[Cindy Hberg]

Well stated, George! I appreciate the details and suspect I will need to come back here from time to time to read them again when I’m on a new project.

Or, I may switch to Premiere. I like that I own my Vegas software; and so I’ve been holding out. But I don’t get the impression that Premiere is so temperamental about which files it will accept. But perhaps it is. Still, the whole monthly subscription issue has me balking.

Again your in-depth knowledge was not only helpful to me, but I suspect many sighs of relief will be emitted by those who come behind me, following the bread trail.

[Cindy Hberg]

Good question, Graham. I suspect Vegas could not handle the size of my many clips. Heretofore, I had though the clips I didn’t use, but kept in my project, were merely placeholders not requiring RAM as I had not put them in my timeline. But now I can see they take up RAM and plenty of it! Thus we get the thumbnails in our project media folder that we can scroll over and even watch the footage progress, without putting the clip in our timeline. This takes RAM.

1) Once it hit me these clips were gobbling RAM (that Vegas needed in order for my timeline to play well and for clips to show up), I decided to take the clips I was not using out of my project.

2) But as I couldn’t even open my project — the only way to accomplish that was to take them out of the folder on my hard drive that Vegas went looking for them in. I placed them in another folder on my hard drive in case I wanted them later. But they were no longer in the location that Vegas went looking for them in.

3) Vegas had previously been telling me I had one missing file. I’d tell Vegas to forget about it. And Vegas did but also didn’t open my project. Once I gave it 30 files that it couldn’t find; and I didn’t make it look for. Batta bing. Less RAM hoggers in my project. Now Vegas was free to use my computer’s RAM to handle the video clips I am using in the timeline. And it was open sesame after that.

The bottom line is the numerous clips I keep on hold as project media, are not on hold, they’re RAM gluttons.

[Cindy Hberg]

I’m reading what everyone wrote after I thought my Vegas issue was solved. And all I can say is Team-Cow rocks!

Now the reason I say I thought my Vegas issue was solved is this — more disappearing clips! The client requested a few edits. Nothing much, but it was enough to make Vegas go — tilt. I was able to open my project about twice and some 1/5 of my clips were laying like blanks in the timeline again. Nothing showed up when I tried to play them. The third time was no charm either, Vegas wouldn’t even open the project at this point. I tried about 40 times, doing things bloggers said, deleting Photoshop to free up RAM, but nothing worked. No worries though, there is a “they lived happily ever after” to this story.

It felt rather presumptuous calling on Team-Cow again for help after you’d already spent a generous amount of effort on my time-sucking issue.

I psyched myself up (or down) to spend another glorious all-nighter on this (as the client’s board meeting is Monday). But something told me a fresh mind would take me further than a frenzy of all-night reading and botched solutions. (Perhaps I would find grace for the task in the morning.)

So I went to sleep, keeping hope. Throughout the night when waking, I would run various solutions through my mind. One of them rose above the others, so I tried it first. And — it worked immediately and kept working (and I now have a rendered video)! I’m recording what worked here for those who come to CC down the road, with a boggled brain and blurry eyes.

I load a lot of files into my project as I pick and choose the ones that look best. Some make the cut, others don’t. But they remain in the project, though not on the timeline. If I need them later, their image is smack dab in front of me. Easy peasy. Well, I moved about 30 of the clips I never eneded up using — out of their folder on my hard drive (and put them in a different folder). When Vegas went looking for them it couldn’t find (nor load them!). I then tried to open my project. Vegas prompted me, asking what I wanted to do about the missing files. I responded for it to ignore them.

When my project opened, batta boom, everything was still there. Felt like Christmas!

[Cindy Hberg]

Sheesh Graham! I intended to thank you and George and Francois. Please know I’m operating with a severely sleep deprived mind at the moment. You were incredibly helpful. Thank you so much!!

[Cindy Hberg]

Hi George and Francois,

Thank you for your advice and for your generosity with your time! I have the utmost respect for you both. I will certainly look into ER Media Tool kit for the future.

As regards to how the story ended, and I appreciate your asking because, like you stated — it could help others. A burning question in my mind all along was: what changed after 3 1/2 weeks of smooth sailing that turned the last 48 hours into a Night Gallery episode. Then something I’d read on a random blog about four months ago struck me. I’d read (and I’m not geek enough – yet- to get the words exactly right, so please bear with me) — but I’d read that unlike some other editing software that processes video on processor cores, Vegas mostly uses the RAM in my computer and perhaps only one of the cores in my processor, even if the processor has multiple cores to offer it. (Again, I need to polish up on gaining geek proficiency). When the disappearing video issue began, I still had a decent amount of RAM available. But I had downloaded Adobe Illustrator recently.

