Sony Vegas - still sucks

[armyofquad]

I really wish someone would start a class action lawsuit against Sony already. It's a crime what glitchy buggy software they allow to be released, without ever fixing it.

I've spent weeks laying out a project, and have everything finished - but now I go to render, and it keeps getting stuck in the render at the same spot. No error, nothing wrong with any of the files - just reaches this spot 15 percent in, and decides, screw you, I'm not doing anything anymore.

What gives?

Why won't Sony release anything that actually works?

[Subtitles]

Which version do you have? Sony Vegas has been under Magix Software GmbH over the past several years and they have three versions Vegas Edit, Vegas Pro and Vegas Post.
If you have the original Sony Vegas product, perhaps you can upgrade to newer versions.
They also have subscription option which includes speech to text and text to speech.
https://www.vegascreativesoftware.com/us/
https://www.magix.com/us/products/

[armyofquad]

For some reason, it seems that Vegas isn't liking demuxed .mpg files I demuxed with tsMuxer. Not all of them, just some of them.

I've used a lot of software, and I have to say....video editing software is the most unprofessional software I have ever had the misfortune of using. Completely glitchy, completely unpredictable, rarely provides any useful errors, will just randomly do things like throw in random frames out of order for no reason, crash for no reason, or just get stuck and do nothing. This is an industry that really needs to get it's act together - I don't know how anyone can ever get anything done with such horribly inadequate tools when it comes to software!

[Bwaak]

I don't know how anyone can ever get anything done with such horribly inadequate tools when it comes to software!

Ask Walter Murch.

[armyofquad]

I found that when editing my dvd rips, Vegas reverted back to it's previous habit of randomly throwing frames out of order. Generally, seeing random out of place frames flash on your screen is not desireable - although the idiot programmers at Sony seem to think it is - so I had to once again try to figure out how to fix these problems that other people create with their incompetence and shovel onto my desk.

So, I found that it seemed to be happening on rips that had multiple audio programs. Great - I can demux that, separate out my video and audio into separate files, which also makes it easier to pick which audio program I want to use, if any. And that worked fine on the previous project.

But now - everything I demuxed with tsmuxer is freezing encodes. After hours of work. Which takes a long time of encoding before it encounters a freeze, and then I have to track down that problem file, rename it .old, find my pre-demuxed file, rename it to match the file name, reopen the session, and hope the frame juggling problem doesn't recur.

Seriously - is there a single competent programmer that works on these things? Every piece of video editing software I've ever touched has given me bs problems that shouldn't exist if someone would do their damn job right! So sick and tired of gross imcompetence wasting my time!

[aedipuss]

LOL. why to you keep blaming sony? vegas was written by sonic foundry, sold to sony, who then sold to to magix 7 years ago.

[armyofquad]

When you put your name on something, you own it! Every time I open Sony Vegas, with the shortcut that is called Sony Vegas, it pops up an image that says Sony Vegas......not sure why I'm supposed to not blame the company who plastered their name all over the thing and sold it!

But certainly there's plenty of blame to go around. As I've pointed out, there isn't a single video editing tool I've ever used that hasn't given me some pointless problem due to poor design or programming.

[_Al_]

lol, editing ripped dvd's or elementary streams is exactly what a professional would not do (except audio). If you'd be an engineer you'd know that everything has its limitations and you have to go with it.

If there is not a single video tool that suits you, then you are doing something that others are not doing much at all. For example dealing with a DVD's (or other problematic videos) first thing there is is to shove it thru a software (even custom made batch apps) that de-interlaces it (or not) and makes a friendly back up archive mp4, m2ts or such, format that you test is easy to edit and work with (low latency, I frames are close etc...). You come up with a format, you deal with that one week, and after that you just use that solution automatically. Congratulation, you used an engineering approach and you won. Or you can keep complaining.

[armyofquad]

I wouldn't use DVDs if I had access to better sources - but since the industry likes to use restrictive and non-competetive business practices to ensure it will never be possible to ever reissue TV shows that make heavy use of commercial music videos, I'm force to deal with substandard shit like VHS tapes and DVD rips.

It seems if anyone in the video industry could pick a standard, ANY STANDARD, ANY AT ALL, JUST ONE, that would eliminate much of the problems that exist. Most video problems were created by not picking and sticking to any standards at all, whatsoever.

And then, instead of builing tools that will properly deal with the various (non)standards, lazy programmers just cheat it and build shit that will break down instead.

No one wants to do a good job of anything anymore it seems. Instead of building quality product, lazy programmers go to the tired bullshit excuse - blame the end user.

I may not be a programmer, but I do know that good programming is supposed to be "idiot proof". Not the best term, because not understanding every technical concept doesn't automatically make one an idiot - but the term is what it is. That concept of idiot proofing things seems to have gone out the window. I have a programmer friend, he has a line he likes to throw out there, as a joke - but I'm sure some take it serious. "It was difficult to make, so it should be difficult to use".

