Problems with Magix Vegas!

thomas-foley wrote on 2/5/2021, 6:49 PM

I promised myself after buying Vegas 16, that I would never buy another upgrade to Vegas again, but just like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown, I fell for it again. I've been using Vegas almost everyday for as long as I can remember, since whenever Sony Vegas 4 came out. Because of my work, we have about twenty years of Vegas files, so switching to another video program is not an option. Sony Vegas used to be an exquisite gem before Magix took over, at least for me it was. I used to leave huge, four hour long files rendering, fixing each frame, with tons of effects on them, color correcting, sharpening, brightening, uprezzing whatever and there was no doubt in my mind that my crummy Pentium 4 computers and Celerons would not crash and they would work flawlessly. I honestly think I went YEARS without crashing. I've been editing for many years and digitized multitudes of stock footage and old public domain footage and it petrifies me whenever Vegas comes out with a new version. Invariably, they add all this crap I would never use or care about, take away things I like, and make the program more unstable. How many versions and upgrades and bug fixes does a program need before it stops crashing? (and don't say it's my computer. I have 10 great Intel 7 and AMD workstations and laptops which run Vegas 12, and Vegas 14 flawlessly. Vegas 15 and then 16 were so unstable for me and crashing all the time, I asked Magix to cancel my two Vegas 16 activations for two more Vegas 14 activations instead. I actually DOWNGRADED to a better program. I've actually made tests with Vegas 12 versus Vegas 18 with all its GPU acceleration nonsense and Cuda crap, and there's zero difference in my rendering time.
Magix tempted me to buy Vegas 14 because they bundled it with a FABULOUS, and in my humble opinion the BEST and easiest, green screen program from Boris FX and the proDAD Mercalli stabilizer (which is far superior to the stabilization program in Vegas.) To my horror and dismay, Magix doesn't tell you that the plug-ins you bought in a previous Vegas bundle, won't work in your NEW upgrade. Screwed again. Anyway, I fell for buying the Vegas 18 Post suite for $384 because I thought it might be more stable and the motion tracking looked cool. The green screen program was too complicated for my simple mind and Vegas 18 changed some things I liked so when it crashed on me the third time, I stopped using it. If you use Vegas 18 on a Vegas 14 project file, you can never bring it into Vegas 14 again so it's made worthless and Magix only gives you two activations so forget using it on your computer at work or on your travel laptop or on a computer that doesn't have internet access so it can check if you dared activate on another one of your computers.
So, yesterday, after 3 months of non-use, I decided to try Vegas 18 again. I opened up program and it says that there's a new update. I think to myself, "Oh cool, new update! Maybe the software geniuses at Magix came up with some great bug fixes. I'm gonna kick this football" It took me 35 minutes to download the 700mb update file. I activated and opened up program, then added a video file to timeline. NOW the program won't even RENDER !?! If you try to render anything, a pop-up window comes up and says "An error occurred when creating the media file. Error Ox80131501 (message missing)". So I uninstall program and upload the 700mb installation program again from My Products in my Magix account. Same problem. The thing won't even render now! I was going to ask if I could go somewhere and download the previous of version of Vegas 18, but I don't really care anymore. I'm just gonna go back to using my Vegas 14 and start buying more Boris FX and Ignite plug-ins. I'll try to look at the wasted $384 I spent on Vegas 18 as a small penance for my sins.

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thomas-foley wrote on 2/7/2021, 2:46 PM

"If you are using Variable Frame Rate (VFR), that is something Vegas Pro is not all that happy with. Most smart phones from Apple and Samsung use VFR and if you do a VFR search on the forum you will find lots of posts about the problem. The recommended resolution is to use a program like Handbrake (free) https://handbrake.fr/ to convert VFR to Constant Frame Rate - there are other programs that can do this as well."

You're right ! I use that Variable Frame Rate. I will stop doing it. From today on, I'.m going to try just editing in ProRes and see how I do. I also want to try this creating a proxy thing and see what that does.

thomas-foley wrote on 2/7/2021, 2:54 PM

You people have inspired me to invest in a better hotshot computer and get rid of all my prehistoric crap. Most of my harddrives are Pata, not even Sata. I'm going to look up some Ryzen computers to buy on Amazon with solid state drives and see what you think.

Dexcon wrote on 2/7/2021, 4:05 PM

@JN- ... Yes, I think on reflection that you are correct re VFR. What was probably meant was that the frame rate was user selectable but remained constant for the recording once the selection had been made. The everyday meaning of VFR has probably changed over the last 15 years particularly due to smart phones.

