Sorry but the older Adobe Premier applications still give me nightmares. I use their stuff only when I have to.
JJK

>>>>Can I load them all at once into Vegas. No. I have to do it no more than 7 clips at a time, or else Vegas loads nothing on the time line.<<<<

I just dragged the whole folder with 24 clips onto the timeline and it took 10-15 seconds to import.

Responsive? yes,

Don't know about the lates version, but premiere has traditionally been the least responsice NLE, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe the latest version is better.

Just to test your over 30 theory, found a folder with 60 clips, select all, drag, wait 20 seconds, everything is on the timeline, no problems whatsoever.

I have MOV file created on a Kodak camera. Vegas can't work with them, Premiere can.

I have HDV files created by a Canon HV20, Vegas can't work with them, Premiere can.

I have AVI files. Both Vegas and Premiere work with them equally well.

That's two out three common file types that Vegas has issues with. I don't think it's the workman at fault here, but the tool he uses.

If I have a car that claims it can use both Unleaded and LPG fuel, I would expect it to run on both fuels. I do not expect to be told I can only use LPG if it's bought from an ESSO station.

I much prefer Vegas, but if it can't edit my video files, then it's not worth a penny.

>>>I have HDV files created by a Canon HV20, Vegas can't work with them, Premiere can.<<<

60 clips I dragged onto the timeline are HV20 24pf clips captured with vegas, exactly the type people complain about, yet I've never had a single problem with them on my desktop or the laptop which I use most of the time.

could be the 3rd party capture program you're using.

For testing purpose only, I've just dragged 120 HDV (.m2t) clips onto Vegas timeline. Checked 8 bit peaks for visible clips only.

It took 25 secs.

We mainly run PPro here. Still version 2 because we also have Axio hardware and there are problems going to CS3. Vegas is just my personal choice and I use my copy at work for non editing tasks because it's more efficient.

So two days ago we received 2 hours of MPEG2 video from a client. 2 hours of their engineer dismantling a product. The video had been streamed live to remote participants. What we received on DVD data disc was 352x480 MPEG2, 29.97 fps, UFF, 1.8182 PAR.

Quicktime wouldn't play it.
Windows Media Player played it well on only one out of 5 machines (Several people needed to review it at their convenience). In the other 4 cases it would hang about a minute into the clip.
The PPro users tried throwing it onto a PPro timeline, but PPro said it needed to render the whole thing before playing.
Vegas? Vegas just played it. No problem. So I rendered some DV AVI files from it all so that the other people in the office could view the video.


Ahh, but here's another nice thing. I have Veggie Toolkit so I took that 2 hour timeline, marked it up into regions, and then used the toolkit's MutliRender tool to batch render each of the regions. This way, the people who really wanted to see the movie could watch the first parts while I rendered the later parts. They didn't have to wait for my (relatively slow non-edit) computer to render one big file, and of course I could do other work while all this was happening, INCLUDING opening a second copy of the project and reviewing all the footage, placing markers on the fly.

I was feeling pretty good about Vegas.

Rob Mack

I have completely uninstalled Vegas - all traces gone from the hard drive and the registry..

Reinstall, a nice fresh copy.

Same problem. So maybe it's a codec issue?

The error report (below) suggests module MCMPGDEC.DLL is the guilty party; isn't that the MainConcept codec? Shouldn't vegas be using the Sony coded? How do I force ti to use the better codec?

