Most likely it's the media x GPU and there's something about the media (GoPro?) it doesn't like when it hits transitions.

You can also test if it's the old dynamic ram preview x GPU issue which can be worked around by setting it to 0 before renders though that was largely fixed in VP 19.

And always check the driver update utility in the help menu to see if it recommends a new driver.

@weinerschizel | I had a look at your video with the glitches/digital artefacts and, despite the artefacts (which obviously aren’t your fault), it’s very well done and looks professional to me. Nice work!

As a test, disable "GPU Acceleration of Video Processing" in Preferences->Video. Does that change anything?

Tip: forget about NVENC supported Magix AVC rendering. Try Voukoder for Vegas.

I'm going to give this a try. Downloading it now. UPDATE: downloaded Voukoder. It works w/o glitches although it about half as fast from around 20 minute render w/ Nvidia encoder to 40 minutes with Voukoder. Guess that is what it is. Raises a few questions though. I'm not sure how to set the output frame rate, audio bitrate, etc. I did find render settings but assume it just uses project settings for output?

Most likely it's the media x GPU and there's something about the media (GoPro?) it doesn't like when it hits transitions.

You can also test if it's the old dynamic ram preview x GPU issue which can be worked around by setting it to 0 before renders though that was largely fixed in VP 19.

I'll have to try turning off dynamic ram preview and doing a render. It seems to do it with the drone clips too, which I think are AVC, GoPro is configured to do HEVC right now.

And always check the driver update utility in the help menu to see if it recommends a new driver.

Just installed card, downloaded latest drivers from Nvidia before doing any of the renders. Same was true of Radeon when I had issues there. However, I was running 2nd from newest Radeon Driver as the latest Radeon driver doesn't work with Vegas on my system.

@weinerschizel | I had a look at your video with the glitches/digital artefacts and, despite the artefacts (which obviously aren’t your fault), it’s very well done and looks professional to me. Nice work!

Thanks! I'm working really hard to get better. Editing weekly for a day or two. I'd like to have made the audio clips better on that. They levels were all different. If anybody has any feedback I'd love to hear it so I can improve. I feel quality of my clips for work, home tours, are MUCH better. However, that workflow is MUCH less technical so hard to screw up.

As a test, disable "GPU Acceleration of Video Processing" in Preferences->Video. Does that change anything?

I haven't tried that. However, timeline playback is flawless and I used a CPU only encoder which works without artifacts but is considerably slower. I went from a 20 minute render to several hours with the CPU encoder. That said glitches are gone.

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UPDATE: I've isolated the issue thanks to @3POINT. The issue is in the Magix bundled encoder routines for AVC and HEVC. I don't know if the issues is transitioning from HEVC to AVC and or different bitrates in source clips... Could probably further isolate but the issue is there. I'm trying to find how to reach Vegas Support so I can pass this on and they fix it. I know I've talked to them before but does anybody know how to write Vegas support a message? I've been surfing their website for a while now and cannot find the page to put in a support ticket.

Have you read THIS?

@Reyfox thanks! Found the link HERE through the post you gave me. I'm going to try and better document these glitches / bugs w/ source files etc. then submit them to Vegas.

 

UPDATE: I've isolated the issue thanks to @3POINT. The issue is in the Magix bundled encoder routines for AVC and HEVC. I don't know if the issues is transitioning from HEVC to AVC and or different bitrates in source clips... Could probably further isolate but the issue is there. I'm trying to find how to reach Vegas Support so I can pass this on and they fix it.

Their hardware encoder is broken, not sure if it's got worse lately because there's been multiple reports since V20 release. When I recall many of the problems of the past that people didn't have an answer for, I now blame the hardware encoder.

I've always used Voukoder and there's no problems using hardware encoding via this plugin.

I can confirm I also see this with various input files.
Up untill now, my only workaround was to use pure CPU encoding. Really hoping for a fix for the hardware encoder, but will try and use Voukoder in the meantime...

I haven't tried that. However, timeline playback is flawless and I used a CPU only encoder which works without artifacts but is considerably slower. I went from a 20 minute render to several hours with the CPU encoder. That said glitches are gone.

Video processing occurs upstream of the encoder. They are mostly independent. Glad you found your solution.

I too have had numerous "glitches" when attempting to render a simple title overlayed on a still photo. Here are three frames from an attempted render today.

Frame 165-OK

Frame 166-Unacceptable Glitch. An earlier frame appears.

Frame 167-OK

Render format seems to make no difference. For final renders, I always use x264 CPU encoding--never Nvenc or QSV. I've tried rendering to a new track for the affected loop region using ProRes and MagicYUV with the same result. While the above example is the most obvious, I've also experienced single frames with reduced brightness. Normal video renders OK--it's just text on stills that I have seen this problem.

