OT - Venting my frustration with VP9.0

farss wrote on 12/12/2009, 2:11 AM

"So, does the next series of Vegas need to come with a Minimum Hardware Warning?"

It's very difficult to spec this kind of thing. You'd need some monster n dimensioned matrix, codecs, number of tracks, FXs etc, etc.

That said we do seem to under resource our systems, maybe the cheap ticket price of Vegas contributes to this. I recently provided some support to a lady running FCS on a system with 8 cores and 32GB of RAM, she thought that was a pretty basic system for what she did.

"Hah! That has to be the No.1 Marketing downer for those planning releases of Vegas, here-on-in!"

Hey?
I was referring to using Edius.

Bob.

Grazie wrote on 12/12/2009, 2:40 AM

My misunderstanding. Apologies!!! - It was you closely tying one statement with the next sentence . . I should've been aware of that.

But maybe, just maybe, . . . . I was reading here about one of our "colleagues" having to remove Media Manager just to allow his PC fireup Vegas? I am having to reduce RAM Build Preview amount to 16mbs to get my ExtMon not hang Vegas?

Grazie

Cliff Etzel wrote on 12/12/2009, 9:10 AM

well, it seems that Vegas is in a perpetual downward spiral - fired up my computer to make some of the changes suggested - now half the clips won't even show in the preview window - or at best the flicker terribly. Title tracks flicker intermittently in the preview even when the player head has passed them. I'm at a loss - my only solution is to restore my base install of Win 7 and reinstall one at a time to see WTH is going on.

MY rant: One shouldn't have to rebuild a machine if it is kept free of poorly written 3rd party apps, etc. Seems as though the more I use Vegas any more, the less I want to use it.

No matter what settings I use, the application just acts totally wonky - tried changing the properties of the project - no difference. Change preview ram memory settings - still no love.

I understand that there are many on here who use Vegas day in and out without issue - I was until this week. Now I'm left stuck in the middle of this project - about all I can do is export out an EDL and try to rebuild the project in Vegas or just throw in the towel and chalk it up to experience - wish Edius Neo would import an EDL...

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt

TheHappyFriar wrote on 12/12/2009, 9:35 AM

if things are going this bad, maybe it's a hardware/driver issue. Along with the low specs could be Vegas uses stuff other NLE's don't & has issues if something goes wrong with that. If it REALLY did just start happening a few weeks ago I would assume that (I've had the same XP install for ~2 years & have had tons of little issues, Vegas won't even show up in the start bar after it loads up until I click on a vegas window!)

winrockpost wrote on 12/12/2009, 10:27 AM

Do you still have 8 installed, if so is it wacked also ?
I skipped the 9 upgrade (happy) 8c on vista very stable here with hdv interesting to see if 8 is having issues on your machine

Cliff Etzel wrote on 12/12/2009, 10:47 AM

THF - This literally started happening within the past 72 hours. I did create an EDL and created a new project - this time making the project as 720p - it doesn't see any of the titles I created in the other version, but the video clips APPEAR to play fine now.

Now here's a weird thing - My legit copy of Win 7 on my laptop now says it is a pirated copy! I'm now beginning to wonder if an update M$ forced on me has pooched both my systems - my search shows many users are experiencing the same anomaly within the past 2 weeks...

I may end up losing a alot of productive time restoring my base installs and then reinstalling my apps accordingly - although I don't understand why Win7 on my laptop is showing as a pirated copy whereas my desktop doesn't.

sigh..........

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt

UlfLaursen wrote on 12/12/2009, 12:06 PM

My legit copy of Win 7 on my laptop now says it is a pirated copy!

I have seen this at work to on one of our laptops - strange...

/Ulf

Cliff Etzel wrote on 12/12/2009, 12:29 PM

Well, I seem to have resolved part of the issue I've been struggling with - it appears in the process of testing Edius Neo 2 Booster, I discovered NewBlueFX plugins are supported, so I installed them again to a different folder thinking I could test out my plugins while testing Edius - well, that seemed to mess with Vegas Pro in a big way. I reinstalled them to support Vegas Pro 64 bit and now my effects are working again in Vegas.