ERROR

Sony Vegas Pro 8.0
Version 8.0b (Build 217)
Exception 0xC0000005 (access violation) WRITE:0x0 IP:0x2303B990
In Module 'mcmpgvdec.dll' at Address 0x23000000 + 0x3B990
Thread: VideoCache ID=0x9FC Stack=0x812E000-0x8130000
Registers:
EAX=00000001 CS=001b EIP=2303b990 EFLGS=00010212
EBX=00000000 SS=0023 ESP=0812eff4 EBP=0812f00c
ECX=0812efd0 DS=0023 ESI=00000010 FS=003b
EDX=7c90eb94 ES=0023 EDI=00002aa8 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
2303B990: 89 3B EB 95 8D B6 00 00 .;......
2303B998: 00 00 8D BF 00 00 00 00 ........
Stack Dump:
0812EFF4: 0812EF94 08030000 + FEF94
0812EFF8: 00000014
0812EFFC: 0812EF58 08030000 + FEF58
0812F000: 01204800 01150000 + B4800 (vegas80k.dll)
0812F004: 01204800 01150000 + B4800 (vegas80k.dll)
0812F008: 00005A00
0812F00C: 0812F09C 08030000 + FF09C
0812F010: 2302E829 23000000 + 2E829 (mcmpgvdec.dll)
0812F014: 01204800 01150000 + B4800 (vegas80k.dll)
0812F018: 00000010
0812F01C: 42EF2F30 42E20000 + D2F30
0812F020: 056F74F8 05620000 + D74F8
0812F024: 77C2C2E3 77C10000 + 1C2E3 (msvcrt.dll)
0812F028: 25BB1EA0 25B60000 + 51EA0
0812F02C: 0812F0F0 08030000 + FF0F0
0812F030: 00000001
> 0812F040: 01204800 01150000 + B4800 (vegas80k.dll)
0812F044: 42E68FE8 42E20000 + 48FE8
> 0812F048: 231C7370 23000000 + 1C7370 (mcmpgvdec.dll)
0812F04C: 0812F060 08030000 + FF060
0812F050: 16E8CFB8 16A90000 + 3FCFB8
> 0812F070: 2303118E 23000000 + 3118E (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F074: 231C2B10 23000000 + 1C2B10 (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F078: 231C728E 23000000 + 1C728E (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F080: 2302EA7A 23000000 + 2EA7A (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F0A0: 2302D765 23000000 + 2D765 (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F0B8: 103204F1 10310000 + 104F1 (mcmpgdmux.dll)
> 0812F0D0: 231D5018 23000000 + 1D5018 (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F0FC: 7C801898 7C800000 + 1898 (kernel32.dll)
> 0812F100: 10321CFE 10310000 + 11CFE (mcmpgdmux.dll)
> 0812F108: 231C2B10 23000000 + 1C2B10 (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F10C: 231C725C 23000000 + 1C725C (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F114: 2302D0F0 23000000 + 2D0F0 (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F120: 2303B63E 23000000 + 3B63E (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F130: 232135CA 23200000 + 135CA (mcmpegin.dll)
> 0812F150: 230297BA 23000000 + 297BA (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F170: 23027CCE 23000000 + 27CCE (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F1A0: 23026179 23000000 + 26179 (mcmpgvdec.dll)
> 0812F1C0: 23216DFD 23200000 + 16DFD (mcmpegin.dll)
> 0812F200: 23218527 23200000 + 18527 (mcmpegin.dll)
> 0812F230: 2323A5C2 23200000 + 3A5C2 (mcmpegin.dll)
> 0812F2B8: 7C915041 7C900000 + 15041 (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F2FC: 7C9155C9 7C900000 + 155C9 (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F33C: 7C91554A 7C900000 + 1554A (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F3A8: 7C915AF1 7C900000 + 15AF1 (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F3C0: 7C97C174 7C900000 + 7C174 (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F3C4: 7C915B4F 7C900000 + 15B4F (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F43C: 7C915707 7C900000 + 15707 (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F474: 7C915A00 7C900000 + 15A00 (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F484: 7C915A65 7C900000 + 15A65 (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F48C: 7C97C174 7C900000 + 7C174 (ntdll.dll)
> 0812F4B0: 00800000 00400000 + 400000 (vegas80.exe)
0812F4B4: 00000000
0812F4B8: 00000007
0812F4BC: 00000001
0812F4C0: 00000000
> 0812F514: 01010101 00400000 + C10101 (vegas80.exe)
- - -
0812FFF0: 00000000
0812FFF4: 005995C0 00400000 + 1995C0 (vegas80.exe)
0812FFF8: 00ADC81C 00400000 + 6DC81C (vegas80.exe)
0812FFFC: 00000000

My main suspicion would be HDVSplit. It is a good capture utility, but you have to understand that Sony Vegas captures HDV using a proprietary capture algorithm that puts the HDV in a format that lets Vegas playback on the timeline with far less computer CPU power. While I agree that it should work with any "legal" form of HDV, my recommendation to you would be to try to re-capture the project using Vegas capture and see if everything works fine at that point.

Vegas is FAR from perfect, and can be very aggravating at times, but a large number of the problems I have had with it in the past six years have been traced to third-party programs: capture apps; plugins; and codecs.

Surely, when you are capturing, you are simply copying the data from the tape to the hard drive?

What you are essentially saying is that Vagas can't work with HDV files unless they are in a propriety format. I don't have time to mess around bowing to Sony's whims. It it can't be bothered to make its software work with unadulterated formats, I can't be bothered to waste my time trying to get it to work.

The reason I use HDVSplit is because VidCap is so cr*p. Whenever I've tried with HDV files in the past, VidCap split them in the wrong place.

