To top it ALL off Bob... I'm surprized you don't even remember that.... because YOUR comments are right there beside mine in that thread. I'll use YOUR words.... just plain WEIRD.

Sorry but you're overlooking one vital thing here. Disabling other tasks frees up RAM.
A memory leak means the application is slowly using up more and more RAM. As Terje pointed out failure to de-allocate memory used to store variables or stack space is a common problem. This may well not cause a crash, so long as it stays within its allocated memory all is sweet. However if it tries to use RAM that the OS has not allocated to the application the OS will shut the application down.
If that happens you can avoid having the application crashing by freeing up more RAM, maybe. You're not fixing the problem, you're avoiding having it affect you.
Memory management is oftenly not even explicitly coded by the programmer, some compilers rely on garbage collection processes running to clean up RAM that is flagged as allocated when it actually isn't, checkout this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_garbage_collection
for a bit of an indepth read for how complex this gets. I note that two things that Vegas uses both use this process. From what I've seen happen with Vegas I can very easily see how garbage collection could fail to run leading to an eventual memory overflow and having the OS shut it down.

On a more simplistic analysis. If the fault lie with anything other than Vegas one would reasonably expect other applications to suffer the same fate and yet they don't. I run plenty of memory hungry applications, so far in over 10 years of running all manner of code Vegas is about the only one I've had crash with an unhandled memory access violation. That's over multiple PCs and operating systems.

Perhaps even more to the point, if it were another process thats going wrong then simple logic would dictate that's what the OS would be shuting down but it isn't.

And the last thing that goes against your assumptions is that this memory access violation so far only happens when the Main Concept dll is used. To date I've not read anyone having problems with SD AVI, I've used huge uncompressed 1920x1080 avi files without problems. We've managed to get unrenderable projects to render by first converting all HDV to uncomp. Not only is it beyond doubt a memory management problem but it's also a better than even money bet the problem is related to, if not in the Main Concept code that Vegas uses.

The history of Vegas itself also adds further weight to this. I was running Vegas up until V7.0d on a 486 with 512MB of RAM, never a problem. Come 7.0e all hell broke loose. What got changed was the MC codec to handle AVCHD. Ever since then the same problems have persisted. Yes the boundaries got moved, 8.0c has improved the situation. Large, complex projects that crashed minutes into the project can now get further into the render without crashing however no one can get them to render to completion. That's using the same media, same project.

Anyhow, perhaps if I get the time this weekend I'll build a simple Vegas project that'll crash reliably, I love breaking things :)

Bob.

And I say you're much too quick to blame Vegas on this issue.

If a teacher gives a class of 30 an exam and 2 out of 30 fail then LOGICALLY speaking, one can only assume that they 2 failures didn't do their work. But then to the other extreme, if 2 out of 30 pass the exam then again logically speaking, the teacher has no choice but to examine where he went wrong in writing the exam.


With that in mind, there are many that run Vegas with no issues. Now are they doing this by avoiding the problem? Well,,, your guess is as good as mine. But the fact is that there are (relatively speaking) a very small number of people having access violations problems. Now is that Vegas' fault... I suppose it's possible but the probability of it being a conflicting problem unique to a particular machine is MUCH higher..... and hardware/software conflicts are not by any means restricted to vegas. Have you ever tried to run a Pinnacle product with Nero INCD running? Forget it!. And the wonderful thing... I don't know about now... I don't use nero any more, but INCD used to install as an auto startup without even telling you. This is just one example of MANY.

Now is Sony at fault for this? I would say yes, but not for the reasons you think. I think COURSE is perfectly correct in another thread in saying Sony should put together a list of recommended hardware/software, running specs and such. Vegas is no longer this tiny little program that handles avi and a few basic credit rolls across the screen. It's become a fairly complicated piece of software that SHOULD come with a system recommendation.... others certainly do it. Now will that solve ALL the problems? No.... but it would go a long way.

Contrary to what you may be thinking Bob... the sky is not falling here.

"I was running Vegas up until V7.0d on a 486 with 512MB of RAM, never a problem. Come 7.0e all hell broke loose. What got changed was the MC codec to handle AVCHD."

And this BTW I completely agree with. I'm reasonably sure that if you go back in threads and have a look, you will see that I was among the first to say something is broken here and I think it's the avchd addition that has broken it.

There is no doubt at all that Vegas has become trickier to setup and use since the addition of avchd. But it's not impossible The fact is ALL programs that now include direct avchd edit have become this way. I for one think we would be better off without it.... but I'm sure that the avchd users feel quite differently.

