Trying to troubleshoot Vegas Pro 12 crash w P2 MXF

shiftno wrote on 10/9/2012, 7:51 PM

I'm working on a project that has a mixture of MXF files copied from a Panasonic P2 card, MOV files from a Canon 5d Mark III, and also MOV files from a GoPro Hero 2 camera. My project uses the HD 1080-24p (1920x1080, 23.976 fps) template.

My problem is, Vegas keeps freezing and ultimately requiring me to kill it and restart it. This has happened with and without GPU acceleration, and I have also tried changing the audio device type from Microsoft Sound Mapper to Windows Classic Wave Driver.

I haven't noticed anything in particular that causes it to freeze up, although sometimes if I return to the open project and try to play/scrub around the timeline, it will freeze up. Other times, I'll be editing and moving clips around when it will just lock up.

My system is a Lenovo ThinkStation E31 with a Xeon E3-1230, 20 GB of RAM, and an nVidia Quadro 2000 GPU. I have a few SATA hard drives connected.

I have tried updating my GPU drivers to the latest offered by nVidia (9.18.13.679, dated 9/22/2012). I also made sure I had plenty of free hard drive space on both my system drive and media drive.

I should add that I have not used the New Blue Titler, either, so I don't think that's a factor here.

So far, nothing seems to stop these random lock-ups. It's really frustrating! Is there anything I can do to help trace the problem or anything I can try to hopefully fix it? I'd be happy to provide any additional info that might be helpful.

Thanks!

Comments

griz11 wrote on 10/10/2012, 2:24 AM

I'm having the same problems. Thought my older computer was the cause of lockups in 11 so I bought a completely new machine and it still locks up for no reason. Opening up the help caused a crash tonight for instance. I thought 12 would fix these issues but apparently not. Looking for another editor I'm tired of this run around.

shiftno wrote on 10/10/2012, 9:56 AM

I sure hope we can find a solution. I really like Vegas; I just need it to be stable!

MUTTLEY wrote on 10/10/2012, 2:15 PM

Sorry to hear about the probs shiftno, I had a good handful as well but disabling the GPU has so far stopped them. Still running pretty fast without it but hopeful that perhaps the next driver update from Nvidia will remedy whatever issue I'm having so I can re-enable it. I am able to turn it back on for rendering and at least enjoy that benefit.

That said, if I were you I would try converting the files from the GoPro and maybe even from the 5D. I just started using a GoPro and they released the firmware yesterday to enable 24p. Did a quick little test shot last night cuz I was giddy and the source files straight from the camera played back horribly in both VLC media player and Vegas 12. After converting the footage with their GoPro Cineform Studio playback in both was fine. You can download it for free here: GoPro Cineform Studio

A project I'm currently working on has some footage from a Canon T2i and though those are currently doing fine in Vegas for me, if converting the GoPro files alone doesn't cure your crashes converting the Canon's files would the next thing I would try.

- Ray
Underground Planet

gripp wrote on 10/10/2012, 3:10 PM

I think Vegas just doesn't like .MOV files. I've had bad experiences with .MOV files from both Canon DSLRs and iPhones.

The only way I can get round this is to use Handbrake to convert .MOV files to .MP4. Vegas then seems happy.

People may tell you the problem is Quicktime, but I find neither the current of previous version of QT solves the problem.

MUTTLEY wrote on 10/10/2012, 3:47 PM

Dont think youre too far off the mark gripp, no secret that Quicktime is not Vegas's favorite medium.

I did want to add something I forgot to mention in my previous which may or may not be relevant but regarding the GoPro HD Hero 2, in a previous project I had no problem playing clips back in VLC or using them in Vegas. It was only after yesterdays firmware update and using 24p along their ProTune setting that I had issues.

Just wanted to clarify.

- Ray
Underground Planet

shiftno wrote on 10/10/2012, 8:02 PM

Thanks for chiming in, guys.

I'm open to converting the MOVs to MP4s or something else that Vegas likes more. I did actually try uninstalling QT and installing QuickTime Alternative, but unfortunately that didn't do anything.

