Network Rendering Hangs in "Queued"

omedia wrote on 8/18/2004, 7:30 PM
I have seen some posts about this, I am having the same problem, haven't found any solutions on the board.

Everything with shared folders, running the same version, mapped drives, etc checks out. Yes, I can ping the computers.

I put 30 minutes of DV footage on the timeline, add some effects and titles, and do a distributed render. Both computers are running the program, both show the project as "Status: Starting", the project never renders, nothing else ever happens.

If I try and close the program on either computer the program freezes and eventually I have to manually end the task.

Running XP on both computers, using Vegas 5.0b on both.

Comments

omedia wrote on 8/18/2004, 10:00 PM
Okay,

5 cups of coffee later I figured it out. It was my DNS suffix. My belkin router adds a dns suffix name "Belkin". When I do an IPCONFIG I see that my DNS suffix is "Belkin" So you have to name your DNS Suffix in windows the same as it is in IPCONFIG (detailed in other posts here)

NOW IT WORKS!!!

My first test was a 1:00 DV clip rendered to DV.
Normal rendering (No Network) took 20 Seconds
With Network rendering Distibuted took 1:46
With Network rendering Distributing off took 32 seconds

I guess I don't get it. I thought this was suppose to speed up rendering. I was under the impression that by using network rendering my host computer (the one with the project that I am editing) would render some of the file, and the "renderers" on my network would also render some of the file in order to speed up the render process?????????????????????????

My host is a P4 2.8 Gig with 1gig of RAM, My Render computer is identical. They both show progress in the progress window while working. What is going on? Is this what Network Rendering is supposed to do?
db wrote on 8/19/2004, 10:43 AM
if you have NO FX's in the 1 min clip it is faster just to render on one computer as it only COPY's the data at the max your drives can read/write .. while distributed rendering has to send data over a basically a SLOW connection( approx 12Mps while most hard drives today are 40-55mgs) to computer 2 then computer 2 has to send it back over slow connection to computer 1 hard drive .. then when 91 segments are finished computer 1 must STITCH it all together into ONE clip = TIME ... if the project is CPU intensive then it probably can't render faster then 1-2mgs so the network connection is not a factor as compared to a project with little effects and CPU can move the data above 12mgs ...

distributed rendering on 2 computers works best when there is massive CPU rendering.
where when it is rendering you can easily count the frames under preview ( on normal render - not using NRS)

i find that 2 computers on a project that need some heavy CPU rendering 2 computers will beat the rendering time of one computer by 20-50% HOWEVER now it has to stitch 91 segments together and if the temp files (91 segments) are on the same drive as the SAVE folder then it about the same time as ONE computer .. IF you can get the temp files ( 91 segment) on a different drive then the save folder = they are on different drives .. then stitching time becomes FAST = from my observations if it took 10 min for 2 computer to render the segments it will take another 7 min for it to stitch it together if temp folder and SAVE folder are on same drive .. if they are on 2 different drives ( not partition but as in E & F drives which are on different channels - not master/slave) then it takes approx 2 1/2 min to stitch it ...

so how can you use NRS to speed up your projects ... you can assign render jobs in sections or different projects to the remote computer while you are editing on your main computer ... you can queue up rendering jobs - assign many jobs to either computer to render solo or if you do have a CPU intensive render use distribute rendering .... 3 computers start to save some time but again it is the STITCHING that takes the time - and having the temp & save folders on different drives will really speed up stitching ... 6 computers gets the JOB done FAST
johnmeyer wrote on 8/19/2004, 11:03 AM
Yup, db is correct. Stitching is the killer. There have been some great suggestions on how to completely eliminate the need for stitching, but until Sony does something, network rendering is only going to be useful for those with projects that have large amounts of CPU-intensive rendering, like bezier masks, motion blur, etc. In addition, because of licensing restrictions with Mainconcept (I assume this is the reason), there is no distributed encoding for MPEG. This is what many people were looking for since, based on Sony's own poll conducted on this forum some months back, virtually everyone is delivering on DVD and therefore has to encode to MPEG virtually every project, even those that are "cuts-only" which don't require any rendering whatsowever, but which do still require several hours of encoding (depending on CPU speed).

Network encoding is a requirement, IMHO. Charge $20/renderer and give half of it to MainConcept. Should make them happy. Would sure me me happy.
omedia wrote on 8/20/2004, 9:21 AM
Thanks guys!

I am probably like everybody else ... I worked half the day getting Network Rendering to work so my first test was quick and dirty. I will do some real testing and be sure to make the temp file for stitching on my other drive.

Thanks again.