So with this EPIC... is it a transcoder or more of a codec sort of situation?

And... since I'm already transcoded up the wazoo (and in the final finish stages) will this EPIC also work with the CF AVI files?

Finally, with the EPIC do you also need Quicktime installed? What version?

Thanks for this lead - I'm terrified to change boats at this time in the game on this job - what do you think?

v

Threads = 1
Preview RAM =0

Vic - Every test I've ever run with RAM PREVIEW set to zero has given me longer renders times -- like on the order of TWICE as long! .. I usually set RAM PREVIEW to 32 for Rendering -- I think anything above zero works but for some reason zero is bad news.
And why not use all 4 cores? I've never played with this and always render with all 4 cores going. - Paul

Those numbers are what seems to be working.

Other numbers (that I ALWAYS used with the good ol' Z1) yield a "Low Memory Error" on renders.
And these (apparently still unsolved Low Memory Errors) would often not show up until a half hour or more of rendering.

Right now, I've got to go with what works.

But I will once again retry 4 threads and RAM 32 (on the next render, later tonight).

This is why I'm asking whether my computer is simply no longer up to the job. If you search Low Memory on this forum you will see a lot of crying, but I haven't seen any "Eureaka! I have solved it" - not yet.
That's why I was asking about the item at the very top of this thread. Has anyone tried it??

if you search Low Memory on this forum you will see a lot of crying, but I haven't seen any "Eureaka! I have solved it" - not yet.

If you search on "memory hack" you'll get a solution that did work for many folks -- but it requires at least 3 gig of ram as I recall. It's not something I have experience with -- and maybe you don't want to mess with it either -- I solved all problems with a new build -- an i5-750, Win7 64 bit and 8 gigs of ram. I built my system from the ground up for less than $600 -- It's very smooth. Love it. I don't run any Canon 5d or 7d footage but my AVCHD off my Sony XR500V runs fine as native files. No transcoding.

If I wanted it even better for editing, I'd transcode to MXF files using freeware plug-in called Proxy Stream 1.5 Check this thread too. This wonderful little FREEWARE plug-in seems to be one that folks are using to transcode Canon 5d footage. --- but I digress ---

A new system is the way I went. I choose the i5 as the value solution with my eye on an eventual upgrade to Twin XEON system with 8 cores if Vegas 10 is a CPU hungry as I think it might be !! .. I've yet to hear about anyone running an 8 core system having issues with Vegas. I'm not saying they don't exist -- only I have not heard about it. I'm an old guy Vic and far far too invested in Vegas to worry too much about spending some money to keep me from going nuts with stutters and crashes and waiting for renders. Time Vic -- that's the enemy. I love my i5 and Vegas.

Paul

xberk -

heck - waiting for slow playback, endless renders and intermittent crashes would make a Cub Scout old!

Anyway - FWIW - I implemented the DLL switch recommeded above. Then I changed my PageFile to my striped drives (formerly for media only).
Those two changes alone gave me reasonable playback (not totally smooth all the time - but "doable", and I also changed the threads back to 4 and the RAM to 32 as per someone above.

It's working a hell of a lot faster and more reliably.

Tomorrow I'm checking out the cost to upgrade my system to install Windows 7, and add two more gig of RAM to a total of 4 Gig, add a small striped array for the OS and programs, plus I'll switch to Vegas/Windows 64.

If that doesn't satisfy (or the cost doesn't make sense, I'll pretty much duplicate what you've laid out.

Thanks everyone - I'll be back if I've got anything else to report.

EDIT: Well it ran reasonably on the edit, but crashed on the render. When I reverted back to 0 RAM and 1 thread, it chugs along. But an hour render for a six minute film (admittedly packed with curves, color corrects and slo-mo's) is way too long. Once this job is out of the shop, I'm gonna try the above mentioned upgrades. It looks like memory issues to me - hey! that's exactly what the error stated...

Exactly... the only way around the "low memory" is to allow Vegas to access more memory. I tried all of the measures people listed on the website, and it was so annoying, I ended up just upgrading to Windows 7 64bit and buying more RAM. Unfortunately, at the same time, I had to upgrade my motherboard and RAM to DDR3 (even though the motherboard was only a couple years old), which greatly increased the costs, because many motherboards can't handle much RAM. It's incredible how fast Vegas can render with 64bit and a lot of RAM.

Hey Vic, Epic is a playback deal, it somehow does a live proxy or something like that, anyway, I used their Ultra for P2 playback, and it's a dream, just drop the original files on the T/L and away I went. look on their site/go the their support for more stuff on it, but, unless you are hitting a complete brick wall, I would never suggest changing things that far into a project, just look into it before your next project starts.

I'm pretty sure they've got a trial.

Dave