Vegas has been working great for me working with 1080 30p files from my HMC150.
I recently practiced shooting in 720 60P mode from the same camera on a test project to see the difference between the formats.
I think I must have the properties incorrect in vegas, or something else is wrong because my preview is randomly jumpy and will not play back correctly.

Sorry for the basic question, but does anyone know what is going on here?
Or what the settings should be for the properties in Vegas for 720 60p?
I basically took the same properties I had for my 1080 video settings, but changed the width and height size and the frame rate to double ntsc. Was there something else I am supposed to change?

Kenzie, you're better off making sure your project properties match your source video and here's how to do this.

Open your project properties window (File - Properties), click on the Match Media Settings icon (top right - looks like a folder, browse to the folder where these files are and double-click one of them.
This is done primarily to make it easier for Vegas to edit the footage.
Audio properties will have to be set manually.
When you're in the source video folder, click one of the files and make note of it's audio properties.
When you come back to the Project Properties window, click the Audio tab and make the necessary changes.
Finally, click Apply in the Project Properties window and you'll now match your source video and audio properties.
Save this as a preset if desired.

Kenzie, what Mike said is accurate, but don't be surprised if you still don't get smooth playback. You're asking a LOT of your computer to play back that 60p footage.

Thank you for the tip mike! I did not realize you could do that, thank you!

Unfortunately it did not solve the issue. Perrone might be right about expecting the playback with 60P. It's just a shame because we built an extrememly high performance machine to edit with all top of the line parts. That is what makes me think it is not a performance issue, but rather a settings issue.

At least now I have confidence in my properties settings by using the method Mike sugested.

update: after changing the settings as mentioned above, and giving the PC a restart, it all seems to be working better.
I will report back if it starts doing it again.

Try this...http://www.divideframe.com/?p=gpudecoder

If I had this available a month ago I would've kept my HMC150.

ok, I spoke way too soon saying it is working after restart.
Now it is doing even worse than before. It is showing other footage in the preview from other clips and it is jumping all over the place. I can not preview at all, even when I am setting preview to "draft/quarter" viewing quality.

BTW: I have vegas 8.0

AVCHD is brutal. I have an i7 (what processor are you using?) and playback was very poor.

Using the above tool with Vegas 9 your problems actually could disappear.

so Vegas 8.0 is out of the question?
Is 9.0 that mush more compatible?

I have a Core2Extreme x9770 3.2
8GB RAM
vista 64bit pro

It's not that Vegas 9 is better, GPU decoder will not work with 8, unless I'm mistaken.

Additionally, I can't imagine working on AVCHD with less than a Quad core chip, preferably the i7.

Otherwise you will need to convert the footage to something more manageable to edit with.

AVCHD is not very editable under normal circumstances, in my brief encounter with it. But then I have a need to edit fast and with multiple cameras. Amateurs can deal with it if they have lots of time/patience, but for pro application it just is tough, you need to convert it or try the GPU decoder.

Even with my i7 AVCHD jumped around in the preview window, it was pretty bad.

Kenzie, take a look at AVCHD UpShift (http://newbluefx.com/avchd-upshift.html?vmcchk=1) from NewBlueFX as it may make your editing life a whole lot easier :-)

From this page:
Use AVCHD UpShift to batch convert your AVCHD originated footage into high bitrate MPEG .m2t files, then edit them easily on any HD / MPEG2 capable NLE. AVCHD UpShift decodes your footage once, so your NLE doesn’t have to do the heavy lifting.

It's $79 (cheaper than a new computer!!) and a trial version is available with the restriction being that it converts the first 10 seconds of video only.

Mike's advice is always great. In my case however I was displeased with upshift. The quality of the decoded files was poor, and I've heard others make the same complaint.

I have used/purchased Gearshift for HD and it is close to perfect for what it does. But Upshift for AVCHD didn't do it for me.

If I had to choose one path, I would do the Vegas 9 + GPU decoder, but that is me.

Converting the files as Mike and I suggested might be fine, but I dislike that route. It takes up tons of space and takes a while. With GPU decoder you don't have to convert anything, just edit. But then you are getting into Vegas 9 with its issues. For AVCHD I suspect it would be worth it however.