Nick - Thanks for your insights - your answer has been the most helpful - I'll make the adjustments per your advice and see how things come out.

BTW - how goes the diving these days??? I've had to put it on the back burner for the foreseeable future with the economy doing its nose dive thing...

Cheers!

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | solo video journalism blog

"If a teacher gives a class of 30 an exam and 2 out of 30 fail then LOGICALLY speaking, one can only assume that they 2 failures didn't do their work. But then to the other extreme, if 2 out of 30 pass the exam then again logically speaking, the teacher has no choice but to examine where he went wrong in writing the exam."

Your analogy is quite apt. If you ask the class the same question and 1 or 2 get the wrong answer your assumption is entirely correct.

This is not what I'm talking about at all. That some will have issues that have nothing to do with process of getting the answer is entirely correct. Dodgy drivers and faulty hardware being the most obvious cause, this is an obvious given. Not to get personal but the way you've got a PC thown together in a wooden box is inviting problems, moreso if you're running large amount of RAM without ECC. Even more to the point Creative's drivers are about as dodgy as they get.

What I'vebeen trying to tell you as subtly as possible is the teacher can't get the right answer to certain questions. When I said "no one" I meant that in the most literal meaning of the phrase.

This is a public statement from the developers in the 8.0c release notes:
"Improved the number of MPEG-2 clips that can be active on a timeline. "

This following shows that what you've been going on about does not exonerate Vegas as being the problem even when you can clear the problem by unloading certain drivers:
"Fixed a crash with the Matshita UJ-832D DVD-RW drive"

You give InCD as an example. Probably millions of people run that in conjunction with 1,000s of applications, I certainly do. If having it running brings a certain application down the logical conclusion is that it's because of a problem in that application not the other way around. Windows and every other OS is written so that programs can co-exist without problems, that's one very good reason why every modern OS uses memory management and protection.

Now if you still don't get it then I'm sorry. I could say more but it would be remiss of me to do so. I would be happier if the teacher was to say more in public but I doubt that'll happen. Until they find the right answer the best approach is to change the question. Using the Cineform DIs is by far the best solution for large complex projects. How large and how complex is difficult to define, suffice to say that if the cost of NeoHD is small compared to the budget of your movie then buying it should be a no brainer. Knowing that that's what you should be doing before you start editing would save a lot of angst and a lot of bitter posts here.

Bob.

Then everybody would be crashing

You really shouldn't take part in technical discussions blink. You have proven time and again that you do not understand software on a technical level. As I pointed out in my posting, memory problems will occur differently for different people based on the way they work with the software. Memory growth (allocate and forget to release) will probably be more universal, but that is the easiest to find. Using unallocated memory (pointer problems) is a lot harder to find and might behave differently each time you launch the software.

I haven't had a render crash in 6 months or so

Good for you, and you have taken pains to tell us time and again how you have modified your work flow to achieve that. Others might not have that option, the problems they run into, such as the problems I have had with Digital Juice stuff and 32 bit colors, may not have a work-around.

For some reason it seems that when you don't see crashes that means, in your world, the nobody else can possibly see them either. That is just a weird mode of thought blink. In fact, I am not positive I would even use the word "thought" about the process.

they're not happening here so again

I love your logic Blink. You amaze me every time you apply it. Qantas has never had a plane crash in it's entire history. Given your logic that means that there has never been a problem with any plane of the type that Qantas has in its fleet. You are priceless.

Why is it that you fall so amazingly in love with whatever it is that you fancy at any given time?

Most of these crashes appear to be "Access violations" ...

I love your advice blink. Really I do. It is 100% useless. As I said in my previous post, you are always wrong in technical discussions, you really should stop getting involved in them.

32 bit Windows uses modern, hardware-backed, memory protection. What does that mean? A little history.

Real-mode Windows, often misleadingly called 16 bit etc, in other words, Windows up to and including Windows ME, that is 1.x, 2.x, 3.x, 95, 98 and ME (and perhaps some I forgot) use the Intel CPU in real mode. This means that each process has full access to all memory in the computer. This is why it crashes more. You see, one badly written, or worse, rogue, application can interfere with the memory, both code and data, of another application. In other words, I can use various techniques, or introduce errors where I write to the memory of another app.

In protected mode Windows, that is Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista, this is not possible. Each process has full access to all possible memory, it can write to whatever memory address it wants, and there is no possible way that it can overwrite another applications data or code segments.

