Vegas (ver 6.0a) has recently started to show only about every 5th or 10th frame when previewing a project. I didn't think too much of it at the time I started to notice, because I knew I had done several things that could have been the cause of the problem and didn't have time to try to resolve it. But now I can't seem to find the problem or resolve it. Previously, I could preview my project at the "Best (Full)" setting and it would show full, crisp, smooth video.

I did several, unrelated things, about the same time (I know, don't ever do this without verifying at each step, I just didn't have the time, at the time.) and don't know if I changed a setting in Vegas or made some other inadvertent change. Here is the sequence of events as I remember them:


My system (IBM Intellistation Z Pro 3.07 Ghz with 1 GB RAM) has the ability to drive two monitors. I hooked up a second monitor and activated the monitor in the "Display Properties" dialogue in Windows XP.

I added a a Maxtor 650 GB external firewire hard drive.

I was using a Sony TRV900, 3 CCD DV camcorder with 4:3 standard DV resolution at 30i. I switched to a Canon XL2, using 16:9 in 24P mode.

I stopped capturing to tape and started capturing directly to a Thinkpad using firewire to my XL2. The captured clips were not segregated as separate files, all of the takes on a single capture became one large file, even though I stopped capture and restarted capture. So the files I was dealing with were much larger (longer duration) than normal. And I had to crop them much more than normal. I have since resolved the larger file issue.


This is when I noticed that the system was no longer letting me view at full frames in Best resolution within Vegas. I also noticed the system building proxy audio files, which it had never done before.

I don't know how much video I captured or edited between the time I changed the monitor to the time I noticed the slowdown in replay. I may not have captured or edited anything or I may only have edited previously captured (from the Sony) video, I just can't remember.

I originally thought that there must be something in capturing directly to the Thinkpad that made the files larger (maybe more information in the file). I checked by capturing a 10 second clip directly to the Thinkpad then capturing a 10 second clip from a tape, both on the XL2, both on the Thinkpad, with the same settings (16:9, 24p). The files were the same size.

I changed the monitor settings back, to support only one monitor. This had no effect.

I put some original Sony, 4:3, standard DV files (old ones) on the internal hard drive (moved them from the external Maxtor) and brought them up in Vegas from the "C:" drive. This didn't help.

It also seems to take longer to render a finished video. I never paid much attention before but I recently rendered a 16:9, 24p 720 X 480 wide screen of 3:40 of finished wmv, video and it took about an hour and 20 minutes. I recently rendered a 7:32 video and it took almost 2 ½ hours.

I'm at a loss. This may be something I have to live with but after being able to preview in Best (Full) mode and now only being able to preview in "Draft (Full)" mode, it slows down the entire process. Not to mention the fact that rendering seems to take a lot longer.

I apologize for the long post!

Any suggestions would be appreciated.