Lars,

I can understand your frustration but your long backlog of issues with Vegas makes me wonder what is wrong with your setup or workflow. I do know VP has issues but even on old and cheap hardware I can work with it in an savvy amateur context with some specific task to avoid going into trouble.

I can't guess what is the root cause of all these problems but I would not be surprised to learn it is because of OS stability or defective hardware.

If I was in your situation I would install it on a new and clean system just installed from scratch.

If it doesn't change anything, only SCS support can help you.

John, John...

"An error occured while creating the media file xxxxx.mpg
The reason for the error could not be determined - OK."

If Cubase5, various Adobe apps, Avid, etc etc etc everything works without any problems at all.

=============================
What possible causes can you come up with dear John, that has to do with my PC not being able to specifically run Sony Vegas Pro? What can be wrong with a computer that runs EVERYTHING real well but only Vegas does silly things.... What can possibly be the casue of this...?
=============================

You may do SCS a disservice by pretending things are OK when they are not.

Well, I exported to uncompr AVI in sections/sequemces (which worked fine), then I'll simply continue in another app, redoing texts etc.

Why do you reply John if your intention is not to discuss a possible solution? Feel free to resist the temptation to reply if you haven't got anything nice or useful to say.

Reason why I post is that I'm a customer and I'm using this forum to see if I can get solutions. I have purchased a product. I also believe it's good for SCS to read compaints etc.

Yes, I've bugreported many many times but that hasn't helped...


Best
Lars

Yes, I have tried fresh installs etc. Yes have seen others who have had Vegas on HP Z800 machines. i7 based machines etc. I'm not going to try anymore fresh installs now.

- Unreliable rendering *IS* a Vegas problem.
- Poor unreliable preview performance *IS* a Vegas problem.


(Regarding the design/structure issues of Vegas, poor charactergenerator/text plugin, audio sync stuf etc etc these are not related to performance or installation problems etc. )

LarsHD said:
"Why do you reply John if your intention is not to discuss a possible solution?"

Well, Lars, eventhough I feel John is somethimes a bit of a fanboy, this time I think he is actually discussing a possible solution, but one you seem to ignore.
I have been reading your various posts over the last few months and I think John's request for you to try Vegas on a different machine is one you should seriously consider. There are many apps that can add codecs to your system which may be in-compatible with Vegas and could be giving you all kinds of problems. By moving the software to a different machine you may be able to isolate them.

For all the times you say that the program does not work for you and many other apps run smoothly, I can tell you I get frequent crashes in CS4 AE, and lately very few if any in Vegas...

I think if you have all these problems and really want/need Vegas to perform, try a different machine.

Ted

"What possible causes can you come up with dear John, that has to do with my PC not being able to specifically run Sony Vegas Pro?"

Like I said, it could be a conflict between Vegas and one of the many "other professional apps" and services that you have installed on that specific machine.

"What can be wrong with a computer that runs EVERYTHING real well but only Vegas does silly things?"

I don't know. Why is it that Vegas runs perfectly well on thousands of machines EXCEPT YOURS? If every machine acted just like yours then I'd say it was a bug in Vegas.

"Why do you reply John if your intention is not to discuss a possible solution?"

I HAVE offered a possible solution but you are too stubborn to take the advice. ANSWER THIS ONE QUESTION: Have you installed Vegas on another machine to confirm that it is NOT your machine that is causing the problems? Seriously, that's Troubleshooting 101.

I have in the past run into situations where a seemingly rock solid machine kept crashing on a single software (not Video editing systems)

Most of the time it has either been: DLL conflict, Software A uses a slightly different version of a DLL than Software B does, but they are named the same. And because of the nature of Windows, where shared DLL's are all dropped in the System32, this often results in unexplained crashes.

Other times, I've found that my RAM was defective. Get an Ubuntu or Knoppix Install CD and run the MEM check from their CD boot menu (nothing is installed on the PC), and leave it over night.

Another potential (and observed) problem in windows is a botched install of .net. Sadly .net is a beast of a system, and I've found that once it's *bleeped* up, it's rarely fixable by an uninstall and reinstall. I've even had it fail on an update, and I just never could get the damned thing to install on that machine ever again, till I wiped the HDD entirely, and started from scratch. And Vegas runs on .net.

Overall I've found Vegas to be a fair bit more reliable on Win 7-64bit. There are some downsides to this, such as some third party plug-ins that are unavailable. But try it.

If I was having as much trouble as you, and had to run vegas but other aps runnin fine on my main edit system with avid or edius or whatever you are diggin.. I'd fork out 5 or 6 hundred bucs and buy a cheap brand new clean cheapo computer or borrow my wifes or sons or neighbors and load vegas on that and finish my vegas pia projects..
just a thought

Have you tried reducing your Preview RAM to 32MB or 0MB before rendering?