Anyone that uses that motto needs to find a different line of work, in my opinion.

[smrpix]

And I'm really angry that my so-called "professional" motorcycle only has two wheels when everybody knows 4 should be industry standard. And what's this nonsense about it sinking when I try to cross a lake?!!!!!

[Bwaak]

Have you tried contacting Magix regarding your issue? They will likely ask you for a license number, but I am sure you have one.

Out of curiosity, which version of Vegas do you have?

[_Al_]

you keep complaining, now industry, programmers, ..., , they will always make problem for end users, they want their monopoly, it is a natural way for things, it is called business. I know, nowadays everyone things how things should be, but I know for sure, as soon as you start to administer to others what to do, make, produce, everything starts to go to hell and corruption is unleashed.

Get a middleman, select a intermediate archived intermediate format and use it. Done.
You cannot make a NLE that is "idiot proof". From an engineering point of view, it is not possible. Assuming what other features those NLE have. They got tons of features.
Nowadays it is not what it used to be. Couple of formats, camcorder formats. You have hundreds of videos and arrangements of formats currently and also whatever used to be. Like DVD, thats an old thing basically. If you were head of a NLE soft. department, with head spinning from what needs to be done and what actually sells now (cough,.. AI ... cough, etc. NOT DVD from the past), handling of DVD format would be a last thing on the list. A programmer is doing what is paid for, what he is told to develop and troubleshoot (hopefully). DVD format is perhaps NOT it. It is not a lazy programming. Those are basics. I'm not sure why people lately start to demand everything. Things are produced because there is a profit for those who make it. Some ideas coming from young naive heads (not accusing you at this moment, it is just general rant) is basically absurd and destined to blow up, corrupt on itself, I grew up in a system like that, where one of the best industry in the world was damaged and ripped apart because of directives, agenda, .., you name it.

Look at it as an engineer. Make an intermediate archive format of your DVD's, make some batch files, automatize it and use those formats that you know Vegas likes.
For example we used to use making mp4 of DVD's (but those were mostlu interlaced, no ivtc etc was needed) and just a batch apps were created to back up DVD's : DVD to hardisk , and many other utilities, sure that might not be ok for you, you might handle different DVD's, but you get the point.

[aedipuss]

you're using a very outdated version of vegas if it says "sony" anywhere. maybe v12? versions 13 to 20 says magix on the opening screen.

[armyofquad]

It's version 13 - for how awful it's been for all the years I've used it, I'm not inclined to pay for a new version and deal with more of the same.

Actually, for all the ranting about it not being profitable to cater to "obsolete" formats, I'm probably better off sticking with older versions of software.

But yes, how awful to demand that things that are supposed to do certain things that are less profitable areas of the software, actually do them right. What awful end users we are, wanting things that work right.

Anyways - despite the problems, somehow another project inched across the finish line. Maybe. Will have to take 2 hours to view it and hope no glaring bugs jump out.

But for those that like 80s music - I managed to turn this (not my upload or capture):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HXmiisbxj0

into this:
https://archive.org/details/friday-night-videos-1983-07-29-1983-08-05

[TreeTops]

Your last link doesn't work for me. Displays "this item does not have any files."

[armyofquad]

It doesn't have a preview yet, I think it will eventually automatically generate a streaming version, but you could download the huge 6GB full file from there.

[rrats]

Try re encoding video with a high bitrate

[sophisticles]

@OP:

The issue is not that Sony Vegas is "glitchy buggy software", the problem exists between the keyboard and the chair.

Sony Vegas, and it's descendants, are meant to be used in professional environments, with acquisition and mezzanine formats, not "dvd-rips".

The main issue was that some of the cheaper DVD authoring software produced non-compliant DVD's; sure they would play in most DVD players, but people would run into problems with playback sometimes.

I don't think Sony Vegas is the right tool for working with dvd-rips, I think you are better off using legally free tools like avisynth, or avidemux, shotcut, or similar, depending on what you are trying to do.

And if you insist on using a pirated version of a since discontinued professional grade video editing software, at least convert your "dvd-rips" to an I-frame only format and ingest them into Vegas.

[armyofquad]

I appreciate the response.

I understand that Vegas may not be designed for editing with the use of dvd quality mpeg as source material - but the bottom line is that it supports it. It is a valid format type that it will accept into it's session. If a software is going to support something and do something, it ought to do it right. To design it with a functionality, but to have that functionality flawed, and overlook it simply because that's not how it would normally be used, isn't exactly good business practice.

However - your suggestion to convert dvd-rips to an i-frame only format is certainly a suggestion I will research. Generally I try to limit the amount of conversions and processing I put my source material through, but certainly I would be in favor of a process to put my source material in a format that will not degrade quality and will make it behave more stable in Vegas.

