Too Many MPG's

Rick Bray wrote on 3/10/2009, 2:36 PM
We produce construction videos using Sony camcorders (DCR-DVD505, DCR-DVD508) and Sony Vegas 7.0x. Our computers are dual quad-core Dell's (2.66GHz).

We frequently have crashes if we add upwards of 80 (I think) MPG videos into the project. I believe I researched this a year or so ago, and I found that it's because MPEG-2 files are so compressed and Vegas just can't handle it.

We got the 8.0 upgrade, but quickly reverted back to 7.0 when we found that the audio was not being brought in for random MPEG-2 files. Son'ts workaround was to change the extension to VOB, but this meant re-editing tons of old videos.

Anyway, we got the most recent update and that problem is solved, but MPEG-2 files still crash Vegas when you get around 60 to 70 in a project. This is despite the the 8.0c release note that says "Improved the number of MPEG-2 clips that can be active on a timeline." I'm not sure if that relates.


Anyway, has anyone else had this problem? What steps have you taken to fix it?

Comments

CorTed wrote on 3/10/2009, 2:47 PM
Yes, I have had my share of the same problems since 8.0 thru 8.0c.
It seems when the RAM usage creeps up to over 75%, chances of crashing are greatly increased.
I'm still not 100% convinced this is all 8.0x related, but it seems there is a problem managing memory with these large files or large amount of files on the timeline.
The way around this problem is to break up your project in smaller chunks.
Render out to AVI, then at the end stich all AVI''s together and re-render to final format. A bit more time consuming, but works for me.


Ted
Rick Bray wrote on 3/10/2009, 3:20 PM
Thanks.

Breaking the projects into sections is what we have done, but like you said it's more time consuming and a hassle.

Our staff all use 7.0x, so it's not in 8.0x alone. We tested 8.x for fixes and this one still wasn't fixed.

I plan on taking home a ton of videos to test on my home computer which is much more powerful than what we have at work.
rmack350 wrote on 3/10/2009, 4:04 PM
Maybe one thing to try would be to transcode them using Cineform's Neo Scene. There's a 10 day trial and I'm pretty sure it can do a batch job. Try it at home and see if it does what you need.

Upshift is another possibility but I think that converts AVCHD to MPEG2 - not really what you need. The Cineform tool will make AVIs using Cineform's codec. It'll take more drive space but probably less memory for Vegas to peek into them for thumbnails and stuff.

Rob Mack
apit34356 wrote on 3/10/2009, 5:57 PM
The problem could be with duo core cache management issue. There is an unique problem with the duo core quads (fixed in the coreI7) cache updating odd address shared memory locations, similar to hit/miss logic cache checking for pre-loaded main memory data. Its not a random write access issue but more of cache thrashing issue with duo caches. Most apps with multi threads don't share large datasets with large accesses, but some complex encoders do, increasing likely hood of this problem..
rmack350 wrote on 3/10/2009, 6:57 PM
Apit, could you cite some references? I'd like to read a little more about this.

Rob Mack
Laurence wrote on 3/10/2009, 9:40 PM
Yeah, this has been a problem since Vegas started working with HDV. My solution is to use fewer larger mpegs. I smart-render each tape down to a single "best of the tape" mpeg2 file, with markers and titles explaining what each part is. That or I just use Cineform. Be aware that when you smart-render HDV, you still get an extra generation of audio mpeg encoding even if the video is untouched.
Rick Bray wrote on 3/11/2009, 6:57 AM
I tested on my home computer and I got up to 110 MPEG videos before it just crashed.

That computer is a Dell XPS 720 H2C, Intel Core2 processor, (3.0 GHz overclocked to 3.67 GHz) With Quad Core technology. 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz.


The problem with converting these files is that it's time consuming and we edit heavily. Hopefully they get it fixed at some point.
rmack350 wrote on 3/11/2009, 2:52 PM
Well, I suppose you could stop production and just wait for a fix... Although conversion might be faster.

Upgrading these systems to 3 or 4 GB RAM might help.

Rob
Rick Bray wrote on 3/12/2009, 7:54 AM
We can get by with the nonsense now-- it's not stopping production, but it's a huge pain the the butt. Having to convert everything to another format would only increase the length of time it takes to work on a project.

While converting would be an excellent solution in a low-production environment, it's just not the answer for us.

Is Vegas 8.1supposed to be better for handling this?
rmack350 wrote on 3/12/2009, 11:24 AM
Well, the advantage of 8.1 is that it has access to more memory. If you build a system with 8 GB of RAM then 8.1 can go much farther before it throws an error due to to little memory.

However, 8.1 requires a 64-bit OS to use it, and there are codecs and plugins for 8.0c that aren't available to 8.1.

On the good side of that, 8.0c and 8.1 can both be used on the same 64-bit system, and if the computer has 4GB or more 8.0c will also run a little better because it won't have to share RAM usage with the OS so much. (Or at least that's what I hear).

If I understand your situation, you've got people in the field with tapeless cameras recording mpeg2 files. They then come back and dump to their edit stations and get to work right away.

If you were to go the conversion route then you'd probably want to dump to a central system that watches folders and starts converting automatically. Not sure exactly what would do this but probably some programs like procoder can do this. Might be the cheapest and most organized system if you're serving a lot of edit stations. The other option is system upgrades to 64-bit Vista or maybe 64-bit XP and 4GB or more of RAM, but you'd want to get other people's opinions of whether that really solves the problem.

BTW, is your media window set to show thumbnails? What happens if you use a different view?

Rob Mack