In other words, if your application (I will cover device drivers below) is crashing and behaving badly, it is never because another application is interfering with it. So, your advice about shutting down applications (services are regular applications), interesting as it is, will only free up more real memory on your PC and that will make it swap less. Unless the error is in the Windows swapping algorithm, this will have no effect on your application crashing. It may have an impact on it's performance, and if it is so extremely time sensitive (in and of it self a bug) that it will crash with slow memory access then it will work. Only then. If Vegas crashes when access to memory is slow then the Vegas developers could not be characterized as bad, they would have to be characterized as incompetent. I would typically not characterize them as bad or incompetent.

The question is is vegas accessing an area that it is not supposed to... or is that particular area of memory being used by something else when it shouldn't be.

If you are not running Vegas on Windows 98 or ME, that is not even a possibility. The fact that you suggest it is is proof positive that my advice to you to stay out of technical discussion is very good advice indeed. Vegas on a protected mode OS, that is Windows NT based operating systems like Vista, can not possibly access memory in a rouge manner. It can in fact freely access any part of memory it can get an address to. The Intel CPU and chip set will, in conjunction with the OS, make absolutely certain that Vegas does not access something it shouldn't.

Now, as for the response to your post, with the disabling of a device driver, things went better for the user in question. Good for him. That is an indication of a bad driver. It may have been triggered by Vegas, but it was for sure not what caused the memory access violation. What does this mean? It means that removing the driver removed the symptom. It is unlikely, but not impossible, that it was the real culprit.

"Not to get personal but the way you've got a PC thown together in a wooden box is inviting problems, moreso if you're running large amount of RAM without ECC. Even more to the point Creative's drivers are about as dodgy as they get."

Yes...well the bottom line Bob is that you're crashing and I am not. I'm quite happy with Vegas in just about every aspect so the question I have to ask is what am I doing right and YOU wrong? Or wait a minute.... you mean I'm doing wrong and you're doing right....

Come on Bob get a life.

"You really shouldn't take part in technical discussions blink."

You talk about me not taking part in technical discussions... well ya know what staggers me to no end Terje, guys like you and Bob that complain and whine, and moan about things not working right.... work arounds are presented in many cases and you whine and moan and complain about having to use a work around.... but the real killer is.... that you're still here!?!?

It's like hammering nails up your nose... you say OUCH... but yet you continue to hammer away... It just simply amazes me how intelligent people can function at this level of stupidity!

If you guys are so dead set on blaming Vegas every time you sneeze... if you're that angry with it, if you think the pasture is so green on the other side... then for heaven's sake why don't you simply move on down the road to a more reliable setup??? It's really not hard to do.... I did it.

You guys are really starting to sound as pathetic as P@mast3rs did in the end... nothing but whine, complain, moan..... the only difference is that P@mast3rs had enough manly-hood in him to get up and go elsewhere. He didn't sit there hammering nails up his nose, saying OUCH, then grabbing another one out of the box to do it again.

If you think Vegas has some kind of major and disastrous memory problem and the sky is falling, and you seem to think I've (me... the inept guy that should stay out of technical discussions because I don't understand software) has miraculously found just by pure luck some kind of work around to avoid it, then fine... why aren't you looking for your own work around? No... you 2 want to sit there like a couple of school children saying.... but it's not supposed to be like that!?!?.... OUCH, that hurts.... let's do it again. And YOU want to call ME pathetic???? Honestly Terje......

Just plain silly!

Bob... this inept guy that should stay out of technical discussions, has found you a work around to get a time and date stamp on your work. It may not be exactly what you're looking for, but it's a start. You can either take it a run with it... or sit there like a child crying on your keyboard.

Terje, this inept guy that should stay out of technical discussions has found through some simple experimentation that indeed you CAN use large jpg's on the time line. You can either take it a run with it... or sit there like a child crying on your keyboard.

From here... you 2 pathetic little creatures on on your own... you can choose to sink or swim.

And all I did was ask some questions related to using NeoHDV...

How did this discussion get hijacked into another pi$$ing match????

Cliff Etzel - Solo Video Journalist
bluprojekt | solo video journalism blog

Well...all of the thread detours aside, the Neo products still look great to me.

And you know what else that I don't understand? Cineform offers full-featured, time-limited demos of all their products. 15 days is more than enough to figure out whether a software product is worth its purchase price or not. I read a ton of people online raving about Cineform, but I only became convinced of it's utility by using the demo.

uys like you and Bob that complain and whine

And people who only invent straw-men in discussions with others, what should they do? I have not complained at all in this thread, and I have in general had very, very few complaints about Vegas. I have taken part in discussions where Vegas problems have occurred, but you making up rubbish about what I say, do, mean or know is far more typical on this forum than me complaining. Please stick to what you know blink, which is video editing. Don't get engaged in technical discussions. Don't give people technical advice that isn't directly related to video editing.

can function at this level of stupidity!