As much as I hate Vegas's little quirks that keep negatively impacting me when I dig into a project, it still is the only editor I've found that meets my needs for what I'm doing and how I do it. I guess I have a love/hate relationship with it.

My previous archive link now has a generated preview if anyone wants to review what exactly I'm doing with Vegas.

[creakndale]

armyofquad,
I feel your DVD / Vegas pain. Back in the Windows XP days, I had a multi-step process for importing DVD into Adobe Premiere 6.5 with near perfect success. When we entered the era of High Definition .ts and h.264 MP4, my old Premiere couldn't handle the newer technology. I ultimately upgraded to Windows 7 and chose Sony Movie Studio 11 HD Platinum. Although it worked well with High Definition files, it had bugs when importing DVD files.

Over the years, I upgraded to Movie Studio 13 Platinum, Movie Studio 14 Platinum but the DVD import remained buggy so I kept the Windows XP / Premiere 6.5 computer for DVD work.

Eventually, I upgraded to Magix Vegas Pro 16 hoping the DVD import was fixed in the upgraded Pro version but guess what? Still the same buggy DVD import. In my case, the main problem occurs at .VOB boundaries but there are also issues with audio out of sync. For a solid week, my mission was to resolve these problems. I read forum after forum and tried everything suggested and work arounds but in the end, I was unsuccessful and gave up.

So I keep the Windows XP machine at the ready for DVD work. During my research, there were a number of people expressing the same thing as you regarding DVD and Vegas. I wish I could find a couple of those old posts, in the Vegas forums, to link here but unfortunately I can't find them. People have been complaining about this for years and nothing has been done to fix these problems and my guess is they never will.

I've always wondered if the newer versions of Adobe Premiere could handle DVD the way old Premiere 6.5 could. I'll cross that bridge after my XP machine craps out.

This DVD import to Vegas problem IS frustrating since it's a "supported" feature. Other than that, Vegas Pro 16 has proved to be a good non-linear editor... for my needs.

creakndale

[jagabo]

Eventually, I upgraded to Magix Vegas Pro 16 hoping the DVD import was fixed in the upgraded Pro version but guess what? Still the same buggy DVD import. In my case, the main problem occurs at .VOB boundaries but there are also issues with audio out of sync.

I've never used Vegas but... Have you tried using VOB2MPG to remux the streams from the IFO/VOB set to MPG files? That removes all the VOB stuff that confuses many players and editors.

[lordsmurf]

The source MPEG has an error. The root cause here.

[armyofquad]

Few things to note here:

I do use vob2mpg to remux the streams.

While it certainly is possible some of the numerous mpg rips I've worked on may have contained an error, this behavior in Vegas has been so frequent I do not believe it to be a problem with the files. This is consistent with other comments about Vegas in this thread, it seems the issue is that Vegas is spotty at best for editing DVD ripped mpgs, and fixing these known issues has been a lower priority.


Which leaves us with the real question of this thread, that will finally leave an answer for all that are having these issues and stumble on this thread - what is the best practice for importing a DVD sourced mpg into Vegas? "convert your "dvd-rips" to an I-frame only format" - what format would be recommended here, something that would preserve the quality of the original rip.

[_Al_]

I would use this thing below, I used it couple of times, but scared to recommend it to you, might be too much for you, not sure how easy your solution you expect it to be. Using Avisynth Virtual File System. That workflow can have different flavors, but point is to make Vegas to work with avi instead and you work with original video, no re-compression.

Use dgindex to get d2v index file, also demux audio, I think it can make wav file out of AC3 etc. Then using avfs , after you install avisynth.

Or just google, loading dvd mpeg into sony vegas, you might get couple of tutorials how to do it. Tutarials might differ a bit, but same principal if using avfs.

[Skiller]

I use Avisynth Virtual File System for pretty much any source I throw at Vegas which isn't lossless or uncompressed.
And Vegas works well for me. Does not suck at all.

[poisondeathray]

I've never had a problem with DVD-video in vegas pro either. It actually smart renders MPEG2 (!). It's actually one of the best editors for MPEG2 video for DVD because of this

Many glitches in the past were actually traced back to GPU issues - drivers, HW acceleration . If you disable HW accel, it seems to be more stable for some people who had problems (in general) . Hanging during render - check. Classic. If there is a transition there, GPU effect - high probability there is a GPU compatiblity issue with your system. If you're getting frequent buggy behaviour , also have a look at your system stability. Temperatures and cooling

Not to defend Vegas - But if people would file a proper , reproducible, bug report, things actually did get fixed in the past. This means all the streams, the project files, so a developer can reproduce the issue. People tend to make vague complaints , but do nothing about it, and provide no details for anyone to fix anything.