So I took hope, while slouching in my chair: after an all-nighter reading blogs on freezing video and rebuilding my video over and over again only to find the video disappearing once more. And I thought, like I had during various Polyanna moments throughout the night, maybe there’s a solution. I could uninstall Illustrator (love Illustrator, BTW). But if uninstalling it didn’t work, I suspected with some two hours to go; it was not even possible to finish a semblance of the video in time. And I was also scheming on how to steal away enough time to brush my teeth and go to the clients office in something other than pajamas. I hit the uninstall button and waited…

And this time, the proverbial clouds parted. Video clips that I’d so carefully placed and moved around were suddenly visible in all of the some 30 backups that I’d feverishly saved. And the video clips that had been fine for the last two and three weeks (before disappearing) were back now and stayed around. George McFly must have finally sucker punched Biff.

There were five clips that never showed back up. But that was way better than having huge chunks missing all over the project. Not knowing about ER Media Tool kit then, I was still able, by taking your advice on re-rendering, to solve that issue. So in Vegas, I imported the five clips into a new project, then rendered them as one massive clip using a somewhat lossless codec (as far as I could tell). Then I took the big clip into Vegas, split it up and replaced the invisible video with it. The project came out well. I even made it to the meeting on time with teeth that were actually brushed, and (as a plus) wearing day clothes.

Thank you both for making a successful client meeting possible. I would have had a meltdown last night had it not been for your advise and commiseration. You guys rock!

[Cindy Hberg]

Hi Graham — I responded to this last night, but don’t see my response here. So, I’ll try again. Thank you for your thoughts. I set my project to match my media (but Vegas is still being belligerent). And after rendering all the clips that had disappeared into an mp4 (non MOV) format — now many other clips are disappearing.

This is my fourth week of working on this same project with mostly the same clips, clips that have played fine all along. It would be a big time saver if Vegas rejected them up front so one solved the problem early or looked elsewhere early, didn’t waste one’s time, or spend an all-nighter trying to solve the issue, one to find oneself sitting in front of the computer with a client meeting in 3 hours and more clips gasping their last by the minute.

Arghh!

[Cindy Hberg]

Hi Graham — I got the video from Envato Elements. And Vegas can handle most of their MOV files but not all of them. I’m not sure there is a big difference between them though. If by rendering as a constant bit rate you mean picking a codec where I set the bit rate at 8 million, for example. I have tried that to no avail.

What is odd though is the disappearing media goes and then reappears, off in on, in no predictable pattern.

I have about 130 events in a six-minute video, where the average event lasts around 3 seconds. I’m not reusing events; so each comes from its own master footage.

If I were to render all my clips externally to make it constant bit rate — I haven’t done this before. But, I imagine I’d download an app for that. I suspect since this project is due to the client tomorrow, I might make it if I continue editing while it disappears, then wait for it to reappear (as thus far it has) — then render it before it goes bon voyage again?

I think the neater and ultimately better way — would be to re-render/convert all the footage, as you wisely mentioned. I only wish time were my friend right now.

[Cindy Hberg]

Sheesh, a good one fifth of my clips just disappeared. I have a relatively new computer; it has not had problems with other apps. (As a producer, not a dedicated editor) I’ve edited with Media 100, Final Cut Pro, Premiere, and even Avid (back in the day); and have not experienced this type of random illogical melt down. I’m not sure I’m going to be sticking with Vegas. In addition, I’ve had a preposterous amount of freezing issues.

I’ll be up half the night; and who knows if I fix the disappearing media act — whether it will disappear again. Right now, I’m not feeling the Vegas love. But knowing you guys have tried to help, makes me a fan of Creative Cow. I don’t think this is a files issue — as other apps play my files. (Got most from Envato Elements). I like that Vegas is a one-time subscription; and its easy to archive projects. But this is beyond the pale.

[Cindy Hberg]

Francois and George, Misery loves company — so you both are greatly appreciated! After my Pollyanna post; I made the great mistake of having dinner. When I came back, even more video clips had disappeared. It’s as if Vegas had taken notes from Hannibal L and went to cannibalizing my project. I’m back to “Back to the Future” and the disappearing images. I’ll try your proxy idea, Francois — and take a look at my backups, George. I appreciate the advice.

[Cindy Hberg]

Francois, You are the bomb! Thanks for communicating with me so diligently. Fortunately — after re-downloading the visuals multiple times and deleting the old ones from my project; Vegas started showing the clips again. Whew!

The visuals I downloaded were the same visuals I had downloaded previously; and I downloaded them in the same manner. So it’s odd. But as the S-man said “All’s well that ends well.”

Blessings,
Cindy