My only solutions have been to either render the affected loop region in V18 or turn off GPU processing altogether which seemed to work today.

@wwaag Do you have an opinion on whether this problem has always existed since VP15, or has it possibly got worse in the last few months?

Like you, I never use MagixAVC/HEVC hardware encoding, so never saw the problems, but I"M also unsure how any previous problems could have been fobbed off as something other then the hardware encoder is broken. I'd imagine they would be asked to transcode their file, install new drivers, the usual stuff, but the problem should not be fixable, not unless the content of their video changed or they were coached into trying software encoding... but if that was always the solution, how was a bugged out hardware encoder never detected as the fault, and never fixed.

It makes more sense if it's doing a worse job now then it did say a year ago, I tried v18,v19,v20, they all behave the same, so it's not VP20,,, and yet a mass amount of reports have come in about this since it's release. Could a windows update have done this. Also worth looking at old video drivers, even though (I think) all hardware encoders are affected via MagixAVC/HEVC

EDIT: Oh you're saying this happens in software encode as well via Magix. Interesting

One thing that is becoming increasingly apparent to me: whether at the decoding, pipeline processing, or encoding stage, GPU acceleration is volatile. Way too much evidence to ignore. I think reducing its burps to their lowest common factors is probably a more realistic goal than expecting to eliminate them entirely.

I have always been highly skeptical of GPU encoding for basic quality considerations. When we got AI upscaling and smart framerate conversion in Vegas, my thinking began to change and I now embrace it, but to the point that AI is more convincing visually than its xyz math-based predecessors. It will be interesting to see where machine processing leads us, but it still may turn out to be a highway to hell for nonlinear editing technology as we know it.

That may explain it. I didn't realize they were using AI (random generators) to render anything. AI is a basket of worms in my professional opinion.

No, AI does not accelerate rendering.

I said that GPU can assist 1) AI Effects, 2) Video Pipeline Processing, and 3) Encoding, and they all show instabilities at times.

@Musicvid all that aside, AI as a software methodology, it's core that generates random outputs, sometimes with feedback. I assume they are just looking for a random visual, instead of a line or curved interpolation when dealing with transitions, frame rates, etc. It could in theory make the transitions feel more organic.

If they are indeed using AI instead of a mathematical interpolation. I'd bet it is the underlying issue when rendering. If AI is utilized to generate transitions, to sync frame rates, etc. in the render then it's going to glitch like that. They cannot model all the scenarios for potential transitions to ensure it will render them all correctly, partly because the underlying software / algorithm is random in nature, AI.

I studied AI a little in graduate school. It's used when it's too difficult to model or arrive at the optimal solution to a problem. It's really trendy right now. Makes some sense in video stuff, say generating images of water, skies, smoke, etc However, I never utilized it as an engineer because I worked in safety critical systems, where we had to know the precise behavior of what we built.

Whenever I hear AI, all that I think of is the random number generator at it's core.

I appreciate that; the focus of my comment was GPU (hardware) acceleration.

@Former user I don't think this is a new issue; it plagued me from VP 15 as I create videos that include still photos with captions. I had to zero out dynamic ram preview and turn off GPU acceleration to complete renders without gliltches. While the fix to dynamic ram preview in VP 19 largely addressed the issue, it's not completely solved.

Happy to test a sample "problem" project with my system here if anyone wants to make one available. I'd also like to see any lingering issues solved.

@RogerS

Thanks for confirming that I'm not the only one experiencing this issue which is truly "hit or miss". Sometimes, it works OK--other times not. Since I am not using GPU encoding such as Nvenc or QSV, this would suggest that Vegas still uses the GPU for text and titles in the same way it's used for FX processing. The only fool-proof solution for me has been to pre-render those regions with titles to ensure they are "glitch-free" before the final render. In some ways, it's similar to the Mercalli bug that sometimes inserts the "analyze" message onto a single frame, thus requiring a pre-render to ensure the stabilized region is glitch-free.

One thing is for certain; it's been a tough one for developers to zero in on.

@RogerS Interesting. I didn't really have any issue until recently with Vegas 20. I wonder what differs in our setups. I assumed it was a new glitch.

Do they really use AI to sync framerates? I setup my frame rates all the same (aside from not sure how Vegas handles still images & frame rate). I see some stuff about upscaling in the marketing. How long have they utilized AI in the software? I believe all my images are the same resolution as well.

Seems my issues are worst when it's two different codecs. I'd love if there was a debug option to turn off any AI stuff and see if I still get the render glitches.

AI is hardly used in Vegas so I'd say no, that's a red herring.

There is optical flow resampling but that only kicks in with different framerates or when you use a velocity envelope and you can choose a different method of resampling.

I don't use the AI-enabled upscale Fx- too slow.