Sony Vegas 9.0

[blecap]

Hi guys i'm not sure if this is the right forum to post in. I have a problem converting my videos. I fraps World of Warcraft and wants to convert it to .mp4 (h.264) format. But when i chose the drop down menu from "Render as" -> "Save as type" -> "MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4) the" Custom.." tab doesnt light up, therefore couldn't do any custom configuration. Help on how to get it enable! thanks in advance

[minidv2dvd]

when in the save as type menu choose sony avc. the mainconcept avc encoder in v9 is crippled, they seem to only want you to use theirs.

[edDV]

Hi guys i'm not sure if this is the right forum to post in. I have a problem converting my videos. I fraps World of Warcraft and wants to convert it to .mp4 (h.264) format. But when i chose the drop down menu from "Render as" -> "Save as type" -> "MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4) the" Custom.." tab doesnt light up, therefore couldn't do any custom configuration. Help on how to get it enable! thanks in advance

What size and frame rate your Fraps? This is new territory.

I'm betting frame size and/or frame rate are non-standard.

[JimmyS]

If for some reason you can't get Vegas to behave, the support FAQ on the FRAPS web page recommends using VirtualDub and encode to DivX.

[blecap]

Hi guys i'm not sure if this is the right forum to post in. I have a problem converting my videos. I fraps World of Warcraft and wants to convert it to .mp4 (h.264) format. But when i chose the drop down menu from "Render as" -> "Save as type" -> "MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4) the" Custom.." tab doesnt light up, therefore couldn't do any custom configuration. Help on how to get it enable! thanks in advance

What size and frame rate your Fraps? This is new territory.

I'm betting frame size and/or frame rate are non-standard.

I did that and the "Custom" tab still doesn't light up. Why?

[blecap]

If for some reason you can't get Vegas to behave, the support FAQ on the FRAPS web page recommends using VirtualDub and encode to DivX.

Total of 13gb+ splitter into 3 parts ( 4gb each, automatically by fraps). I record in full size @ 25fps.

[blecap]

If for some reason you can't get Vegas to behave, the support FAQ on the FRAPS web page recommends using VirtualDub and encode to DivX.

Well i'm trying to make a movie, adding music, effects etc. hehe. I doubt virtualdub could do that right?

Anyone pls guide me !

[guns1inger]

What is your resolution ?

[blecap]

1440x900 for desktop and WoW resolution. I fraps it in Full Size.

[minidv2dvd]

use mediainfo in text view on your source video and post a screenshot of mediainfo's output.

[edit] or cut a small sample and post it to a filesharing site.

[JimmyS]

I have Vegas Pro 9 on my machine but don't have any FRAPS video to try. According to the FRAPS website, it sounds like the function of their encoder could be similar to that huffYUV of Lagarith. I took a short clip of HD MPEG2 (1920x1080) video, threw it into Vdub, resized to 1440x900 and and saved it with Lagarith.
The new clip opened in Vegas properly and I could configure the MC X.264 codec as desired and resave it without any issues. So I think this would put the resolution question to rest.

@ blecap:
Have you tried any of other encoders in the Render As... dialog box, such as the Sony AVC or MC MPEG2 as minidv2dvd suggested? If they behave the same, it could be Vegas9 has issues w. FRAPS

when in the save as type menu choose sony avc. the mainconcept avc encoder in v9 is crippled, they seem to only want you to use theirs.

I have noticed the same issue w. the MC X.264 encoder. After first opening it all I would see is a couple QuickTime settings. But after clicking and fiddling about in its dialog box, the proper configutation settings finally show up. I set my test encode (above) to 720x480 @ 8Mbs CBR. I think Sony has some work to do yet.

EDIT: A while after I posted this, I went back and did a more in depth comparison of the MC and Sony H.264 encoders. I have agree with you that the MC encoder does seem to be quite neutered when compared with the settings in the Sony version.

[blecap]

use mediainfo in text view on your source video and post a screenshot of mediainfo's output.

[edit] or cut a small sample and post it to a filesharing site.

General
Complete name : C:\fre1.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
File size : 3.91 GiB
Duration : 3mn 8s
Overall bit rate : 178 Mbps

Video
Format : FRAPS
Codec ID : FPS1
Duration : 3mn 8s
Bit rate : 178 Mbps
Width : 1 440 pixels
Height : 900 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 1.600
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 5.491
Stream size : 3.91 GiB (100%)

Here I don't quite understand by the post a ss of the mediainfo's output tho.

[blecap]

@ blecap:
Have you tried any of other encoders in the Render As... dialog box, such as the Sony AVC or MC MPEG2 as minidv2dvd suggested? If they behave the same, it could be Vegas9 has issues w. FRAPS

Yes i did tried the above formats by miinidv2dvd and you. The "Custom" tab isn't just lighting up for me. But some of the other codecs isn't giving my any problems tho.

