So John, I am asking this only because I don't think I've seen it discussed before, but I wonder... Can a person simply import, edit & render out a large, complex project using 8.1 on 64-bit; and then import the result into version 8c (32-bit) and continue to work on it? I'm not sure what more you'd need to do on it after rendering it from 8.1, but I guess the question is whether or not a media file rendered from a 64-bit application is editable in a 32-bit application?

The way I understand it, an MPEG-2 is an MPEG-2, for example... Whether it was rendered from a 16-, 32- or 64- bit system is irrelevant, as far as I know. The standard of the format mu be adhered to regardless of the operating system--just look at Mac vs PC, for example, WAV files on one system are WAV files on the other.

So back to the question--I guess maybe the *better* question might be; would it be possible to edit a project in a 32-bit system, after it has been started on a 64-bit system? And if so, then at what stage would it no longer be possible? I wouldn't think a 64-bit .veg file could be opened on a 32-bit system, for instance. But I would think you could go the other way of course...

Interesting stuff though--I've never worked in 64-bit, but have Vista 64-bit coming on Monday, and will give it a try this week with 8GB ram. I don't use any plug-ins in Vegas yet, so that isn't a serious concern at this point.

Thanks.

TB

EDIT: Almost forgot... I agree with John about sticking with XP if it's working! I have both XP and Vista 32-bit, and if the XP system is properly optimized, that OS runs extraordinarily well. In fact over on the SONAR forums, the vast majority of people are staying away from Vista in favor of XP with 4GB ram (only 3GB usable). And these guys are using 30, 40, even 50 tracks simultaneously...with plug-ins and effects. I realize that audio and video might differ somewhat, but the point is that XP is a great OS that is very stable, and runs very efficiently. So if someone is having performance issues, chances are it's a hardware-related problem--or a problem because of not having correctly optimized one's system.

Yes, .VEG and media files are freely interchangable between the 32 and 64-bit versions of Vegas. However, in the case of .VEG files, if you add a filter or plugin in a 32-bit version project which is not installed in the 64-bit version, then Vegas will complain. The media files themselves have no such limitations.

A very disappointing experience here: in spite of the 8.1 being slightly, but measurably faster than the 8.0c (in both the renders and timeline operations I've been doing so far), today I opened a project, prepared in 8.0c (because I needed the Notepad functionality) and holding a multicamera track (consisting of 3 cams video), plus 1 audio track (from one of the 3 cameras), and an additional audio track (my master audio I need to synchronize to).

Well, the timeline playback speed in Preview/Half is much lower (at some 17-20 fps) than in the same project in the 8.0c (full 25 fps).

Go figure why...

Well I finally got Vista installed, along with Vegas 8.1. I had numerous problems with the installation of the second OS onto my machine (to put it mildly...). During the install I also upgraded from 4gb to 8gb RAM, which of course will only benefit the 64-bit version of Vegas. So this comparison may not be totally fair to the 32-bit version.

First I want to say that Vegas 8.1 rocks! My AVCHD files now hold nearly a full 29.97fps in the same areas that used to drop into the single digits with XP 32-bit and 4gb (well, 3.25gb) of RAM. So that alone is worth the price of admission. I am simply not concerned about rendering AVCHD files any longer.

As for rendering speed, the same AVCHD project, about 73 minutes in length, renders to MPEG-2 using the DVD NTSC standard template in about 56 minutes with version 8.1. But with 8c on the 32-bit system, it takes 113 minutes--that's about a 100% improvement in performance, by my calculations. So there's a obviously a significant improvement in performance, but I am not sure how much is attributable to the increase in RAM. But I will say that I prefer the look of version 8c over that of version 8.1... It is probably a Vista issue that I haven't quite figured out yet, but in XP the interface is simply more pleasing to the eye--mainly due to the nice contrast of the off-color background, I think.

So there it is. Version 8.1 is definitely the better performer on my system--although I cannot say how much of the improvement is due to the version, versus a RAM increase. But to me, going to 64-bit also gets you the capability to increase your RAM, so I guess that it's part of the package.

So although this is only the first 64-bit render that I have compared to 32-bit, I think it's fair to say that if it's any indication of the performance differential with Vegas 8.1, I will certainly be using 8.1 to render all my AVCHD projects in the future.

TB

Just finished rendering the first project I edited and rendered out entirely on version 8.1. Wow, much quicker than working with 8c on XP 32-bit, and I must admit that I found the Vista interface to be pleasing to work with. It's going to take some time to get used to, but the performance is noticeably improved in all facets of working with the project.

I have to give the 64-bit version two thumbs-up, so far. Very nice SCS...very nice indeed!

TB

TB--

Well, I thought I would give Vista 64 a try as a second boot OS on my machine--

Tell me how YOU did it, because I sure couldn't get my machine to boot from the disc.
I made a second boot partition on another drive, and damned if it could find it to install.

Got any tips about such a thing? It might be that the new boot partition was not at the beginning of the drive-- I don't know.. maybe I'll try again.

Neil

Neil...I had BIG TIME issues!

What I finally had to do was to unplug every hard drive except the one I wanted to install a particular OS on. So I then reinstalled XP, for example, on its hard drive. Then I unplugged that hard drive and plugged in the Vista drive, then installed Vista. So then I had two OS installed; each on their own hard drive, and oblivious to the other. And in order the get them to boot properly, I simply enter the advanced features in the BIOS and select the hard drive I want to boot to. That's the only way I've been able to get things to work. I know that others have successfully used a Windows boot manager, but apparently I am not smart enough to get one to work on my system...lol.