But if you're using "Sony" Vegas, then I guess you're a few years too late for support. If you could create the conditions for a glitch and provide the streams and project file to Magix, and you are an active customer, it should get fixed. Look at the changelog history and bug fixes for each version and point release for both Sony and Magix. Many of them come from user reports.


AVFS works ok in vegas, but vapoursynth version is preferred for it's fourcc emulation "IYUV" and "I420" for 8bit 4:2:0 DVD sources, otherwise you get clipping of superbrights/darks (you shouldn't have that much if it was a professional DVD in the first place). Otherwise in avisynth you should "legalize" the levels beforehand, and/or control the RGB conversion. "YV12" from avisynth gets clipped, like many of the "lossless" YUV codecs in 4:2:2 configuration which decode to "YUY2" (lagarith , ut video, huffyuv...etc...) , which are not lossless in vegas - they incur a limited range YUV to full range RGB (Computer RGB in Vegas terminology) conversion upon import, before user can do anything. Nothing you can do in vegas (like computer to studio RGB levels preset), because the clipping already occurred on import . There is some overhead with AVFS (slower, added latency because you're frameserving) . If you have many instance, it can bog down an edit

Cineform is a good, very compatible I-frame near lossless intermediate in vegas . It would be the preferred one over prores, dnxhd/dnxhr, because of decoding speed. It made editing possible on old single/dual cores with big HD projects

[armyofquad]

Vegas strikes again and wastes yet more hours of my time! So sick and tired of this bs!

You would think that the video preview being accurate would be a rather basic priority of a video editing software. Well...when it comes to Vegas, that's not the case.

I cannot tell you how many damn times Vegas has showed me one thing on the preview, and rendered something completely different! it's ridiculous! How in the hell did Sony get away with selling this crap?

Arrrgghhh - seems it's decided that the audio preview doesn't need to be accurate. Vegas has this annoying assumption. It assumes, when you pull in a paired video/audio source, any editing you do to the video, you want to do to the audio as well. This is a STUPID assumption! You might want to fade in the audio later, or you may want to replace a section of the video - cutting the video shouldn't cut the audio. So anytime I pull in a source, I pull it in twice, and delete the audio track of one, and the video track of the other, so I can actually edit them independently - like VEGAS SHOULD HAVE BEEN DESIGNED TO ALLOW IN THE FIRST DAMN PLACE!!!!!

But it seems that for this source, Vegas is a little confused as to when the audio is supposed to play. On further investigation, I observed that the audio display moved as I zoomed in and out - and it seems between the 2 position the audio switches between on zooming, it's the position it doesn't playback on preview that it renders to. Absolutely ridiculous!

So I had to demux the audio and video to separate files, and now I'm re-rendering. Although I hate doing that, because one time I ran into a problem that when I demuxed a video from it's audio, and pulled that in.....Vegas decided it didn't like that demuxed file, and would FREEZE AT A SPECIFIC FRAME WHEN RENDERING, NEVER TO COMPLETE THE DAMN RENDER!!!!!

AAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH......WHY IS IT, VEGAS SEEMS TO ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, FIND A WAY TO NOT DO WHAT I SET IT TO DO!?!?!?!?!?!? IT LITERALLY IS SUPPOSED TO BE DESIGNED TO DO WHAT IT IS SET TO DO, AND YET, IT KEEPS FINDING WAYS TO SCREW EVERYTHING UP, EVERY! DAMN! TIME!

Wish I could find software that actually works right. Apparently no one has figured out how to program anything correctly!

[Bwaak]

I have not had issues with Vegas A/V sync as long as my project rate is the same as the render frame rate. If it is different, A/V can slightly shift, but not by a lot.

[lordsmurf]

This is really a case of user error. You need to prep files for NLE usage. That's all this is. It seems armyofquad is acquiring lots of random sources, and running into random errors trying to dump those into Vegas.

That's not how this works. Never has been, never will be.

I suggest you learn about capture formats, intermediary formats, and delivery formats. In some cases, like MPEG, settings and attributes determine that. NLEs often accept capture, accept most intermediary, and are wildly all over the place with delivery.

If an NLE gives AV sync issues, the file is at fault. Malformed, badly muxed, or something is variable (and not properly constant).

[armyofquad]

My amateur projects that I pour a whole lot of dedication into and attention to detail of, relies on lots of dvd rips for sources. Also youtube downloads. I've still yet to receive a reply as to a consistent method to ensure these sources work.

I understand the idea that these sources can cause problems - but in my defense, if the software supports the format, then it should do it right! You can't in one breath have Sony Vegas supporting mpg 2 which are ripped off of DVD, and then in another breath go, but, you shouldn't rely on it to support it, because it doesn't. I hate this way they're trying to have it both ways - it does it, but we take no responsibility to ensure it does it right.

Of course, if anyone could agree on any standards when it comes to video, maybe we wouldn't have all these problems.