Are nested Vegas files causing my project to crash?

[John Rofrano]

[Jamie Carsten] “Each scene is made up of an average of 500 2-3MB images (GoPro Hero 4 Black).”

What resolution are you images?

What resolution are you rendering to?

I would resize the images to match your video resolution if they are not already. Having Vegas Pro resize 8 x 500 images on-the-fly could be causing your problem.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jamie Carsten]

Hi John,

Thanks for the response and apologies, I should have put more information on my workflow. I follow a very similar workflow to this – https://youtu.be/gI_vrfiLc2w. So:

1. Add the images (4000×3000 resolution) of a particular time lapse scene to a .veg file
2. Match the Media Video Settings of the project to the size of one of the images. This creates a 4000×3000 project
3. Save that time lapse scene as a .veg file
4. Add that .veg file to my 1920×1080 time lapse master file, creating a single event for that particular time lapse scene
5. Use event pan crop on that .veg event and set the preset to 16:9 wide-screen

Are you suggesting I make the files 16:9 before I add to my master project?

Thanks a lot
Jamie

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[John Rofrano]

[Jamie Carsten] “Are you suggesting I make the files 16:9 before I add to my master project?”

Yes. You are asking Vegas Pro to resize 4000×3000 images to 1920×1080 30 times every second! That’s quite a lot of processing and I doubt highly that any video editor can do a better job at resizing than a image editor can. I would pre-process the image files with an image editor to 1920×1080 and you will have a much easier time editing and playing them back.

Also the guy in that video has no idea what he’s doing. You should NOT be importing the images as separate events by changing the default length. You should be importing them as an Image Sequence. Importing them properly will also help timeline playback. Make sure that they are named in a sequence (e.g., GOPR0001, GOPR0002, GOPR0003, etc.) and then use File | Import | Media and select the first image and check the box at the bottom of the import window that says [X] Open Sequence. This will treat the images as a single video file. You won’t even need to use nested projects anymore.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Jamie Carsten]

Hey John,

Thanks a lot for the workflow advice. I’ve started a new master file project with each scene imported as an image sequence rather than separate .veg file.

This already seems to have made a difference with the project now running smoothly and no crashing on start-up!

In the interests of trying to isolate the problem, I did still import the JPEG’s as 4000×3000 and they are sitting on the timeline as 4000×3000. In the next couple of days, I’ll pan crop the events on the timeline to 16:9. If it starts crashing, I’ll know the root of the problem is – as you say – Vegas trying to re-size so many images per second. If it doesn’t crash upon doing that, I’ll know the problem was the multiple .veg files. 🙂

______________

My one concern about re-sizing in Photoshop prior to importing to Vegas is the loss in quality. My understanding is that the benefit of importing a large resolution image to Vegas is you can zoom into that image during the time lapse with no loss in quality to the final product.

For example, when I change a 4000×3000 image to 16:9 in event pan crop, the image becomes 4000×2250. As my final video resolution is 1920×1080, I can zoom into this image until I reach a resolution of 1920×1080, with no loss in quality to the final video. Is this reasoning correct?

[John Rofrano]

[Jamie Carsten] “For example, when I change a 4000×3000 image to 16:9 in event pan crop, the image becomes 4000×2250. As my final video resolution is 1920×1080, I can zoom into this image until I reach a resolution of 1920×1080, with no loss in quality to the final video. Is this reasoning correct?”

Yes, that reasoning is correct. If you need to zoom it, then absolutely leave enough resolution to zoom. Just don’t leave so much resolution that Vegas Pro cannot resize images and still playback smoothly. Of course, if you need all of that resolution then you’ll have to put up with stuttering playback. But your thinking was correct. You didn’t mention that you needed to zoom which is why I recommended you prepare the photos at project resolution.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Russ Froze]

[Jamie Carsten] “My one concern about re-sizing in Photoshop prior to importing to Vegas is the loss in quality”

Hi, and yes John is correct in the workflow suggestion. May I suggest exporting an 8 bit .exr file sequence out of Photoshop instead of a jpg sequence. Also, implementing a resolution free compositor such as Boris Red, After Effects, Fusion, Davinci Resolve or even blender will speed up the workflow and lighten the load on Vegas. Three of the tools mentioned are free to use for commercial use. Try Fusion or Resolve.
Russ Froze