More V8b Crashing

MarkHolmes wrote on 3/3/2008, 1:02 PM
So, I've been trying for days to get a 90-minute HD project to render to either MP4 or Cineform AVI with crashes happening consistently at 15-20% of render. I'm actually in the process of getting the project back into 7d, since that seems to be the popular consensus on how to handle 8b problems. but just wanted to add my experience to the growing list of 8b problems. I'm hoping that if enough people post their problems these little bugs can get worked out in 8c so I can go back to working in 8. Anyhow, I'm working on a 90-minute HD project, shot on the HVX, using Raylight. All footage is 720P and there is a fair amount of color correction and an overall filter using Magic Bullet HD. There are a few segments where some layers are thrown in, but the crashes happen way before these segments are reached. This is the error message I got on the last crash:

AllocateMixBuffer(Microsoft Sound Mapper) : m_wfxPrepared.nSamplesPerSec is 192000! (m_ccPreroll 142806941070746076 nBuffers 33243716)

Also, I have successfully rendered the same project to MPEG2 for DVDs but need to render to HD now... any suggestions or feedback is appreciated.

Comments

MSK wrote on 3/3/2008, 9:41 PM
Try unchecking the option for No Recompress for Long GOP format in Options / Preferences

Also, try unchecking Options / Preferences / Audio Device ... Enable Track Buffering
MarkHolmes wrote on 3/4/2008, 1:20 AM
Thank you MSK. I am rendering the EDL'd project in 7d now, will post back with results and will do as you suggest.
MarkHolmes wrote on 3/5/2008, 3:29 PM
Nope. Got the render to work in 7d - but made the changes in preferences and tried a shorter render (35 minute section) and it crashed at 74%. Guess I'll stay in 7d, at least until 8c comes out and I hear good things about it.
LReavis wrote on 3/5/2008, 8:14 PM
I had been able to render my large project to M2T Intermediate with lots of stills, masks, etc., by cutting it into 10-min chunks. But, having decided to put the final product on the web, I applied some color/contrast effects to all clips and tried to render, but 8a crashed. I rebooted and before making any edits whatsoever (which usually would allow me to render OK after a reboot), I rendered again but got the dreaded red/black frames, complete with loss of sound. I rebooted and tried again, and got red/black frames again, in different places.

After rebooting, I tried a tip that I read at:
http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2007/11/09/exporting-with-vegas-for-vimeo.hd/

to wit, go into options>preferences>video and change the maximum number of rendering threads to 1 instead of 4. I also decided to render to Cineform instead of to .m2t format.

Success! I've been rendering even long chunks (maybe 25 min.) without a glitch. I may try with .m2t tonight, just for fun - to see if the format makes any difference; but I doubt it will, for previously I also had to fight to squeeze out Cineform renders.

Rendering definitely is slower than with 4 threads on my quad-core Q6600 - CPU usage now runs 40-70%; but, on the other hand, I can still use my computer for other work during a render.

Having read almost all the posts regarding crashes on this forum, I don't seem to remember anyone suggesting to reduce the number of threads; but it sure worked for me.
Darren Powell wrote on 3/5/2008, 10:36 PM
Hi LReavis,

I have been fighting Vegas with exactly the same symptoms for months trying to render a 90 minute HD project which started out as Cineform and ended up m2t in desperation ...

I've tried (and suggested on this forum) everything, reducing maximum number of render threads, switching off cores in BIOS ... etc etc etc ...

The red frames (out of memory), black frames (Main Concept problem) (I'm guessing but that seems a consistent analysis), exception errors, sorry for any inconvenience (FU) errors, etc etc, seem to happen to a lot of people but also seem not to happen to a lot of people ... so it could be machine dependent ... maybe, maybe not ... I think the people who are not having problems simply don't have reasonable sized projects ... ie: feature length etc.

Small 10 mins chunks is the only way I managed to render anything in V8b ... finally I gave up and went to 7d via EDL ... works for the moment but means I've basically built and reworked my feature film three times ...

Nightmare.

Darren Powell
Sydney Australia
Dan Sherman wrote on 3/6/2008, 7:16 AM
Into render hour 16 of a 1:10 project with 7 hours to go.
So far, so good at 69% complete.
Only some colour correction and audio FX in this event project.
Seem reasonable to you?
You can imagine the disappointment if this crashes in the final trimester.
LReavis wrote on 3/6/2008, 10:33 AM
Sherman: Best check the CPU Usage in Task Manager - sounds like my problem (see next)
----------------------------
After having numerous great renders using Cineform AVIs with only 1 thread, I left my computer rendering a 10-min segment to m2t when I went to bed. This morning, it was 38% done. I looked at the CPU utilization, and it was about zero - just exactly the problem I had been having with 4 threads (I have never seen an error message - just the time counter continues, but rendering stops as CPU load goes to zero).

But at least I'm now able to reliably render to Cineform by choosing the 1-thread option in the Video tab of Preferences. I'll test rendering the collection of Cineform intermediates tonight - probably to MP4.

Incidentally, the SonyYUV renders are also reliable, and the resolution is noticeably sharper (true 1920 instead of 1440, and a lot more bytes), but the color of skin tone is a bit shifted away from yellow toward blue; and the file size is several times as large. But it sure does look great on the high-resolution stills, and I probably could fix the color. I may use it if I decide to record to BD as one of my final destinations (in addition to the web).