Excellent, Robert - thanks for sharing that. I've just tried it and confirmed that this is a very useful way to bypass the flawed QT Plugin (as well as the really slow MainConcept AVC/AAC plugin) in Vegas. I currently have the CoreAVC plugin installed (trial). I imagine I will probably have to buy that now, as this plays at 2-3x the framerate on the timeline compared to playing the re-wrappered MP4 files. Now, if there were only a way to easily batch this process; making all the avisynth scripts can get to be a bit of a chore. Knowing the internet community, there's probably a tool out there...

for the record, I used the "DirectShowSource" way.

hmmm, actually it's not quite working for me
 

UPDATE:

it turns out that using this method I was unable to get it to import the .avi into the timeline using the CoreAVC codec. The CoreAVC codec is the only one that seems to interpret the colorspace headers properly, so this is a bit of a setback. Apparently what was decoding it in Vegas for me was DivX. Once I removed DivX, I was able to get CoreAVC to work everywhere except in Vegas. DivX would have been fine as it definitely helped speed up the speed on the timeline, but the colorspace problems were present. CoreAVC is the only one that seems to be able to figure out the colorspace properly.

Robert, can you confirm that Vegas is 'seeing' your file as being a CoreAVC? In my case when I clicked on the properties of the media it reported that it was a DivX 6.8.something file.

For the record, you just sold me a CoreAVC license; damn it, that thing is fast. Plays the file I mentioned back in realtime, no problem at all.

Anyway, I wasn't using CoreAVC before, so I was going through the whole FFmpegSource business. Using DirectShowSource now, with the Core trial installed, I may have an answer for you. By the time the video gets through the Pismo File Mount interface via the AVFS plugin and reaches your video application, it's no longer compressed; that is to say, it's not CoreAVC or any other variant of H.264. The reason the file is reported to the Windows file system as being so large is because you're essentially creating an uncompressed version of your file on the fly. CoreAVC won't work for this not only because Vegas uses Video for Windows, while CAVC is DirectShow, but because by the time Vegas sees the video it's no longer in a format that CoreAVC can decode. Getting the PFM/AVFS combo to use CoreAVC is the whole story; if they're using it, the original file is in fact being decoded by that software.

Vegas is reporting the DivX thing only because the color space of the AVFS output is YV12 and the only appropriate VfW codec Vegas can find for that is the DivX YV12 decoder. If you add that ConvertToRGB24() to the very end of the script you're using, you'll see the file reported as "Uncompressed", and though there's significant overhead added by the conversion, it still seems to playback pretty quickly. Not being a professional compressionist or mathematician, I couldn't tell you if it's a perfect conversion, but it's the best one I'm aware of. The colorspace problems should be helped by adding matrix="Rec709" as an argument to the Convert function. The other option is PC.709, but if I understand correctly (and I very well may not, so try both of these to see what happens) the TV range of the Rec709 string is what you want. More details on all of this are in the Avisynth docs, under Color conversion and adjustment filters in the Core filters section.

As for automating the scripting process, I was thinking about this as I fell asleep last night. It looks doable with a relatively simple batch file, I'll start messing around with that and let you know how it goes.

Well, nevermind that! I should have known this would already have been taken care of: Avisynth Batch Scripter Go to the File menu, then in Settings remove the C:\ drive as the scan folder and replace with the directory containing your footage. Go back to the main interface, hit Scan and make sure all your files are present, then paste this into the window at the bottom:

DirectShowSource("%PATH%\%CLIP%.%EXT%")
ConvertToRGB24(matrix="Rec709")

Save it as a template, if you like, then click Build scripts up top to finish the process. All your footage should now have an associated avs file that can be mounted as usual.

Hi Keith, I just joined the club n I need your help to detail the workflow. I'm a little confused now but this is what I gathered.

1. Rewrap with avisynth?
2. Place it on the timeline as 720P project and render to ??

I like to mix the footage with the EX1's mxf. Any suggestion for me? Thks!

I'm not sure I've settled on a "default" workflow yet. The workflow can vary a little bit depending upon your project (number of clips, etc...) but as of late, I've added a transcode (to Cineform HDV) to the process.

In general, here's what I do:
1) Dump all the .mov files onto the hard drive
2) use mediacoder to re-wrap the .mov files into .mp4 files (you're swapping containers of the H.264 video and transcoding the audio. The video data is copied over completely intact, but the audio has to be transcoded because the codec that Canon used for the audio isn't supported by .mp4. The reason we're switching containers is to get away from using the quicktime plugin that's included with vegas. It screws up the colorspace, the theory is that it's basically clipping all the values below 16 and above 235, and then using some primitive method to stretch the colorspace out - hence the gaps in the histogram). Technically you can start editing in vegas using these .mp4 files. I found that the performance is pretty miserable, though, and I've run into a few compatibility issues, so now I've started doing step 3
3) Transcode all of the .mp4 clips to cineform HDV (to facilitate this, I've been using a script I found over in the "What happens in Vegas..." forum called Proxy Stream" - it's very handy).
4) use the cineform HDV .avi files on the timeline, edit. At the moment, it seems as if this step will become permanent. I'll probably be giving Neo HD a trial to see if it helps me bypass step 2)

an alternative method using avisynth was devised by Robert Martens and it has some benefits (such as no re-wrappering required and better timeline preview/scrubbing performance), but if you have a project with many clips, it can get a little messy with all of the virtual folders. And if you've never used avisynth or messed around with the voodoo that is directshow (registering codecs, manipulating stream splitters, etc...) before, I'm sure it can be a bit intimidating.

woah sounds real complicated! Big thanks to U for working hard on this! I'll try it.

Jon, would you please contact me through the forum. Apparently your forum pm is turned off. I've got a little educational project I'm working on that might be a distant cousin to your IEC project... but 200 swiss francs is a little steep to find out!

Hi Seth,

I've sent you an e-mail. I'm happy to let you know the details about the TV power video.

Luis -

Are you still having success with this method?

SpeedEDIT looks like a pretty cool program. What's your computer config. to run this?

Have you used other NLE's to compare the features/performance against SE?

And by the way, thanks for sharing your "5d2 Clipping" issues!!