@thomas-foley ... just to clarify about VFR as highlighted by JN-, VFR as used by smart phones means that the frame rate used by the phone's camera varies during the recording - it is this that Vegas Pro doesn't like. As JN- points out, your camera allows the frame rate to be selected but once selected the frame rate probably remains constant during the recording. If this is the case, this should not be a problem for Vegas Pro.

JN- wrote on 2/7/2021, 4:13 PM

@Dexcon I think it is currently being used to mean two different things entirely, depending on what the device is.

RogerS wrote on 2/7/2021, 5:21 PM

Forgive me that I'm not doing this quote stuff right

I will definitely try converting my stuff to ProRes and try the MagicYUV also, but will start using ProRes immediately today and see how it works. I really know nothing about it, other than it's an Apple thing. I actually, need by tomorrow, a ProRes file of my MXF master. I made this 30 second commercial that I'm going to be advertising on Spectrum at the Comedy Channel, and they're asking me to upload a ProRes mov and not an mp4. I don't know what template to pick in Vegas. Can you please give me the settings I'm supposed to pick in the menu for making these ProRes files?

Ar the moment Magix Intermediate is the generic version of ProRes Vegas can create, but the developers wrote here they got Apple approval for full ProRes support and are working on it

If you need official Pro Res now the Voukoder render plug in has it, I believe.

thomas-foley wrote on 2/7/2021, 7:53 PM

When I go to render my masters, which are Sony MXF Mpeg 2 hd 1920x1080 29.97 files, I'm given the choice of template Magix ProRes 1920x1080 422, ProRes HQ, or ProRes XQ. Am I supposed to pick 422, HQ, or XQ?

RogerS wrote on 2/7/2021, 8:21 PM

Well, that's a good question... what is the goal?

Preserving the fidelity of the original for future editing or delivering a visually acceptable file?

If you test render a few seconds worth you'll see a big file size difference between them. I believe XQ is highest quality and largest file size, while 422 is the smallest and HQ in the middle.

If you have plenty of HD space and plan to do further edits to the files I'd go with XQ.
If it's for delivery, ask if 422 is what they need.

thomas-foley wrote on 2/7/2021, 8:34 PM

ok thanks. I converted my commercial (Sony MXF 103mb file) to MagixProRes 422 and it made the file 519mb. I'm going to convert some files to 422 and XQ and start editing and playing around with them and see how they work in Vegas. Till I buy a decent computer, I might have problems with big files. I also want to learn how to create proxy files.

rock-c wrote on 2/7/2021, 10:23 PM

I also want to learn how to create proxy files.

@thomas-foley 😅

VEGASPascal wrote on 2/8/2021, 4:57 PM

@thomas-foley Your comments made my day. :)

Thanks community for your help. *thumbs-up*

thomas-foley wrote on 2/8/2021, 5:34 PM

Hi, I'm hoping someone can help me. I'm trying to upload my 30 sec commercial as a mov to Spectrum right now. I keep sending them MOVs and they keep rejecting them saying the audio codec is not accepted. What template-specifications am I supposed to send to make a mov file?

They want this- HD l080p Frame Rate 29.97 29.97 : 16-bit 2 channels full mixed(Channels 1&2) Bit Rate: 16-bit 2 channels full mixed(Channels 1&2) Bit Rate: 16-bit File Types .MOV or .MPG .MOV or .MPG .MOV or .MPG .MOV or .MPG Acceptable Codecs H264/ DVCProS0 H.264/Pro Res/X.264 H.264/Pro Res/X.264 H.264/Pro Res/X.264 Scan type Progressive/

set wrote on 2/9/2021, 1:02 AM

What MOV file did you send ? is it already rendered via Magix Intermediate? if it is, that should already do....

thomas-foley wrote on 2/10/2021, 7:34 PM

Spectrum needs either an mov or an mpeg to run a TV commercial. Whatever mov I sent them, they rejected it saying the audio codec was screwy. I only know how to make mp4s in Vegas, so I sent them an mp4 and luckily it was accepted. I plan on trying out editing these Magix Intermediate ProRes files and see how smoothly they play. I also ended up putting Vegas !8 on a Windows 10 computer, instead of my Windows 7 computer that's been running Vegas 14 and see how that goes. Also, I'm going over my finances to see if I can afford some Ryzen computer in the $2000 range and upgrade to a better computer which previews less herky-jerkily. I have to weigh the pros and cons of owning a better video computer or whether my kids eat or have shoes etc...