thanks THF... I actually just got it to work for once. It sat on the 100% dialog for a very long time (10 minutes), and then finally came back to life. It was a test file using only 10 minutes of footage. I wonder if this thing has to sit for an hour if I'm rendering a full project and I was just never patient enough. The cancel button should still work in that case. There's something whacky about that. I'll look into this further.

[EDIT]

Yup I have to let the dialog sit at 100% for 40 minutes and then it finally finishes. I'm not sure what it is doing but it must be important. It may not technically be a bug, but it isn't right for an app to become unresponsive for 40 minutes with no visual indication that it is rendering, and no way to cancel it.


Here are my settings:

Rendering from: AVI Uncompressed 2fps video (tried other formats: same results)

Rendering to: Windows Media Video 8
Template: Custom:
Project Quality: Best
Audio: ACELP 16k 16k
Video: WM Screen V7 fps:2 kf:10
Res:692x520 Quality:100%
Index Output file:on Method:frame-based Interval:2 frames
Bitrate: Internet/Lan 500k

Project Length: 45 minutes

I've just had a revelation. I just tried the Windows Media Encoder 7.1 from Microsoft. I just learned that Vegas has MAJOR BUGS in its Windows Media Exporter.

The files generated using the settings specified above DO NOT STREAM from a Windows Media Streaming server. I recently completed 27 hours of rendering from Vegas and none of the media I delivered to the client is going to work.

So lets summarize the Vegas / Windows Media experience.

1) The renderer hangs at 100% and becomes unresponsive at the end of each render for an excessive amount of time, fooling me into thinking the application was freezing, which wasted a lot of my time.

2) When rendering to dial up bitrates, the files are full of missing/stuck frames and blacked out areas where nothing shows up. Rendering to dialup is impossible.

3) The resulting files are bloated. Zipping them results in a 3:1 compression ratio... this should never happen with compressed media. Only broadband users can access these terribly inefficient files.

4) All that is moot because the files DON'T STREAM ANYWAY.

I am a very disatisfied customer right now. WM support is what attracted me to Vegas in the first place and it's gone down hill ever since. First they dropped the WM6.4 encoder half way through VV2's product life (I wonder if anyone else has to have VV2,3,and 4 installed just to get any work done) and now I'm discovering so many crippling flaws in the WM support it's a joke.

I won't be able to sleep until I somehow re-render 27 hours of footage to an intermediary format like UNCOMPRESSED (can I borrow a half a terrabyte from anyone?) And then use Microsoft's encoder to compress the media. Thankfully the MS encoder works really well. It can render to dialup rates with no dropped frames and THE FILES EVEN STREAM FROM THE SERVER! BONUS! NOW MAYBE MY CLIENTS WILL PAY ME :)

Have you trued WMV9? I render to that, QT, and RP all the time and never have any hang ups.

I'm sorry to hear of your problems, but with so many other users, and so few complints about this issue, are you sure it's not your system or some setting your using out of the ordinary?

I've rendered 40 projects across 8 systems and all the resulting files are the same. Besides, the settings work fine using Windows Media encoder 7.1. Vegas advertises support for Windows Media therefore it should work.

WM9?! The NT4 users would love that. 40% of the viewers who view my streams are using Windows Media Player 6.4 which CANNOT read WM Screen 9 streams. Only 20% have WMP9 installed. Thanks for trying but the real problem is Vegas's Window Media Encoder. It should be at least as functional as the free one from Microsoft.

I haven't had any problems encoding to WM files (8 or 9). If you goto www.vegasusers.com, you can download lots of WM8/9 files, some at dialup quality. But...but... I've never tried using a steaming file. I'm on a dialup and download everything with an old version of Gozilla, then view at a later time.

Did you have the Windows Media Encoder installed when you were trying to render from Vegas? That could of been a problem. Ex: I installed DirectX SDK 9. None of my DirectX game would work anymore. I had to re-install the retail DirectX 9 drivers, then everything worked fine.

