I am using a


Dell E1505 Media Center Laptop,
Memory is running a little low on laptop itself,
But I have a 500gb external hard drive


I am loading the video files directly from External HD,

frequently while in the middle of my work, it just freezes up...



hope that helps,

thanks again

Thanks boone,
How much RAM does your computer have? Is your external HD hooked up via USB or Firewire? What type and size of video files are you loading? What version of Vegas do you have? Have you had this problem before? Cin

Here's my computers info:

Time of this report: 2/19/2008, 16:17:09

Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_qfe.070227-2300)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: MM061
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A02
Processor: Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2300 @ 1.66GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 502MB RAM
Page File: 412MB used, 1040MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)


My HD is hooked up via USB, it comes with eSATA connection, but since its a laptop, i dont think i can hook it up.......


I shoot the footage with a sony camcorder and upload it via SONY CAMCORDER DISC import option. It converts the vob to mpegs......

Its weird because this has happened before, and it is fine without loading a project, but once i load a existing project, it freezes up.



Thanks to everyone for there help!

I'd max out the RAM on the notebook, especially if you're going to use it for video editing. Also when you're using SVMS, turn off virus checking and all other background that aren't necessary to devote memory and CPU to SVMS.

I have also been experiencing the same "Not Responding" problem. I have a pretty strong system (q6600, 4GB, 4 WD hard drives). Sometimes it comes back to life after several minutes, but usually requires shutting down and restarting the app. In my case, I have experienced the issue during the following:
1. "bulding audio peaks" that occurs when importing new media.
2. Working in the Trimmer on m2t fles for couple of hours

I have fallen in to the old Ulead habit of pressing Saving very often.

The problem is the external USB drive. VMSP has a huge bug with most external drives, it won't come back after media are deemed "offline". I suggest you move some of your files on the internal disk and retry. You will see that there will be no more freezes.

Hmm...luckily I haven't run into the external drive bug that you mentioned. Seems like Sony should make that known if it is a real issue. I did not see this in any of the release notes so far. Anyone logged a bug against this?

I've been having this problem constantly -- as of updating my version of the software. Last year no problem; this year I have not been able to render any video's -- can't afford another software so use movie maker and it has no problem rendering to avi at least. Sony used to be my choice product -- if I wanted the best Sony was it. This past month I've decided to look elsewhere if they can't address these issues.

What files do I have to move off my external drive? My external is large and my internal is not -- Sony's OEM software is not available so if I want to change out my primary hard drive I will lose all my programs...which I assumed was part of my purchase price of the Vaio. But if moving files solves this -- I'd like to try and then at least change out the secondary drive. This is driving me nuts -- lots of lost sleep over this. Maybe this is what is causing the problem with DVD Architect unable to process the audio files as well.

You need to move the .m2t/avi files you are using on the project on the internal drive, and also the temporary folder if you have moved it on the external drive too. Only use the external drive to export to, not to use the camera files to edit.

Do I understand that:
The project file I am creating needs to be on the internal drive.
How about the video I have imported and using in the project?
The pictures I am using? Internal or external?

If this is definitely a solution -- I may decide to upgrade with a terabyte secondary internal drive--prices coming down fast.
Or for $44.95 will Platinum 8.0 maybe solve much of my problems?

I'll try this out this weekend. Everyone's been waiting since Christmas on me.
(BTW- since my primary drive is getting old -- as me -- maybe you know a way to get Sony to give me all my OEM software back if I have to replace that drive!)

Thanks.

VMS Platinum 8.0c suffers from the same freezing problem.
I often(but not always) see my audio status at bottom of window "Building Peak for file X" at 48% when the problem occurs. Fortunately it does not require a reboot. I have taken to saving often, and cancelling the "Building Peaks" until I need them.

All my files are on internal hard drives.

I am now working with 300 gb of free space on my primary internal drive. I have an avi file on that drive. I have DVD Architect and Platinum installed on my primary drive. I have 2gb of memory.