This is just sad blink. You have again been measured, weighed and found wanting and the only thing you have to contribute is personal attacks. Was abortion illegal when you were born?

And YOU want to call ME pathetic????

No, you have proven, in this post alone, that you are sad and pathetic. When you are caught with your pants down giving advice on things you clearly have no knowledge about you start ranting and throwing insults around. Honestly, you really are pathetic when you do this (not all the time though, only when you behave like a pathetic loser like in this post).

Again, you get way to emotionally involved in whatever it is that you are in love with at any point in time, and when you do you get irrational and pathetic, and that is sad to watch. When you stay rational and composed you have things to contribute.

Honestly blink, you need to work on your attitude when you are wrong. It is not detrimental to your personality when you say something wrong. Take the correction and move on. Keep your feelings and your hurt ego out of the discussion.

If you really are as pathetic as you portray your self as in this post blink, it would be very sad indeed, but it would explain a lot, if abortion was illegal way back in the past when you were conceived.

"Don't get engaged in technical discussions. Don't give people technical advice that isn't directly related to video editing."
Contrary to what that wild ego of yours is forcing you to believe, this is Sony's board and NOT yours so I will do as I please. If you don't like that then you're free to go some where else, or just simply not read my posts... one of the two.

"This is just sad blink. "
Yes... quite sad when people hammer nails into their nose and don't know how to stop.

Are "sad" and 'pathetic" the only words in your vocabulary??? That's all you ever seem to call me. You can't dig down deep in there some where and find some thing a little more original?? Geez... i look back on all the old posts and count these 2 words up and you would think that you got raised solely on these 2 words alone. Didn't anybody say anything else to you??

Terje.... I'll say the same thing to you that I said to Bob. I'm not crashing while you ARE. Now if that's what you want to call "sad" and "pathetic".... well... okay, fine.... I'll gladly take it. I don't know why but this "sad and pathetic" person seems to know computers better than you do... oops.. sorry, that's not quite true. From your own posts it's clear you know how to crash them better than i do ;)

>>>In protected mode Windows, that is Windows NT, 2000, XP and Vista, this is not possible. Each process has full access to all possible memory, it can write to whatever memory address it wants, and there is no possible way that it can overwrite another applications data or code segments.<<<

And the financial markets are safe and what just happened could never happened. Ridiculous.

What you describe is what ideally should happen or not happen in a pefect world of perfectly written applications. Since none of those applications are perfect and neither is windows, anything can and does happen.

A simple install of iTunes or quicktime on a pc is enough to interfere with 1/3 of your applications, and this is a well documented problem. Remove them and all is well again.

"iTunes or quicktime on a pc is enough to interfere with 1/3 of your applications"

Quite true.
Any one of these programs that installs part of itself as an auto start/load on boot has the potential to cause big problems with other programs. The nasty part is that they rarely tell you or ask your permission while installing as such. QuickTime in fact is great for taking command of your PC. Nero INCD used to be the same.... although I believe they have throttled it back a little due to complaints.

And almost ALL of these programs are set to "auto update" when installed..... again, they don't tell you that either.

Anytime I install a program now, i carefully go through ConfigSys, Associations, and Services to check and see exactly how they've installed themselves. Some of them really do a terrific job at taking over your machine.

this is Sony's board and NOT yours

That is why I gave you advice blink, not a command. If you don't know the difference between a command and an advice you really need to go back to first grade. Words like "should" ought to be a hint.

Are "sad" and 'pathetic" the only words in your vocabulary?

Obviously not, you have seen a number of posts here from me with other words in them. You have even quoted some of them above. The words "sad" and "pathetic" easily crop into the conversation with you once you start running amok with personal attacks just because you were caught with your pants down.

I'm not crashing while you ARE

Why do you think I am crashing? Jumping to more conclusions? I have only had two major problems with Vegas, 32 bit color which I have stopped using, and the Pro titler regularly throwing .net exceptions (which are always caused by errors in software). I have stopped trying 32 bit color and use After Effects or Bluff for titling.

Please try to avoid jumping to conclusions.

if that's what you want to call "sad" and "pathetic"

No, the sad and pathetic part was when you went nuts with personal insults just because you had given someone bad advice.

seems to know computers better than you do

Eh, no, you don't. As you have proven a fairly large number of times. The only thing you seem to do very well blink is to jump to conclusions for which you have no basis.

Any one of these programs that installs part of itself as an auto start/load on boot has the potential to cause big problems with other programs.

