-
Yet Another “The reason for the error could not be determined.” thread , Vegas Pro 10e
Hi;
I’ve seen plenty of thread about this, and there has been no solutions. Come on, Collective Cow Mind, let’s figure this out.
First, this is NOT a “Windows error”, as has been suggested previously. The error box clearly says “Vegas Pro 10.0”
I’m going to post the exact steps to reproduce the error, with screen shots. The project is a simple one with no effects. The error happens instantly when I click save.
First, if I select the default MainConcept HDV 1080-60i template as shown below, no problems:
But, I want to render to 1920×1080. If I change the width, the error happens. I’ve spent days experimenting with various other combinations of settings, trying all permutations of changing one item at a time, and also two items at a time (that means over a hundred different settings), to no avail.
Here is what it looks like with just the width setting modified to 1920. (I also created a custom named template to keep track). BTW it makes no difference what name I use, if I pick the MPEG-2, progressive or interlaced, VBR or CBR, one or two pass, square pixels, etc. As I mentioned, I’ve tried all possible permutations of changing two parameters.
One possible clue – scroll down to see the final “save as” window. Notice it suggests the file will have a .mpg extension. But, the error window says it could not create a .m2t file.
Can some of you please see if you can reproduce the problem?
Thanks,
Steve
Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2(build 133) Sony HDR-CX550V
-
4 Replies
-
[Stephen Crye] “First, this is NOT a “Windows error”, as has been suggested previously. The error box clearly says “Vegas Pro 10.0″”
No, that *really* is a Windows error. Vegas is in the title because that was the parent process that was running when the error occurred. Vegas error messages do tend to be more verbose.
Maybe the file already exists? Try it using a different filename. Is there enough room on the project disk *and* the %TEMP% folder to hold 2X the project size?
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
I believe what you’re seeing very much is a Vegas error. Or, more correctly, a Vegas + Main Concept error. Here’s what I think is happening.
Ok, so you set up all the parameters for an MPEG-2 render with Main Concept. Vegas doesn’t have the Main Concept code within the main Vegas program, it’s launching a separate process to actually do the rendering.
What I believe happens is that the Main Concept subprogram fails. In this case, you’re trying to render 1920×1080 HDV, which isn’t a supported HDV format… no huge surprise that fails. But you should be told that. The big failure here is that the Main Concept subprogram and Vegas don’t have any reasonable upstream communication — Vegas is not reporting the reason for the failure back to the user. This is a major design flaw.
And I’ve had this basic idea supported by the move to Vegas 11. A number of Main Concept templates I’ve used in the past now error out in this same way. As well, it’s obvious that Sony had to supply an updated version of the Main Concept rendering engine for Vegas 11, since now Main Concept can use the GPU, previous versions did not.
In your specific case, as mentioned, you’re rendering to an illegal version of HDV. HDV is a very specific format that uses MPEG-2, and it doesn’t have any support for 1920×1080 video. If you want this to go to tape, you’re going to have to use a legal HDV format.
If you just want MPEG-2, you can render to a generic MPEG-2 file, however, and get your 1920×1080 if you like. First, go to the Custom Settings panel. Change your “Output type” to MPEG-2. Change the width to 1920, and the Level to High. Also set the bitrate. HDV is fixed at 25Mb/s. You can use that for 1920×1080, but the quality may suffer a bit, depending on your material. Main Concept will support higher bitrates; I used to render at 50Mb/s, but that’s one that seems to be broken in the new release of Main Concept. Try VBR at 35Mb/s average, 45Mb/s peak, or something like that… not sure what this is for.
Next, go to the “System” tab. This specifies the container you’re going to get. If you select “Program” here, you’ll get an MPEG-2 program stream file (.mpg), if you select “Transport”, you’ll get an MPEG-2 transport stream file.
Finally, go to the Audio tab. If you want audio, select “include audio stream”. Your only choice is MPEG Layer 2 audio.
Anyway, follow this, and you ought to get a perfectly good MPEG-2 file. You can tweak this as you like — the important thing is to understand what you’re doing here. Keep in mind that the MPEG standards, while actual standards, are also standards-generators. MPEG-2 is a component in other standards such as DVD, ATSC, Blu-ray, HDV, etc. Each of those things has additional rules on top of the rules that define MPEG-2. So things that seem perfectly reasonable when you’re thinking “MPEG-2” don’t necessarily work for any of the standards built on top of MPEG-2.
-Dave
-
Hi Stephen;
I mentioned in my original post that none of the obvious file-related issues you suggest were causing the problem.
Steve
Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2(build 133) Sony HDR-CX550V
-
Dave you nailed this one!
As a sanity-check, I discovered that if I start with the “default” MainConcept MPEG-2 template, and then modify it , I can get it to work. The problem was I started with the HDV template, and that confused Vegas. Below is a shot of a custom template I created using your suggestion:
Your analysis was very detailed, accurate and cogent – I’ve learned something important!
Thanks,
Steve
Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T3400, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM Vegas 10e x64 DVDA 5.2(build 133) Sony HDR-CX550V
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up