Solved Minimum RAM for Vegas Movie studio.

My wife was using Serif MoviePlusX6 intermittently for converting/editing family VOB files.  Her laptop crashed and has been fixed.  However we are now facing a dilemma of whether to reinstall MoviePlusX6 or go for upgrading to Vegas Moviestudio.  her laptop has an intel(R)core(Tm) I5-6200U CPU @ 2.30Ghz 2.4Ghz Installed Ram 8Gb.  Will her laptop be able to run Movie Studio Ok as I read that 16Gb of ram is recommeded for movie studio.  Cheers John

It probably will if Vikki is not using 4K. I currently use VMS17 Plat on a weaker system than her laptop.

But download the 30 day trial and find out for yourself how it runs on the laptop.

I second Eric's comment.

16GBs+ would be better, but for light 1080p projects, 8GBs should work OK as long as you don't have other programs open at the same time.

Thank you both.  Will download later and give it a try.
Cheers John

Update on this.  Downloaded Vegas Movie studio Platinium 17 (trial).  Vob file loads but no audio.  Converted the vob in VLC to MP4 (Video H.264+mp3 (MP4) but Vegas sadly says unrecognised format. Both the original VOB play along with the converted MP4 file play ok (video and audio)  in VLC and windows media player.  So I give up unless anybody has a suggestion.  Cheers John

John, search on the Vegas forum and you will find several threads on this annoying problem. It's a codec licensing issues and possibly may not get resolved soon if ever?

Does the latest build of Vegas Pro 18 have the same problem? Oops it appears vob/mpg have the same problem with Pro www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/mpg-clips-will-only-import-video-and-not-audio--124988/


 

Summary for anyone else that may read this in the future.

Vegas Creative Software (Magix) has dropped support for AC-3 audio in MPEG and VOB files, after updates were applied to Vegas Pro 18 and Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 17.

Official statement posted by one of the lead developers of Vegas said this:

Mpeg files, which is a less frequently used older format, use a main concept decoder which requires a different audio decoder to handle its AC3 audio than mts and m2ts media. We are no longer able to use that decoder. We are looking at routing this through a new demuxer so the audio would be available again, but for now we are recommending transcoding files of this type.

Please note that this problem mainly affects only older Standard Definition video.
Typically this type of older video came from Standard Definition video cameras or was ripped from DVDs.
.mts and .m2ts High Definition videos are not affected by this problem.

Solution for problem
Transcode .mpeg or .vob videos using a video conversion program, so that they use a different audio format that is not AC-3 audio.
There are literally 100's of video conversion programs you could use, but my choice would be Handbrake.
I have an in-depth tutorial on how to use Handbrake here:
www.moviestudiozen.com/free-tutorials/miscellaneous-help-tutorials/595-handbrake-v1-1-1-beginners-guide-for-best-video-export-settings

My personal thoughts
It's a shame the developers did not implement an alternate solution before deleting this important function.
I don't think they realized just how many people are editing old family videos with all versions of Vegas - many home video editors work with a lot of old archived video.
I really hope they fix this problem quickly and don't let it drag out for years and just forget about it.
It's already causing lots of unnecessary confusion.

Well said Derek.

It appears it's only AC3 that uses Dolby that's the problem which is what the MC codec used.

I've just been working on some very old vob files. No problem with audio as they have mpeg audio .

Well thank for the update people.
I have posted a question in the Vegas movie studio forum about reinstalling the licensed copy of MS14 I have and wheteher I/we can use the VOB Audio and Video in this version.
Will await a reply, as its Sunday I dont expect a reply straight away.  Cheers Guys.

A good summary of this codec issue from the good Doctor. As Eric said, the licensing must have become a (sudden) obstacle (as "[they] are no longer able to use that decoder").

@pioneer
I have (e.g.) VMSP 14 still installed and it accepts AC-3. As your case would be a reinstall, I am not sure that you'll get the same. AFAIK that codec cannot be activated currently any more.
In my reply to you on the VCS forum I suggested you try reinstalling to find out.