Vegas Rendering Crashes Constantly. PLEASE help.

Brad C. wrote on 12/31/2008, 4:44 PM
Hey all,

I really need everyones help that can offer any. I've been using Vegas for about a month now and its been giving me fits from time to time. The biggest problem is with rendering lengthy AVCHD files with Magic Bullet applied in my projects. The crashes happen at various times and it seems there's no rhyme or reason why.

I've tried several different methods to get the videos to go through and some ideas work, most don't. Heres what I'm running:

Dell XPS 420
Vista Home Premium
Intel Core 2 Quad Core 3.0ghz
4gig of RAM (32bit only regognizes 3.3 though)
ATI HD 2600XT 256mb video card (800 core clock/1,100 memory clock)
Vegas 8.0c
Magic Bullet Looks

I've knocked the rendering threads down from 4 to 1, only running 512mb on the RAM preview, and I typically try to render using Main Concept AVC .mp4, 10mbps, 1280x720 for my clients and for Youtube HD/Vimeo. I also tried shutting down anything in the background that does not need to run including Vista sidebar, McAfee, etc.

I have a 4:30sec. wedding project that I'm trying to run through right now and it keeps crashing at around the 50-55% mark. The file has Bullet, Pictures, and music applied.

If anybody can help me here, I would appreciate it. This is my new side business now and I NEED this stuff to work. I love using Vegas and I don't want to switch to anything else.

Thanks for any help and suggestions.

-Brad C.
Modern Memory Films
Jarnagin Photography

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 12/31/2008, 4:51 PM
is it giving a crash report? Please post that, normally that says what's wrong.

AVCHD is slow to begin with. Magic Bullet is even slower. :D

lowering the core usage should only fix it if it's a core issue. But that doesn't seem to help. Lower ram preview = more ram for rendering, so bring that to 0.

Try rendering to AVI. It saves the AVI file if it crashes so you'll be able to see exactly where it left off, odds are where it left off is the problem.
CorTed wrote on 12/31/2008, 5:40 PM
Not sure how many times I have to post this.... Vegas seems to have a serious memory handling problem when large, or complex projects are ran, which use large amounts of memory.
The way around this is to break up your project into smaller veg files render them seperately, then stich them together at the end.

Ted
Brad C. wrote on 12/31/2008, 8:35 PM
A crash report? No. Actually it says something about stopping for unknown reasons.

I knew adding Bullet on top of the AVCHD was gonna make it work harder, but I figure my pc wasn't a slouch by any means and could handle it. A better graphics card in order here? I know moving to 64bit is the next step.

I'll try lowering the RAM Preview and bring the rendering threads back up to 4. (I guess?)

I'll also try rendering as an AVI to see where the issue might be.

Thanks.
Brad C. wrote on 12/31/2008, 8:39 PM
Sorry I haven't seen your multiple postings. I don't have time to sift through stuff as I'm already under a time crunch as it is. Thanks for posting again.

Ok, breaking things up into smaller files doesn't fix anything. It's a band aid, and not a very good one at that. It's extremely annoying and time consuming. I already knew about this mind numbing method and was trying to avoid it if I could.

So there's nothing else to try or do? Any other PC or Vegas settings I should be looking at or changing?

Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?
TheHappyFriar wrote on 12/31/2008, 9:07 PM
Not sure how many times I have to post this.... Vegas seems to have a serious memory handling problem when large, or complex projects are ran, which use large amounts of memory.

Only times I am FORCED to break my projects in to smaller parts is when I do large and complex HD projects. SD doesn't have this problem (I've never run in to it even with ~256mb RAM. solution for my HD project was to delete 1/2 the TL & save as a new file. Got the project out the door, all that mattered).

Working on a long project in small chunks is a good idea anyway as there's less clutter anywhere. Normally I do this. Besides avoiding issues like above, it's a more organized work flow for most projects.

EDIT: a 4:30 project isn't anywhere near long enough though. I hit this @ 7 minutes, ~15 tracks, many FX, pan/crops, etc. Keep the windows memory display open while rendering & watch the memory usage. If that's it, make several regions & render out parts & splice together.
Brad C. wrote on 12/31/2008, 9:18 PM
I basically AM piecing things together. Sorry if I forgot to mention this.

The ENTIRE video will be approx. 15min. long or so, and so I'm breaking it up into sections. Basically, like I said, this is a wedding video that I'm working on in segments like: getting ready, photo session, ceremony, and reception.

