Sorry to sound like a scratched record but Laurence, have you tried Quicktime 7.6.2?

I used the old version for quite a while, but then upgraded when I thought the problems were fixed. Does this old version fix the black frame issue?

I suppose now that I can be more independent with IOS5 and my iPad, I could go back to the old version even if it meant losing iPad connectivity.

Don't know if it fixes it but it's worth a shot. It has fixed various Quicktime issues, even in versions since 8 (in which 7.6.2 was agreed to be the latest working version). If it doesn't work then you can jump right back to a recent version.

Q: "Rhino, are those problematic Motion-JPEG files avi files?"

Yes, the M-JPEGs are AVIs but I have also had the same problem with other codecs. The problem seems to be more notorious with the less compressed video.

BTW the video is saved to a (8) drive RAID10, a (4) drive RAID0, and a hot-swap SATA drive and the black error can occur when using any one of them as the source drive, so I know it is not a matter of my hard drives keeping-up with uncompressed or lightly compressed HD video...

Here's the thing, I have a FRESH install of Windows 7 64, Win 7 32, and XP 32 that multi-boot from 3 separate & clean OS drives. Even if I go back to an image of this bare-bones install which does not have Internet, networking, etc. I still have the same problem with the same VEG files and same source footage... I have tried with & without Windows updates and with/without update to Vegas 10e.

When I saw that others were having the same problem over a year ago I just started double-checking my footage before sending it to my clients. I rarely render-out large files anymore or render-out overnight. Fortunately the 6-core processor speeds things up and eases my pain. I was hoping the switch to Vegas 11 and a fast GPU would eliminate my pain...

Still no resolution to this problem? This is pathetic.

I still use mostly DV on the timeline and i have it happen often. Closing the project and reopening it are all that's required to fix the problem ... until it happens again. It's probably every other day or so.

I often have several projects open at the same time and some just sit in the background for days on end. These are the ones where it seems to happen most often. It rarely happens to a project i've been more actively working on.

I'm using exclusively Cineform, and I see this problem nearly every time I'm editing, even with only one project open at a time. This is with Vegas 10.0d, 32-bit in Windows XP. No anti-virus running, very lean system. I see no such problems in 8.0c, so I guess I'm going back to that until this is straightened out.

I've had this problem in every version of Vegas i've used since 4. Version 8 wasn't immune to it.

Thanks, Chienworks, for the warning. It's certainly worth being vigilant, but I have never had this problem in 8.0c, FWIW. Makes me wonder if there's some underlying hardware or driver incompatibility with certain versions of Vegas, since there seems to be so much variability in people's experience with this bug.

I have this problem in V10e but never in V8c. It's not a problem at all with DV .avi files in 10e. For me it occurs when I start putting 3rd party .avi codecs on the timeline.

Had some time after the holidays so I looked at some VEG files that notoriously rendered to black or crashed. Previously these files were rendered on (3) different workstations which all reproduced the same problems - so it is not hardware related... For this test all I did was load the file and re-save it - no other time was spent editing the VEG file.

10.0e still crashed or rendered to black.
11 - still crashed or rendered to black.
10.0c - Worked! Multiple renders, no problems. I haven't looked at footage up-close, but I did not see any totally black frames...
10.0d - will try later...

Each is a fresh install of Vegas on an OS drive that only has Windows 7 64 & SP1 update along with the latest Blackmagic Decklink drivers.

However, editing the 10.0c timeline is slow to work with. In fact, I never started using Vegas 10 until 10.0d due to the slow timeline which was fixed in 10.0d.

I'm bumping this thread because I REALLY want Sony to fix the render-to-black bug when common 3rd party codecs (like Blackmagic) are in the mix. I am not spending 2012 reviewing outgoing footage for clips that were rendered to black.

Had Apple not messed-up FCP by introducing X I would have been gone by now. FCP & Vegas are the only two NLE's where I am fast-enough to make decent money. Switching to another NLE would make my days very long. IMO it takes about a year for me to really get good in another NLE and then I still miss aspects of Vegas...

I usually have this issue with sequenced JPEGs, especially when using Pan/Crop or messing with undersampling settings. From the time I nearly failed to deliver a timelapse-heavy project on time, I tend to render stills in a separate project & then put a ready m2t file on the original timeline.
I think this is a memory related issue and, most probably, some parts of Vegas still being 32-bits. I'm running on 16GB DDR3 from PATRIOT which works perfectly fine with After Effects.

I did my first real project using V11 521 from start to finish and V11 still randomly renders some Blackmagic Motion-JPEG (avi) clips to black. This problem was very rare in 9.0c but has gotten worse with subsequent releases. I can duplicate the problem on (3) workstations, one of which has a boot drive with only Windows 7 64, Vegas 11 and the latest Blackmagic Decklink drivers (which contain the needed 3rd party BM codec...)

On other systems, FCP and PP have no trouble working with the exact same files...

If I do not install the BM drivers, Vegas sees the M-JPEG video as "Sony MJPEG" but if I render using the Sony MJPEG codec, the quality is not as high...

I have a client that has experienced this with Vegas 9.0e. They work with video from hidden cams - usually divx or waf clips.

The typical scenario is: she will load, edit and render and it works ok. If she then reopens the veg later, it will fairly often have one or more black clips on the timeline.

Also, we were trying to use Production Assistant to batch render projects unattended at night. The first veg in the batch would render properly, but the subsequent renders from the batch would be completely black.

I'm going to retry the Production Assistant batch renders with Vegas 10e and see if that makes any difference.

I'm posting this in hopes it will offer SCS additional insight into the possible causes for this problem.

/jerry

OK, this exact issue drove me nuts for the past year. After losing countless hours due to this issue and going through dozens of threads of people suggesting or testing 100 variables, I finally stumbled across a thread with the simple answer - at least for me...

Right click the offending clip, select properties, then click disable resample. You may need to restart Vegas. Better yet, do this proactively by highlighting all clips, right click and select switches, then disable sampling. Judging by my own experience so far as well as the rave responses of everyone else on that board, this may very well be THE solution we've been looking for! :)

otspbob, thanks very much for your insights. Using your technique I have successfully batch rendered footage that has been known to cause black renders on my client's PC when doing batch renders. I'll test the technique on the client's PC this week and report back what I find.

/jerry

I hope you report this to SCS!

Jøran