Good day, everyone.
I got 2 very decent machines. I want to edit on one and then have the other one render while I'm editing the next piece of footage.
Main issue right now is that when I open the project over the network, Vegas complains about lost connection to the files. I assume this is because it uses absolute paths instead of a oath relative to project file location. Is it possible to switch to relative paths?
Your network is probably the weak link here. If it is wireless, or less than Gigabit wired, you could be in for a struggle. Also the network protocol is important; if it's SMB, as on most NAS servers, it probably won't work. Here's a little .bat utility I wrote to check relative bidirectional throughput. 300Mbps sustained is pretty good for rendering HD 1080 files with enough overhead to prevent choking.
You will need to place fping.exe in your user directory.
@ECHO ON @ECHO * @ECHO Router Ping Utility (routerping.bat) @ECHO Useful for comparing bidirectional throughput on wired and wireless LAN @ECHO * @ECHO EDIT FILE WITH YOUR ROUTER'S IP AND LOCATION OF fping.exe (required) @ECHO Test takes 2+ minutes to complete (2000 pings) @ECHO To stop - type Control-C. @ECHO * @pause @REM Add (-L filename.txt) to create a Logfile. @REM See fping documentation for more parameters. @REM EDIT YOUR ROUTER IP AND PATH TO fping.exe HERE @C:\Users\xxxxx\fping.exe 192.168.xxx.xxx -n 2000 -s 1464 -t 0 -f @ECHO * @ECHO More than 5 dropped packets may indicate channel interference. @ECHO DIVIDE 300 BY AVERAGE TIME TO GET RELATIVE THROUGHPUT (Mbps) @ECHO 30-40 percent of your router max is good. @ECHO * @pause
I honestly don't know if vegas asking for missing linked files (source footage) has anything to do with the type of network or the fact that it's WiFi because after I had pointed it to the file location on the network drive (had to do this 12 times for each piece of media) it opened the project just fine and is now rendering at a relatively fair rate.
And this is with the computer being on WiFi and the rendering machine on Ethernet. The footage is on the hard drive of the editing machine which was shared with Windows standard sharing feature. So far it is working.
What I want to know is, can one set the vegas project to use relative media source instead of absolute? Because then Vegas would just look for source media in the same folder the project sits or relative to that folder location, even if it's a network drive.
No, relative paths have been suggested as a solution for some plugin issues with project archives, but not acted on afaik. I believe the reason you have to point to it 12 times has to do with the network and protocols mentioned.
"When" Vegas had Distributed Network Rendering (Versions 2 through 8 iirc), I logged thousands of hours working on my concert events, so I'm fairly well versed in stability considerations. Even if you don't lose your socket, tedious slowdowns are pretty common. WD drives are really bad at this. Best of luck!
No, relative paths have been suggested as a solution for some plugin issues with project archives, but not acted on afaik. I believe the reason you have to point to it 12 times has to do with the network and protocols mentioned.
"When" Vegas had Distributed Network Rendering (Versions 2 through 8 iirc), I logged thousands of hours working on my concert events, so I'm fairly well versed in stability considerations. Even if you don't lose your socket, tedious slowdowns are pretty common. WD drives are really bad at this. Best of luck!
Just to be clear, the 12 times I told about was because there are 12 external media files used in the project. Photos and videos.
Once I point it to the correct files on the network drive, it would render fine. As the matter of fact. I can even save the project as a new copy and any time I open that project, it would open up just fine so it's a one time operation for each project.
@wwaag Perhaps happy otter scripts has something for batch linking media files by specifying a project network folder?
Most likely you could work around this situation by arranging that the two machines use the same path to the source files. This would mean putting source files not on the C: drive of your editing computer but on a separate partition mounted on a different drive letter, say X:. Then mount the same X: over the network on your rendering computer.
Most likely you could work around this situation by arranging that the two machines use the same path to the source files. This would mean putting source files not on the C: drive of your editing computer but on a separate partition mounted on a different drive letter, say X:. Then mount the same X: over the network on your rendering computer.
I can see that working out. Unfortunate part is that the footage caching and editing preview speed for both computers would be crippled. But I suppose that's a separate issue. Proxies would have to do for now.
A separate partition on your editing computer will not hurt editing performance. You said "opening project over network". If you mean all your files remain on the editing computer, then networking diminishes performance on your rendering computer, as expected. Having a separate partition on your editing computer will not further harm rendering performance