You might still run into problems but I did this:
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=175128

Best/Tommy Jönsson
www.stormstereo.com

When first playing with VV4 (beta I think) had an install issue where the real media settings were not getting written into the registry. Alas I've just checked and I can't find the exact entries any longer - best I can do is go by the old favorite I set in the reg editor: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Software\RealNetworks.

At any rate, had similar prob. until I copied the reg settings back in there. If you feel like fooling with it, might export the whole key I listed, then import it back after reinstalling 4b.

Hi Storm,

Thanks for the tip. I do in fact have other SF applications like SF 6.0e and AcidPro 4.0. I was a little bit scared to go ahead and uninstall all SF applications thinking about the pain I might have to install them all again following by updates I had to made since the original products were released.

So, I decided to uninstall Vega 4.0b only. After I did it, I saw some remnants like Video 4.0 directory with like one or two files left. I erased them all. I reinstalled Vegas 4.0a, checked if it was working (and it was), than I updated to 4.0b, that DID NOT let me save RealVideo at 8.0 again. So, basically this approach didn't work.

For now, I refuse the delete all SF applications to make sure that 4.0b will work. I think SF should be the one to address the issue of installation of updates of their own programs to make sure that there is no interference of other of their program. I will see what will happen with 4.0c (if such will be released). For now 4.0a does what I need it to do for me.

Thanks for your help.

Kris

When I tried to open my previously saved in 4.0b template and I was trying to edit it the button CUSTOM was not operatable. I was clicking on it without success. In desperation I have choosen already built in, previously unedited template that came with the program and I couldn't edit it either (I tried several of them).

After I decided to give up and wanted to save it in any template, after hitting SAVE command, I received the message saying:

"The RealMedia Plug-in was not able to initialize properly. It appears that some modules are being used from a folder other than the install folder. Most likely another third party application has installed RealMedia modules in system folder. This may conflict with this plugin. If restarting this application does not correct the problem, please contact Sonic Foundy Customer Support for assistance".

That's about it. I already un-installed, reinstalled, re-registered the product several times. I hope it will not raise the red flag with SF.

Any help would be appreciated.

Kris

OK. I did some more "investigations".
I have noticed presence of additional folder in Sonic Foundry Directory. The name of this folder was: Shared Plug-Ins. I went there and noticed presence of the subfolder called: File Formats. Following further that subfolder had additional subfolder called: G2. I looked at that folder and the content was very similar to the one in /Sonic Foundry/Video 4.0/FileIO Plug-Ins/g2plug. I backed up the content of the /Sonic Foundry/Shared Plug-Ins/File Formats/G2 and replaced all of them with the content from /Sonic Foundry/Video 4.0/FileIO Plug-Ins/g2plug. After doing it, I started Vegas 4.0b and voila I can encode in RealVideo 8.0.

I experimented further and after shutting the Vegas 4.0b I renamed /Sonic Foundry/Shared Plug-Ins/File Formats/G2 to /Sonic Foundry/Empty/File Formats/G2, to see if this was really needed to operate Vegas 4.0b. After renaming it, I started Vegas 4.0b again. Now the only option to save RealVideo was ver 9.0 (option to save in 8.0 dissapeared). So to work the RealVideo 8.0 again I had to rename the folder back.

CONCLUSION.

Seems to me that Vegas 4.0b instead of using their own plugin stored in /Sonic Foundry/Video 4.0/FileIO Plug-Ins/g2plug goes to /Sonic Foundry/Shared Plug-Ins/File Formats/G2 for Real Video 8.0. So it is probably the register Key issue to redirect it to the proper directory. If I am right, can you guide me how to do it? Should I keep the entire /Sonic Foundry/Shared Plug-Ins/File Formats/ directory or is this the remnants from very eraly version on SF.

Thanks for your help.