Yeah, I think Vegas just has problems in general with h2.64 60p preview. I have a Sanyo Xacti VPC-FH1 it shoots in 1920x1080 60p, 1920x1080 60i, 1920x1080 30p and 1280x720 3op. Vegas (9.0a) will handle them all but preview of the 60p footage is really poor.

I also have Cineform NeoScene and have used it to convert the 60p files. The resulting avi files preview a bit better than the native files, but still not very good. I have had really good success using the ProxyStream script to convert to mxf files (there's a couple threads on the Sony forum about this). Unfortunately there is no mxf support for 1920x1080 60p, but it does support 1280x720 60p. This solution is free and the mxf files seems to work really well as an intermediate - they preview at full framerate for everything I have tried. The downside is that you need to spend the time to do the conversion (btw, this solution works fine with 8.0c as well as 9.0)

Rich

Additionally, I can't imagine working on AVCHD with less than a Quad core chip, preferably the i7.



It is a quad core:
Newegg.com - Intel Core2 Extreme QX9775 3.2GHz 12MB L2 Cache LGA 771 150W Quad-Core Processor - Processors - Desktops (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115044&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Processors+-+Desktops-_-Intel-_-19115044)


I downloaded the trial version of vegas 9, and the video worked right out of the box correctly.
Looks like I might need to upgrade. We purchased 8 about a month before 9.0 came out, so it's kind of frustrating.

Jeff: I downloaded the GPU software, and ran the install software that it came with. Do I need to do something in vegas to install it?
How do I know it's installed? (please excuse my ignorant question)

I downloaded the trial version of vegas 9, and the video worked right out of the box correctly.
Looks like I might need to upgrade. We purchased 8 about a month before 9.0 came out, so it's kind of frustrating.

It's always hard purchasing right before a release is due, but it happens to many people. Vegas always has nice upgrade deals though. For the past couple months they had been running a $185 upgrade special. I believe that ended last Friday.

Mike's advice is always great.

Except this time by the sounds of it :-(

In my case however I was displeased with upshift. The quality of the decoded files was poor, and I've heard others make the same complaint.

C'mon Jeff. Tell us how you really feel about it :-)
I've come to trust your opinions so I'll stop recommending it.

We purchased 8 about a month before 9.0 came out, so it's kind of frustrating.

If it was less than month before 9 came out, you were supposed to get 9 for free.
Check your bill of sale and, if that is the case, contact Sony Customer Service, let then know and see what they can do for you.

Wow, I'm impressed that Vegas 9 worked is handling AVCHD so well out of the box for you. I found the 64 bit version (updated version) did handle AVCHD a bit better.

GPU decoder doesn't work on the 64 bit version at all, unfortunately.

If you are running Vegas 32 bit version you will know it's installed by the watermark over your video in the preview window.

If you don't see the watermark then it's not installed correctly or you're running 64 bit version, which won't show it at all.

Mike, I don't know about Upshift, not really. I never gave it a fair shot. But I was so disappointed with it. First the demo only did 10 second clips, and that irritated the heck out of me. Secondly what little I could see looked pretty bad.

I have to say that I found the same thing with the free Panasonic decoder. Very poor avi files. I think that the conversion must be extremely complicated and to get a really good conversion you might have to go with something more expensive. Maybe Cineform does it well, I don't know.

yes it is 64bit. That makes sense.
I must not have read that part on their site.


I will contact Sony, thanks for the advice, maybe they will do something for us.

Install the 32 bit version of Vegas. It won't cause you any problems as far as co-existing with aother versions, and you can still test GPU decoder.

update:
Called sony, and even though we were 40 days purchased before 9.0 came out, they wtill gave us the upgrade for free!
Very cool of them!
And thank you for suggesting me ask them!

9.0 has fixed my issues.
Also my integration of hmc150 and 5d II works awesome on the same timeline, were before it did not.

update:
Called sony, and even though we were 40 days purchased before 9.0 came out, they wtill gave us the upgrade for free!
Very cool of them!
And thank you for suggesting me ask them!

Glad I suggested it and kudos to Sony for coming through for you!!

9.0 has fixed my issues.
Also my integration of hmc150 and 5d II works awesome on the same timeline, were before it did not.

Great news.
Have fun editing :-)