Slow load in Vegas Pro 9.0e

imaginACTION_films wrote on 5/25/2010, 4:52 PM
I've been working with no hassles on several relatively small projects in Vegas 9.0e with no hassles at all.

I then had a need to go back and open a complex 56-minute documentary file that had been built in 9.0c. The project stalls on loading at about 5% loaded and just sits there doing nothing (as seemed to be the problem in 9.0d - I heeded the forums and didn't load that one!).

So sadly, something is seriously wrong with 9.0e as well. Nothing else on my computer has changed, other than installing 9.0e over 9.0c. All files for the doco are in exactly the same place etc. The shorter projects still load fast. I may have no choice but to go back and reinstall 9.0c plus all the plugins etc etc.

Which is really not professional. Vegas used to be totally seamless - it just worked and you never noticed it - just got on with the creative stuff. I can't count the hours I've wasted and the stress I've felt with the succession of serious bugs over many releases now. David Smith
imaginACTION

Comments

erikd wrote on 5/25/2010, 8:51 PM
Here is what I've gathered so far on this issue. Somewhere in your project is a specific file type that is causing the slow load. Go to your project folder and look at the list of media in detailed view. Click on "type" to group all of the media in your project by file types. Scan the list and see how many video types you have. If you have any avis, I would start there. First, rename your veg project and begin removing the file type. Reload the renamed Vegas project and see if the slow load issue has gone away. Continue this process until you find the offending file type.

After you find the file type, look to see if all of your files in that group are identical. Different codecs,etc.? Keep working and you might find that it could be even a single file that is causing the slow load.

Once you know for sure what file type is causing the problem, I would ask you to check the media properties of the file in Vegas and see if the file was created by Virtual Dub. There have been 3 people on this forum so far who have reported this common link to possibly causing a slow load in Vegas 9e but we haven't completely confirmed this yet.

Erik

imaginACTION_films wrote on 5/25/2010, 11:13 PM
Thanks for the useful reply, Erik.

I will do as you suggest but I do know this much about my file types.

Most video tracks were digitized from archival Hi-8 footage shot on a Canon Pro grade camera (similar to the XL1 but the earlier Hi-8 version).
These were captured as PAL DV files into this project. The project is set up as HDV 1080 50i.

There are also some standard HDV clips at 1080 50i from Sony Z1 and A1 cameras.

The project also includes a number of tracks captured from Microsoft Flight Sim X and Combat Flight Sim 3. These were all displayed in Flight sim at 1920x1080 and were captured using FRAPS V 3.2. These Flight sim sequences were built as separate projects and rendered to Cineform AVIs before inclusion in the main documentary project.

Several composited animations were also rendered via Cineform before inclusion.

All Cineform renders used Cineform HD V4.3.4 codec, from within Neo HDV and these all worked flawlessly in Vegas 9.0c.

If you're interested, you can see clips of these sequences at Auscamonline>online shop>Return to ANJO.

There are many PNG stills scaled as per "match output aspect". Some are cropped further and some have small zoom-ins (=Ken Burns effect). On 9.0c they all played back perfectly, with no motion artefacts at all.

The project has about 35 video tracks and 10 audio tracks, ie it's quite complex.

NOTE that following an issue I noted in the Release notes to Vegas 9.0d, when working on this project in 9.0c I switched off "Adjust source media to better match project or render settings". This caused problems that were addressed in 9.0d, when that box was checked and pan crop changes were used in events.

So that's where I stand at present. I'll now follow your instructions and check out the AVIs first.

David
imaginACTION_films wrote on 5/26/2010, 12:08 AM
Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be able to follow your advice. When I said 'opens slowly' I should have said 'takes at least half an hour...' Infact after 90 minutes the project has 'sort of loaded' but has hung apparently all clips in place except one Cineform track. So it's now not responding and I can't either re-save it or investigate the media. Pretty frustrating! I'll leave it sit like this overnight and see what's happened in the morning.

On this computer I'm still using the older Neo HDV for my Cineform encoding. I wonder whether I should switch the machine over to the new NeoScene which I have on another computer and which will have to be de-activated, then re-activated. ??? Many questions raised!
imaginACTION_films wrote on 5/26/2010, 4:22 PM
Here is what happened overnight. The project took approximately 7 hours to load.

I renamed it and removed just those video clips that had originated in Microsoft Flight Simulator. These AVIs were captured using FRAPS software and then most were rendered out as Cineform HD .avi clips. Those clips were then added to the project.

Now, when I removed just those clips from the project, (ie most Cineform, some FRAPS) the project loaded within 15 seconds.

The simplified project still contains many Cineform rendered clips, so now I strongly suspect the FRAPS codec as the culprit. NOTE that this problem only emerged in Vegas 9.0e. The project loaded perfectly in 9.0c and I went straight to 9.0e without loading 9.0d. I did not uninstall but simply installed d over c.

I have reported all of this to Sony tech support and have sent both Veg files to them, ie the complete one plus the one with Flight sim vids removed.

I'll need to reload the main project in order to test just the FRAPS clips. That will take another 7 hours so again I'll do it overnight. But your suggestions has certainly helped isolate the problem. Thanks very much indeed - and I hope this little detective exercise helps other Vegas users avoid strife!

David