Just for the record, and this is to deusx as well, a "program that installs it self as an auto start/load on boot" has no more or less ability to interfere with other software on your computer than any other piece of software. There is no difference between a service and a regular piece of software other than the manner in which Windows starts them.

Quicktime, for example, can gain access to another piece of software on your PC only by monopolizing a share resource or similar. If any of your software on the other hand loads a DLL that ships with Quicktime, it gives this DLL a fair amount of access to the internals of it's own operations.

On the other hand, a regular piece of software can not, in any way, access the code or data segment of a running process on your PC. Honestly, it can't, and not in the same way that the financial market can't collapse, in the same way that a rock can't fall upwards.

Device drivers, well, that is a completely different story in many ways, but that wasn't the topic here.

Perhaps also worth pointing out that the problems with QT and iTunes were fixed by Apple rolling back the drivers. Also as far as I could find the symptoms were not memory protection violations. They caused Vista to go Stop a.k.a BSOD. To date I don't think anyone has reported Vegas doing that.

As for Blink's suggestions about what these programs are doing, if they are seriously screwing with things it's damn hard to find and backtrack. Safest course of action is to make a disk image so everything including the registry and boot sectors can be restored.

Oh and I also don't have any problems with Vegas crashing. I long ago worked out 32 bit was a bust in every way. In the last 48 hours I've pushed 3 jobs out the door, rendered hours of HDV and I'm about to process 17 hours of HDV, next job is 31 hours of HDV and I know I'll not have problems. I haven't wasted my money on more than 2GB of RAM and I'm running under 32 bit WinXP with a zillion background tasks including InCD, all the crud Apple and Google polluted my PC with and still nothing falls over. The same PC runs all of CS3 without a hiccup including some pretty full on plugs from Red Giant.

Bob.

Well... I've been trying to tell both you an Terje for some time now Bob, that the sky ISN'T falling with Vegas. It finally sounds like your both starting to come around. It's amazing what happens when you actually sit down and THINK out a problem instead of running around claiming the sky is falling with massively huge access violation issues..... memory leaks....etc

"Just for the record, and this is to deusx as well, a "program that installs it self as an auto start/load on boot" has no more or less ability to interfere with other software on your computer than any other piece of software."
Yes... and you just keep right on living in that little fairy tale world of yours Terje, where the sky is pink, there is no war, and it never rains. If that's what you need to get through life then so be it. The simple FACT of the matter is that there is 'what SHOULD be' and then 'what is'. In a perfect world such as the bubble you live in there is no such thing as software conflicts.... but then here in the real world where the rest of the population resides there are COUNTLESS records of the above mentioned conflicts scattered all over not only this board, but the whole bloody internet. Don't take my word for it.... do a google on "incd conflicts" or "itune conflicts" or even "quicktime conflicts". In fact I found quite a few "quicktime conflicting with FCP" complaints.

And BTW: you were also complaining about large jpg's crashing your machine. This must be unique to you now because I'm not having problems with that anymore..... and the Pro Titler..... I can't remember the last time I had a crash with that so I gotta ask.... what are YOU doing wrong? Have no fear Terje.... emotions do run high sometimes, but I won't quit on ya. Together we'll work on your machine till all the problems are gone..... and I won't even charge you for it :)

"It finally sounds like your both starting to come around."

Oh really, and on what do you base that???
I haven't changed my position on anything.
I can't begin to imagine what your problem is, I've rarely struck such a personality, outside of an Apple users meeting.
Your "advice" to other users serves only to bring the product into disrepute, any person with a modicum of computer cred would be mortified to think that Vegas is as unstable as your suggested workarounds would imply. If those less knowledgeable were to take your advice on board then the sky really will be falling down and you'll be the one whose blind faith contributed it.

To deny the problems like you are doing is corrosive, to suggest the problem can be resolved because they exist solely outside of the application is destructive, moreso when it flies in the face of publicly stated facts. This whole pointless and destructive rant fest of yours started when a user asked about one of the best and most viable workarounds to the issues, ones that you continue to deny exist. How is that helping exactly? Propagating bad information about a product is in no way helpful to the cause. Stating that it is "harder to get working" is wrong, none of the people here who actually know what they're doing are finding it any harder to get working, we've just worked out where the known problems are and how to work around them. I will not deny the problems, denial fixes nothing.

Personally I don't really care much what your problem is but I certainly wish you'd find an outlet for it elsewhere. What I do care about is the fate of the product. Attacking knowledgeable people like Terje is entirely counterproductive. Postulating bizarre hypothesis that collapse under scrutiny destroys your credibilty and drags the rest of us down.

Bob, who isn't at all sad and hopefully not that pathetic either, thank you.