Bob.

Here's a suggestion. If you are using Windows 7, and you have the older Vista that you upgraded from, empty a second physical drive or buy another one for about fifty bucks, then set the BIOS to boot from it first, and install Vista in it, choosing during its setup to delete the partition it has (if any). Then install all the drivers for your machine, let Windows download all the updates it needs, install an antivirus just in case, and then Vegas. That's the easiest way to see if you have a hardware problem or not. If not then it might be a conflict with codecs or something like that. However, if it works, then you have a clean system where Vegas will work for those times when you need to use it.

Thgis project has 47 tracks. Lots of text, lots of audio etc. Lots of pan/crop 3D motion tracks etc. Vegas is impressive when it comes to generating lots of tracks...

I tried to render this project while *muting* all tracks containing text (pro type titler but also the simple primitive text tool). Most of the text events contains blur-plugins, some glow, motion 2D 3D etc.)

When all text tracks were muted then it rendered without without generating the error message.

So perhaps just a "combination" of events that Vegas didn't like?

I'm in the process of redoing this outside Vegas now. I rendered the footage and audio etc. out of Vegas and then I'll redo text /text-FX under safer conditions.

Any ideas how best to move an entire project from Vegas and into Avid or PP etc? I understand individual plugins are impossible to repro outside Vegas but all the clips incl dissolve time data etc.

How about saving the project to an EDL Text file?

If I understand it right, they are very simple and any self respecting editor suite should be able to use them.

Of course you'll need to render out your generated media one event at a time.

"Why do you reply John if your intention is not to discuss a possible solution? "

Maybe I've missed something but in your first post I do not see a question or a request for a solution of any kind at all. I simply chalk this up to yet another one of your whine/moan threads. For some reason you feel the need to let us all know REPEATEDLY just exactly how bad you believe Vegas is. This is just another one of those 'waste of space' posts

Got a question? Then ask it without all the high school drama attached to it and maybe you'll gain a bit more respect. You could in fact handle the whole thing like this:

" I need to move a Vegas project over to [what ever NLE] how do I do this?"

But no... your priority here is clearly little more than to attack and belittle the program... and in a sense.... those who use it. So don't sit there and pretend otherwise by asking people why they're posting if there is no interest in aiding in a solution. That's just pathetic.

ADDED:
And BTW.... I'm still not at all convinced this is actually a Vegas issue. It's clear (to me anyway) that you're not fully aware of the editing world (You didn't even know the difference between h.264 in a mov container, and a AVCHD file) so this *may* simply be operator error.

AND...

John DID give you a solution to try (use Vegas on another machine) which you seem to ignore. Well... you can lead a horse to water, but.....

Well spotted Rob: No question was asked.

If anybody has done any T.A. (Transactional Analysis] it is the very first response that can be offered: "What is it you want from me?" - Meaning, "What is your question?"

Once that original transaction has been "crossed" or skewed, then we all get on board the "Drama Triangle" and round and round we go.

Option - Either ask a question, or ignore and move on.

Simples!

Grazie

Lars,

I have just a quick minute here but what has saved me in the past when a render fails on a complex project is to use the "network render" option. Just tell Vegas you want to network render but only click "OK" as opposed to pointing to other networked computers. Something about this process solves the memory problem in critical situations similar to what you are describing.

Erik

"So perhaps just a "combination" of events that Vegas didn't like?"

That does seem to be what others have found. You could try unmuting one track at a time to narrow it down.

"Any ideas how best to move an entire project from Vegas and into Avid or PP etc? "

Try :
File>Save As> AAF.
Tools>Scripting>Export XML.

You could try Tools>Scripting>Export EDL but I've not had much real luck with it.


Bob.

You're aboslutely right. I should get a new machine for Vegas.

The machine I have now runs fine for apps like PPro, Avid, Cubase etc. But not Vegas.

I understand though from your advice that my PC just isn't good for Vegas.

So please list the EXACT specs that I need to run Vegas trouble free and I will get hold of such a machine later this week and run Vegas on it. I've talked to my PC supplier / store and they say OK.

CPU = ?
Video card = ?
Hard drive config = ?
Mobo = ?
Windows 7 64 bit?
No other apps at all on the machine except Vegas right?
Latest version of QuickTime is ok?

===================================
Please list EXACTLY what works 100% with Vegas and I will definitely try that.

My PC supplier / store is a very friendly place and they have promised me to set up the exact combination of components you recommend for a test like this.

This is your opportunity to prove you are right.

