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The lastest info on red frames?
So, I’ve been using Vegas Movie Studio HD since last spring, and I love the interface, but my biggest frustration is when random frames from source videos go red on the timeline (which makes them black on preview/render).
I’m making videos with clips from various animated TV shows, and the format has varied: large vob files from DVDs*, avi (xvid, h264), mp4. Some I encoded from my own DVDs, and others were encoded by other people (their results seem to be better than mine when I do it myself; I’m a video newbie/hobbyist and formats are way more complicated than I would have imagined). There are particular trouble spots in particular videos, but it happens randomly. Sometimes a particular clip will work, then as I (try to) work it will fill up with red/black frames. Sometimes it will be like this for some time, then decide to work again. Usually by the end, with some luck and voodoo I’ll get a final render without the dropped frames.
*I don’t know if vob files would have the issue; they seem to make Vegas very cranky and I’ve never been able to stand working with them long enough to find out
I have tried every sort of voodoo I can think of:
– Closing and re-opening Vegas (sometimes works, usually temporarily)
– Restarting Windows (not much more success than re-opening Vegas)
– Running with all applications closed (doesn’t help)
– Increasing Vegas’s thread priority (doesn’t help)
– Opening the clip in trimmer (seldom helps)
– Zooming in and out (doesn’t help)
– Changing Dynamic RAM preview to 0 and rendering threads to 1 (doesn’t help — changed it back after because I used RAM preview a lot)
– Repeatedly running the RAM preview (seems to occasionally work)
– Prerendering (works more often than RAM preview)
– Rendering (sometimes works, but other times no dice)
– Rendering more of the timeline (sometimes does the trick)
– Copying and pasting the trouble clip into different parts of the timeline, re-copying it from the trimmer (doesn’t seem to help more than sheer luck)
– Moving other clips around the timeline (same as moving the trouble clip around)
– Working on another part of the video, crossing my fingers, and maybe the next time it will work (sometimes works and keeps the frustration down)
– Repeatedly trying any of these things over and over until one works (it can help). Sometimes, once the clip decides to stop acting up, it never acts up again. *scratches head*I’m currently running Vegas Movie Studio HD 9.0c, 64-bit on Windows 7, on a laptop with Intel i5, 4GB RAM, integrated video, on an SSD. I previously ran it on a desktop with Windows XP (I forget processor and RAM; like most desktops there was a dedicated video card), then I upgraded to Windows 7 after a system wipe and reinstalled Vegas — I ran the 32-bit version. Exact same problems with all three setups, and two had clean installs. I have not tried other versions of Vegas.
Over the past several months I’ve searched Google numerous times about this, because I hate to ask stuff that’s been asked before, but I want to know if there’s any info I missed anywhere. Are there any versions of Vegas that have less trouble than others? Is there any other ritual to try? Am I missing something?? Thanks!
(Also, if anyone has a favorite “Getting the Most Out of Video Formats for Dummies” resource, let me know. I know a lot about computers, but video seems to be on a whole other level)
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9 Replies
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[Jennifer Ortiz] “I’m making videos with clips from various animated TV shows, and the format has varied: large vob files from DVDs*, avi (xvid, h264), mp4.”
That’s a recipe for disaster. You should not be editing VOB files. Those are for DVD players. You should use the File | Import | DVD Camecorder Disc to have Vegas convert them back to a standard MPEG2 file.
You should also not be editing Xvid. This is a horrible format to edit. I would convert all of your Xvid footage to DV AVI (since I assume these are SD coming from DVD’s). You can probably convert them right in Vegas but if you can’t you’ll need an external converter like AviDemux.
You problem is not Vegas, it’s your source footage. Fix that and things will go a lot smoother.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
[John Rofrano] “You problem is not Vegas, it’s your source footage. Fix that and things will go a lot smoother.”
I will do that. I ran the Import on a DVD, and that worked. I can’t access vob files that exist on the hard drive that way, but I just as soon start over from the DVD. Is there a good way to join tracks together (ie. make single file for an episode, rather than a separate one for opening, part A, part B, etc)?
Knowing what formats to use (and how to get the most out of compression settings) has been confusing. I haven’t tried DV-AVI before, so I definitely will.
Thank you very much!
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[Jennifer Ortiz] “Is there a good way to join tracks together (ie. make single file for an episode, rather than a separate one for opening, part A, part B, etc)?”
If you place them all into a project end-to-end and render to the same format, Vegas will “smart render” which means it will show a message saying “No Recompression Necessary” while rendering and it will just concatenate the files into one big one. You can also use a tool like Womble to stitch MPEG2 files together without rendering.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Thanks for the info. I’m having some new problems now.
For my current project I imported video from DVD through Vegas using “Import DVD Camcorder Disc…” and it created mpg files. So far I haven’t stitched them together or modified them in any way (except for renaming). I imported some into my project, and they are much faster and smoother than the video from before — great! I’ve been working on replacing clips from the old video files with the new video files, but currently my project has a mix. The trouble is that as I’ve added more of the new files, Vegas has started hanging and crashing with increasing frequency while editing. At this point it doesn’t last more than a minute. Should I be converting these mpg’s to another format? Or is there something else I should be doing?
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If you still have a mix, it may be the mixed media that is causing the problem especially if you are still using xvid files. I would convert the xvid AVI’s to DV AVI’s and see if that helps.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
To test, I made a new file and imported all the mpg imported from the DVD (22.6GB in 85 files), and managed to save it. No dice, still get crashes. But a couple times it gave me a low memory error, so I checked my performance monitor. If I watch it when I open my test.vf, my memory usage goes up, and up, and up, hits about 90%, and Vegas crashes (an error like this pops up):
Exception 0xC0000005 (access violation) WRITE:0x0 IP:0x2303B990
In Module ‘mcmpgvdec.dll’ at Address 0x23000000 + 0x3B990
Thread: VideoCache ID=0x19D0 Stack=0x5FFF000-0x6000000What is going on? Sigh…
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In case anyone wants to know the outcome, I tried updating video/audio drivers and reinstalling Vegas, but the mpg files still gave me issues. Then I decided to just convert everything over to DV AVI. It takes up a lot more space, but these files aren’t making Vegas go crazy (plus they retain some semblance of quality). Problem solved (I hope). Now I just need to buy a second external drive to fit more video on.
Thanks for the help!
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[Jennifer Ortiz] “Then I decided to just convert everything over to DV AVI. It takes up a lot more space, but these files aren’t making Vegas go crazy (plus they retain some semblance of quality).”
Which is why I recommended it. 😉 Glad you got it working.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
I had an issue with red frames popping up in my timeline not too long ago. I run a 64bit Vegas Pro 9c (895 built)..
I managed to fix it by installing a free Vegas update direct from Sony (the latest was a Vegas Pro 9e 1147 built).
No more red frames..
It might help upgrading the software (with the same version you have, but latest updates)..Luke
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