The Vegas prerender bug is getting on my nerves

Sebaz wrote on 9/5/2008, 4:50 PM
I love using Vegas Pro 8 for video editing, but the prerender bug is driving me up the wall. I'm talking of course about the point where Vegas does the prerender but at the end you don't see the dark blue indicators on top of the timeline and then if you try to play the selected area it's as if you hadn't done any prerendering at all. So the only way is to close Vegas, restart it, do a few successful prerenders and then back to the same, "false" prerenders that don't work, even though they do create a file in the format you specify. But that file never gets associated with the selection in the timeline.

How can a software that is supposed to be "Pro" have such a tremendous flaw? Even if it worked as it should it would be terrible prerender by design. In Final Cut Pro, when you render an event, if you move the timeline in other places, that event continues to be rendered, since FCP attaches the prerendered file to the event, and it remains that way unless you change something in the particular event. In Vegas, you move the timeline either before or after and your prerender is lost. That in itself, is not proper of a "Pro" NLE. But, if at least it didn't have such a horrendous bug that makes the editor waste a lot of time closing and opening Vegas (and if it is a long project, opening it takes a while), it would be usable.

Sony Creative really needs to get working to fix huge bugs like these. How can you recommend Vegas, even with all its advantages, to a professional editor, when you know he or she will have to waste time closing and opening the software every few minutes? It's really outrageous.

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/5/2008, 6:29 PM
i still call it "vegas 8", I don't call it pro, so this bug doesn't effect me.

vegas has had prereders like this since I can remember (I started with version 3 LE). As far as I'm not concerned, it's not a bug, that's the way it works.

I've adopted my work flow to use vegas very very well. In fact, I don't waste time with prerenders, I just render to a new track, which I recommend you do. Don't waste your time trying to make it work like another NLE, you'd be better off using that one instead. I find prerenders a complete waste of time once I switched to vegas. I just open up another instance of Vegas, render to a new track & keep editing while it's rendering.

Yes, you can post & say "but it SHOULD do it the way I want" but it hasn't been that way, ever. People who don't like it need to adapt or move to something that works the way they want to work.
farss wrote on 9/5/2008, 7:12 PM
How can it not be a "bug" if it works at random?

This is NOT a case of the user saying it should work the way they want, he's saying it should work the way it's advertised to work, consistantly. If users start thinking buggy, errant behaviour is acceptable, Vegas is in deep trouble.


Bob.
Sebaz wrote on 9/5/2008, 7:21 PM
vegas has had prereders like this since I can remember (I started with version 3 LE). As far as I'm not concerned, it's not a bug, that's the way it works.

Are you joking? I mean, you can't even say it "works". It's a feature that's broken due to poor programming. It's downright pathetic that something so commonly used on any NLE such as prerendering, in Vegas works for a while and then it doesn't work again until you close the program and reopen it.

I've adopted my work flow to use vegas very very well. In fact, I don't waste time with prerenders, I just render to a new track, which I recommend you do. Don't waste your time trying to make it work like another NLE, you'd be better off using that one instead. I find prerenders a complete waste of time once I switched to vegas. I just open up another instance of Vegas, render to a new track & keep editing while it's rendering.

This whole process you just described, to me seems like a colossal waste of time. So let's say I want to preview different adjustments of a filter or effect I'm trying, and the event is longer than what a RAM preview would give me, you say I should render to a new track, open the same project in another instance of Vegas and then switch to the first instance to see the effect? Are you seriously suggesting that? I mean, no offense, but that has to be the most bizarre way of video editing I've ever heard of. Seriously. Not to mention the worst possible management of computer resources, both CPU, memory and hard drive.

Any NLE, has some sort of prerender. You try a filter, effect or transition, you select the event or area you want to playback in real time and wait for the render to finish. Opening the same project in another instance of the program is beyond absurd, and a colossal waste of time.

As per your other suggestion, I'll probably end up switching to another NLE if Sony doesn't fix this huge bug.
Laurence wrote on 9/5/2008, 10:21 PM
Vegas's prerender worked fine for me in SD, but I hate the way it doesn't work in HDV. In an SD project, you do a selective prerender and it will render temporary files of all the parts that don't smart-render. In HDV it renders a HUGE temporary file that is a full length render of the entire project. The only saving grace is that the new Intel processors are fast enough that you can at least preview the project smoothly without prerenders.

I posted about this describing it as a "bug" in May of 2007:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=527011

and later as a "feature request" here:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=527805

The point is, whether or not you like the way Vegas does it's prerendering (I kind of like it), it is an SD only feature. Vegas should be able to "selectively prerender video" for any smart-renderable format: SD, HDV, MFX and Cineform. Unfortunately through both versions 7 and 8, it does not.

Since I (like many) work exclusively in HD now, this feature is currently totally useless.
Sebaz wrote on 9/6/2008, 8:11 AM
Well, you have a good point there, but at least you're talking about the feature that's not implemented. There's a difference between that and a feature that is implemented, but it works for a little while and then it doesn't work anymore, so you have to close Vegas and reopen it to get it to work for a little more time, and so on. It's just preposterous.