MPEG 2 Rendering Errors HELP QUICK

lynj wrote on 1/5/2004, 8:10 PM
I have sweated over my first major project, finally got a good render to AVI and am ready to make a DVD. My first. The piece is about 30 minutes long, most of the slo mo and heavy special FX segments have been rendered and replaced with the rendered avi files.

I selected the default template for MPEG 2 with BEST quality. I get an error message after a few minutes reading: An error occurred while creating media file xxx.mpg. The reason for the error could not be determined.

I tried several time in BEST & GOOD. In Good it hangs up on a frame. The timer continues to go but the frame indicator does not move. I get a partial render in the file. Right now it is hung up on frame 7585...the furtherest I've gotten so far in 8 attempts!!

This is something I need right away so any help would be appreciated.

Thanks...Lyn

Comments

J_Mac wrote on 1/5/2004, 8:21 PM
For me this generally means I'm out of disk space. Try deleting some files on your 'render to' drive. Good Luck, John.
lynj wrote on 1/5/2004, 8:26 PM
Thanks for the advice, but that can't be the problem. I have at least 20 gigs free on a dedicated drive.

Come on Sony...Help. Are you asleep this early?
GaryKleiner wrote on 1/5/2004, 8:32 PM
> I have at least 20 gigs free on a dedicated drive.<

Check where your temorary files are being directed to. This may not be where you have the free space.

Gary
Spot|DSE wrote on 1/5/2004, 8:35 PM
Another problem to look at is heat. it may well be that the system is heating up and can't process a large block.
What about a device stealing resources?
What about other processes stealing resources?
Are you sure the dedicated drive is where the render is going to?
What kind of AVI are you rendering from? NTSC DV? Uncompressed?
Have you dropped the avi into Architect to let it render to MPEG from there?
With no system info, no idea of what you've got to work with, it's sorta hard to troubleshoot with you. More info means a better answer.
lynj wrote on 1/5/2004, 8:55 PM
I m rendering from my edited file with some parts rendered to avi dropped in. Everything is directed to my dedicated external drive. This is the drive I have used for all my Vegas editing. This is my first attempt at a DVD. I usually just use the avi file and make the DVDs on a Panasonic stand alone recorder. But now I need the pro look of DVD Architech for the project.

I am working on an 1800 Athlon with 512 RAM. What other info do you need? I really appreciate your stepping in. I know this forum respects your advice, Spot.

Lyn
Spot|DSE wrote on 1/5/2004, 9:57 PM
K...
Take the pieces of your project, render to a single avi, for giggles, drop this in DVD Architect as avi's, not MPEG's. This will help determine where the problem lies.
Having some understanding of Architect will help. There are a couple tutorials on the Sundance site and on Billyboy's site as well, if you need some help on how to create.
Sr_C wrote on 1/5/2004, 10:00 PM
Investigate the possible heat problem further. I had this issue awhile back and it drove me crazy! How I finally deduced it was a heating issue was by pulling off the side cover of my PC and setting a house fan pointed at it, turned on high while I tried the render again. It finally worked! I upgraded my cooling system and power supply and have been problem free ever since. -Shon
SonyTSW wrote on 1/5/2004, 10:16 PM
Try using the DVD NTSC template instead of the default template.

If you will be using the AC-3 format for the audio, you'll need to render the audio and video separately. Use the DVD Architect NTSC video stream template for MPEG-2. Select the Dolby Digital AC-3 format for rendering the audio. If you save both these files to the same folder, DVD Architect will handle them together properly. There is a Vegas 4 script for doing this, check the Vegas scripting forum.

Alternatively, render as Video for Windows (AVI) from Vegas (NTSC DV template) and let DVDA handle the rendering to MPEG-2 and AC-3.
farss wrote on 1/6/2004, 4:53 AM
I've posted this elsewhere but I'll say it again in the hope it gets noticed. I've never had a problem rendering to mpeg and I've done a lot of it.
But I can crash the process every time just like everyones complaining about. Put a PAL clip on T/L in a PAL DV project, try to do a render as MC mpeg-2 with default template. Instant abort!

Now this isn't causing me any problems but if I was just starting out I'd be pretty frustrated. Lets inject a little reality, what's the one thing that anyone who isn't sure of what they're doing going to try? The default!
And as far as I can see in this case the only way to make the thing fail is if you use the default. Someone in software QA was asleep at the wheel on this one.
The second issue is what setting in the default template causes the problem?
David_Kuznicki wrote on 1/6/2004, 5:10 AM
I had this EXACT same problem, until I updated to 4.0e (or whatever the most current update is... I can't remember off the top of my head) from 4.0a. The problems ceased immediately.

David.
farss wrote on 1/6/2004, 5:43 AM
David,
I don't believe anything in this area was changed!
Was the problem only occuring with the Default template?
Does the Default template now work OK?
SonyEPM wrote on 1/6/2004, 7:34 AM
Lynj et al:

If you are trying to make and MPEG-2 for DVD, use one of the templates in the render as dropdown list- "DVD NTSC" or "DVD PAL"
for starters (depending on your format).

Yes, there's a bug with the "default", we can repro that, but this is NOT what you should be using for DVDs.

Please let us know if the DVD templates do NOT work-
lynj wrote on 1/6/2004, 10:09 PM
I appreciate all the feedback, but alas, it's just not happening. I'm ready to pull my hair out. I imagine it's a hardware problem, but I really need help out of this one. I have to save the project. When I render to AVI, I get two files, because of the 4 gig limit on my external drive, I suppose. When I started this thing, I didn't check all that and it's FAT 32. That has not given me problems till now. Vegas prints to DV tape perfectly, using both files automatically. Now when I try to render to MPEG2, I get an error message that says: The specified I/O operation on Device Hard Disk 2/DR4was not completed before the time-out period expired. Is there a way to change this time out?

I just don't know what to do now.

I tried to go the route suggested by Sony, but I can't get both files to load onto one menu button in DVDA and it won't do to have to go to a menu button to play the last 11 minutes of a 30 minute piece. Just not pro.

I also have not figured out how to render in DVDA. Does it just do that as it burns the DVD? Does it save to an .mpg file? Is that accessible by Vegas? Is that a work around to render the files separately in DVDA then bring them back into Vegas and combine them? But I guess that wouldn't work either because I'm back to square one if I have to render them to one file. I can't do it.

Please Help me.

Lyn