Vegas 10 much more unstable

SeaJohn2 wrote on 3/4/2011, 8:56 AM
I've used Vegas since version 5. I recently upgraded from 8 to 10c, and this past week used 10c in depth for the first time on fairly simple SD project. There were several MAJOR issues:

- Vegas crashed, twice! In the past few years, I've seen Vegas crash maybe 5 times. It's always been one of the most stable programs on my computer. Not anymore. :<

- I rendered several sections of the timeline to mp4. The audio on these was a speaker's voice on one track with background music on another track. On two of these renders, when I played the file, the background music was not there. Even worse, part way through the file, the speaker's voice was suddenly accompanied by a sped-up version of his voice. So, we heard the speaker in his normal voice, along with a time-delayed chipmunk. This happened on 2 out of 6 renders, all done the same way. When I re-rendered these 2 sections, it turned out fine.

- At one point I dropped a background onto a track, cropped it, and used track motion to drag it down to make a lower-third. Then I added a little transparency. Suddenly it looked like a jigsaw puzzle - on the preview screen everything was cut apart and scrambled. I tried it again on another section, and the same thing happened. I had to close Vegas and restart it, and after that it worked correctly.

- At one point I displayed some pictures, full screen. All of these pictures were the same resolution, and I treated them the same way - crop/match output aspect ratio/and a slow pan. Everything looked good during playback from the timeline. However, when I rendered, 2 of the 4 pictures had small gaps at the top and bottom, so you could see the background track behind them. This was repeatable, and I couldn't find any way to fix it.

What has happened to Vegas? I've never had these kinds of problems with it before. A long, long time ago, I switched from Premiere 6 to Vegas because of Premiere's instability, and I've always appreciated how well Vegas performs, but this new version is giant step backwards.

The rendering problems really bother me, because it leaves me with no faith that Vegas is really rendering what I think it is. The crashing and the scrambled pictures are irritating time wasters, but at least I know they're happening.

Along with the upgrade to Vegas 10, I also switched to the 64 bit version, always having run 32 bits before. Any chance that the 32 bit version would be more stable? I'm going to try it, but if I have the same issues, I'm going to have to go back to version 8. I hope Sony pulls things together.

Comments

rs170a wrote on 3/4/2011, 9:13 AM
Instead of going back to version 8, start off with 10.0a.
If it's still not stable, go back to 8.0
If 10.0a is stable, try 10.0b.
If that's stable, say there otherwise roll back to 10.0a
Get all versions (old and new) at http://download.sonymediasoftware.com/current/

Mike
TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/4/2011, 9:44 AM
i've been using since 3LE (then 4, 6, 8 & now 10). 10 isn't as good as 4 in terms of stability imho, but it's no better then 6 or 8 as far as I can tell. I noticed you have nothing in your specs, that may be worth putting what you use in (just for future reference).

I've never encountered anything you're talking about. The ONLY issue I've had so far (besides ones that are documented & effect everyone, most with workarounds) is I had a very complex project that would always freeze at the end when I'd render it. ~10 seconds before the end. turns out that if I shortened the one image that ended there 1 frame it would render fine. Go figure. I didn't loose anything either because the mpeg-2 renderer writes as it goes so I still had the broken file (I had to use task manager to cancel the Vegas process). Once I figured out what was wrong I used the mpeg-2 smart render to quickly rerender out my video.

But that's it. Most things I've had issues with weren't with Vegas but with my media or something I didn't account for in your project.

Would you mind posting the project file for others to take a look at? Maybe they can see something you don't. If what happened to you is a real Vegas bug & not a system specific thing, replacing the media shouldn't change the outcome.
LReavis wrote on 3/4/2011, 5:42 PM
regarding strange audio quirks - MP3 audio files anywhere on the TL can cause problems everywere in V8 (I gave up using MP3s before I got V10, so can't know for sure if that problem has been fix or not).

Vegas 10a seemed very unstable on my system, but 10c seems pretty good so far; but I've used it only 6 or 7 hours maybe . . .