If you succeed it will prove this forum is different from the naive iPhone Apple fans applauding Steve Jobs just because he mentions the iPhone may be multitasking soon...
===================================

This will take me a day or so there but when I see that you are correct it will be well worth the time. And if you are correct I will the first to say so and thank you.

If you are wrong, please feel free to elaborate on new explanations.

Oh, also please list what formats I should avoid / use etc. is MXF 1920x1080 35 Mbps / 50 Mbps ok to use for editing? Etc.

And is it possible for me at all to use 5D2 footage transcoded to MXF for instance? Please tell me excatly how to handle everything from A-Z so that I don't do anything tha will upset Vegas and disturb the test results.

So, just tell me EXACLY what works in order to avoid render-problems with MOV / MXF.

Please tell me exactly what works in order to get rid of colored clips showing nothingsness and requiring me to re-launch Vegas and start from scratch adding fewer clips...

Please list exactly what works in order to avoice Vegas crashing when dropping more than a few 5D2 MOV files on the timeline and often requieringTask Manager to quit...

Please tell me EXACTLY what works in order to avoid seeing skipped frames and stuttering in the preview despite good hard disk streaming.

Please tell me EXACTLY what setup I need in order to not lose audiosync in big projects with some clips.

Please tell me EXACTLY what setup I need in order for the "Pro Type Titler" should work fast and like a normal text generator.

Please tell me EXACTLY what equipment I need to avoid video preview looking good for a minute, then when playing the same segment again it sort of "sticks" or stutters...

Please tell me EXACTLY what setup will avoid scenarious like in the middle of a rendering Vegas says it stops becasue of an unknown error etc.


Etc. I think you understand.


Thanks in advance for your kind advice and looking forward to your hardware and software recommendations.

Maybe your kind help here will restablish my faith in this apparently flawless piece of software.

Can't wait to read your replies.

Lars

Lars - here's a plan. Go buy a cheap external 2.5 and cosolidate your project on it. Mail it to me and I'll try rendering it. Then we'll send it to everyone else who is interested in helping you and see who's machine rolls over. Should provide definitive proof of a consistent problem. I'm happy to invest a couple of hours!

If I were having this much problems with a professional product like this, I would probably look at a one time payment to Sony for their technical support. It seems from the pricing that they are very reasonable, (29.95 for a single incident). You've probably spent that much or more of your time on this board trying to find a fix. My hourly rate is much higher than that price, so to me it's a bargain. I've had to pay much more for incident support in the software industry (i.e. MS, and other professional business applications), so to me, rather than assume that the folks on this free board are going to be able to diagnose the problem for you without the code, I would take it to Sony. Since you are experiencing problems that others aren't, it really points to something fundamental in your particular situation. By using the Sony engineers, you are likely to not only find the root cause, but perhaps help all us if it truly is Sony's problem, as they then could engineer out a fix. I worked for a software company that produced professional software and offered this kind of service. You would be amazed at what we would find when people like you sent us "dumps" of their crashes. Sometimes, yes, it was our fault, and usually we produced fixes within days, if not weeks. Sometimes the dump pointed to some other piece of software, and we would contact the vendor and point out how they might fix their package. Do us all a favor, pay Sony a small fee, and stop complaining to the wrong group. We don't know the underlying code of Vegas.They do. Let us know what they find out for you.

lars, i'm sorry to say you're being a complete a'hole.

for goodness sake, just TRY what everyone's been telling you - TRY loading vegas on another pc. it's not exactly rocket science to see that there's something seriously amiss with your current setup. now, whether it be a corrupt vegas installation, or incompatibility with one of your other applications, no one can tel.

however, coming here and posting long tirades about how 'bad' vegas is does nothing for us who use it effectively everyday, day in, day out, and make a living from it. all you're doing is evoking our pity and contempt.

what i really don't understand is you're supposedly a very creative professional, but you don't seem to displaying any professionalism here, and especially not to a number of members who, (though prickly at times), have attempted to answer your various 'questions' in a very thoughtful and professional manner.

if you're not going to bother following the good advice given to you, please don't both wasting any more bandwidth by posting here.

When all text tracks were muted then it rendered without without generating the error message.

If this is the case, then you are well on your way to either finishing the project or isolating the issue (Which you can then send to Vegas tech support.)
Now turn on the text tracks and try rendering just those sections and see if that works, If so, you can then finish the project by editing your muted render to the your text sections. Adding each text section as a nested project, might help as well.

Yes, this is the another outcome from a crossed transaction - Uproar.

Once we step on the "Drama Triangle" we travel to each point. Often we zoom around it at very high speed.

Grazie

"Often we zoom around it at very high speed."

Grazie, we don't communicate much w/ each other. But God, I love your humor!