Also, how big if one of your files? Maybe you could e-mail one to me if it's under 1.5 megs (dialup!)? Also, it could be the 2fps that is giving the Vegas WM encoder problems. Try this: Import at 29.97 FPS (or 15, 14, something more standered). Then time stretch to the length you needed. Don't fforget to disable the re-sampling on the video. Render that and see if it works.

Also, oyu don't need to re-render everything to a different format if you want to encode in the MS WM encoder. Use a frame server (www.debugmode.com). It will take up almost 0 space.

Hope this helps!

I usually render from an instance of Vegas with priority set to LOW (via task manager or batch start file). Computer stays responsive and you can easily see if it's frozen or not. And there's no loss in performance for the render task.

Thanks AlexB but actually Vegas DOES respond when I click cancel. A little message comes up in the dialog saying Render Cancelled by User. And then it just sits there at 100% and continues to process the file until it is good and done, which can take minutes or hours depending on the file.

If I right click on Vegas on the task bar and hit close, a dialog asks me if I want to cancel current operations. I hit yes. It doesn't cancel. Only End-Task works.

Thanks for the tip about setting the prirority. That may come in handy sometime.

>>>I haven't had any problems encoding to WM files (8 or 9). If you goto www.vegasusers.com, you can download lots of WM8/9 files, some at dialup quality.

These files are for use in a corporate environment where all versions of Windows are being used. Windows Media 9 Screen does not work with WM6.4. But don't take my word for it. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/codecs/compatibility.aspx (scroll to bottom)

>>>Did you have the Windows Media Encoder installed when you were trying to render from Vegas? That could of been a problem.

I've rendered from systems with / without the encoder. No difference. Everything still points to the encoder in Vegas being the problem. Unless someone proves me wrong. Can anyone render a WM7 Screen file that will stream?

>>>Also, it could be the 2fps that is giving the Vegas WM encoder problems. Try this: Import at 29.97 FPS (or 15, 14, something more standered)

29.97 may be standard in NTSC land, but this media is screen captured material, which is why I'm rendering to the Screen format. Still it's good advice to check the framerate. But I get the same broken files with 5fps too.

>>> Use a frame server (www.debugmode.com). It will take up almost 0 space.

Thanks a lot I'll give that a shot. The bottleneck is in the rendering as much as the encoding, so I'm going to go to interim files this time around. That way I can compress to various settings using the same rendered file. I'm using the Techsmith TSSC (Camtasia) codec which gives reasonalbe file sizes for screen-based content.

I'll try the frame server for the future. Hopefully Sony will fix this bug and I won't need it. When we all wanted a frame server plugin for Vegas to make up for the lack luster MPEG2 plugin that came with earlier versions of Vegas, Sonic Foundry's attitude was, "no we want to make our built in encoders the best ones out there so no one will need a frame server". I'm hoping they'll have the same attitude for Windows Media... corporate purchases must account for a lot of sales.

So can someone from Sony confirm that Vegas can render valid streamable Windows Media Screen 7 files? Anyone?

I read up on the "Screen" codec. I also rendered a "Screen" file. It looks like it reduces the colors to 256 (16?) to save bandwidth, right? So I can safely assume that you're making the training video like stuff they recomend it could be used for on the site, right?

I encoded a 8-10 second DV AVI i have with the exact same settings you used for the encoder. You can download it at this link:
http://members.localnet.com/~elsysop/video/test.wmv

i don't know if it will stream though. Works on my computer.

Thanks that was generous of you HappyFriar. Of course my streaming media server is down right now so I can't test your file. I have it uploaded onto the server though.

To be fair, item #2 (unreliable dialup renders) in my rant is just as problematic in the MS encoder as it is in Vegas. It is frustrating because the encoder doesn't give errors, it just creates media files with blank spots in the video/audio throughout the file. You have to search through every minute to make sure the file is okay. If it isn't okay, bump up the bandwidth and try-try-again.

