Vegas Pro never crashing with ProRes source material?

Zkuggi wrote on 10/30/2022, 7:20 AM

Hi all.

I've been using Vegas Pro for well over a decade now. Always using the most recent version once it gets out.

There has always been the problem of the program crashing randomly just while doing simple edit on the timeline. I think I must have applied every "trick in the book" from this and that tutorial on "hoe to stop Vegas from crashing" with mixed results. Maybe some minor stability increase can be measured but the fact is that no matter what it will crash on me sometime within the first hour from starting the program.

I've always just been editing the source video straight from camera. H264 source in MP4 or MOV containers from Panasonic, Olympus and Sony cameras. Occasionally source video taken with phones or drones.

But recently I have started to convert all these videos to ProRes (I use shutter encoder) before editing and I think I haven't had a single crash with that. I have gone many hours for a single session.

I know ProRes is considered more edit-friendly then the fully compressed material but this difference is insane in my experience.

Is this something that you in this community experience as well? Is Vegas more stable using ProRes for you?

Comments

RogerS wrote on 10/30/2022, 7:23 AM

It doesn't use the GPU for decoding and isn't that compressed so CPU decoding performance is good. Both these things avoid problems inherent in more compressed formats in Vegas, so I agree, it's a great choice.

jetdv wrote on 10/30/2022, 7:38 AM

In VEGAS Pro 20 build 214, I also haven't had a single crash using GoPro Hero 7 (HD) and Osmo Pocket (4k) footage which were problematic in previous versions.

Steve_Rhoden wrote on 10/30/2022, 8:20 AM

Yeah, Prores formats for me is smooth and rock solid in Vegas, actually with all other formats Vegas can ingest...... My formula for a crash free Vegas for many years is solely relying on CPU....Now using Vegas Pro 20 (B214), which is even more robust.

john_dennis wrote on 10/30/2022, 12:15 PM

@Zkuggi

I've generally been intrigued by using intermediates or proxies for general editing, but my cameras and my workflow have not made it absolutely necessary. I agree with the premise that an NLE will likely be more reliable if the inputs are predictable. Predictability of source files has more or less disappeared in the last ten years. @Steve_Rhoden is likely correct that eliminating the GPU as a variable will likely produce more predictable results.

I've been using ProRes as my OBS capture codec for some time, now. I've also used MagicYUV. (I don't capture hours of game video so the disk space burden for me is negligible.

I'll commit to using ProRes Proxy for my next few projects to see if there is a noticeable improvement. The last few times Vegas 19-643 went "Not Responding" for me was when I was working on leveling audio in an XAVC UHD project. I have an unsubstantiated feeling that undo buffers were implicated in that nonsense.

3POINT wrote on 10/30/2022, 12:55 PM

Shutter Encoder converts rapidly/with high quality and if necessary can do also directly some improvements like sharpeness, level/color corrections, attaching LUTS, deinterlacing etc etc etc. Not for nothing Shutter Encoder calls Prores (and others) "editing" codecs. Instead of creating proxies, creating intermediates is also a good option to edit and render stress-free. The only disadvantage; Prores needs quite much HDspace.

And not to forget Shutter Encoder is a must-have-tool for every serious video editor. 👍👍