Topic: Vegas Movie Studio issues w/ new PC

[PhxHorn]

I posted here a few months ago while trying to use Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 10 to compile a multicam DVD of a Van Halen show last summer.  At the time, I was using a dual-core processor and the size of the project was just too much for it.  I kept getting stuttering when trying to playback, and low memory errors when trying to render.

Well, I went to my local PC store and had them build me a fancy new one.  AMD Vishera 8350 4.0 GHz 8-core processor, MSI 990FX-GD80V2 motherboard, Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 video card, 16 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD with two 1.5 TB SATA drives.  Windows 7 64-bit. 

Once I got the PC a couple days ago, I re-installed Vegas and opened the project again, which had been set aside for quite awhile.  It consists of about 50 different video clips over five camera angles which took quite awhile to sync, as you can imagine.  I finished syncing the last few video clips without any stuttering problems.  So that was nice.   But when I started selecting my camera angles, things started getting weird.   The application started locking up and I had to CTRL-ALT-DEL quite a few times.  I started saving after every change just to avoid losing my work, but after getting about 2 minutes into the first tune, it started locking up every time I changed a camera selection.  I tried to pre-render the first couple of minutes just to lock those in before moving on, but it came back with a 'low memory' error.  I was monitoring while this was going on, and the CPU was only at 70% and I was only using about 3 GB RAM (assuming I'm reading the displays correctly).   I'm not an expert on these things, but I can't imagine this PC lacks the balls to do this.   I was thinking it must be a software error.   I'd installed Vegas on the SSD, which only has a few GB of memory remaining, and so I thought I'd try uninstalling and re-installing on one of the hard drives.  I did this, but it doesn't seem to made any difference. 

I tried downloading the trial version of Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 12, but it crashed immediately on startup due to 'an argument being out of legal range'.   I was in the process of composing this message and screaming WTF, and then decided to try downloading the trial version of Vegas Pro 12.  I tried that and everything seems to be working well.  I made a bunch of camera selections and pre-rendered the first 7 minutes and it turned out fine.  CPU at 75% and 4 GM of memory used.   Vegas Pro is obviously more expensive than Movie Studio . . . is it really that much more stable than Movie Studio?   Maybe I can finish this project before the trial expires, heh heh.   But seriously, I was getting pretty worked up before I tried Vegas Pro.   Should it really be the difference between crashing and not crashing?

[taperdave]

multi cam hd editing - I failed many times to get enough horsepower, here is what finally works smoothly for me

gigabyte ga99fxaud5 motherboard, AMD 8320 8 core processor, 32gb DDR3 corair vengeance pc3  12800 ram, OCZ vertex 4 128gig ssd hard drive (fastest model available) for programs only (win 7 64 pro, vegas pro 12, wavelab 7), crucial M4 SSD 500GB working drive - regular hard drives are not fast enough, but this is not nearly as fast as the boot drive and doesn't need to be, 2TB WD black storage drive for back ups, not used in mastering, capture or renders), GTX560ti graphics card (anything CUDA enabled will kill anything that is not), coolermaster 1000w power supply with the right amount of current on the proper rails for the video card, most actually are below spec and cause instability in rendering even though in gaming they are plenty stable out of spec, M-audio Delta 66 audio card.

Most guys at the local and even major chain video stores know exactly jack shit about what it takes to build a media workstation, and will sell you whatever they get a nice commision on, sadly.
If you want a project you will always look back at fondly without regrets at all the "almost good enoughs" involved, you may have some upgrading to do.

Your boot SSD drive should be at least half empty after all programs and OS are installed with updates, or at least have three times as much space as three times the full file sizes of all files in the project you are working on combined.

I managed to completely upgrade basically everything but the audio card twice in my three year quest to have a smooth mastering machine, I am finally satisfied, but it was a long road.
Dave

If you have specific questions, ask away.

[PhxHorn]

Thanks for the info. I had a strong suspicion it was a software issue rather than with the PC, and I heard back from a friend who has experience with Vegas.   He said there was an issue with VMS not getting access from Windows to sufficient memory, and there was a Youtube video with instructions on how to fix it.   Sure enough, with some googling I found this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXxLQbfs1hQ

I haven't tried it yet, since Vegas Pro seems to be working fine so far (fingers crossed).

