How to edit x264vfw videos

Thursday, 6 February 2014

How to edit x264vfw videos

In my 1080p60 article it was clear that x264vfw was the best codec. However, at the end of the article I mentioned that editing the videos were really laggy in Sony Vegas. One of my readers informed me that the editing procedure in Premiere Pro was even worse.

I decided to do some research and figure out how you could use x264vfw but still retain editing capabilities that were close to the other lossless codecs. I am no expert in video encoding but from what I understand, the editing is laggy is due to not enough Intra (I) frames (also called key frames) in the video file.

We can fix this by changing the --keyint default value of 250 in x264vfw. After trying many values I just settled on --keyint 1 (so all I frames). This should make working with the videos much easier as it gives frame perfect seeking.

x264vfw editing --keyint sony vegas premiere pro

Click to enlarge

One issue that concerned me initially was that I frames hold all data of the frame where as P (predictive) frames just track the changes from the previous frame and thus compress much better. I thought that incorporating all I frames would hurt the compression and it does but not to a large degree. If the hike to --keyint 1 is too much you may want to experiment with --keyint 10 or similar. Happy capturing and editing with x264vfw!

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About Me

I'm just a guy from the UK that has a passion for video games and speedrunning (and of course capturing them). I originally started this blog because I wanted to share my knowledge and research I've gained over the years. Below is a brief history on my speedrunning and capture cards

I started speedrunning in mid 2006 with Resident Evil 4. Over the years I ran other games to world record level such as the Uncharted series, other Resident Evil titles, Heavy Rain and Clock Tower. I also enjoy glitch hunting video games. I was part of the team that found ways to skip 7 bosses in the original Metal Gear Solid game for PS1.

In early 2010, my first capture card was the Hauppauge HD PVR. Streaming with that device in 2010 was very difficult (basically screen region or nothing) so I moved onto the Blackmagic Intensity Pro in late 2010 since it was a DirectShow device. From then on I've added countless more capture cards to my collection from various companies such as AVerMedia, Blackmagic, Micomsoft, Dazzle and Elgato. I was also the first Western user to own and document the Micomsoft SC-512 capture card. It is now probably the most popular gaming capture card because of this.