image disappears

[Steve Rhoden]

Are these media files stored on an external hard-drive?
If it is, place them on your main drive and see.

Steve Rhoden (Cow Leader)
Film Maker & VFX Artist.
Owner of Filmex Creative Media.
Samples of my Work and Company can be seen here:
https://www.facebook.com/FilmexCreativeMedia

[Joost Zeeveneegelbeek]

Thanks for replying.
All files are on the same internal hard disk, which is not the one SVP12 is on (that is an ssd).
The file that gives me the most problems, is one from a smartphone camera. It’s in portrait mode hd. I can get it on the time line no problem, it also appears and plays in the preview window now, but it just won’t render, no matter what I try.
When I frame it in landscape mode for my project, the image sometimes doesn’t appear in the crop window. Only a solid red frame. During rendering the preview turns black. Sometimes the rendering proces ends in an error message, sometimes it takes forever and I end it, sometimes it says it’s finished but the rendered file doesn’t play and won’t be accepted by SVP, sometimes it plays but the screen is black.
A few years back I used hd shot with a smartphone in SVP12 and had no problems. But then I didn’t try and fit it in a standard hd project (landscape format).

[George Dean]

Hi Joost,

I would use Mediainfo (text mode) and check the frame rate of the problem source media. Most likely it is variable frame rate, and Vegas likes constant frame rate. If so I would use Handbrake or Any Video Converter (or others) to convert it from variable to constant and then do a test render.

Sometime I load variable rate and it works in Vegas, but mostly if I use FX’s or resizing, etc. the variable frame rate sooner or later goes crazy.

Best Regards……George

[Dimitrios Papadimitriou]

Does turning off gpu video acceleration do anything? It would often cause dead spaces color flickering and wouldn’t let effects work right in the preview screen for me.

[Joost Zeeveneegelbeek]

Hi George,

Yep, that was the problem! Many thanks. I installed Any Video Converter, and with the new file it will render. One little drawback: the image quality has gone down from hd to sd, although AVC says it is hd. And the image has been cropped. I tried converting it to m2t, but although Vegas can supply that format as output, it doesn’t work using it for input. Which format should I use to get the best result?

Joost

[Joost Zeeveneegelbeek]

Hi Dimitrios,

gpu video acceleration is off by default. I start up all my projects with it off. I had trouble because of this option before, so I leave it off now.

To George:
the original file is over 2Gb, the converted file is 376 Mb, so no wonder it looks like shit. I chose high quality, 2 pass conversion and hd. Should I use other software, or am I doing something wrong?

[George Dean]

Hi Joost,

I would try ‘Custom MP4 Movie’ from the presets. Then click on the ‘Video’ options. select ‘x264’ video codec, increase the ‘Video Bitrate’ to ‘12000’. Make sure the ‘Frame Rate’ matches your project or source media. Try those settings. If that doesn’t work out I would download the free Handbrake and select a preset from the right colunm that matches the project settings of your Vegas project.

I don’t have a smart phone so I don’t have any samples on hand to test.

Best Regards……George

[Joost Zeeveneegelbeek]

Even with the proposed settings the result is disappointing. The mp4 file is half the size of the original quicktime movie, and it shows. I’ll try Handbrake next.

Although I have replaced the quicktime movie from the smartphone with a converted mp4 file, other video events which posed no problems before are affected. In many places on the timeline other images than that of the selected video event are visible in the preview window, often with problems like noise, flickering, shifted colors and general degredation. The problem with the smartphone video seems to be taken care of, but now the rest seems to randomly quit on me. Among these are mp4 files shot with video cameras.
How can I get the project to behave like it did before?

[Joost Zeeveneegelbeek]

Tried Handbrake. I can find no preset that exactly matches my project settings, but chose H.264 MKV 1080p30 and after 20 minutes got a 414Mb file outof the 2.09Gb original. That makes no sense to me and is worse than the still unacceptable picture I get from AVC. The original quicktime movie looks fine. The converted file is compressed way too much.

[George Dean]

Hi Joost,

Well, we are shooting in the dark attempting to get a quick solution. That isn’t working and wasting your time. So let’s start from the beginning. If you haven’t already done so, please download the free app ‘Mediainfo’ https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo

Start this program and select the ‘View’ tab and select ‘Text’ mode. Then select ‘File’ and load your source media. Copy and paste this info (or post a screenshot) for each of your different source media files. Also take a screenshot and post it of your ‘Project Properties’, render format ‘Template’ settings, and also your preview window.

Then we can go from there……Thank You

Best Regards……George