Rendering of MPG for DVDA slows down to a crawl

ingvarai wrote on 12/17/2011, 3:27 PM

I am rendering, or trying to render an ASF file to MPG for DVD Architect PAL Widescreen. The source is about 50 minutes long.
I have a very powerful computer with two xeon processors, which gives me 24 cores.

It all starts fine, almost like a rocket. The first minutes of the source is rendered lightning fast, several minute real time video is rendered within a few seconds. CPU Usage show that all 24 cores are busy working, and I get almost 50% CPU Usage.
approximate time left gives me a whopping 8 minutes left, WOW!!

Well, soon things start to change, after half a minute, render speed is down to a crawl. CPU Usage is between 1% and 3%, and the estimated time left is increased all the time, approaching more than one hour.

Is there a way I can make Vegas 11 it continue with the speed it starts rendering with? After all, I spent all the money on this computer to get render times down, and not to watch CPU Usage float around 3%..

Comments

MPM wrote on 12/17/2011, 5:39 PM

Don't know what's happening with your rig, but I experienced something similar with the 1st public build of Vegas Pro 11 with the ATI drivers that were current at the time. Turning GPU accel off in Vegas took care of it. Since then I've tried several versions of the ATI drivers with somewhat different results each time -- I've got 2 more to try with the new Vegas build this weekend. FWIW GPU-Z showed the GPU activity continuing as well after the crash/stall. If you want to get a better picture of what's happening you might also take a look at Process Explorer.

ingvarai wrote on 12/17/2011, 7:14 PM

I do not use GPU accel at all, never.
In this case, I use the HiDownload app to download video streams from a broadcast station, programs typically 50 minutes long. They are downloaded as VMW files, and I immediately convert them to ASF files using AVS Video Converter 6. I do this because Vegas claims that it cannot read the VMW files, but they play back fine in Windows Media Player. Ok, enough about this.

I want to burn those programs to DVDs, so I want to render out MPG files. As I said, in Vegas the rendering process starts out rapidly, but suddenly slows down to a crawl. The gauge reports an estimated render time of approx 1 hour, less than real time. Look here how task manager looks like when rendering in Vegas:

Vegas CPU Usage

I also have Adobe Production Premium CS5. When I use Adobe Media Encoder to render out my MPEG files, things get quite different! With all settings equal to the ones I use in Vegas, best quality etc, the render process does not crawl, it does not walk, it does not run - it flies like a rocket! Rendering done in 12 minutes! Here is how Task Manager looks when rendering in Adobe Media Encoder:

Vegas CPU Usage

I wish there was a way to configure Vegas to speed up things, to really take advantage of the power I have available!