Hanging my head in shame

kkolbo wrote on 1/5/2009, 11:10 PM

I feel ashamed about what I am about to say. I have had to temporarily abandon Vegas Pro 8.1 due to stability issues. Folks who know me, know that I don't do that lightly. I have been running V8.1 on 64bit Vista on an AMD dual core. I cannot pin point if the problem is Vista related, hardware related or Vegas related. If I could I would pursue solving it. My system was built by HP specifically for Vista 64.

While under tight time delivery (News) I was cutting a project of HDV using the native project settings. This was straight cuts, no mixed media or anything difficult for the system. Although as I type this I remember that I was using an external USB drive for storage. ( I will go back and remove that from the equation before I give up.) Anyway, Vegas froze every few minutes.

Errors appeared to be in the Sony File Interface process according to Windows. So... the freezes almost killed me. I opened V8.0c and cut normally with no difficulty at all. I have also had problems with V8.1 not finding the media when it opens a project even though it has not moved. Again I open the project in 8.0c and it is fine. Once I open it and save it from 8.0c, 8.1 will find the media.

Even without the external drive, I have had lock up problems with V8.1 that I cannot solve.

I will go back and recreate the project without external storage and see how much the stability improves. I will report back (hopefully with good news). In the mean time I have to use 8.0c. It is just strange to me that 8.0c has not had any problems with the external drive and the same media/project, but V8.1 is unstable.

Anyone solve a similar issue successfully?? It is just unusual that I can't crack this one.

Comments

Porpoise1954 wrote on 1/6/2009, 2:19 AM

I too have given up on 8.1 on Vx64 AMD quad-core until they get it sorted. Have reverted back to 8.0c and have had no further issues until this morning, when it blue-screened while putting some AVCHD footage onto the timeline whilst creating some moving montage, multi-track, title-sequence footage. Might have to try reducing the clip sizes (they're mainly 1/4 frame, 3 sec. clips over a 15 second run, so it may just be too much for the system to handle 20 AVCHD clips in that tight a sequence).

As they're only 1/4 frame, I guess I can afford to render out the clips in 10 second lumps (to retain some flexiblility on the timeline over in/out points and duration options) to a smaller size. (Project is 1920x1080 - from a mixture of HDV (Z5) and AVCHD (Pana something or other - not mine, so I can't remember which model but it is one of the latest HDD models).

Haven't had a chance to progress any further since the BS as I've had to move onto other things and I'm about to go out.

ingvarai wrote on 1/6/2009, 2:40 AM

If it can be to any help - I had lots of Blue Screens when editing in Vegas on an Intel Quad Core. I then adjusted the RAM voltage from 1.8 to 2.0 V (ASUS mobo) and haven't has a BSOD since.

When it comes to Vegas 8.1 - I am about to give up myself since there is so little support for it, FX support lacking, and Cineform codec does not show up as an alternative when rendering to AVI.

winrockpost wrote on 1/6/2009, 6:53 AM

you should not be the one hanging your head in shame,, can't help cause I'm waiting for you guys to finish the beta with 8.1 before I install it,,, reading the forums you have lots of company with 8.1 issues. Glad to hear 8.0 is working for you to meet your deadlines.
Good luck

Sebaz wrote on 1/6/2009, 7:14 AM

You shouldn't hang your head in shame. Sony Creative Software should. Vegas Pro 8.1 is a beta, in many ways an alpha. For example, you say: "I have also had problems with V8.1 not finding the media when it opens a project even though it has not moved." That's a horrendous bug that 8.1 has, it has nothing to do with you or your setup. The workaround for this problem is to close Vegas and reopen it, and then it will find the files as if nothing had happened.

If you're editing HDV, with HDV files in the timeline, try to open a source file in the trimmer. It hangs.

If you're editing a AVCHD project at 1920x1080, try to pre-render to MPEG2 at half the size or at 720p. It renders, but then it changes the project's dimensions to those of your last pre-render module.

Still, given how seriously pathetic 8.0c is, still use 8.1 because it crashes less, and when it works, it's fairly stable.

Jessariah67 wrote on 1/6/2009, 7:55 AM

Have they resolved the "no plugins seen" issue? I opened 8.1 once, realized it didn't recognize any third party plugs, and haven't opened it again. I've found 8 to be buggy as well, which is why I'm staying in 7 for now.

rtbond wrote on 1/6/2009, 8:44 AM

While I have only just started kicking the tires on v8.1, I have noticed on several occasions that a project's media files cannot be found or Vegas no longer recognizes the file type (i.e., acts like media is from an unrecognized CODEC).

Fortunately to date closing and restarting v8.1 has cleared the trouble. I am running a ASUS P6T Deluxe based Core i7 quad core.

CorTed wrote on 1/6/2009, 8:55 AM

"I have also had problems with V8.1 not finding the media when it opens a project even though it has not moved." That's a horrendous bug that 8.1 has, it has nothing to do with you or your setup. - "

Now this is what really bothers me about SCS. This bug was posted and reported virtually the day 8.1 was released, Why can't SCS put out a quick patch to this problem.
SCS's response time to fixing obvious problems is low to non-existing.

Tech Diver wrote on 1/6/2009, 12:57 PM

Does anyone know if v7.0 will run on Vista 64? I'm currently on XP 32 and will shortly be building my next system as a 64-bit machine.

fldave wrote on 1/6/2009, 3:19 PM

I've had nothing but problems with USB drives. I have had one that is mostly OK, a WD 500GB. But I wouldn't have edit files on it.

I'd take that out of the equation first.

Avanti wrote on 1/6/2009, 6:55 PM

My 2 USB Seagate FreeAgents have always worked fine.

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fldave wrote on 1/7/2009, 4:47 AM

That's good to hear

Robert W wrote on 1/7/2009, 5:09 AM

I have not said this on this forum before, but I think part of the reason that Vegas gets such poor updates is because it does not sell many units. I suspect the ratio of genuine sales to units pirated is not very good. If it only sells a couple of hundred units a month it must be hard to justify development finance.