So now it appears that the core issue is memory after all and an 8GB desktop memory upgrade is in order. I'd much rather stick with Vegas Pro as it does appear to be the future from what I can tell for agile editing of multimedia content.

Time to find out I guess

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt

TheHappyFriar wrote on 12/12/2009, 12:35 PM

so, in the end, Neo is what started this issue in the first place. :D

Maybe THAT should be posted in their forums! ;)

Glad it's worked out (we think!!)!

Cliff Etzel wrote on 12/12/2009, 12:38 PM

Grazie wrote on 12/12/2009, 1:01 PM

Good!

Grazie

farss wrote on 12/12/2009, 1:34 PM

If your project was running OK and then started to develop problems one of three things have happened:

1) Hardware failure.
2) You added a new element that pushed the code over a brink. That might have been into a region of RAM that was already faulty.
3) Something that had nothing to do with Vegas foobarred the operating environment such as a Windoz update.

I've been struck by all three and not just running NLE software. One security opdate to Office 07 killed one VB instruction and I had a devil of a time convincing my clients it wasn't my fault. M$ had a patch within 48 hours but even then I had to scream at their idiot IT people to convince them to install the patch, they would still argue it must be my fault.

Get yourself a copy of Memtest, run it for a few hours i.e. several cycles. I've had one horror of a support issue with a PC that had a faulty CPU AND faulty RAM. Replaced the power supply, did nothing, replaced the mobo and it almost booted, replaced the CPU and it booted but wierd crashes, Finally replaced the RAM after Memtest found a fault during its final test phase.

Make certain ALL drivers are upto date. A recent update to my nVidia card drivers improved Vegas and stopped AE crashing as well. It took 18 months for nVidia to release this driver update, yish.

Always make regular incremental copies of your project, at least every day. I make one before I wade into any major newness in a project. I might stuff up, Vegas / AE / Ppro might stuff up. If something goes south revert to the previous version that used to be OK.

Bob.

CorTed wrote on 12/12/2009, 1:57 PM

Cliff, just so we all understand. Are you still running 9.0c, and are the red/black frames gone? Things are OK again?

Ted

TheHappyFriar wrote on 12/12/2009, 2:12 PM

Make certain ALL drivers are upto date. A recent update to my nVidia card drivers improved Vegas and stopped AE crashing as well. It took 18 months for nVidia to release this driver update, yish.

That's one thing I would kind of advice against. Why? Unless you keep backups of your drivers, if a new one does something wrong you will have a heck of a time getting things back together as you figure stuff out. I normally only update when there's an issue. I've been on the same ATI drivers for a year now & nothing gives me any issues. They release an update once a month & archive ~2 years old (I have an archive on CD/DVD for ~5 years).

Cliff Etzel wrote on 12/12/2009, 2:32 PM

CorTed - Still running 9.0c 64bit - jury is still out on Red/Black Frames right now - I have other pressing web design work that needs to get done - I'm going to order 8GB Dual Channel RAM this next week and just get it done with.

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt
--------
Desktop: OS: Win7 x64 | CPU: Q6600 | Mobo: Intel DG33TL | 4GB Corsair Dual Channel RAM | Boot/Apps Drive: Seagate 160GB 7200RPM | Audio Drive: Seagate 160GB 7200RPM | Video Drive: WD 640 7200RPM Black Series | Vid Card: nVidia GT7200LE

Laptop: Dell Latitude D620 | C2D 2.0Ghz | 4GB RAM | OS: Win7 x64 | Primary HD: WD 320GB 7200RPM | Video HD: WD 250GB 7200RPM

farss wrote on 12/12/2009, 2:51 PM

That's good advice.
Making a system disk clone isn't that onerous though.
I'm very much an 'if it ain't broken don't try to fix it' kind of guy so this revelation really came as a shock to me. One of the reasons I'd chosen this Leadtek card was it did not use the latest and greatest chipset, it's over a year old. I figured the drivers should be pretty stable and well they were. No real problems with Vegas, Ppro or AE that I would have blamed on the video card. I only updated because I thought something else wasn't working properly (video overlay color management) and then I realised I'd cured most of my AE problems and Vegas worked better as well.
Same goes for BIOSs, I've only twice done a BIOS update because the risk scares me but the last time I did one, well things were foobar everywhere else so if I did brick the mobo no great loss I thought and again, things worked better as a result.
Sure take my advice with caution, I'm still someone who is very reluctant to 'un' fix things but I'm being forced to rethink that approach. I find bug fix lists in release notes don't mention everything that got fixed.

