Sometimes difficult or impossible to render

LarsHD wrote on 6/6/2009, 3:46 AM
In all versions of Vegas I on and off experiences problems rendering. I hope with this thread that we together can define when this is a problem and why it happens and what to do about it.

I'm not specific in my points below as I don't know enough about ithis yet.


EXAMPLE A
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I decided to render to a specific frame saize, format, codec etc. The render starts going. In the middle of this render it just stops. It starts *as if* it renders. But it just stops. Then nothing happens. I hit cancel. But Vegas is not resonding. Vegas has crashed. I have to Task Manager myself out of Vegas.

EXAMPLE B
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I try to render from the time line wher I have format X. Render fails as above. I then exchange and format Y instead but reder out to the same. Now it works.


EXAMPLE C
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I try to render and it says thet the render isn't successfull because of errors that can not be determined. Or something like this. Usualle after this message I can continue in Cegas and Vegas sin't crashing.


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But most failed renders usually ends me up in having pressed "Cancel" and then having to Task Manager out and then launching the project again. And not *KNOWING* why the render failed...



Does rendering sometimes fail because the source footage / time line footage somehow doesn't work my chosen output rendering specifications?

Does rendering fails becasue the frame size isn't exactly what Vegas likes?

Does rendering fails because of progtram length?

Does rendering fail because I have chosen a plugin for text in a combination of a transition effect or something?

Etc.

Etc.


If when rendering from Vegas does it does not like to output WMV in XXXX x YYYY pixels but in another size, why doesn't Vegsa say so?

If Vegas can't cope with a certain codec or source footage - or anything else - why don't I get a message about this?

Can I enter things in format output that can cause egas to crash? If so - why?

Is there a certain "window" of possible combinations that are possible. And others are doomed to fail? If so, why don't I just get to choose from the possible combinations? Why am I allowed to enter data into render dialogue menus that are doomed to fail?

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Too many rendering attempts fail for me. And recovering from each takes time. It failes in 8.0c, 8.1, 9.0-32 and 9.0-64.

Working in uncompressed AVI 1920x1080 and rendering to from 1920x1080 MXF seems very problem free. If I drop another external forma on the time line I seem to be getting more problems.

What's the deal here with renering? When it fails, WHY does it fail and WHAT can I do to prevent that?



Best & thanks in advance
Lars


Comments

farss wrote on 6/6/2009, 5:56 AM
"If when rendering from Vegas does it does not like to output WMV in XXXX x YYYY pixels but in another size, why doesn't Vegsa say so?"

Good question but why ask us, we didn't write the code.

On the other hand SCS did not write the WMV codec. There's probably no mechanism in the vfw interface for a codec to signal the host that it's being asked to do the impossible so both continue on in blind ignorance until the whole show falls over.

Bob.
LarsHD wrote on 6/6/2009, 7:21 AM
I'm just trying to isolate the problem. Should I interpret your answer in the direction that you too have experienced these problems?

Lars
MarkHolmes wrote on 6/6/2009, 10:16 AM
Your problems echo mine precisely. From my experience, these all seem to be rooted in memory management. Our solution for our 720P feature film was to render the film out as 10-12 minute reels and put all the reels into a Final Cut Pro project for final renders and delivery.

The latest fix I've heard from Sony, via the REDUser Forums is: "set the RAM preview to 0 and to set the number of render threads to 1 when you render" The link to this thread:
http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=31154

Good luck!

And I hope Sony gets this fixed in 9.0a.

And a side note: I got tired of these problems yesterday and downloaded the Free 30 Day Trial of Premiere Pro CS4. It took me all of 45 minutes to realize the grass is NOT greener on the Adobe side. Horrendous workflow aside, the 3 crashes of PP convinced me that Vegas is not the only NLE experiencing growing pains with the transition to HD... for me, I'll continue growing along with Vegas.
musicvid10 wrote on 6/6/2009, 11:42 AM
After an hour or more of editing, a lot of system memory gets tied up, a lot of it in the undo chain.

Rather than go directly from editing to rendering, I save my project, close and re-open Vegas before rendering. This frees up a lot of memory. If I know its going to be a long (2hr+) render, I take the added precaution of rebooting and then shutting down all unnecessary background processes before rendering.

Following this drill has all but eliminated render hangs on my system, even on a slower XP machine. HTH
MichaelduS wrote on 6/6/2009, 1:09 PM
Hi Mark
I notice from your post that you edit in Vegas and render out in FCP. For a newbie what format do you render out from Vegas and practically how do you ingest the rendered reel back into FCP? How do you manage your hard drives between these 2 systems?
I hope these questions make sense.
Cheers
Michael
PassTheHat wrote on 6/6/2009, 2:48 PM
“shutting down all unnecessary background processes”

Is there a list of these unneeded processes and a “how to” procedure do this safely?

The task manager shows lots of processes but only lets me force quit applications.

