RobV, is that AVI.net program still around? I tried to google it but came up empty. Was it a freebe?

I did find a couple of VOB to AVI apps, none were free.

Edit: Nevermind, I found it, and it's freeware:

http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=avi.NET

Thanks for the info rustier.

Geez....kinda sucks to think I have to pay more money just to get this to work though. But if it allows me to salvage the project...I guess I don't have much of a choice.

I know I have been scouring the internet for answers and all I get tells me I basically have to start over (which I don't want to do).


Edit: BTW rutstier,

Will I have to uninstall VMS 4 if I upgrade to the Platinum package or can I just install it over what I have now?

Ah...you found it. Good.

Just beware....I'm starting to wonder if this program was the source of my woes. It works fine, but.........I wonder.

I first want to say that I can not guarantee this solution will work for you - only that it worked for me. I will also say that just because a program says it can convert a file into something else - especially digital video - doesnt neccesarily make it so. I really like Sony Vegas Movie Studio - I think it is very stable, easy to use, with many sophisticated features for those who want to dive into it. Forgive this analogy but I think that bringing in some "converted" files (not all) into SVMS is like putting really cheap gas in your car - it doesnt run very well. As to which ones are better than others - I am no expert. I am sure there are some folks here with a little more experience than me in that area. You may want to try importing your stuff with a different "converter" program. Who knows - you may even be able to bring a new converted copy of your video into a new copy of your project (to protect the original.) You know all the editing is done with markers and the original video is just referred to but not changed(Perhaps you have noticed the media showing "offline" for some portion of your media - this can happen if you use a sound file from a cd without saving onto your hard drive for example). I am not sure how or if the old markers will refer to the newly converted video file - but it might be worth a shot - if you don't want to upgrade your software.

To answer your question - you don't have to uninstall to upgrade. All the upgrade does is check to see if you have authorized copy of older program then installs completely new program. You can then import your projects into the new program.

Well...I finally made it through this nightmarish process by using VMS Platinum.

It still had it's problems mind you. I ended up having to clip out pieces of the video and only render say 20% of the video at a time. The strange thing was, it would render all the way through the ENTIRE video rather than just the 15 minute clip I had loaded on the screen.

But everything after the 15 minutes, was just all black. So say I loaded up the 15 minute clip in say Windows Media Player, it would say the clip was 1 hour long. After the 15 minutes of "good" video, the screen would just be black.

So I ended up going back into VMS Platinum, re-loading the 15 minute session back in, then render it again. Finally I got a decent clip.

For whatever reason, it's just not liking the AVI file I have, and it seems like it may be a memory problem (the way Vegas sorts through the AVI clip) or something. I don't know.

What I do know is that this was a MAJOR pain in the butt!!

If nothing else...I sure learned a lot.

Thanks for trying to help guys. I don't think I'll be doing things this way again though.

Rob

I am currently suffering from a render hang. It always hangs in about the same place (plus or minus a few hundred frames) about forty minutes into the video (over two hours of render time). The events being rendered at the time of the hang are still photos. CPU consumption drops to zero, the disk goes quiet. Windows Task Manager shows VMS is consuming about 1.1gb of memory (I have 1.5gb in my system). I suspect you can't get an application to use much more than that on a 32 bit system.

If I try to cancel the render it says "render canceled by user" but it continues to hang. If I try to close the VMS application it says "A background operation is currently in pgoress. ... Would you like to cancel this operation?" If I click "Yes" it continues to hang. The only way I can get it to stop is to kill the process from Task Manager.

So far I have been randomly stabbing at the problem by shifting events, removing pan/zoom, etc. Experiments are really slow when it runs for over two hours before hanging. So far I haven't made any progress. At this point my hunch is I have too many stills, and VMS has chewed up all of virtual memory representing them, but that is just a guess.

The sources for the video are:

o AVI captured via firewire from an analog converter
o AVI captured via firewire from a MiniDV camera
o MPG video imported from a MiniDVD disk via the "Import DVD Camcorder Disc" function
o All photos are JPEG (probably a few hundred stills)

I've submitted a problem report to Sony, but, in the meantime, has anyone found a good way to solve this kind of problem? I really want to keep this in one title, so I don't want to render it in smaller pieces.

hmm, looks like your sources are all good - you are using VMS Platinum version6 build 85?

I have heard some of the guys having trouble with some of the dvd camcorder video - have you imported it before?

have you tried what I call a bare boot - selective reboot with just the minimum - no virus, spyware scanner, no screen saver even ( I suspected a screen saver caused a hang back on the version 4) and then tried to do a render?

how is your space on the hard drive? plenty?

I have VMS 6.0A build 85 (not platinum).

I haven't burned the MPEG before. Hard to say if it is related or not since I only used about 10 seconds of it, and it was near the beginning of the video; the hang occurs while rending the end of the video. I could remove it to see what happens. Right now I have chopped a bunch of slides out just to see if that makes a difference. Tick, tick, tick... I should find out in a couple hours.

I have considered blowing away all services that aren't necessary on the system, but I consider that approach a desperation move. I may get that desperate soon, however.

I have 15gb of free space on the disk. All windows patches are up-to-date, virus signatures current and a full scan recently done.

I wasn't suggesting "blowing away services", just a selective start where you only fire up the programs you absolutely need - this does not blow anything off. It is done in msconfig. start >run>msconfig. You can selectively start stuff there and then put it back to normal after you are done by checking the normal startup. I did a family photo montage with 220 photos and video with no problems. I would place the number of photos low on the totem pole of suspects for your problem. I would place the video compatabilty/support at the top. You may need to download a codec to provide support for your particular mpeg (there are more variations than you think). For giggles can you copy your project to another instance of VMS, rename it, remove the suspect mpeg, save it and try a "render only" test? The other option is to download gspot and see exactly what kind of video mpeg you have (if you dont already know). Then you can check to see if you have the codec you need to support it. {start>control panel>sounds and audio devices(kindof a strange place for it huh?)>hardware(even more strange place to find out about your software)>video codecs>properties>properties

hope that helps