You will need the FX that you use in your project to be installed on both machines, otherwise those FX will not (cannot) be applied to the project on the other machine. Any plugins you use must be installed on both.

The information about the FX you use are saved in the .veg project file. But this is not the FX itself, it is just reference data to it, like parameters etc.

No FX are saved into a media file.

Paul.

Thanks for the tips, though in my case the FX are just the standard inbuilt Levels and Color Corrector.

I just tried a simple experiment, the same thing happened. On a NAS (networked shared drive) lettered as "Y:" on both machines, from one of those machines I created a project having just one clip with one standard inbuilt FX (pixellate) applied as MediaFX. I saved and closed it on that machine and opened it on the other one. The FX was gone. Then I also opened that same project on the previous machine. The FX was still there.

I don't understand why/how Vegas cares which machine it is on. Or what to do about it...

Are you using the same version of Vegas on both machines? And are they both 32 or 64 bit matching.

Paul.

Yes they are both 10.0e (Build 738) 64-bit.

I just discovered someone on the 'Cow experienced the same thing: http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/24/937385, but there it was put down to the drive letter change, whereas mine hasn't changed (in the experiment it was "Y:" in both cases).

I don't use shared folders for projects here so my help is limited. Hopefully someone else that does work this way can help further.
But as an obvious check, are you definitely looking at the same file? Do other changes to the project (like making a change to the timeline) show up on the other machine? Is this only limited to media FX - or other things.

Paul

Further experiment, this time with just one Vegas on just one machine.

Same simple project with just one video clip having Pixellate applied as MediaFX.

Moved the media to a subfolder of where it was. Opened Vegas, which rightly complained of missing media, pointed at where it was, and it opened, but the MediaFX was gone.

This was reversible - putting the media file back where it was (and re-opening the Vegas project) restored the pixellation.

Copying or deleting the .mxf "sidecar" file made no difference, confirming that the MediaFX information was not stored there (and implying it must be in the veg file, as was stated).

I am using Vegas 11 and have lost my media FX several times, even while staying on the same machine. I can't quite pinpoint how it happens. All of my files are on the same drive. I think it happens when I make a new copy of a project, i.e, I'm working on myproject3.veg, and then I save it as myproject4, and start working with that, and maybe copy and paste from another project, and then sometime later I notice that the media fx are gone. It's bit me enough times that now I don't use media fx - I just group clips on the same track and use track fx.

I've got the media combined as a MultiCamera track, so I can't separate them that way. The only workaround that occurs to me is to reference each media indirectly via its own wrapper-project, containing only that media and applying effects at EventFX level (say).

I guess that would also have the advantage that I could replace the media entirely while retaining the effects applied to it. For example, start by the wrapper having the original camera footage and later replace that with a Cineform intermediate, later still with a deinterlaced or denoised one etc.

Unless there is a quicker/easier solution (e.g. some kind of hack in the .veg file), that's what I'll do right now.

I did put my project file in Notepad and noticed the file name characters were separated by spaced e.g. "t e s t . m x f". But without further understanding of project file format, that route looks like a "blind alley".

Thinks: I wonder if anyone ever wrote a relevant script ?

Just did a quick test. Seems ok here. Vegas 11.

Moving test media to another sub folder and reopening the project correctly displays the "missing media" warning and then you can relocate it. Did that, and the FX was still shown in the event as expected.

Paul

Just to confirm Paul, did you apply the effect as MediaFX ?

Meanwhile, I repeated the test on a USB external drive, as opposed to the NAS, and got the same "missing effect" as for the NAS-based experiment.

Looks like it's a feature of Vegas 10 that was (allegedly - I'll test it) fixed in Vegas 11.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/what-happens-vegas/502210-sony-vegas-pro-11-update.html:
"Notable fixes/changes in version 11.0 (Build 425)...
...Fixed an issue that could cause Media FX to be dropped when relinking media"

"Just to confirm Paul, did you apply the effect as MediaFX "..
Yes, i test it with both media FX and event FX. Both worked.

It could well be an error with v10, but with v11 it seems fine.

Paul.

Er... well...

I confirm that Vegas 11 (Build 683, 64-bit, that I just now downloaded) indeed doesn't have that particular problem. I imported the Vegas 10 project to Vegas 11, saved it as a Vegas 11 project, copied it to the other machine and this time the MediaFX remained. Break out the champaigne!

However (...hold the champaign...) for this imported Vegas-10 project, the Pan/Crop doesn't work correctly: despite the dotted rectangle being within the image area in the Pan/Crop dialog, as indeed it was in the Vegas 10 project, there is a black bar down the side in the Preview image, suggesting that the real (processing) Crop rectangle has gone outside the image area. Moving the Pan/Crop further within the image removes it, confirming that suggestion.

There seems to be an inconsistent state in the (Vegas 10 imported to Vegas 11) project. The dialog shows the crop region in one place (same as it was in Vegas 10 project) but the processing assumes it is in another (horizontally offset) place.

By experiment, I found that consistency could be restored by re-establishing the rectangle from scratch. In my project's case, within Pan/Crop dialog, I did a Restore (to my media's size and AR, namely 16:9) then Match Output Aspect (in my case to project target of 4:3) then positioned the 4:3 rectangle within the 16:6 rectangle as required. Now the dotted rectangle was in synch with the actual processing once more. Problem wouldn't occur with a fresh Vegas 11 project, only arose because I imported an older one.

Looks like Vegas 11's "Import a Vegas 10 project" routine needs a touch of TLC... Might help persuade more Vegas 10 users to update.

So sadly, given that immediately bad experience, and the length of time it would take to artistically re-establish many such Pan/Crops dotted throughout my project, the Vegas 11 workaround for my original MediaFX issue does not seem practical.

Instead I'll take the (hopefully) low-risk (of unknown unknowns) approach of simply re-creating all the MediaFX on the other machine. There are only about 40 media files to get through, and I can use Presets, transferred from first to second machine via Preset Manager (even if that does lose the presets' folder structure). Sadly, the MediaFX dialog does not display the name of the preset I previously applied. it only says "Reset to None", which is simply the dialog's default.

Things could be easier...