Thanks in advance.
farss wrote on 6/6/2009, 3:04 PM
If you're having problems with Vegas AND problems with Ppro I'd be giving your hardware a serious test. Ppro seems to really push the hardware HARD.
I've run Vegas 4,5 and 6 for years on a system without a single crash. Ppro and a number of other apps fall over very easily on that system. Those other apps do not fall over on my other much more expensive system.

Bob.
MarkHolmes wrote on 6/6/2009, 4:24 PM
Michael, our solution was to render out the reels to Avid's DNX-HD Codec, which is a free download and cross-platform between the Mac and PC. We rendered them to a NTFS-formatted PC external drive and hooked this up to the Mac and copied them onto an external Mac drive and dropped thos files onto a DVC-Pro HD 720P timeline for final renders to ProRes 422.

Bob, I had assumed there is some problem with the hardware, or possible driver conflicts, but after memory testing and eventually replacing all the memory, and trying Vegas 8.0 and 8.1 on both a Vista 64-bit and XP Pro 32-bit on separate drives on the same system, I still kept having render crashes. It was after all this that I resorted to the FCP solution. I would love it if the solution were as easy as just building a new system, but given that many others on these forums have had similar problems that seem rooted in memory management, I'm assuming that Vegas does indeed have a software-related problem.

I have also posted a thread in these forums asking other users, and especially Sony, to post a recommended configuration for system building to avoid these problems and received some system specs from other users but haven't received an answer from Sony. If Sony would post exact system specifications for building a system that would best utilize the Vegas software, I would build that system. Even better, given that Sony is a PC maker as well, I would love to see Sony build a system pre-configured with SCS software that would take care of these problems. I would be first in line to buy it.
MarkHolmes wrote on 6/6/2009, 4:28 PM
Bob, having watched your postings for years now, I do have respect for any advice you give. Is there a series of software tests you could recommend for checking my hardware?

Thanks,
Mark
farss wrote on 6/6/2009, 4:37 PM
"Is there a series of software tests you could recommend for checking my hardware?"

Of the cuff, no. Dig around through some of the overclockers fora.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not sayin there is something wrong with your hardware, just that it's possible to have latent hardware problems that only certain software used in certain ways will bring to light.

It's been years since I delved into the guts of computers with logic analysers and storage 'scopes. Back then we had systems run just fine with shorted address lines, faulty memory, faulty power supplies etc until new code was loaded.

What worries me today is memory. Most PCs do not even have parity checking on their RAM. RAM is unreliable by design, the more of it you have and use the higher the probability of a bit flipping and things going wrong. ECC memory is the ideal solution.

Bob.
MarkHolmes wrote on 6/6/2009, 4:44 PM
Bob, thanks. That's a step in the right direction regarding ECC. As I'm in the process of building an i7 system, that is one box to check off. Have you built an i7 system yet or have plans to? If you would share system specs I would most likely mirror any system planning to yours.

Thanks again,
Mark
farss wrote on 6/6/2009, 5:40 PM
"Have you built an i7 system yet or have plans to?"

Thinking about it, not so long ago I built a new system so need to save up a bit. That system is OK but I want something speced to handle After Effects CS4 under Win7 64bit. Looking at serious dollars between CPU, GPU and RAM.

Best system I still own is pretty old now. Built for me by local systems integrator. All Supermicro. Came with 12 months same day support that did fix a RAM problem in 30 minutes on site. If you're making good money from this game that's what I'd be looking for.

Full agree with other comments about SCS providing reference system specs. Also be good if there were systems integrators that supplied turnkey Vegas systems. Then again if you buy one that's setup to run CS4, Vegas would have to run as well as it ever could on the same system. You would be spending money on stuff that Vegas will not use of course e.g. expensive video card.

Bob.
ushere wrote on 6/6/2009, 6:43 PM
just built i7 920 / 6gb ram on gigabyte mb, 9600 nvidia. can't say anything other than it's a LOT faster than my old e6600.

the original reason was i wanted faster rendering (which i certainly got), but i'm also curious to see how 9 runs under 64bit - however, as yet i haven't gotten around to dual booting my existing xp pro 32bit with win7 64bit. i've read that win7 should be released around oct - i can wait a little longer (though i do have the rc) as i really can't be bothered having to do a clean install of 7 over the rc when it's released.

meanwhile, i have to say my old e6600 was on a gigabyte board and had no problems, and so far (touch wood), this system has been most reliable (3 weeks).

am still debating getting a second video card for monitoring and keep my existing dual set up as is.....

leslie
MichaelduS wrote on 6/7/2009, 12:09 AM
Hi Mark many thanks for getting back to me re the specifics of your workflow Vegas & FCP. How do you render out to the Avid DNX-HD codec from Vegas? and is this the LE codec (Quicktime) vs the PE codec?
Cheers
Michael