THANK YOU! The file absolutely refuses to stream. There is a file sitting right next to it which I rendered using WME7.1 and it streams perfectly, but the one you rendered from Vegas won't work.

Okay Sony... what's the deal? Why can't Vegas render WM7 screen files that work properly? I foolishly relied on Vegas to perform properly without testing, and it has cost me dearly. I have to eat this mistake of course because I'm the guy that's supposed to know about all the bugs. And what about you guys? How do you answer the charge that Vegas isn't working as advertised?

Thanks for bringing this to our attention- we'll be looking into it.

Is WM7 screen the only WM flavor you are having trouble streaming?

Also, important: What version of streaming server are you using?

Thank you for addressing this problem. Sorry I don't have the WMS version. I'm leasing the space on the server from a third party. (I think they are going belly up because they don't answer support anymore) I know they aren't using 9 yet, so it must be whatever version came just before that. But just to be absolutely clear, the files from WME7.1 stream from that specific server, while the files from V4 don't.

I'm going to do an experiment with Vegas 3 to see if it will produce usable files. Please keep us posted.

MS hasn't done a good job making developer friendly tools to encode their content. I'd gladly pay $$$ for pro level tools for dealing with their mess. An all in one Windows Media plug in for Vegas that supports WM6.4 through WM9 at a professional level would be worth thousands to me. I'm amazed there's nothing out there now given the reach of WMP.

btw - I haven't had time to experiment with other codecs other than WM7 screen. I have no interest in using those codecs. I use WM6.4 for everything. Soon I'll be able to make the jump to WM9 (MS has a *special* VCM codec to enable backwards compatibility with WM9, but NOT FOR SCREEN CONTENT). The only usable Screen codec for delivery to all versions of WMP is Windows Media 7 Screen.

Try turning indexing off for your render. v4 of the MS server won't open files that have a frame index, as a result frame-indexed files won't stream. This is why all of our presets for WMV have indexing turned off.

Please let us know if that fixes your problem.

That sounds interesting... will get back asap.

I rendered a WM7 Screen file with NO INDEX from Vegas4. Here are my results.

1) 100% hang problem resolved.
The render completed and the dialog closed normally when it reached 100%. I should have guessed the extra processing was indexing related.

2) Streaming works! Bullseye on the indexing option. Thank you. Maybe a note can be attached to that check-box. But please don't celebrate yet... read on.

3) Bloated file bug remains.
I have discovered that setting the encoder bitrate to something reasonable, like 100k, results in files that have gaps in the video and audio. There seem to be missing keyframes throughout the file, causing havok with the media player's ability to update the currently displayed frame when you seek. It usually just uses the last frame displayed which makes it look broken. The audio plays but no video updates. (This problem is in WME7.1 too)

So I've learned to set the bitrate to 500K and let Vegas compress the file to whatever bitrate it feels like (it never comes out what you set). It's the only way to get an intact file even when bitrate demands are extremely low. I'm talking about simple screens at 2 frames frames per second.

The bitrate in the resulting file (the number Windows Media Player displays) varies depending on the content. This time it claims a bitrate of 65k. But the file size is TWICE AS BIG as I was expecting. I did the math and it says 128k. So why is Vegas making files that are 128k but are reporting 65k?

Upon studying the bandwidth-in-use statistic while watching the stream, I realize that 65k is really like a minimum. The actual bandwidth varies depending on what is going on in the video anywhere from 65k to 200k with an average of 128k

What I need to do is create files that
1) are intact at a bitrate of 100k (which WME7.1 does reliably)
2) report the correct bitrate to Windows Media Player
3) Are encoded at the bitrate that I specify. WME7.1 allows you to specify the exact bitrate, and the resulting file size MATCHES. Vegas's files are consistently 2-3 times larger than the bitrate reports. Attempts to control the bitrate using the setting under Bitrate are futile.

It's like trying to wire up a stereo system with mittens on and you can't get behind the cabinet to see what you're doing.