[minidv2dvd]

there is no audio listed in the mediainfo output? is there audio in the fraps avis? try a standard avi in vegas and see if it works and give you the custom tab in avc. it may be the encoder doesn't like the 900 pixel height as it's not divisible by 16 or 8.

[JimmyS]

You could try the same experiment that I did. Open your file in VirtualDub and re-encode a minute or so of it to Lagarith. Then see if Vegas can work with it properly. Lagarith is a lossless encoder so you should not see much quality difference between the files. The full file size will be about 40 - 45% larger though. Also with these types of files, things will go much quicker if you have two drives and encode to the one that does not hold the original file.

[JimmyS]

there is no audio listed in the mediainfo output? is there audio in the fraps avis? try a standard avi in vegas and see if it works and give you the custom tab in avc. it may be the encoder doesn't like the 900 pixel height as it's not divisible by 16 or 8.

I'm not sure if you saw my post above, where put a 1440x900 file into Vegas, and it and the MC X.264 encoder seamed happy with it. After you mentioned the MOD 16 issue though, basic arithmetic says he'd only have to crop 4 pixels to get to an even div. by 16 height. Certainly worth looking into.

[minidv2dvd]

ahh sorry missed that part... did the 900h video work in the sony avc encoder also? could be the audio if not the size i guess...

[JimmyS]

I Didn't try that. I'll fire it up and let you know.

[JimmyS]

Hi, just got back from Vegas. The Sony encoder performed pretty much the same as the MC one. Also, I did not have any audio in my test file. The OP mentioned in an earlier reply that he was going to add his own audio etc. to the video. So, I assumed...
Oh Crap! you know what they say about assuming.

[blecap]

tried all and it's still not working

[minidv2dvd]

i you have or can make a small ~ 50mb sample post it to a filesharing site, give us a link, and let us test it out.

here's a cutting tool that might work.



makesample.zip

[blecap]

http://depositfiles.com/files/myys3qamf

here it is. But only 38mb sorry

[minidv2dvd]

no problem on the size.

is this ok? i used mediacoder to encode to 264 mp4. vegas doesn't like the fraps vid at all on my system. i can't play it either so i most likely don't have the proper codec for vegas to use it.






1_chunk_1.mp4

[blecap]

looks alright to me. Is there a better way to make it look smoother and natural with other codecs? but still maintaining quality and smaller size.

[poisondeathray]

debugmode frameserver only works with vegas 8, but you could export your edited version from vegas 9 using a lossless intermediate (e.g. lagarith, huffyuv), then use another encoder if you didn't like the bundled ones with vegas 9.

[minidv2dvd]

well you could certainly increase the bitrate. i used 2000 kbps which may be a bit low for the size of the video. it went from a file size of 37,327 KB to 483 KB at that bitrate.

[blecap]

Ok just wanna get clear some stuffs. First i encode the raw Video of fraps with mediacoder to mp4. Then edit the effects/audio of the movies with Vegas?

[poisondeathray]

Ok just wanna get clear some stuffs. First i encode the raw Video of fraps with mediacoder to mp4. Then edit the effects/audio of the movies with Vegas?

That would be a poor way to do it, because you lose quality twice (2 generation loss)

Instead, edit your fraps video directly in vegas, then export either using vegas' encoding options, or use a lossless intermediate to export from vegas, then another application to encode to your final format. You can use mediacoder, other popular choices would be handbrake, xvid4psp, ripbot264, many others. You never mentioned what your final format goal was or your device target?

[blecap]

I;m sorry poisondeathray. that's a little too hard for me to do it, care to elaborate it into an easier way for me to understand? like a step by step method in a more easier fashion. thanks in advance.

I would like my final format to be a .mp4 (h264). Computer playback movie. If that's what your asking!

[poisondeathray]

There seems to be some confusion from the earlier replies; just to clarify for the others: there is no problem importing fraps into vegas, if you have fraps installed. There is no need to re-encode to an intermediate for import; not only does this waste time and HD space, if you don't use a lossless format, the quality will deteriorate

1) Open the fraps directly in vegas, do your edits, audio overlays etc.. Don't forget to set the gamma in vegas to 1.0 (32-bit project settings), because fraps recordings from video game captures will be full range RGB (otherwise your colors will look screwed up)

If you need to join multiple segments beforehand (many newer fraps captures split into mulitple segments), you can use virtualdub set to "direct stream copy mode" for video & audio so it is 1 big file

2) Once you're done editing, export using lagarith or huffyuv avi. This will very large, but lossless in quality and just and intermediate

3) Use one of the applications above (e.g. mediacoder, handbrake etc....)and use that lagarith avi exported from vegas as input to encode to the final format h264/aac/mp4. You have more control with some GUIs but they are harder to use e.g. MeGUI.

This way you minimize the quality losses when using a lossless intermediate, and you are not limited to using vegas' bundled encoders. If you use Vegas 8, there is a frameserving module (debugmode) that allows you to do this without the huge intermediate file

As for your original problem, it might be that your install is broken. Try uninstalling/re-installing

Cheers