1. you are using a trial version of cce basic ... some bugs maybe ? (why not use the vegas encoder - then no CCE watermark...
2. no P frames ?
3. you should use the YUY2 output in the debugmode frame server for CCE (though not your problem here) . Either way will work though ..

the hang sounds like it is the fault of the source file in vegas more than a fault w/ the frame server or encoder ..

you could test by encoding the last few minutes (say last 5 or 6 minutes)

Thanks for the reply B_JM. Here's some replies

>>>1. you are using a trial version of cce basic ... some bugs maybe ? (why not use the vegas encoder - then no CCE watermark...<<<

It's not a trial version, it's the full basic version. I paid for it. I like the speed and quality of the CCE encoder. Especially the speed as I sometimes use it daily between dive trips. I haven't found anything faster. I've used it on hundreds of projects with Premiere.

>>>2. no P frames ?<<<

There are P frames being created. There's a screen dump of the settings I used here (GOP sequence is CCE default):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v290/bubblevision/CCE-settings.jpg

While it's writing the .vaf file the P frames are shown. That figure just changes to 0 at time such as when it starts writing the .mpg or during that hang. The finished MPEG looks great.

>>>3. you should use the YUY2 output in the debugmode frame server for CCE<<<

Well I just followed the advice of Satish, the Frameserver author himself, explained here:

http://www.debugmode.com/userforums/viewtopic.php?t=1307

>>>you could test by encoding the last few minutes (say last 5 or 6 minutes)<<<

Well... I just did that and it did appear to hang at the same point, but a while later it seemed to carry on and it did finish the job. It was very slow though. I'm not sure frameserving via the Debugmode Frameserver is as quick as my old process of frameserving from Premiere.

I'll try it again overnight to see if it hangs in the same place, and also try it with the Vegas encoder.

cheers

Sorry for creating a one-man thread but I'm trying to use masking to do some luminance comparisons between Main Concept, CCE and the original footage and I've found that the MPEG2 files that I'm encoding with CCE cannot be dropped on the Vegas timeline. I just get the 'no entry' sign. Can anyone shed any light on why it might be? The settings are shown here:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v290/bubblevision/CCE-settings.jpg

thanks

Vegas will only accept system/program streams. Not elementary.

Thanks ScottW. Seems strange though. If DVDA (and Prem Pro) will now accept elementary streams, surely it wouldn't be too difficult for Vegas to implement?

Back to the project... my frameserved CCE encode hung again at a different place so I wrote a DV-AVI file in an attempt to bypass the frameserver. But that file can't be read or played by anything. It has a problem after a few seconds. So now I've set the Vegas Main Concept encoder doing it's thing direct from the timeline. Looks good but 15 hours' (!!!) encoding time left on a 115 minute timeline is a bit of a nightmare, and this is on a 3GHz PC. Another crash and I've lost a whole day. Fingers crossed.

This is starting to remind me of my worst Premiere moments :-(

I think I'd be concerned if Vegas wrote a DV AVI file that couldn't be read. it suggests you've got something much more seriously wrong with your system than just an issue with frameserving and CCE.

Just a swag - have you pulled the cover off the PC and blown the dust off the motherboard and CPU heatsink?