Building Peaks - A Revelation ( For me )

Stringer wrote on 5/17/2016, 8:43 PM

I'm sure some of you old pros ( young one's too ) may already know this, but I just discovered it after working with Vegas for over 10 years..

I'm just a hobbyist, working mainly with home videos, and lately I have been helping a friend by transcribing his VHS collection to DVD.

I have a pretty robust system; Vegas Pro v12, 5960X, R9 290X, etc..

I am capturing these tapes with the Sony Video Capture app, and they are typically 1.5 to 2.5 hours long..

Whenever I drop the clips on the time line, the " Building Peaks " launches, and as you know it is not very fast. It can take 2 or three minutes, which is no big deal in the grand scheme of things, but is annoying when one is used to most things happening pretty fast on your PC.

Well, to get to the point; I discovered by accident, if I am rendering a clip in one instance of Vegas, open another instance, and drop a clip on the timeline, the Building Peaks completes in a few seconds..

I was wondering if everyone else besides me was aware of this, and have any idea about why it works this way?

Comments

xberk wrote on 5/17/2016, 9:23 PM

Hmmmmm ... that does seem to work ... never noticed it .. don't know why it would make a difference but I started a render -- opened a second instance of Vegas -- dropped a large mp3 file on the timeline (which usually takes time to build peaks) .. and wham .. peaks all done.

Weird. Something new here all the time.

Stringer wrote on 5/17/2016, 9:38 PM

I just determined that rendering in the other instance doesn't seem to make a difference. Just having the second instance of Vegas opened makes it happen..

craftech wrote on 5/18/2016, 8:48 AM

The most annoying thing for me is that the peaks have to be rebuilt ALL OVER AGAIN every time you open a saved project.

Never did quite understand why this is necessary.

John

Former user wrote on 5/18/2016, 8:51 AM

I have never had it rebuild the peaks, unless I deleted them.

craftech wrote on 5/18/2016, 8:57 AM

I don't understand that Donald. When I open a saved project it always says "building peaks". With HD material that can take some time.

Unless there is some sort of "setting" I have inadvertently enabled in Vegas Pro 8?

John

Dexcon wrote on 5/18/2016, 8:57 AM

I've had the peaks rebuild happen for years - VP 11, 12 and 13. It's irregular, but the bigger the project the more likely it is to occur.

craftech wrote on 5/18/2016, 8:58 AM

OK Dexcon. so my original question is WHY?

John

Dexcon wrote on 5/18/2016, 9:01 AM

I wish I knew.

Former user wrote on 5/18/2016, 9:17 AM

That is odd. Once my peaks are built, they redraw quickly when opening that project or using the same video in another project.

videoITguy wrote on 5/18/2016, 9:57 AM

Has been discussed in the forum every year for years - many different issues in different scenarios,

Search peaks for the entire life of the forum archive

Former user wrote on 5/18/2016, 11:10 AM

These are my internal settings. Are yours different?

[url=https://www.dropbox.com/s/nz3mmnle8x5ox6x/Internal%20Prefs.jpg?dl=0]

riredale wrote on 5/18/2016, 1:03 PM

VideoIT is right--we've talked about this re-building quirk several times before over the years.

In my case (V9), the peaks never rebuild. But I've never heard before that they build faster if there's a second instance open. I'll try that.

EDIT: Okay, curiosity got the better of me. I opened an old m2t file (10.8GB, about 57 minutes) and the audio peaks showed immediately. The peaks are kept in an sfk file in the same location as the m2t file. I opened a fresh timeline, deleted the sfk file, and brought the m2t file to the timeline. V9 took about 3:15 to build the new sfk file and show the peaks.

I then opened a separate instance of V9 and repeated the above process on the first instance. Same result, about 3:15 to build the sfk file. After deleting the sfk file I then tried the same thing on the second instance of V9; same result.

Finally, I tried rendering a different m2t file to DVD spec on the first instance while building a new sfk file on the second instance. Nope, same result, about 3:15.

So at least in my situation Vegas couldn't care less about having a second instance open, whether that instance is rendering or not. Building that sfk file takes about the same time regardless.

craftech wrote on 5/18/2016, 4:04 PM

These are my internal settings. Are yours different?
--------------------------
I don't have the following entries (under "Internal", search "peak")

"Build 8-bit peak files" or
"Build peaks for visible events only"
----
Under a search for "peaks" I have

"Cache peaks on events" TRUE'

Vegas 8.0c

John

Stringer wrote on 5/18/2016, 5:43 PM

I determined that building peaks with .M2T files are about as slow as ever.
So for me, its .AVI files that get a big boost with two instances open.

PeterWright wrote on 5/19/2016, 6:39 AM

I've been using Vegas since Version 3, and whilst I've got used to accepting the wait whilst waveforms are drawn the very first time something is added to the Timeline, once that's happened I've never needed to wait again on reopening.

craftech wrote on 5/19/2016, 7:14 AM

OK,

I too have been using Vegas since version 3 and on that note, I am working almost always with .mxf files which rebuild the peaks every time I open a project. BUT, I don't think I remember the problem (or it took less time) when I was working with 4:3 .avi files.

John