[PhxHorn]

Well, Vegas Pro is crapping out on me now. Playback and multicam editing are fine, but when I try to render more than ten minutes worth, it crashes.  I've tried a variety of settings and different file formats, as well as with and without accelerated GPU processing.  CPU usage never goes above 75% and I'm using only 4.5 GB RAM out of 16, so the PC is not red-lining. 

I've got a buddy at Adobe, and I'm leaning towards buying Premiere.  The project consists of about 50 video clips scattered over 5 camera angle tracks.  I hate to have to re-sync, but maybe I can at least convince Vegas to render each of the five camera angle tracks to an intermediate file and then drop them into Premiere.  If that doesn't fly, I guess I could write down the start time for each of the 50 video clips, and then I'll know where to put them.  Any advice in this department would be much appreciated. 

[Chrisedge]

I am using Vegas 10 Pro and a I7 with 4gb of ram and I have no issues with multi angle stuff. Something is up with your setup or software. How big is your preview window?

[PhxHorn]

480x270x32, 29.97p

[beatkilla]

Does it crash as soon as you try to render or does it make some progress and crash at the same point?What format are you trying to render to?

[taperdave]

Enough free fast hard drive space? What is the total size of the 50 clips you are working with and do you have three times this amount of free space on your SSD drive?
64 bit OS? with latest updates?
Latest vegas pro 12 update?  (legit copy?)
All other programs not running except perhaps virus protection?  reboot before opening vegas pro
Are all 50 of your clips on seperate rows in the timeline or are you putting multiple clips on one row?

Dave

[PhxHorn]

Enough free fast hard drive space? What is the total size of the 50 clips you are working with and do you have three times this amount of free space on your SSD drive?
64 bit OS? with latest updates?
Latest vegas pro 12 update?  (legit copy?)
All other programs not running except perhaps virus protection?  reboot before opening vegas pro
Are all 50 of your clips on seperate rows in the timeline or are you putting multiple clips on one row?

Dave

I didn't have more than a few GB of space on the SSD, so I installed Vegas on a SATA drive.  That's where the data is, too.  Come to think of it, I was making the mistake of burning to the same drive where the data files are located.  However, I tried rendering to a different drive and it still crashed.  I tried rendering with CPU only, GPU only, and on automatic.  I was burning to either mpeg2 or mp4, and neither worked.  Each time it made it to about 50% of the way through a 14-minute segment (three songs) before locking up.   Though the GPU-only  render was taking longer to get there than the other settings.  That setting generated an actual error message from the Nvidia card.     

Files total about 50 GB.  Windows 7 , 64 bit, up to date.  Vegas 12 pro is the trial version, downloaded yesterday.  I did not check for updates.   As for the clips, there are five different rows.  Some rows have two or three long clips, some have a dozen shorter clips with big gaps in between.   At times I have footage from all five cameras, and at other times I have footage from only one or two sources. 

The clips are mostly 1080p, 60 f/s in m2ts format, but there are some 1080 Youtube mp4's (30f/s) mixed in there and one row of 720 (30 f/s).  The audio is 96k/24-bit.  The Youtube sources are due to the fact that some people sent me their original files, and others declined but said feel free to download the Youtube stuff, some of which is excellent even with the Youtube compression.  The project is 123 minutes long.  The PC was designed (quoting the tech at the store who put it together) to have the power so I wouldn't have to render to intermediate file formats.  But if you think I should render each row to an intermediate file, if you could recommend settings I'd appreciate it.   

