and audio is stored in the avi is determined by the codec. It is the codec that controls the compression and quality. If you use a lossless codec such as lagarith to create your AVI file, you will get larger files (30+GB per hour) - uncompressed are even larger. Use DV, and the files will be around 13 GB per hour. Use something like Xvid or Divx, and you can compress down to very small sizes.

Tools such as Vegas, Premiere, and even Virtualdub, often have uncompressed as the default setting for video compression in the AVI container. You have to remember to set this codec you want, and configure it. In Vegas this is done via the Render dialogue. Spend some time playing here, checking out what hides behind what buttons.