The resolution AVCHD works in Vegas
 

I've been getting my Vegas 9 rig to up and running with Windows 7 64bit an i7 chip, but noticed that the resolution of most of the movie files I've captured from my Sony HDR-XR520 HDD camcorder are only 1440 x 1080.

Is there a setting either on the camera or on Vegas I've just not set properly?

cheers guys.

It is in the camera manual. Only the highest data rate( FH 16Mbps) is 1920x1080 square pixels, HQ , SP and LP are 1440x1080 anamorphic just like HDV. Select the highest data rate and you will get 1920x1080 and Vegas will then show this as the properties for the clip.

Ron Evans

Thanks Ron
The camera (and rig, which I built) belong to my mate. I downloaded the manual, and know I set the camera to HD FH. Will the camera go back to its default recording mode every time its switched off?

thanks again Billy

sorry -wrong topic

BIll, the camera will keep the settings until they are changed. At least for some time until the internal battery runs down. The camera needs to be used at least once a month to keep the internal battery charged. You need to be careful if you use in full manual since it will stay in this state and may be a problem if you think it was in automatic!!!! This is easy to do if you use Spot Focus a lot and just happen to leave it there. In the viewfinder or LCD its difficult to see whether things are sharp in focus in some conditions but obvious on a big screen!!! Always check status before shooting for the day.

Ron Evans

Camera should be 1920x1080 in the highest setting, but perhaps the project settings are wrong? You can drag media with different ratios onto the timeline, but the project settings would be whatever you set them to, and might be causing you to get a strange readout?

Help me somebody!
i get native avchd videos in full hd resolution. i can import it to Vegas8.0c, but even without any effect, the playback is not smooth at quarter resolution! Sometimes its only 8-10 fps! Why? I can edit HDV mpg2 good enough, and i can playback the avchd file in mediaplayer at full quality with 60% cpu usage.
Project setting is the same as the file, no effect, no other program running.
my cpu is E5200 at 3.3Ghz, 3GB Dual DDR ram, 640GB Samsung F1 (only for video), and XP Sp3.

whats wrong?
thx

Prech, nothing is wrong. This is very normal for AVCHD. My computer is quite a bit faster than yours and I can't play AVCHD back at full rate either. HDV is a VERY different kind of compression that is far easier to play back.

so how can we edit avchd with vegas only at 10fps?
i do understand this slowness when i apply some effect, but without any??
v9 cannot handle it better?

There must be 100 threads on this very subject here. The most common method is to transcode the footage into something your computer can handle. Cineform seems to be the most popular among Vegas users. It works well, and preserves the quality of the footage.

Another way is to create proxy files. Basically small versions of the clips you have, edit those, then replace them with the full versions when you are ready to render out your final version. Again, there are numerous threads about how to work with proxy files.

But the simple fact is that your computer is simply not fast enough to cleanly edit AVCHD files natively. Not with Vegas, not with Premiere, not with Avid.

ok, thank you!