DVD Architect still does not pull in all the sound of the avi file. The file is showing as being 3.4 gb in Architect. It plays fine in Windows Media Player all the way through. At various times the same file when I tell it to insert media, I get a message either that it is not a valid file, or second that there was a render failure. So one time it comes in fine and other times I get error messages. And these are for files that I've already burned to dvd using Architect. If Sony can't find a solution to the problems -- because I can see a lot of people having the same or similar problems -- then I need to find a company that sells a product it stands behind.

I have done everything. A project completed to 91% and it's apparently stuck in processing the audio portion. I made a project of equal size, etc., in movie maker, used a 'free' copy of Nero dvd program that I got with my HP burner, and burned the thing to dvd with absolutely no problem. Sound, transitions, everything. But Platinum is getting stuck every time and it has to be a problem with converting the audio track. Really -2 songs -- that's it. That's all that's on the audio and it can't seem to handle it.

The posts here caught my eye. I am using an external Simple Tech 250GB hard drive and it's almost full with nothing but video. I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio v 6.0. After reading the posts, I decided to try loading a video to see what happens. It loaded without any problem at all, including the audio.

Now, part of my video is on my internal drive but I've just ordered a new (larger) external drive to store all video and pictures. If I remember, I will post another update once the new drive comes. Also, I only tried loading one video so don't know what may happen with all the others.

To load that one video, while in Vegas Movie Studio, I clicked "open" then selected the file and double clicked on it - it loaded directly into the program.

Hope you get your issue figured out - keep us posted.

I don't have a problem loading videos or files from my external drive. It's only when I try to render to avi that it breaks down.

I just changed some options per a tech recommendation but also made a 'loop' of my entire project so that it defnitely knew where to start and stop. This is finally the only thing that has worked .. because this time it was still accessing the video files off my external drive. items changed were in options/video, preview to 24 and rendering tracks to '1' -- i think it was like 240 default. I don't know which of these did the trick but I'm not changing anything. it did wind up to be a 7.5 gb file..oops...the big one, but the other was small.

I don't have a problem loading videos or files from my external drive. It's only when I try to render to avi that it breaks down.

I just changed some options per a tech recommendation but also made a 'loop' of my entire project so that it defnitely knew where to start and stop. This is finally the only thing that has worked .. because this time it was still accessing the video files off my external drive. items changed were in options/video, preview to 24 and rendering tracks to '1' -- i think it was like 240 default. I don't know which of these did the trick but I'm not changing anything. it did wind up to be a 7.5 gb file..oops...the big one, but the other was small.

Oh..and I prerendered the loop first -- that seems to make it faster for me.

Looks like I missed your point. Now you've got me concerned that when I try to render I'll have the same problem!

My hard drive is not large enough to hold all the video I have (about 100 DVDs from home movies, some VHS/analog, about 3/4 are digital). Another use or two suggested that if I don't have room on the hard drive to render each portion as I get it finished. I learned early on that merely hitting "save" only saves the project as long as the DVD is in the drive - once the DVD is removed, there goes the source video right along with it.

How did you set the loop of your entire project? And by prerendering it first, where did you prerender to? I mean, did you prerender to your internal hard drive or to the external drive.

Any other advice you might have would be much appreciated. You can look up my other posts but the gist is that I'm loading all of my DVDs into either external or internal hard drive (until the new external comes later this week). The video from each DVD is saved in a folder of the same name.

I'm then loading the video from the folders into the project, splitting, trimming, editing, to select specific clips to be blended into a movie - it is for a graduation party so I'm covering 18 years.

Maybe I will try loading a clip from the external drive, splitting it into a minute or so, then trying to render and see what happens. Did this freeze happen no matter what the file size?

Thanks so much for the help & feedback.

Something else just came to mind. In your first post you said your bar at the top turned white and your computer froze. Last week while trying to load 1 of 3 clips on a DVD, Vegas seemed to freeze every time I tried to load Clip 2. After doing a crtl/alt/del several times I finally walked away during one of the freezes. I came back about 10 minutes later and the video had loaded. Wonder if this could be the case for you.