I got segment 1 "Getting Ready" through already but its only about 2:30ish. When I got done with segment 2 "Photo Session", its only making it about half way through the 4:30 project.

I still have two more to go and then piece them all together. Worse case scenario is breaking up into smaller chunks I guess, but I mega loathe doing it. haha
Brad C. wrote on 12/31/2008, 11:29 PM
***UPDATE***

After dropping the Dynamic RAM Preview to "0" and bringing the rendering threads back up to "4" I sent the project to render again:

AVCHD and HDV files, jpegs, music, transitions, fades, and most importantly Magic Bullet over all video footage. 4:30sec.

Main Concept AVC .mp4
1280x720
10mbps CBR

Passed with flying colors. I was nail biting the whole time waiting for a crash but it didn't happen. I was ecstatic. haha

Hopefully this is a nice little work around that I won't mind doing. Pretty sad that I was happy that a four and a half minute video went through. Thanks for the recommendations.
busterkeaton wrote on 1/1/2009, 12:45 AM
You should send the .veg file into Sony support with your findings of what failed and what worked. This will help them identify the problem.
Derm wrote on 1/1/2009, 3:01 AM
Hi,
Where can I find those settings, "ram preview" & "threads"?
Thanks
Derm
Brad C. wrote on 1/1/2009, 10:16 AM
-Open Vegas
-Click on Options
-Down at the bottom you'll see Preferences
-Click on the Video tab

It's the first two fields that you see.

-Brad C.
flamered wrote on 1/13/2009, 1:20 PM
I''ve been using vegas I too have been getting these random crashes. I've had it before and I'm getting it again on a tight deadlin project - got to be ready bu first thing tomorrow morning (which means I have to render these out tonight).

I'm running vegas Pro 8, windows XP, Duel core 2.66GHz, 4Gb RAM and my 4 minute file crashes every time I try to render it as a high res WMV.

I'm getting sick of it.

How on earth do other professional editing company cope with this? This is only 4 minutes - what would I do if it was 30 mins or hey even a movie at 1 hour 30??

I will try the cutting up thing as it doesn't seem to like the 20 clips that make up this file.

I'm thinking of asking Sony for a refund though - as this is just crap and I've wasted hours now trying to get this to give me something to pass to my client.

Serioulsy Annoyed.

Elly

Brad C. wrote on 1/14/2009, 2:21 AM
Elly-

Im certainly not a seasoned veteran with this program yet, as you can tell by my starting this thread, however since nobody has commented yet.....I'll take a stab.

What is your Dynamic RAM Preview set at? I have set mine at 0 and it seems to help.

Also, after I've either been editing for hours on end OR after I've already rendered something once I will shut Vegas down and reopen it before I render again. It clears out the memory stored up in Vegas. I get the occasional crash still if I try to render two decently large projects back to back (the second attempt fails). So restarting and setting DRP to 0 has been getting me by. So far. Im rendering 1920x1080 AVCHD/(1440)HDV files with Magic Bullet, transitions, and music down to to 1280x720p files.

I still cant render 1920x1080 videos though. Crash every time. So I've been sticking to 720p.
MacVista wrote on 1/14/2009, 3:19 AM
The thing that has hit me and others in this forum is large .jpgs in the timeline.
Todays digital cameras produce huge .jpgs which if they are used as-is in a Vegas timeline can cause Vegas to run out of memory and crash.
I overcome this problem by reducing the size of the .jpgs to around 2000 pixels (still higher resolution than the project).
Other recommend using the images as .png instead of .jpg as Vegas seems to handle large .png files better.
Check if there is a big .jpg at around the point where Vegas is crashing, this may be the problem.

Hope this helps.
farss wrote on 1/14/2009, 3:55 AM
Apart from the huge jpg issue let me throw a few suggestions into the mix. You might already have checked all of this in which case my apologies.

1) Hardware. RAM, overheating CPU, power supply. Nothing stresses a computer like rendering. Check your hardware thoroughly.

2) If it isn't a hardware problem and if you cannot isolate something on the T/L that's causing the problem then try reducing the number of tracks. Prerender a groups of tracks and re-assemble the tracks in a 'master' project. This might not be as easy as it sounds if you're working in HD and you need an alpha channel. If you don't need the alpha channel then the Sony YUV codec isn't too tough on file size. There's discussions here also of the free Lagarith codec that sounds pretty promising, you could try that.

