There was a time when Vegas would choke with just under a hundred long GOP mpeg 2 clips. I have never felt that the problem was completely fixed. The amount of buffer space was just increased, but the problem is still ther on bigger projects, especially ones using that many raw Mpeg2 clips.

When I import a large MXF file and V12 goes into its thinking mode or everything appears to freeze I go make a pot of coffee and read email. Then it's ready to go. Patience may be a virtue but in this case it's a necessity.

It's not the amount of time, it's the number of clips. A smaller amount of larger clips works fine. When I was working with HDV exclusively, I would smartrender out tape length sections with markers defining the different clip points and this would work fine. In addition to not crashing as much, the timeline would feel a lot quicker and responsive. Where you see this is on a large project with lots of raw footage like a documentary. On small projects like my theater commercials it is not an issue.

I just did a complete system re-install, installed the latest version of Vegas 12 along with the stable NVideo drivers for my 580 and still get regular crashing while doing basic things like marking clips in the trimmer. Tried it with GPU processing on an off. Vegas just seems unable to handle large projects and with footage from the EX1 it has only become worse. Real shame but I guess I'll have to edit this project in Premiere 5.5 which seems to have no issues handling large amounts of clips. I will really miss the trimmer but Sony seems unable to make Vegas stable for long form projects.

Well, I downloaded the CS6 version of Premiere and all I can say is WOW! When it comes to media management Premiere destroys Vegas. Not a single crash yet with over 430 MXF files and everything is responsive. I will miss the trimmer and Vegas editing fluidity but with the new marker window in Premiere and the fact that it seems to be able to actually handle long form projects I can live with it. I've been waiting for years for Sony to make Vegas a better long form editor but it seems to have only gotten worse with every release.

I can't see myself buying into the cloud monopoly but Premiere CS6 should be a relevant editor at least for a while until Vegas gets it's act together or better alternatives surface.

For the types of situations in Vegas that you've described, I've been using "nested projects" as a workaround for years.

On large projects with lots of clips, I break them (a large project) up into sub-projects. Each individual sub-project (there might be many) as a .veg file.

Somewhere during the editing process (usually early on) I create a master project and bring the sub-projects into it. This does require some time, as Vegas will render each .veg file (sub-project) as it is added to the timeline of the master project.

Don't worry, this is much, much simpler, than it sounds!

It (the master project), after I've created it, does update automatically as I make any changes to the sub-projects, so that does lessen the tediousness of it all.

This "workaround" enabled me to "get through" the HDV days, and now I routinely do the same for AVCHD projects, as well as projects that use .mxf files, or .m4v, or even a mixture of differing formats.

There are other negative issues with the "the workaround" sometimes;
a) like the time and space rendering requires for each sub-project when added
to the master;
b) or differing project properties for various sub-projects.

In the end, it sure beats the hell out of crashing all the time, or the constant "thinking" episodes.

The "workaround" does require patience. Oh yes, patience!!!

I wouldn't say this "workaround" would work for everyone, but it works for me.

Maybe it would work for you, and allow you to continue using Vegas and all the editing advantages that go with it.

Good luck, whatever you end up doing!

Will

Thanks Will. The problem is that on this project I need all 440 clips accessible to me as I build a doc style promo video. Vegas just cannot handle having these clips in the project. I'm sure I'll still use it for smaller projects but Premiere has come a long way since the days of Premiere 6.5 when I used to think about throwing my computer out the window.

Too bad Adobe is screwing it's customer base now with the "rent for the rest of your life if you want to use your projects" scheme. At least the last version you can still own "CS6" seems pretty stable and full featured for now. Perhaps in the future Sony will rewrite the software and return to the days of stability Vegas used to be known for.

AMEN !!

Well said.