I really have no time to recapture my footage because of poor/lazy programming. And that's a shame because Vegas is otherwise very pleasant to use.

Hopefully you're not actually capturing HDV with VidCap, that'd be a big mistake. VidCap will not capture HDV, it can barely capture DV correctly.

Bob.

I have never been able to get vegas to work with HDV split clips, on several computers although any claim they do this with no problem. I have to use Vegas capture and I have no problem. I would prefer HDV split because it ALWAYS captures the full tape (I don't want scene detection) Vegas capture almost always splits the tape several times for no apparent reason, rarely do I gt a complete tape capture.

Surely, when you are capturing, you are simply copying the data from the tape to the hard drive?

The actual video bits are not altered, but all sorts of things get done to headers, and also to other ancillary data streams (such as line 21 information, just to pick an example).

It it can't be bothered to make its software work with unadulterated formats, I can't be bothered to waste my time trying to get it to work.

Well, if you really mean that, then quit posting here and get on with your work using something else. However, I think you still want to use Vegas, and all I am trying to do is to give you an idea of something you can use in order to try to figure out what is going on and to try to get your work done. There are so many things that interact on your computer because we all use an "open system" architecture (Windows) that permits drivers and plugins and other software from multiple vendors to interact with each other. Just go back and read all the posts about what happens in Vegas to people that use the dozens of different variations and releases of Cineform.

Speaking of Cineform, do you have any release of that installed on your computer? It is a wonderful, stable codec, but there have definitely been LOTS of issues -- and they relate directly to capture -- depending on what release of Vegas and what release of Cineform you have installed, and also in what order these were installed. If the forum search engine wasn't so broken, I'd suggest you look at posts from the past few months, but that would be a waste of time.

Hope that helps!

Worley,

I'd say that you need to uninstall Vegas from your computer and delete your account here on the forum and use Premiere exclusively. Problem solved.

John

I just imported 22 clips from my canon hv20 and 82 clips from my HC3 (all captured from HDVsplit) with no problems.

I will say that I have had crashing problems on import in the past with previous vegas versions, (the original 8 and 7e)

The reason I use HDVSplit is because VidCap is so cr*p. Whenever I've tried with HDV files in the past, VidCap split them in the wrong place.

And I'll agree with you there. Interesting though... I get this problem with my HC3 but NOT with my HV20. The scene split with the HC3 is consistently 3 frames late.

Here's a thought.
MC have two versions of their mpeg-2 codec. One that ships with Vegas and PPro and one that costs a fair bit. They recommend PPro users upgrade to the more expensive one for better performance.
Does this make any sense for Vegas users, will the 'pro' codec even work?

Bob.

After checking the MC website I am surprised they don't have a codec to wipe my butt.
JJK

Does this make any sense for Vegas users, will the 'pro' codec even work?

Not quite sure what you are asking. I use the external MainConcept encoder all the time. I do this when I frameserve out of Vegas and into my various AVISynth scripts. The external MainConcept encoder can read these script directly.

However, I have recently discovered a way to get Vegas to reliably and easily read AVISynth scripts, so I often serve out of one instance of Vegas using Satish's Frameserver; have the AVISynth script read that video; and then serve back into a second instance of Vegas to do the encoding. This is useful if I want to do further editing on the result, and also if I want to use some other encoder (like MP4).

well all software is stupid,, but back to the capture issue,,, i have captured at least a hundred Z1 shot hdv tapes into vegas with vegas video capture using a or an hmm never sure with an /a...H ...hc3
no problems there ... other problems though with vegas, and with edius and with adobe,,, they all be stupid!!

Vegas capture almost always splits the tape several times for no apparent reason, rarely do I gt a complete tape capture.This has been my findings with Vegas. When Vegas gets a bad spot in the stream/tape it closes the file and starts writing to a new file. If you have scene detection off and Vegas is splitting the capture then you may have tape errors. You may have corruption at the end of the files (where the stream was closed). This won't show up until Vegas tries to play it or render that section which can produce a fault.

Tape brands and quality levels do matter, I use HDV if possible or the Sony Premiums, that is with a Sony cam. Possibly corrupt files, sounds like Vegas can't read one/some of them and build a graph, it's hanging. If the files are corrupt the other program will eventually generate a fault. That's mpeg editing.

I want to second what 4eyes says. When capturing HDV, Vegas goes NUTS if there is anything unusual on the tape. This includes dropouts. The worst, however, is if you have previously used the tape for DV. The switch from HDV to DV causes my computer to instantly crash to the BIOS, something that in six years of using this computer every day it has never done -- even once -- with any other program.