[taperdave]

OK you can source and render to the same hard drive as long as it is big and fast, I would say that despite what others might say if you are working with 60fps HD files even if the project totals only 50 gigs, you need a working space drive for the files of at least a 256gig SSD.
Make sure you grab any updates for Vegas, seems trivial but important.
Also many programs will automatically store thier temporary working files on the same drive as the program install, so go through the preferences tab and make sure that all the saves and all the temp files are being routed to a drive with shitloads of space. If you have 3gigs left on your SSD and are getting a render fail it may be failing when the SSD is full of the partially rendered temp file before it even makes it to your work drive.
Ok 5 rows should be fine, my current project is 9 sources (each in a row), of 1080i HD video and 24/96 audio. I have heard of projects with a bunch of rows doing wonky stuff.
rendering each line wont help, and lowers your output quality potentially

Good test for first project and new build:
You want to lower the amount of resources you need, shorten your project be splitting it into smaller pieces f the timeline so - click on a spot in your time line maybe 1/4 of the way in or at a scene edit perhaps, then edit>select>all>edit>split>save as  now call the new project thebigprojectpt1 or whatever works for you and then delete everything after the split. Now keep your original project file with no work done other thatn aligning the clips as well.  Do your rendering on the new "pt1" file and see if you get a new rendered file or another fail.

What are you going to do with your final file?
DVD, blu-Ray, youtube?
123 mins sounds like a concert (my projects are as well), and if you set up things right in project settings and by making the right choices in rendering, the computer can do less processing.  Since your source files are different types, you can allow Vegas to adjust the files to the project specs as you import them (not add them to the timeline). This makes each import take longer, but reduces the back end processing time alot, of course you would have to start the whole project over and fix your settings at the start.

Also just a guess but if you added the 60fps file first and make that the default setting for the project or render to any 60fps format you are going to bloat all your sources to that format and make the size bigger than the quality merits, so unless the 60fps footage is super badass ninja dope, I suggest making all your settings match either your 1080 or 720 youtube footage.

hope some of this helps, doing a full length 1080 multicam concert vid is a mother the first time
additional questions, etc gladly accepted, I have learned a bunch of stuff on this forum and am happy to share my own meager knowledge
Dave

Don't get discouraged, I just checked and my first project took me more than a year with only 2 video sources and 1 audio source
http://youtu.be/4sXIzGboHYk

[guitard]

I've done a couple of HD multi-cams on my three year old average-specs-off-the-store-shelf laptop using Vegas 12 Pro.  I have to use proxy files for the editing, but I am still able to render the blu-ray file - but it takes around 20-24 hours for a two hour video.  I couldn't do this with previous versions of Vegas - so I'm surprised you're having trouble, because with v12 it seems to me that Sony did something to greatly improve Vegas' rendering ability.

[PhxHorn]

OK you can source and render to the same hard drive as long as it is big and fast, I would say that despite what others might say if you are working with 60fps HD files even if the project totals only 50 gigs, you need a working space drive for the files of at least a 256gig SSD.
Make sure you grab any updates for Vegas, seems trivial but important.
Also many programs will automatically store thier temporary working files on the same drive as the program install, so go through the preferences tab and make sure that all the saves and all the temp files are being routed to a drive with shitloads of space. If you have 3gigs left on your SSD and are getting a render fail it may be failing when the SSD is full of the partially rendered temp file before it even makes it to your work drive.
Ok 5 rows should be fine, my current project is 9 sources (each in a row), of 1080i HD video and 24/96 audio. I have heard of projects with a bunch of rows doing wonky stuff.
rendering each line wont help, and lowers your output quality potentially

Good test for first project and new build:
You want to lower the amount of resources you need, shorten your project be splitting it into smaller pieces f the timeline so - click on a spot in your time line maybe 1/4 of the way in or at a scene edit perhaps, then edit>select>all>edit>split>save as  now call the new project thebigprojectpt1 or whatever works for you and then delete everything after the split. Now keep your original project file with no work done other thatn aligning the clips as well.  Do your rendering on the new "pt1" file and see if you get a new rendered file or another fail.

What are you going to do with your final file?
DVD, blu-Ray, youtube?
123 mins sounds like a concert (my projects are as well), and if you set up things right in project settings and by making the right choices in rendering, the computer can do less processing.  Since your source files are different types, you can allow Vegas to adjust the files to the project specs as you import them (not add them to the timeline). This makes each import take longer, but reduces the back end processing time alot, of course you would have to start the whole project over and fix your settings at the start.

