Major Rendering Issue – Please Help!

[John Rofrano]

> How do I check what settings my project is in?

In Vegas use File | Properties… or Alt+Enter to bring up the Project Properties window. This will tell you the video and audio properties of your project.

> Sorry if that’s a stupid question…

The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask. If it’s worth asking… it deserves an answer. (that’s how we all learn) 😉

~jr

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

[Chelsea Volz]

Thank you so incredibly much for all of your wonderful help. I appreciate your patience more than you know. I haven’t converted any of my files yet, but I am beginning to now. After they are all converted, though… How do I go about replacing the clips in my project? Do I just replace them in my project one by one? Or is there an easier, mass way to do so(like the way you showed me when I simply clicked on ‘Replace’)?

And also, what should I do about the generated media thats in the timeline?
I have quite a few solid black frames(no image) with audio playing beneath them and then at the beginning, I have the introduction as a black/text generated media frame.
Should/How I convert those?

And one more thing, I just opened Super C and this is the message I received: Free Disk(C) Required: 20 BG :: Found: 148 GB
Total Ram:: Required 512 MB :: Found 2,042 MB
Available RAM :: Required 176MB:: Found 504 MB
CPU Speed :: Required: 1800 MHz :: Found: 1399 MHz[PROBLEM]
Screen Size :: Required: 1024:768 :: Found: 1280:800
OS :: Required: Windows (R):: Found: Win Vista [PROBLEM]

Due to the detected problems, you may experience errors when encoding large input files, or when encoding to Ninetendo, WMV, H.264 or when rendering to a high VideoScaleSize larger than 768:576
They may also cause program instability, severe encoding slowness or an out-of-synch issue.

“OS Problem causes all kinds of errors with most output containers/codecs.
Could be due to a slow PC, very low available RAM or a Rebooting is required.

——

Do you think I should still attempt to use this program?
o.O

[John Rofrano]

> After they are all converted, though… How do I go about replacing the clips in my project?

Go to the Project Media tab and find a video that you have a replacement file for. Then right-click that video in the Project Media and select Replace… and point to the AVI file that you just rendered. This will replace the file everywhere that it is used in the project. Do this for all of the files you re-rendered.

> And also, what should I do about the generated media thats in the timeline?

Nothing. Vegas loves it’s own generated media. No problems there.

> CPU Speed :: Required: 1800 MHz :: Found: 1399 MHz[PROBLEM]
> OS :: Required: Windows (R):: Found: Win Vista [PROBLEM]

Well… a 1.5Ghz processor is really underpowered to be doing video work. Especially a lot of compositing or using highly compressed WMV formats like you are. It’s just warning you of that and the fact that it doesn’t like Vista.

Since there is nothing you can do about either of those, I would ignore it.

~jr

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

[Chris Franklin]

> CPU Speed :: Required: 1800 MHz :: Found: 1399 MHz[PROBLEM]
> OS :: Required: Windows (R):: Found: Win Vista [PROBLEM]

Or that could be the origin of the problem in the first place. It sounds like you’re moving forward with the suggestions that John made, but if you’re still having problems, you might try backing up all of your project files and media files and then try to find someone else that has the same version of Vegas and see if you can copy those files to their computer and render from there. Or it may be easier to see if there is hardware that you can buy to fix the problem.

[Chelsea Volz]

I was actually beginning to think the same thing.
That its simply my computer…
I have a plan.
I’m going to attempt to purchase a new computer and also Sony Vegas 8.0 Pro. Now, I am still going to attempt all of the suggestions that John has given to me. One – because he took the time to really give me some awesome advice and Two – because I’d really love to save this video and not risk losing it in the process of changing all of it over. Which brings me to my next question: Is there any way to transfer all of my existing projects from one computer to another or from one version of vegas to another, that you know of?
Or would I lose everything I’ve been working on/everything that is completed?

The new computer would be a Sony VAIO® LT Series PC/TV All-in-One

Here are some specs:

Hard Drive

* Interface : Serial ATA

* Speed : 7200rpm

* Capacity : 1TB18 (500GB2x2)
Processor

* Front Side Bus Speed : 800MHz

* L2 Cache : 3MB

* Speed : 2.40GHz1

* Technology : Intel® Centrino® Duo Processor Technology

* Type : Intel® Core? 2 Duo Processor T8300
Memory

* Maximum : 4GB14

* Speed : 667MHz

* Type : DDR2

* Installed : 4GB14 PC2-5300 (2GBx2)
Graphics

* Chipset : Mobile Intel® PM965 Express Chipset

* Processor : NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GT GPU with Total Available Graphics Memory of 1535MB (max.)10

* TV Tuner : Yes – Internal (NTSC/ATSC Support)

* Video RAM : 256MB dedicated video RAM
—–
Would that be a good enough computer to successfully run and render projects like the one I’m having problems with? Or would this computer still cause issues with Sony Vegas?

[John Rofrano]

That is one awesome sounding laptop and it looks like it should be great for editing video. There is nothing magical about transferring you projects over. You just need to copy all of the project files along with the source files. XP and Vista have a utility that will do this for you. On XP you can find it at:

Start | All programs | Accessories | System Tools | Files and Settings Transfer Wizard

What you might want to do is purchase a small hard drive like this Western Digital My Passport Essential and backup your files to it and then restore them to the new laptop. They come in sizes from 160GB – 500GB. The advantage here is that you will have a backup of all your work and will hopefully continue to backup your work on a weekly basis for safe keeping. (I am a big believer in backup and use Acronis TrueImage to back up my hard drive daily!)

