4K on XP with Core2 Duo?

RoyBU wrote on 5/10/2016, 2:46 PM

I have a Core2 Duo CPU running on a Windows XP machine (only 2 gig ram) with Vegas 8 (yes, it's been a while!) A friend of mine asked if I could take some footage of his and make a DVD. I've done this many times before with mini DV tapes, but this time he borrowed an AX100 and so he has an SD card with his footage on it. On top of that, he shot it using the 4K mode, so I know I can't do anything with that with my current software. My question is whether there is a version of Vegas that will run on my computer that can handle the 4K footage. I don't need it to be snappy; it can take three days to render the two hours of footage for all I care. I'm just wondering if I can do this with a minimal investment.

OTOH, after almost ten years perhaps it's time I upgraded my computer.

Comments

john_dennis wrote on 5/10/2016, 4:30 PM

With only two cores and the video card that you likely have, you probably won't be able to have any sort of preview even with proxies. Back in the day a quad core was considered the minimum for compressed formats like HDV even. The 32 bit O/S doesn't help much, either.

On the other side of the balance sheet, CPU horsepower is relatively inexpensive these days.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 5/11/2016, 7:10 AM

> "My question is whether there is a version of Vegas that will run on my computer that can handle the 4K footage."

No, there is not.

The Sony FDR-AX100 shoots 4K as XAVC S and Vegas Pro 12 is the first version to support that format. Unfortunately, Vegas Pro 12 only comes as a 64-bit application so there is nothing that you can do to edit this footage on a 32-bit computer.

You wouldn't be able to edit 4K on a Core 2 Duo anyway. That CPU can't even handle native AVCHD without needing a proxy workflow. Looks like it's time to upgrade. ;-)

~jr

OldSmoke wrote on 5/11/2016, 8:00 AM

Actually the AX100 also does dual recording and if it was set, there is a possibility to edit the low res MP4 files first, as proxies and then replace it with the 4K files. The trick however is to match the file numbers correctly. The AX100 has, in my opinion, I major flaw as any picture you take during dual recording will be number with the next file number after the last MP4 file. Meaning the file numbers of the MP4 files don't match the 4K files but a good app like AdvancedRenamer can help with that.

Again, that only works if dual recording was enabled in the first place.

riredale wrote on 5/11/2016, 12:23 PM

Wait a second. The guy doesn't want to make a 4K masterpiece for national distribution in theaters, he wants to make a DVD. Is there some sort of transcoder that could convert the original 4K format to something 720x480? From that point on, editing would be a snap on any PC made in the past 20 years.

Asked another way, why is there a need to edit in the original shooting format?

diverG wrote on 5/11/2016, 3:07 PM

GrassValley have a free tool AVC2HD to batch convert files from SD cards to standard HD or SD. Downsizing via lanzos3.

http://www.grassvalley.com/support/downloads/products?product=general

You will need to register in order to download but GV are not intrusive.

RoyBU wrote on 5/13/2016, 9:02 AM

Thanks for all the comments, they are very helpful. I asked and my friend says he doesn't know if he used the dual recording feature so that probably means he didn't. Even so, I will look into the Grassvalley suggestion, though when I tried hooking the SD card to my computer just to see if it could be read, Windows XP was unable to read it. Research on the web shows that Microsoft did release a patch (WindowsXP-KB955704-x86-ENU.exe) to enable XP to read the exFAT format that the AX100 uses, but that patch has been removed from Microsoft's site and I haven't been able to find it anywhere else. I do have an old Macbook Pro and OSX is supposed to be able to read exFAT so when I get back from my current travels I will try that. Not sure what good that will do, though since the Grassvalley converter is only for Windows.

As I suspected, trying to do this with old technology just looks more and more complicated. A good reason to get myself into the new millenium.

RoyBU wrote on 5/13/2016, 9:07 AM

After writing my last post it occurred to me that there might be a converter for Mac OSX so I checked and apparently there are several, so I'll give that a try. Thanks again for the helpful suggestions.

ddm wrote on 5/13/2016, 4:50 PM

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=25026

does this link not get you what you need for xp?

RoyBU wrote on 5/18/2016, 7:05 PM

Thanks, but that link is for the 64-bit version of XP and I have the 32-bit version.

I did try loading the 4K clips on my Macbook laptop after downloading Davinci Resolve and the clips load and play just fine (well, the playback is far from smooth, but it does play). But when I try to bring a clip into a Davinci Resolve project, Resolve crashes. Not sure what's wrong there and not sure I want to troubleshoot that one.