Also just a guess but if you added the 60fps file first and make that the default setting for the project or render to any 60fps format you are going to bloat all your sources to that format and make the size bigger than the quality merits, so unless the 60fps footage is super badass ninja dope, I suggest making all your settings match either your 1080 or 720 youtube footage.

hope some of this helps, doing a full length 1080 multicam concert vid is a mother the first time
additional questions, etc gladly accepted, I have learned a bunch of stuff on this forum and am happy to share my own meager knowledge
Dave

Don't get discouraged, I just checked and my first project took me more than a year with only 2 video sources and 1 audio source
http://youtu.be/4sXIzGboHYk

Dave,

Before all these failed rendering attempts, I installed the trial version of Vegas Pro 12 to one of two SATA hard drives I have, 1.5 TB each, and that's the same one where the files are located.  So I don't think Vegas should be taxing the SSD boot drive much, right?    Both the 1.5 TB drives have plenty of space on them, over a TB.   One thing I just noticed under 'properties' is that the capacity of the SSD says only 60 GB, while I paid for a 120GB SSD.  58 GB are used, with 2 GB free space.  Did they rip me off, or does the OS portion somehow not show up?

I noticed that Vegas 12 Pro (Trial version) puts a logo 'bug' on the bottom of the screen while rendering, and so I can't really use any of the rendered footage from this program.  I'll have to either buy it for $600 or go back to the Movie Studio version, which was crashing during camera editing.   I'm not sure if I want to buy it when it keeps crashing.   I've been rendering to 720x480, 29.97 f/s for a standard NTSC DVD.  I don't know that the footage would hold up for Blu-Ray, since there are some smaller formats with lower resolution mixed in there.  Plus one of the two complete 1080 sources was filming from across the floor and had his zoom maxed out, and it's not that crisp. 

Yes, it is a concert video, Van Halen from Phoenix, AZ of June 16, 2012.  It has never been circulated, other than in audio.   Between the audio I recorded at the show and the multiple camera angles I've acquired over that last few months, it has the makings of a great DVD.  I hope to upload to Dime and/or Traders Den.   I was able to render a couple of individual songs months ago, and here is one of them.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpExLLXjY54

Since my SSD is mostly full, are you saying I should get another SSD and install the Vegas application there as well as the source files, and then burn to one of the hard drives?  Or do you think the two hard drives are enough, since they have so much space available?

[Edit] the guy at the PC store says the SSD capacity should be showing much higher, and so they may have given us a smaller one than specified.  He'd been thinking that it would only be used for the OS, not that it's an excuse for shorting us 60 GB.  If I have a bigger one installed, do you recommend a much larger one (like the 256GB you'd mentioned) that can accommodate the applications and video data as well?  Or do you recommend they make good on the first SSD and then I have a second one installed to use exclusively for video editing?

I also tried deleting all but one line of video in the project, and then just rendering that line.  It got 43% of the way through before Vegas locked up.  This line was the 720 Youtube footage, with several fragments of video.  He only filmed about 40% of the show.  There would be a tune, then ten minutes missing, and then another tune, etc.

[taperdave]

If all things were free and money was no object, I would get the original 128g ssd drive and put ONLY my OS and video/audio programs on it.
I would get a 256 gig and use it for the files in the project as well as setting it to hold my temp files, save files, project (.veg) files and rendered files.
Use the standard spinnign disc hard drives for all your other programs and data as well as a folder with exact copies of all the files you will use in the project (just in case).
You NEED a bigger drive for Win7 64 bit than the original file sizes because it builds a few folders full of support files including one that gets much bigger every time you add a program. It makes and keeps a seperate set of drivers for every situation on your computer so this folder gets to be @13 gigs over the course of two years (in my case), it sucks but Win 7 loves to eat hard drive space.

I still believe the render is failing because over the course of rendering it builds a live model internally with all the footage (@4.7 gigs which is bloated by about 3x during processing, before final rendering) so if the drive with the TEMP files (default is your C drive where the program is installed) only has 2 gigs left it can't do it's magic, it needs 15 gigs or so. Perhaps if yoru temp files were on the slower drive it would work (change in preferences tab), it's worth a try before grabbing another SSD.

P.S. project sounds baddass, wish those guys could get along well enough to get to my town and take my money to see a show. Saw Dave solo a few tours and taped him with sammy on the sam and dave tour, big fun.
Dave

[guitard]

The clips are mostly 1080p, 60 f/s in m2ts format, but there are some 1080 Youtube mp4's

I hope to upload to Dime and/or Traders Den.