I personally keep each video project in a separate folder with the project veg in the root and all of the source files and other media in subfolders. This way I can easily copy the whole folder to a backup or archive drive and know that I have everything. Some people keep their project files under My Documents and their source files scattered all over their hard drive. I do not recommend working this way but that’s just my personal preference.

~jr

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

[Chelsea Volz]

It’s actually not a laptop, it’s the new Sony Vaio DeskTop Computer.
I’m not sure if a laptop is necessarily the best way to go with all of the space I use for my projects.
How much memory do you think is the right amount? Or a more than just necessary?
Do you think a laptop would suffice?
I guess I’m just asking for the recommended specifications for all the things you mentioned earlier – CPU, harddrive, memory, etc.
The external harddrive sounds like a fantastic idea! Thank you so much.
I actually have an external drive. Its an AcomData external hard drive Firewire E5(not sure if any of that is good) the only problem is that I don’t have the proper USB cable for it. I only have a FireWire USB cable but my laptop doesn’t have a Firewire port so I’ve been having a really hard time attempting to find an adapter.
But I will, hopefully…
I have made the mistake of saving everything in my Documents, but I’ve saved the clips in their own individual folders based on the certain show the clips are from – Or at least I’ve attempted to do them all that way.
Now, after I’ve gotten the cord, lets say I’m on Vegas and I’ve opened up my project. To transfer it to the Harddrive, I would click Save As and I would chose to save it in the Harddrive? Or would I render it into the Harddrive?
I’d prefer to just save it as the project because then I can open it directly into the new version of Vegas.

When it comes to the actual clips outside of the video (the places they come from), I would go to each individual source clip and do what? Simply “Send To” – Harddrive…? or…?
When it comes to the .veg file, I’m not exactly sure what you mean or how I would go about saving them in seperate files in the HardDrive. Or in the hard drive period. Would you mind explaining a bit further?
I apologize.

Thanks so much for everything, again!

[John Rofrano]

That’s not a laptop? Those specs have a Centrino processor and Mobile Intel® PM965 Express Chipset which are laptop components and when I Googled “Sony VAIO® LT Series” all I saw were laptops. I guess they make desktops out of laptop components now.

I prefer a desktop over a laptop because you really need multiple hard drives to do video editing. Your files should not be kept on the C: drive and most laptops only have one drive which makes them a “minimal” platform for editing. If the computer you are looking at has two 500GB drives configure as two drives that would be best. If the two drives and in a RAID making them a single 1TB drive, that would not be as good (although not as bad a single non-RAID drive)

The easiest way to transfer files is to open the windows file explorer for both drives and drag and drop the folder between them. You could Copy and Paste also, it accomplishes the same thing.

As for your firewire drive, just get a firewire card for your laptop. I bought one for mine and it works great. They are only about $25-$49 so it’s not a investment. Firewire is better than USB so that is a preferable way to go, but I couldn’t resist those WD drives, they are just so small and easy to carry around.

As for processing power, I would not buy anything less that a quad-core today. How long do you plan to keep this computer? If you buy a new computer every year that a dual-core may be fine. But if you keep a computer for a few years then you have to think about how that dual-core is going to perform 3-4 years from now. So I would recommend a quad-core to “future-proof” your purchase.

~jr

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

[Chelsea Volz]

I have no idea why the desktop has Centrino/Mobile components or even that they were laptop components, but I guess so…
And yeah, ALOT of the Sony Vaio computers are Laptops. There are a few desktops, though.
Would the firewire card work for the desktop as well? o.O
And why isn’t the T1 just as good as two 500GB drives configured as two, because in the specifications for that computer is says that the T1 IS two 500GB drives configures as two…?
How would the specs read to help me understand if the two 500GB drives are configured as two?
And I definitely can’t afford to purchase a new computer every year so I would love for it to work for four years!

Here are a few links to some of the computers I was checking out and the specs I’d like.
Specs I want:
4GB Memory
2 500 GB Harddrives just because you said it was the best, lol.
A third hard drive for all of my surplus media although I wouldn’t know how to save it that way.
I really want a Intel Processor AND motherboard, but I’m not sure how the specs read for that. Is that what an Intel Centrino Duo Processor is? Or is that JUST the processor?
And I want a Quad-Core processor.

Here are three computers I’m looking at:
32 Bit Vista from Dell:
https://ecomm2.dell.com/dellstore/basket.aspx?oid=1e96d9e3-b929-450b-8dc2-38ed0d8a23f0&

(The only reason I am considering a 32-Bit is because it is SO much cheaper, lol.)

^Just clikc on Configuration Details to view the specs.

64 Bit Vista from Dell:
https://ecomm2.dell.com/dellstore/basket.aspx?oid=b3d602cb-cd0f-4ffe-9cf4-bc63447c6e9a&

^Just click on configuration Details to view the specs.

Both of these are from Sony and both are 64-Bit:
https://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665507563

https://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665406582

Can you check them out and tell me which looks best, which specs I can live without and which you recommend, etc.?
Also, out of Dell of Sony, which do you think is better? Or do you have a different suggestion?
I would be enternally grateful! 😀

[Chelsea Volz]

Also… When you say “source files” did you mean the . zip file? Because after I extracted the media from those… I deleted them. 🙁