Another painful day with multicam

[Chuck Pullen]

Every day with the “New and improved” Sony Vegas is a painful day. Here are some of my work a rounds Al.

I have to use Premiere and other Adobe suite products to convert files until Vegas is happy. I take other files to a friend with a MAC and FCP to convert files until Vegas is happy. I use third party conversion software to convert files to make Vegas happy.

Then and only then if all is right with the world I can import all of the files and try to edit with multicam.

Another workaround is to use a shuttle pro…How does that help you might ask? I programmed the shuttle pro for editing/camera switching so that I can leave the mouse arrow over the save icon…

AL… I LITERALLY SAVE AFTER EVERY SWITCH SO AVOID LOSING MY WORK….

I have redubbed Vegas “Sony Click Crash” you click/it crashes.

But you know the worst part AL… You and are imagine these problems, did you know that? No one in the Sony Vegas world acknowledges these problems exist! Everyone you speak to about this problem will blame your motherboard, the hard drive, you anti-virus software, the type of shoes you wear while editing…

BUT NO! THIS ISN’T VEGAS’ FAULT AL, IT’S ALL OUR FAULT!!!!

That’s why you will get no where posting your problems about click crash here or on any other Vegas forum.

A former friend of Vegas

Chuck

[Al Bergstein]

Well, to be clear, there’s problems with most software,and it’s often really hard to track root causes down. The frustrating part of what I described is how easy it is to reproduce the problem.

I’m willing to assume that some of this is due to trying to maintain the ability to handle any and all format types. These codecs are not friendly to editing. I assume that *one* of the reasons FCP has been so stable when I’ve used it is that it’s forcing you to use ProRes. Vegas has been great, when it works without crashing, and saves me vast amounts of transcode time. But I have to say, given my latest experiences, I think that transcoding may be worth exploring to see if it helps reduce crashes.

This system of mine is immensely stable. I only experience crashes with Vegas, I have 8 GBs RAM, multi terrabytes of hard disk, and on simple projects (one I’ll post soon) it’s just fine.One camera, one format, no problems.

Could your problems be due to something else? “it’s possible”. The problem we have is that when someone like us post a problem, it’s very hard to ask all the right questions to make sure we aren’t missing the obvious. It’s a limitation to typing stuff like this into a box on a screen, rather than sitting over your shoulder.

On a positive side, here’s my latest, non crashing project. Just approved for release last night. A quick trip along with the Washington Department of Health and the local Marine Resources chairman, to sample water for pathogens that might affect shellfish. A lot of pretty scenery. Heck I learned alot from this one day shoot.

https://vimeo.com/24452967

Coffee awaits, and the beginning of another day trying to work around the crashes to get the next project completed by tomorrow.

Alf

[Al Bergstein]

Ok. Here’s something I think I’ve learned. If you are going to edit multicam, here’s what seems to be “stable” for me.

Create a multicam workflow.
Create a single multicam track.
Edit the video for camera changes.
Expand the multicam track out to it’s individual components.
Toggle off multicam workflow.
Edit the footage.

This has allowed me to work without crashes today. This is *different* workflow than yesterday, when I tried editing the footage without expanding it out. To be clear, there is nothing in the documentation to warn you that you should do this kind of workflow.

Is this something that others, like John R, have found to be the proper workflow for multicam?

To be clear, I have not had crashes today, using this method, which I stumbled on.

Alf

[Stephen Mann]

“Totally reproduceable”

I edit in Vegas multicam every day – mostly with two HDV cameras and sometimes with a DV camera for B roll. (The most I’ve done is 6-cameras, all HDV). I can count on one hand the number of times that I have crashed Vegas in the past five years, and they were all operator-induced.

If your problem is truly reproducible, then tell us the steps needed to make it happen. If others can reproduce the same problem, then you have found a bug. And Sony can fix it. Otherwise, it’s your PC or the media that has the problem.

“. Boom. Crash and start again.”