With few exceptions (a 30 second snippet to cover up an SD card or battery change, for example), neither Dime nor TTD allow DVDs with Youtube content.

[PhxHorn]

The clips are mostly 1080p, 60 f/s in m2ts format, but there are some 1080 Youtube mp4's

I hope to upload to Dime and/or Traders Den.

With few exceptions (a 30 second snippet to cover up an SD card or battery change, for example), neither Dime nor TTD allow DVDs with Youtube content.

I'm aware of this policy and have already communicated with the Dime mods about it and exactly how much Youtube content they will allow.  I have enough 'legit' content that I could do most of the DVD with that alone, but some of the Youtube content is superb and will really enhance areas where the legit content has obstructed views or is missing.  The newer tunes had very limited coverage, while the oldies had plenty of footage.  We discussed how much Youtube content I can use (less than several dozens of minutes in a two hour project), and I will make sure the project meets their specs. 

[beatkilla]

To narrow down whether or not your Vegas has a render bug which is a well known problem in many versions thats why i have stuck with 9.0e as i had the same problem and bogus low memory errors in other versions,i would suggest to open a NEW project with the same project properties as what you have now(1920 x 1080?) and add a generated media file from within Vegas to a video track(control + shift click Drag out media to be over 2 hours in length)Now try to render and see if it crashes or completes.If it crashes than try to get a different build of Vegas(9.0e 64bit) from here----->

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/updates/vegasfamily

[PhxHorn]

Dave,

Since Vegas Pro's Trial version was putting that logo bug on my video, I went back to Vegas Movie Studio 10.  I installed on D drive, one of the SATA drives.  C is the SSD.  Well, Vegas was still storing the temp files on C drive, which I fixed.  Then I turned off Data Access Protection (control panel, advanced system, performance) for Vegas.  I rendered a 15-minute segment and it was fine.  I am now 40 minutes into a 60-minute segment render and so far so good.  I think you hit the nail on the head.  The 8 CPU's are at 60% only.   Hopefully this will fix it.  I'll have them install a bigger SSD for C drive.   I really appreciate the help, and will holler if anything else comes up.

[taperdave]

I hope it succeeds for your, the temp file location is my prime suspect.  Make sure your local boxbuilder makes things right on the hard drive size.


Hey beatkilla - the generated media test idea, does it still genreate a temp file during rendering or is it kind of rendering emptiness (no content) out of thin air as a test?  That would be superhandy for testing and really would be a sperate test for HD problems vs software problems if it doesn't use a huge tmep file.

Learning something every day makes me feel better somehow.
Dave

[guitard]

The clips are mostly 1080p, 60 f/s in m2ts format, but there are some 1080 Youtube mp4's

I hope to upload to Dime and/or Traders Den.

With few exceptions (a 30 second snippet to cover up an SD card or battery change, for example), neither Dime nor TTD allow DVDs with Youtube content.

I'm aware of this policy and have already communicated with the Dime mods about it and exactly how much Youtube content they will allow.  I have enough 'legit' content that I could do most of the DVD with that alone, but some of the Youtube content is superb and will really enhance areas where the legit content has obstructed views or is missing.  The newer tunes had very limited coverage, while the oldies had plenty of footage.  We discussed how much Youtube content I can use (less than several dozens of minutes in a two hour project), and I will make sure the project meets their specs.

That's good to know - and it's a huge change from a few years ago.

[shoestringconcerts]

if your operating system is installed on your SSD Vegas pro may be creating some temp files on there and running out of room.   open up some space on your SSD and see if thats fixes the issue.  i didnt read all the feedback but did see where you said you installed vegas on one of your sata drives, that doesnt mean that is where it is creating the temp files.

that all said im no expert on this stuff

I used a lenovo thinkpad laptop i7-2670 with 4 gig memeory and it runs SVP11 just fine with some minor issues.  I have done 5 cam 1080p60 2 hour full mixes with no problem.

[PhxHorn]

I finally got it finished.  Thanks so much to everyone who helped with the technical issues!


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