Kris

DO NOT delete the Shared Plug-Ins/File Formats folder. Many of those format plug-ins have been replaced by private copies for our newer applications (which will be used in preference to the ones in that shared folder), but some such as MP3, MPEG, and AC3 must remain in the shared folder, due to licensing restrictions. Legacy applications such as Vegas 3.0, ACID 3.0, and Sound Forge 5.0 always use their supported file format plug-ins from that location. If you delete the folder you WILL break those applications. ACID 4.0 and Sound Forge 6.0 have a number of private format plug-ins similar to Vegas; however, they too use the licensed plug-ins from that shared folder so you cannot delete it.

You saw that error dialog because the RealMedia 8 plug-in detected that it was using DLLs that did not come from the same folder as the plug-in, which can cause crashing because of version mismatches. The Custom button wasn't permitted to be functional either because it detected it was using the wrong RealMedia DLLs.

Did you actually try restarting Vegas and rendering to RM8? It wasn't clear that you tried this before uninstalling, etc. You must restart one time because the first time Vegas tries to use the RM8 plug-in it discovers the problem but it is too late to workaround it other than save a list of critical DLLs that need to be pre-loaded before the plug-in. The next and future times you run Vegas, it sees this list, loads the necessary modules, then loads the plug-in and you should be good to go.

Those registry settings mikkie alluded to allow the RM8 plug-in to see the RealMedia 9 video codec in addition to the RealMedia 8 codecs. These should always get set as part of the Vegas 4.0 installation (a few people had some problems in a beta version). They are not install or application path-specific, to my knowledge they should not be causing your problems.

I do not know why RealMedia 8 disappeared from your list when you renamed the shared folder (so any plug-ins from that folder would be omitted including MP3 etc.). I believe you should have seen both RealMedia 8 and RealMedia 9, with both of them coming from the Vegas install path not the shared folder. You would need to exit and restart Vegas in order to use the RealMedia 8 plug-in though for the reason already mentioned.

Sorry for such a lengthy answer, let me know if this isn't clear.


N.B.: When you go to the Render As dialog and select a format, you can click the About button to see the path that is being used for the plug-in DLL. Most of them in Vegas 4.0 will be found under Vegas' install folder, not the shared plug-ins folder.

Thank you for your explanation and let me address your queries.

1. You asked me if I did restart the application. Yes several times. After reinstalling it I did restart it again with the same results.

2. I did check the about section and for RealVideo 9.0 it referes to:
C:\Program Files\Sonic Foundry\Vegas 4.0\File IO Plugins\rm9plug\rm9plug.dll

For RealVideo 8.0 it refers to:
C:\Program Files\Sonic Foundry\Shared Plug-Ins\File Formats\G2\g2plug.dll

So what should I do. As I said I replaced the content of C:\Program Files\Sonic Foundry\Shared Plug-Ins\File Formats\G2\ with C:\Program Files\Sonic Foundry\Vegas 4.0\File IO Plugins\rm9plug\. I do however have a back up with original content of C:\Program Files\Sonic Foundry\Shared Plug-Ins\File Formats\G2\ if I have to put it back on.

Thanks

Hi EuroBeat
You seem to be up and running again. It says in you post you reinstalled 4.0a and upgraded to 4.0b and it did not solve the problem. Just to clarify what I did: After the uninstall and folder deletion, I installed Vegas directly from 4.0b. I did not upgrade from 4.0a.

Well, for what it's worth.
Best/Tommy
www.stormstereo.com

This is exactly what I have done as well. Initially I just upgraded from 4.0a to 4.0b, than deleted than did it again to no avail. At the end after unistalling 4.0a/b, I installed just 4.0b without installing 4.0a first, yet it didn't cure the issue. If you read the thread you probably know by now how I did "cure" (if I cured) this situation. I had to replace the content of C:\Program Files\Sonic Foundry\Shared Plug-Ins\File Formats\G2\ with C:\Program Files\Sonic Foundry\Vegas 4.0\File IO Plugins\rm9plug\. The directories were virtually the same but versions on Share Plug-Ins were older.

I am still waiting for response from SF Tech here to see if what I have done was actually acceptable.