I do have one more question. I just loaded video from the external drive. I rendered it to "Video for Windows (*.avi) and saved it. Here's my question - do I open it again in Vegas to continue working with it? If this is correct, then this is what I should do as I add to my project - load video, edit, render. Load the rendered project, add more video, edit, render again. Am I on the right track?

Thanks again for the help.

I'm just about to give up on it all. I used Ulead to burn a movie I prepared in Windows Movie Maker -- and everything went exceptionally well. Now this last time I did have about one hour 45 minutes of movie with some text at the 'chapter' spots, the rolling credits, and music. I dont' know what all the sections are called but the line that moves across the timeline as it is playing if you grap that in the section it runs in at the top and drag it across to where you want it to stop, then you have selected a loop region and you can then prerender it - I assume you can render just a portion of your file at a time if you don't want to have a lot of separate files -- but I'm finding that Vegas doesn't like to work with large files. In Architect, I imported the entire rendered movie but as only half would fit on a dvd, I selected a portion by setting the in and out points and prepared the dvd excluding the other half. later i came back and did the second half.

But I am still hanging up with Vegas. I have the most problems with clicking on the play, pause, or various tabs. I absolutely cannot open another window (view my other folders on the computer) -- it just doesn't come back after that. Movie Maker worked for me before -- you can save your files as .avi and then use a dvd burner program. Movie Maker has never frozen up on me and I've never lost anything using it. Of course, these files now are much larger.

I can tell that it definitely does not like accessing files on my external drive.

Your suggestion of loading, rendering, reloading the avi sounds good. I've taken some windows avi files and put them in Vegas so it appears to work but not sure how the quality turns out in the end. you need to get a tech to ask about that.

I've spent all night trying to make a slideshow - but it has over 300 pics so I'm certain it won't make it. I'll split it in half. Vegas does provide great quality in the end. Until these problems started I recommended it to everyone. I resized all my pictures and some of them look really bad. So I am really disappointed on how this is turning out and I don't see any solution -- so I'll go back to the free Movie Maker and Ulead software for now.

Hope it all works out for you -- but you definitely need huge space if you want to keep all your dvd's on your computer. Ones you are not working on -- external drive. Only keep the things you are working on on the internal.

I'm new to video but I had problem with high number of photos (200+) - application froze. The forum suggested that I Reduce size of photos to 1310x960 pixels and use png format.. This eliminated the problem. Origionally my photos were in Tif.

Thanks. I'm just not sure how to reduce them to a specific size in a batch mode (Paint shop pro) -- I did some and some were reduced so small that on the screen they looked like water-color paintings so I put many of my originals back. I can't even render half my file without the white manu bar at top, a constant non responding message and control alt del shows me two vegas programs running -- one not responding. What should the file size be of the pictures -- i thought that to get the meg size you multiplied the two numbers -- i know that anything under 1 mb in size is trash particularly if it has a lot of sky.

Last year I used files 4mb and larger in size. I used this program. I easily converted it and burned to dvd. This year with twice as much memory and 5 times as much hard drive, I can't get 1mb size files to work. From all the messages in the forum, it's obvious that it's a big problem. So if I can put my files in Ulead or Movie Maker and they are processed easily -- why is this program now bogging down like an old horse? Does Sony really think we'll buy an upgrade when it doesn't fix the problems.

Sorry...but thinks for letting me know. I just want to get this one file done but if I have to go in and replace all 200 pictures - I may as well start fresh with Movie Maker or Ulead.

How is your external hard disk connected to your pc? In another thread, I read that using a usb-hub will cause crashes.
I use the following setup and have never have had crashes:
1) source files and project files on external hd
2) rendered file on internal hd
3) program on internal hd
My machine is a very low spec Acer portable, I won't go into details 'cause you'd probably laugh at it!