3) If you've got a lot of video and a lot of audio tracks going on you could also try rendering your audio tracks to just one track i.e. render audio and video separately to reduce the load.
I'd also suggest trying to get 'get all your ducks in a row' before you start. Mixing audio sample rates on the one T/L, different codecs and/or resolutions all add more stress and use more RAM.

4) If it hasn't already been mentioned avoid using 32bit mode.

5) This should have been 2). Check for background processes that are getting things really tied up. By far the worst I've struck is Nero 7. It runs an indexing services that's usually OK but this morning I had a disk start to go back and that spun Nero's file indexer right out, I found over 100 instances of the same service running. Not much else was getting a look in. Vegas didn't exactly crash, just it and everything else ground to a halt.


Hope this is of some help. I've had these sorts of issues but could always get Vegas to get there in the end. Maybe I just somehow know what not to do but since V8.0b I've not had one crash that wasn't explained by something outside of Vegas.

Bob.
Xander wrote on 1/14/2009, 5:25 AM
I have not had that many issues with rendering from Vegas, so thought I would share the things that I tend to do.

I concur with the use of png files. I drop my Canon 5D png files (12 Mpixels) directly into the Vegas timeline as is. I do make sure they are 8 bit and not 16 bit.

Use Vegas 8.1 if you need 32 bit mode otherwise stick with 8 bit mode and Vegas 8.0c.

Additionally, I don't render to AVCHD, I render to MPEG2. Most issues I had related to rendering to AVCHD, even from Vegas 8.1. If you really need AVCHD, I would render to avi and then use TMPG XPress 4 or Adobe Media Encoder to do the conversion - you could try drop the AVI back into a new Vegas project and render from there as well.

I have an old Dell XPS Gen 5 and it is has proved to be a very stable platform, even with Vista 64 HP on it (this is my primary operating system). For example, last night I did a 9.5 hour render from AE and the two CPUS were maxed out at 100% for the whole duration of that render. Most my HD Vegas projects take between 4 and 7 hours to render (3-8 min average project with the odd 45 minute one thrown in). Video is HDV captured using HDVSplit.

Because I use AE as well, I generally have Quicktime (PNG with Alpha) files mixed into my projects along with DJ elements. These have not proved be be an issue, but do slow down the render process.

I have the latest patches, versions, etc, for all my software and the computer is hooked up to the Internet as well - I use Avast anti-virus which runs in the background.
LReavis wrote on 1/14/2009, 10:37 AM
After spending countless hours tinkering, I've found that the only 100% sure way to get a complete render on a complex project - even, sometimes, on a short project - is to render tiny segments. I use Peachtree's Vegas Toolkit for batch rendering, setting up markers every 2 minutes on the timeline, then commanding the batch rendering script to render all segments between markers.

Even then, Vegas will crash on the 5th, 6th or 7th segment - if the project is that long. No problem, I just start it again where it quit. It'll go another 6 or 7 segments before crashing again.

I've watched the PF Usage in Windows Task Manager (Performance tab), and I've noticed that each segment render starts low and ends high (once I saw it at about 3.5 GB!); then the PF Usage drops down at the start of the next render (to perhaps a few hundred MB) - but not as far down as on the first render. This stair-step increase in PF Usage continues until a crash. Then, when I open Vegas again, PF Usage is way back down to its original starting point; and the cycle starts all over again. It seems that Vegas has Alzheimers memory problems or something . . .

Procedure for 1920 projects:

1. Break the project into 2-minute segments between markers; I do this by simply pressing PgDn (after twirling the mouse wheel appropriately to get exactly 2-min. segments with each PgDn press) and then inserting the marker by hitting the M key followed by Enter - repeating to the end of the timeline,

2. render the segments to Cineform intermediate,

3. then put all the segments on a new top track and

4. assemble them by rendering to your final preferred format.

Future revision is not too difficult - just delete the to-be-modified rendered Cineform .AVIs on the top track, make your edit, then use your mouse to manually select between the markers, and render the "looped region only" to replace the deleted Cineform .AVIs.

My system: Q6600 (sometimes overclocked to 3.05 gHz, sometimes running at stock 2.13 gHz - it's not relevant), with 4GB RAM (I've even changed from 4 sticks of 500 MB each to 4 sticks of 1GB each to 2 sticks of 2 GB each - it's not relevant), on an Asus P5B (sometimes rebooted without firewall, anti-virus, etc.; they only have marginal effect on rendering problems - I use StartUp.exe for this)