The last time I had a computer go “boom” was about ten years ago when someone had set the PSU line to 220-Volts. (Well we did have some Hayworth cubicle walls that would randomly burn out their AC power connection, and take out every PC plugged into it). So other than “boom”, how does the crash present? Any error messages? Any ‘low memory’ warnings? Does the program close, or does the PC shut-down? Does it only happen with a specific media event (everything on the Vegas timeline is an event – not a clip) or file type?

Just trying to help…

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Al Bergstein]

Steve, I’m in the middle of a deadline that this editing is due tomorrow. I don’t do HDV, I have been working with multiple cameras using different formats, due to a lack of budget to shoot everything in the same format. I can most definitely reproduce this bug. I’ll work on getting something to the board after that. For now, I’ve posted that I’ve been able to work around it by moving the footage from the multiedit mode back into multitracks, if I’m saying that right. Got to get back to work, I have a long evening ahead of me.

Alf

[Stephen Mann]

“I can most definitely reproduce this bug. ”

But, can anyone else?

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Al Bergstein]

Ok. I’m currently rendering and wanted to get back to this. Here’s the situation and you can try it or not. I take three or four separate camera angles. I make sure that the soundtracks are synced, (I can do it by hand as I use a clapper in the studio), I create a multitrack edit and collapse them to a single timeline. I make my camera cuts. Everything is fine. I finish the camera cuts, and then, for whatever reason, I decide I need to move a take, often it’s the first or last, for example, where I want to trim off something at the beginning. Let’s say I grab the first clip at the beginning of the multiclip edit,and try and move it. It crashes Vegas. Or I slip it to the beginning of another bit of clip (because I’m bumping it up against the previous footage). Then it crashes. I reopen Vegas, and go to that same place, and move that same footage, and boom, it crashes Vegas again. I can do it over and over again. So how did I get around it? I decided to try going out of multiclip and reexpanding the footage into multiple tracks, like you do when you are finished making your multitrack edits. Once I have the footage back into multiple tracks I can then move edits around just fine. This must be a known problem with Vegas, and the documentation does not warn about not doing this. What I can say is that once you have made your edits in multitrack mode, don’t try and mess with your timeline before you unpack those tracks.

Does this make sense? And while you may not experience this in HDV footage, I am using a combination of AVCHD (Canon GH2), MOV from a Canon 7D, Canon xf305 MPEG-2 and JVC MPEG-2. The software is having to handle much large file sizes than HDV.

My guess is that this is a bug. I’m going to eventually send it in to Sony, but I just don’t have time now. Back to work.

Alf

[Chuck Pullen]

Al, I just replied to a message posted by Joel about the “end of days” for Sony Vegas. I cited your issue as a perfect example of what has been wrong with Sony Vegas for the past couple of years.

Your situation is the 21st. century version of the days of 1950’s black and white television where a guy had to grab his T.V. antenna with one hand, wrap his other hand in tin foil, point it due West, and stand on one foot so he could watch the ballgame.

Many of us have been dealing with these bugs for two and three years since version 9.0 64-bit, you and many others are experiencing the exact same issues. I have submitted literally thousands of crash reports, about a dozen a day and the bugs have gotten worse in some cases with version 10 and all of the new updates. I have literally had an open case about the crashing with Sony since 2008 that they continue to close then I resubmit. Every time they tell me to clean my registry and have a nice day.

I really think that we all need to pick a day and simultaneously ask Sony for a refund for version 9 and 10 unless they are going to address and fix these issues once and for all.

Chuck

[Martin Jordan]

You & I have read many posts over the years people asking advice on what camera is best, what NLE etc. I have always said when choosing a camera, software etc. you’re actually marrying a company. Once you purchase their goods, you invest in lenses, software upgrades and on & on it goes. BUT…the bottom line is, WHO will service you the best in the long run? Who has the best customer service? Who has humans available that can help you when you need them?

Sony is TERRIBLE at customer support at every level. They are so out touch. They are great at cranking out new products every 3 months but taking care of people who buy them…I give them an “F”.

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