Bob.

drmathprog wrote on 12/12/2009, 3:06 PM

Look on the bright side; at least your 64 bit version installs. On my Win 7 64 bit system, it won't even install. After three weeks in the queue, the Sony Development team has yet to look at the issue.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 12/12/2009, 3:23 PM

the biggest update "culprit" is windows imho. With drivers you normally get them because you want to fix something, windows just says you need them and if you skip one it can cause problems down the road (happened to me once).

Sebaz wrote on 12/12/2009, 6:25 PM

Cliff, maybe somebody else posted this in this really long thread that I don't have to read, but why are you converting HDV footage to Cineform for editing? HDV is really easy on almost any computer that is from 2 or 3 years 'til present, even if you're working with multi-track.

But yes, Vegas 9 is a pathetic piece of garbage, I use 8.0c and Sony never got my money for 9, and they won't.

PeterWright wrote on 12/12/2009, 6:51 PM

> "But yes, Vegas 9 is a pathetic piece of garbage"

A remarkably strong claim from someone who goes on to say they don't own it.

If only I'd known V9 was garbage, I wouldn't be using it every day and enjoying the fact that it has solved several issues I was having with V8.

ushere wrote on 12/12/2009, 7:50 PM

echo peter's comment.

i really do sympathise with anyone having a problem with 9c, however, in my case all has gone according to plan so far.

i7/920 win7/64 6ram

only ever have m2t, png, mxf (for avchd) on timeline (oh, and titles and music - wave / mp3)

leslie

Cliff Etzel wrote on 12/12/2009, 8:52 PM

if it weren't' for the fact this project is already using converted CF AVI's (there are over 500 scene split AVI's in the capture folder) I probably would reconsider using native m2t files - something I believe I'm going to be doing from now on

I believed the hype that using Cineform was a better way to go for editing but I'm beginning to wonder now since more are editing native files instead of using intermediates...

They would take up less room on my editing drive as well if I were editing m2t files. The video capture utility in Vegas has never worked right for me - not sure if HDV Split is still an option - any other ideas for scene splitting m2t files???

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt
--------
Desktop: OS: Win7 x64 | CPU: Q6600 | Mobo: Intel DG33TL | 4GB Corsair Dual Channel RAM | Boot/Apps Drive: Seagate 160GB 7200RPM | Audio Drive: Seagate 160GB 7200RPM | Video Drive: WD 640 7200RPM Black Series | Vid Card: nVidia GT7200LE

Laptop: Dell Latitude D620 | C2D 2.0Ghz | 4GB RAM | OS: Win7 x64 | Primary HD: WD 320GB 7200RPM | Video HD: WD 250GB 7200RPM

farss wrote on 12/12/2009, 9:05 PM

I just had yet another V9 lockup and noticed something that might help others.

It seems to only happen if one gets impatient. Watch the preview window's current frame render progress indicator, that's the:
., .. , ...., ...... thing.

If you try to make Vegas do something or change something while that's in progress it seems to get itself in some kind of fatal embrace and just hangs with the hourglass. In my case I was extending the length of an event which would have also caused Vegas to redraw a thumbnail.

The same might also apply when opening a project, better to be really patient and wait until it has really done everything.

I get the feeling in my gut that the current problems I've noticed only started to bite when I went from V9.0b to V9.0c.

Bob.

Grazie wrote on 12/13/2009, 12:10 AM

> If you try to make Vegas do something or change something while that's in progress it seems to get itself in some kind of fatal embrace and just hangs with the hourglass.

Yes, me too. I am always waiting for the sword or other shoe to drop. I have had to reduce to 16mbs my RAM Preview and so far . . .. . Try an experiment with reducing or increasing RAM Preview, keep an eye on the Vegas.exe in processes in Task Manager and watch what happens. If I get NEAR to 350mbs I get issues. Now load VP8. Do you see any difference in Vegas.exe usage?

Grazie