Think of it as a virtual file on your desk top. You open it in a compatible application just like any other .avi.

The only difference is, the "file" is just a data stream. It goes away the moment you stop the frameserver or close the Vegas application.

The main reason for using it is to save the time of doing an intermediate render for VD or AviSynth based apps.

I just installed it, out of pure curiosity - it crashes Vegas immediately.

Windows Vista 64 bit
Vegas 9c 32 bit.

I hit "Render as" from the menu, then I find the Debugmode frameserver file type, select this and then click "Save".
Vegas crashes immediately, with the option of sending a report to Sony.
I spent some time googling for it, and found several possible causes to this, but the files that allegedly were missing, and thereby causing the problem - they are there all right, in the right place.
So no frameserver for me, unless someone can help me out.
Ingvar

Recommend report Debugmode Frameserver bugs on their forum so it gets the programmer's attention:

http://groups.google.com/group/frameserver-discuss

I e-mailed Satish (the creator) about the problems in 9.0c and he replied that he's looking into it.

Frameserving is one of the most amazingly useful tools for the video editor. Here's the definition:

It provides uncompressed video to another application.

This means that the second application (which can also be a second instance of Vegas) will get video from your Vegas project which has not been altered or compromised in any way by compression.

Well, you quickly ask, then why just not render out to the hard drive using the "uncompressed" setting available in Vegas?

Answer: speed and disk space.

Uncompressed files, especially for HD, are HUGE, and consequently take up enormous amounts of space on your hard drive. And since hard drives -- even really fast ones -- are dog-slow compared to everything else in the computer, it takes huge amounts of time to write hundreds of gigabytes of data. And, after taking all that time to write the data, all that data then has to be read back into the second application.

By contrast, with frameserving, each frame is sent directly from Vegas to the second application without ever going to the hard drive. The receiving application is tricked into thinking it is reading an uncompressed file from the hard drive, and to do that, the framesever creates a "signpost" AVI file and inserts a little bit of tricky code (which is probably what is crashing your system) to make that tiny AVI file behave as if it has hundreds of gigabytes of data in it.

I have used Satish's frameserver with all versions of Vegas up through 8.0c and it works wonderfully. For me, if it ever stops working with any version of Vegas, I will not ever use that version of Vegas.

Frameserving, for me, is absolutely essential.

Thank you, John, for that concise explanation! Sounds like something I need to look into further.

FYI, 32-bit Vegas 9.0c also cashes in the same manner you describe for me.

On a slightly different issue; can Vegas be used a Frameclient? If so, how?

I have an AVS file (AVIsynth script) that decodes a VC-1 source file, ouputing uncompressed video. The AVS plays back in Windows Media Player as if it was an ordinary AVI file. I can also open the AVS in VirtualDub and save an uncompressed AVI file (so I am confident the AVS is frameserving properly)

If I try to drag and drop this AVS "clip" to the Vegas timeline Vegas indicates it cannot determine clip attributes, and hence will not add to the timeline. Perhaps this is not the correct approach to frameserver into Vegas (v9.0c, 32-bit, Visa x64), or perhaps it is and the DebugMode Vegas plugin is broken.

Insights?

Thanks!

On a slightly different issue; can Vegas be used a Frameclient? If so, how? Yes. I do i all the time. Search on my name and "VFAPIConv."

John,

Could you provide a little more direction than the suggested searches? I just spent 15 minutes trolling through search results and I am still not sure where the nugget of information is that addresses how Vegas can be used as a Frameclient (allowing me to stream uncompressed video onto the timeline).

Thanks!

Frameserve from Vegas into a signpost AVI file. Use that signpost as the source of video in your AVS script. Then, open the AVS file in VFAPIConv and create an AVI file. Open that AVI file in a second instance of Vegas (make sure to keep the first instance of Vegas running and frameserving).

That's all there is to it.

Here is an extremely bad "tutorial" I created to explain the similar process of how you open VOB files in any version of Vegas. While it does not show frameserving, it DOES show how to use VFAPIConv to serve into Vegas. You can ignore the first part of the tutorial which talks about how to use DGIndex (not needed for what you are doing). When the tutorial talks about opening the d2v file, that is where you open your AVISynth AVS script instead of the d2v file. If you want VFAPIConv to run really fast, use the KillAudio command in your AVS script to remove the audio. If there is no audio in the video, VFAPIConv will run in a few seconds. Otherwise, it will take a few minutes to do an hour-long video (still not very long).

VOB and MPEG-2 Files Into Sony Vegas

Thanks John, that is quite clear now [AVS=>VFAPIConv ("sign post" AVI)=>Vegas].

Can you point me to an English language version of VFAPIconv? I am sure this is an FAQ, but all I have been able to locate is the Japanese version.

This has been posted before here in this forum, and it is the first hit on Google.

Google VFAPI Converter

However, here it is:

VFAPIConv (English version)

Thanks.

BTW, the link you provided does not come up if you search on "VFAPIConv", which is what I was doing based on how you reference the application.

Thanks again,

FYI, under Vista x64 the VFAPI Converter application generates an error (some question marks and a pointer to the AVS file) when you attempt to add an AVS file.

The AVS file opens and plays normally in Windows Media Player (so no apparent issue with the frameserver).

Has anyone used VFAPI Converter under Vista x64?

I would like to follow this thread, but there seems to be no other way than to reply. I am currently using Vegas 8 on a Vista 64 install, but did not use the VFAPI yet, but looks like a huge time saver...