One consistent crash that I get is when I try to cut'n'past events from one project into another. Otherwise, I'm encouraged that I'll be able to use it. I re-installed 10 (c) so that I could use the BCC7 plugins that I bought. So exciting! and not one crash yet (although the 3d text plug in did give me a black preview window until I deleted it from the chain.

I'm liking it.
PeterDuke wrote on 3/4/2011, 9:45 PM
We should also state whether we are using 32 or 64 bit Vegas on 32 or 64 bit Windows. (No 64 bit Vegas on 32 bit Windows of course).
VidMus wrote on 3/4/2011, 10:25 PM
Going by the first part of your post it would seem that Vegas 10 might be much more unstable on your system. Which simply means it is YOUR system (whatever that is) not Vegas 10 itself.

Vegas 10a that I am using is more stable on my system so it has to be system related not Vegas related.

The rest of your post indicates user errors rather than Vegas 10 errors.
VidMus wrote on 3/4/2011, 10:48 PM
"i've been using since 3LE (then 4, 6, 8 & now 10)."

I started with 6c and it was rock solid!

So now should I go back to 6c? I wonder how many new features I would lose if I did.

It would be interesting to list all of the new features since then.

Another thing to consider is I used DV standard definition then no high definition. I wonder how stable 6c would have been with my using HD especially AVCHD!

Point is, more new features equals more new chances for bugs and crashes. Newer and much more challenging video formats also equal more chances of bugs and crashes. Add new types of hardware with more multi-cores and whatever else they have and well even more chances of bugs and crashes! Finally, too many variations in systems to keep up with including the ones that are not either properly built or not up to par and that is a ton for SCS to keep up with.

I would suspect that 90% of the problems are system and/or user related not Vegas!
Grazie wrote on 3/4/2011, 11:07 PM
Well if I hadn't seen this with my own eyes:

VP10c 32bit & 32bit OS here

Start new proj

Play Media Manager and drag to Trimmer

BLACK FRAMES. All Clips. Now wouldn't play back in MM.

Drag from Trimmer to TL Frames are visible, but no Preview.

Scary.

Revert to VP9, safe.

Reopen VP10c, working.

So? What do I do?

Grazie

Grazie wrote on 3/4/2011, 11:13 PM
I'm really starting to think that a Restart of Vegas has become more of a requirement for me running VP10c with my system than I've previously encountered. Previously I would go on my merry way mostly without a hitch. But from VP8 onwards, restarting VEGAS would appear to get both Vegas and my system realigned(?).

Grazie

farss wrote on 3/5/2011, 1:17 AM
My experience has been much the same as yours. What you're describing sound like the application is not releasing a resource. My gut feeling is this happens when Vegas is getting too many requests queued up. It does its best to respond to them quickly but in the process never has the time to release resources. Eventually the whole thing gets gridlocked and you get a hang or a crash.
My solution has been to work slower, not make another request until I see the previous one is pretty well finished. Even then a project can get so long that Vegas really has a hard time of it and I feel like I'm standing on egg shells while I edit. At the point I split my project up. I have to say V10 gets to this point quicker the V9.0e, I guess that makes sense as it's got way more in it than V9.
So maybe if you just took a breather every once in a while and gave Vegas a chance to catch up and de-allocate resources things will run smoother for you. I sure hope so as that's all I can offer. A faster CPU may also help. I'll let you know once I get around to my new Sandy Bridge build.

Bob.
FocusOnVegas wrote on 3/5/2011, 2:31 AM
Did you try the trick I found at this forum (I believe Windows 7 forum) :
- Choose options, preferences, tab audio device.
- Remove the checkmark at "enable track buffering".

For me this improved the stabilty of Vegas PRO 10.

Configuration : Win 7 64 bit, Vegas 64 bit, audio device Microsoft Sound Mapper.

A little effort to try. If it doesn't work for you, you can always enable this option again.
Bill@cinevid wrote on 3/5/2011, 1:50 PM
I have two issues, and it's not the system. Vegas 9.0e was doing fine. The audio issue for me is that after rendering an mpeg2 ntsc for DVD and loading it into Adobe Encore CS4, the audio leg is longer than the video and it drops the audio partway through when you burn the DVD.

Also I bought the Cineform NeoScene and all the avi's won't load now. arrrgghhh!!!