A fellow in another thread told me that you can hit F12 at POST, and get a hard drive selection menu for the rest of the boot process--but in fact, this doesn't work for me. So I just simply go into the BIOS each time I need a different OS; it only takes about 4-5 seconds, really.

So if you can, I would simply install each OS on a different hard drive...totally oblivious to the existence of the other OS, as someone else suggested in another thread. You might first find out if your BIOS allows you to select hard drive boot order, so you don't have to rely on a boot manager.

TB

"My point was that lots of people made lots of assumptions. I've neither read nor heard anything from the developers claiming render times would be faster.
It would seem a bit strange to take SCS to task for not delivering something they never said they would. I guess one could argue they should have hosed down any unrealistic expectations."

They only talk about it being faster in the LATEST SCS promo newsletter and on the SCS site with this article.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/news/article.asp?articleid=60&keycode=64133#cont

A fellow in another thread told me that you can hit F12 at POST, and get a hard drive selection menu for the rest of the boot process--but in fact, this doesn't work for me.

BIOSes aren't all the same.

My HP workstation has what you describe (and much more), while my other machines don't.

The article you link to isn't written by anyone from SCS. I'm still trying to work out what "Furthermore, 64-bit computations give a definite speed advantage." means, what's doing those 64 bit calculations and what has it got to do with a 32bit V 64bit OS.
And then there's this little gem "Operation was definitely snappier, and I could open multiple instances of Vegas Pro software—", we've been able to do that with every version of Vegas!
And then there's a screenshot of a "complex" project, that looks like a pretty basic "simple" Vegas project of under 20 tracks.
If you read the footnotes you realise it's written by an audio guy whose claim to fame is he's been using Acid since V1.0.

Bob.

For Coursedesign,

Yes, I realize that all BIOSs are not the same. I didn't mean to imply that the fellow who told me to try that was wrong; but rather that it simply didn't work for me. So I just have to go all the way into the BIOS. He seemed pretty adamant that it should work though.

No problem here though--it takes about 10 seconds to enter the BIOS, make the selection and move on. No sweat...and a MUCH better option than trying to fight with a Windows boot manager, especially since I don't have to do it that often.

TB

"The article you link to isn't written by anyone from SCS."

I'm not putting an independent link out there this is from SCS's latest email blast and posted on their website. It implies faster rendering and editing on the timeline. It could be written by Joe Blow or Spot, but the fact is SCS is using it as promo material.

Bob wrote, "The article you link to isn't written by anyone from SCS"

When I started reading the article I was excited because I thought I was getting the real info from SCS about the 64-bit versions. Then I read the attribution and realized it wasn't that...quite disappointing.

I hope no one gets me wrong, I'm not having a go at SCS for using that article. It'd be slack of them not to. On the other hand it's standard marketing fare for just about anything in this game and most other things as well.
The problem is when people take it for more than it is, the bigger problem is when more is read into this kind of stuff than should be. The worst thing is when what we've assumed to be turns out not to be so. The more unrealistic the hype the more vicious the mob becomes when their unrealistic expectations aren't met.

Bob.

Just installed Windows XP x64 SP2, with 4GB RAM. These are my results for the HDV render test...

8.0c - 4:42
8.1 - 4:22

Not a lot of difference...

What might be interesting is if Vegas could take a file and break it down into segments, then work them in parallel. For example, suppose you had a one-minute video. Suppose four cores worked on the first 30 seconds while another four cores worked on the last 30 seconds, and then the results get combined at the end.

Likely problem is that you can't separate the video because various effects have calculations in the beginning in segment two that depend on calculations from the end of segment one.

Another interesting idea: suppose you are doing a two-pass encode. Have the first four cores doing pass one and feeding the restuls into the second set of four cores. It means that core set 2 is actually doing the beginning of the second pass while core set one is finishing the end of the first pass.

Back to the original topic:

I'm just rendering a heavy project in the 8.1, and - watching how it advances - already know it will take longer than my previous renders in the 8.0c. I took a look into processes in Task Manager - and while the Vegas 8.1 process uses up to 90% of my Quad resources, the "Sony File Interface Surrogate" consumes the rest!

When rendered in the 8.0c, the same project consistently used up to 100% for the Vegas process itself...

Vegas 8.1 is a 64 bit program, but it presently doesn't have any built-in 64 bit codecs. The Sony File Interface Surrogate, allows Vegas 8.1 to access 32 bit codecs, hence, unless you download some 64 bit freeware codecs, you are always going to see that exe file utilize some of the CPU resources.

Hate to bump an old topic, but does anyone else have any input on this subject? I am about to do the exact same thing--double my RAM to 8GB from 4GB and upgrade from Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 beta 64-bit (which apparently is fantastic), and I'm simply curious as to whether or not it's worth the trouble before I take delivery of the ridiculously expensive 8GB of laptop memory I just ordered.

Thanks!

Steve

@ othersteve
I hope that you'll be dual booting and not using Win7 as your primary OS.

Anyway-
Here's a link to a video I made showing the differences in rendering speeds going from native 32bit under XP Pro, 32bit emulation under Vista Ultimate 64 and native 64bit using Sony Vegas Pro 8.0c and 8.1

Regarding the "number of threads and cores" issue:

As reported on the rendertest thread [http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=526098&Replies=323], for Mac Pro (8 core) > BootCamp > XP-Pro(32) > Vegas 8.0c > RenderTest-HDV, best results were for max threads = 7, much better than when max threads=8 (in each case set via Internal Preferences). Maybe the 8th (free) one served as "housekeeper"? Sure, the best number might depend on the project.

So there's yet another way in which tests can vary.