Does Vegas Capture fragment your HD too?

GmElliott wrote on 8/4/2004, 7:51 AM
Check this out- this is my disc after capturing roughly 6 tapes (2-cams) from my most recent wedding...

http://www.msprotege.com/members/LazerBlueP5/Disc%20After%20Vegas%20Capture.jpg

After it was finished defragging it alerted me that two files couldn't be defragged...they were both really long clips- one at 12gigs and the other at 11. I'm assuming there wasn't enough space to compress the other files to make room to move these two without re-fragmenting them.



Why does Vegas Capture always fragment all my captures like this?!

Comments

Former user wrote on 8/4/2004, 8:14 AM
Have you had problems that might be related to fragmenting?

My feeling is that since video software captures in realtime, it is capturing in the most efficient manner that it can. That may appear to be fragmented, but might actually be very efficient in its use of minimal head movement and while switching tracks for continuous video play.

Dave T2
Spot|DSE wrote on 8/4/2004, 8:17 AM
Vegas doesn't fragment the drive, the system overall does. Long files tend to suffer from fragmentation more than shorter files, and will result in hundreds if not thousands of pieces of media all over the drive. If you think capture is fragmented, editing is far more intensive due to the propensity of creating small edits to the larger file/s. Rendering ain't no fragmentation picnic either. I use System Mechanic to keep things together, it can defrag up to a terrabyte. defragging before a capture session helps the overall situation tremendously, as there is more contiguous space for new files to be written to.
johnmeyer wrote on 8/4/2004, 8:32 AM
Unless you are actually experiencing problems that you KNOW are due to fragmentation, don't bother. The mantra "don't fix it if it ain't broke" definitely applies here. Find something else to worry about.

And Spot is right, fragmentation has nothing to do with Vegas: it is simply the way the Windows (and any computer) file system works.
apit34356 wrote on 8/4/2004, 9:24 AM
Spot's correct. Clean up your drives before you use them. This is one of the benefits of using a new drive for each job because you are struggling to make space and time is money. If you use firewire drives, swapping drives is no sweat!


AJP
GmElliott wrote on 8/4/2004, 10:37 AM
I guess I'll have to capture to an "empty" drive to see what happens I suppose. I did, indeed, neglect to defrag before capture...even though there was a negligable about of data on the drive prior to capture.
Chienworks wrote on 8/4/2004, 9:24 PM
And, once again, are you having any problems because of the fragmentation? Are you dropping frames or getting choppy playback? If not, don't worry about it. You'll probably accomplish nothing but wasting time and adding extra wear & tear to the drive by defragging.
GmElliott wrote on 8/5/2004, 7:19 AM
Not really...but I do hear the hardrive thrashing when the timeline cursor hits clips the clips that are still fragmented.

Having the drive head moving all over the place just to playback clips due to fragmentation is no more taxing than a defrag I'd suppose.
apit34356 wrote on 8/5/2004, 8:25 AM
this is a common problem, where you have large video files, temp files being added over a period of time on secondary drives. usually some small files, ie index files...etc also get added over time and are in between the new and old video files. As you purge the old video files, these smaller non video files remain, located in the middle of the drive. usually the secondary drives have limited perm. files, so after purging your old video and temp files, a defrag does extremely fast.


AJP