Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 Problem

[Mike Kujbida]

“Can Somebody Please Tell Me Whats Wrong?”

You don’t say what kind of footage you’re using but I can tell you that your “new” laptop is definitely not new.
A dual core processor is at least 3 (if not more) generations down from current CPU standards.

“* I Got Sony Vegas Pro 9.0 From My Old Laptop By Copying The “Sony” Folder From The Program Files Folder And Put It On A Memory Stick Then Pasted It Into The Program Files (x86) Folder On My New Laptop, Did This Do Something?*”

I’m surprised it actually worked for you.
The proper way of doing it is a fresh install of the most current version of the software.
It’s a new computer and Sony doesn’t limit the number of times you install the software unless it’s a large number.
Even then, a phone call to Customer Service explaining things almost always results in a new activation code immediately.

[Al Bergstein]

The video memory on that laptop is not what I would consider, “good enough” especially if you are running HD footage. I am led to believe that 512 MB on the graphics card is sort of “baseline” for good clear running of HD footage. Would you agree with that Mike?

Secondly, it sounds like you have loaded your OS, files, and Vegas all on the same drive. I, like you, get herky jerky playback with that setup, and I sort of expect it. Your playback is trying to compete with your OS and Vegas’s needs. Make sure you are running Vegas 64 bit as well, as it’s easy to download the 32 bit version by accident.

My guess is that you might want to see if you can upgrade the RAM to 8 GBs in the laptop, as well as go into the computer>system properties>advanced system settings>performance>adjust for best perforamnce which turns off all the visual effects of W7 that aren’t essential.

My machine is running Windows 7, Vegas 64 Bit, and IE is showing a used memory of 2.35 GB, so that leaves 1.65 GBs before you start paging to disk, which dramatically reduces performance.

Loading an hour of AVCHD footage with no special effects brings my system up to 2.62 GB of used RAM. So you can see that your 4GBs of RAM is not going to go far. Make sure all other stuff is shut down, and make sure you are not running a bunch of unnecessary background processes.

Lastly, you might want to consider getting one of those external eSata drives (or USB at worse) and cards if your system can plug in an adapter. Offloading your files to a separate hard drive might help.

Maybe render in a proxy format? Mike, would that also help? I’ve not tried that yet on a Windows laptop, but I know that it’s standard operating procedure on the Mac world with FCP.

I think your choice of new laptop might have been a bit of a mistake. If you can return it for something that has at least 512 MB graphics RAM and an eSata port, you’ll probably be happier long term.

best of luck

Alf

[James Dunne]

thanks for the reply,

and ya i was surprised it worked that way, but wat i noticed is that its not like an installed program, theres no icon and its not in “uninstall aprogram”

but i downloaded the sony vegas pro 9 64 BIT and that seems to work! might have problems yet idk!

thanks again

while im here, i installed magic bullet v2 but it doesnt show in vegas pro? it showed in the previous vegas pro i unstalled the one i got from my old laptop but not this one??

[James Dunne]

hi, thanks for the reply but like yu said i got the 64 bit version and that seems to do the trick!

I Do Have eSATA ( dont know what it is but theres an eSATA Port on the side) how do yu know i dont have 512mb graphics ram? when i go to preferences>video in vegas pro its says that the maximum dynamic RAM i can use is up to 1024mb, is this not my graphics ram??

thanks again for you response & and if you can help me with the magic bullet problem that i posted at the end of my reply to mike please help if you can,Thanks.

[Mike Kujbida]

Alf, I’ve always read that, with very few exceptions (Magic Bullet Looks), the video card has no impact on Vegas.
This is for desktops and I have no reason to think it wouldn’t apply to a laptop.

8 GB of RAM and a second drive for all video material would definitely help a lot.

A proxy format, especially if the source footage is AVCHD, would help.
Proxy Stream is free and comes highly recommended.
Make sure to get the one designed for Pro 9.

NewEgg has an HP laptop with an i7 for under $1,000 that would be a real screamer compared to the current set-up.

[Mike Kujbida]

“i installed magic bullet v2 but it doesnt show in vegas pro?”

That program is a 32-bit app (no 64-bit version available) so it won’t run on 64-bit Vegas.
What most folks do is load both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Vegas on their computer (yes, it’s legal to do this) and use the 64-bit most of the time but use the 32-bit version for programs that don’t have a 64-bit version available.

[James Dunne]

thanks i was just realised theres no 64 bit magic bullet, and ya i was going to do my editing on my 64 bit vegas and take it over to my old laptop, apply the magic bullet and render it there!

hope magic bullet come out with a 64 bit

thanks for the help!

[Al Bergstein]

Thx Mike. Yes, I would assume that the video stutter *might* be helped by having a miminum of graphics RAM (say 512MB), but maybe it doesn’t matter, which would be odd given the amount of bits that HD is needing to push out to display full def (i.e. I am thinking about it’s need for true blue ray to display full hd, but then again, I might be wrong).

My experience so far with 64 bit is that it is more the answer for HD footage than anything else in the toolkit. Given Vegas’ ability to run both versions on the same machine, for use of older software needs, and it’s ability to use large RAM w/64 bit, they have the ability to be on top of things. Now if this persistent question about bugs in 9.0e will be resolved, they should have a quite nice product. I assume the e problems will be solved soon, as software development can be a real challenge. MS has been working on 64 bit since the 90s and just now is really getting it *right*. (I remember them developing it for DEC back then).

Alf