If I do convert the MOVs, any thoughts on what would be the ideal quality/codec/compression settings to not lose any quality yet not have an unnecessarily giant file? I know GoPro Cineform Studio doesn't offer a great deal of flexibility, but I'm guessing Handbrake would.

Thanks again!

DavidMJ wrote on 10/11/2012, 2:07 PM

I'm having the exact same problem. I am editing Panasonic P2 MXF files and it constantly freezes and I have to kill and restart the program. I just reformatted my hard drive and have a clean install of windows and vegas 12. Same project template. I can barely get any work done.

MUTTLEY wrote on 10/11/2012, 2:18 PM

No experience here with Panasonic but by and large Vegas has always seemed to play nice with MXF files. Does it happen just as quick with just one file on the timeline? For me even a short clip from the GoPro Hero 2 with the new Protune and 24p just a 30 second clip was impossible to play around with, didn't crash Vegas but it would chug even in draft mode. Again, these clips did the same thing for me in VLC. If you can recreate the problem with one clip should be easy enough to convert it to something else to see if that will resolve it.

I know Sony had the free Clip Browser software to convert, GoPro has the free Cineform studio to convert, does Panasonic have something similar?

- Ray
Underground Planet

shiftno wrote on 10/12/2012, 6:46 PM

I'm not aware of any Panasonic tool to convert their P2 MXF files. I know there is the Raylight plugin as well as Brorsoft MXF Converter. But obviously, I'd like this to work out of the box. That's the whole reason I bought 12.

@DavidMJ, I'll update if I come up with anything or can notice any kind of pattern. Please do likewise! Hope we can find a way to make this work. Would be wonderful if it DOES work reliably.

shiftno wrote on 10/18/2012, 3:07 PM

Still trying to figure this out, in case anybody has any insight or similar issues.

rbi wrote on 11/22/2013, 3:06 PM

Vegas has always locked up one me. I edit mostly AVCHD from Panasonic camera with MTS extension, but it's done it from AVI and MOV also. Recently it's gotten worse and after installing bitdefender virus software worse yet... to the point of barely being usable.

Updated to version 770 today but crashed right away - froze up. It's also rendering black frames into video if I don't watch out. I can't have much anything in background running... especially email for firefox.

I see the freeze ups from this thread so I see others have issue. I have problems with 3 different PC's XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Business partner also has trouble but I can never get a good reason for why???

OldSmoke wrote on 11/22/2013, 4:03 PM

And what are your exact system specs?

rbi wrote on 11/22/2013, 5:13 PM

For me main machine is Dell XPS L502X, i7, 2.7Ghz, 8GB RAM, Win7 64bit, 750G drive. Trouble on various machines though.

OldSmoke wrote on 11/22/2013, 5:40 PM

Did you try disabling GPU acceleration? The HD3000 isn't very power full to handle a more complex timeline. Since this is a laptop there can be a number of issues.

Trossachs wrote on 6/20/2014, 4:51 PM

Hello to all, I have been using movie studio for some time, now using vegas pro edit 13.
I have also been having major crashes and freezing...
Cine-form might for me may be an issue but,
I noticed that bit defender may also be a problem.

Reason for posting is after multiple crashes I have had issues with grouping my tracks and problem went away when I removed the grouping, especially with virtualdub deshaker. And
I tried running my unrendered timeline at half render and crashes occurred until I put bit defender into game mode.
smooth playback.
Computer is Dell Precision m6700 intel i7-3740qm cpu@2.7GHz
16gig ram 64bit
Nvidia k3000m

Still awaiting more issues but I thought sharing might trigger more feedback on these possible issues...

Thanks all for all YOUR hard work helping help me and everyone else...

ushere wrote on 6/20/2014, 6:13 PM

fwiw - i always convert .mov to mp4 using handbrake - simply don't have time to waste with quicktime....

sging1 wrote on 6/27/2014, 6:00 AM

Have you tried setting the pre render RAM setting in preferences to "0". I had this problem, it used to freeze at about 50% and set the ram to "0" and its fine.