[Nigel O’neill]

7 hours to render 6 minutes? Ouch!

I frequently do multi-cam edits with titles, color correction, photo montages, transitions and effects. Typically I can render 1.5 hours of HDV footage using the DVD Arch template at Best settings at CBR in just over an hour. If it is a 2 pass VBR render, that blows out to about 3 hours.

One thing Trent can try is install an NVIDIA video card as Vegas makes use of the CUDA cores in the card. The Radeon is based on an ATI card, which Vegas is not optimised for.

Trent also did not mention how many HDD’s he had. Having dedicated HDD’s for storing source and output will boost performance by increasing the number of spindles.

eg
HDD1: C drive, contains operating system files
HDD2: Vegas program and source video files
HDD3: Output files

It is possible to configure/optimise Vegas by specifying where you want the pre-rendered files to be stored. They typically default to C:. You might want to redirect them to another HDD.

If you really want performance, and have deep pockets, install a bunch of Solid State Drives!

A cheaper alternative is Western Digital Raptor drives. 3 years ago I purchased a couple and set them up in a RAID 0 configuration. They were quicker as they spin at 10,000 RPM, but they came at a heat cost – they ran extremely hot. If you are in a cold climate, that is less of a problem. My home edit suite does not have a/c, so editing in summer is a bit uncomfortable when the room temperature is 35C and rising.

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Or you can right click the event after the gap and then choose ‘Select events to end’ and then simply drag and close the gap.

If you have multiple tracks, such as video and separate mp3 and titles, you can Ctrl click on the first event of each, and once you are happy with your selection, click on ‘select events to end’ and then do the move by dragging.

I am assuming you do not have a multicam edit.

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

You could also boost the sound using the graphic equaliser plug-in by up to 20db… . I recently had to do this when my sound feed from the sound desk was just a hiss and I had to rely on camera mic audio only.

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Restarted the PC several times, restarted Vegas several times, and the problem has vanished. I am stumped, but given the lack of a repeatable problem, I guess there is nothing to solve!

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Steve

Given your plethora of problems, have you tried the obvious such as uninstalling Vegas, restarting your PC and then reinstalling Vegas?

It’s unusual that Vasst cannot see Vegas installed, which indicates to me that your installation is corrupted.

What else is on your PC? Is it just Vegas, or is this your general use PC? Other software can interfere with Vegas.

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Steve

Just be careful with auto ripple, especially when you start doing multi-track/multi-cam edits.

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Matt

80 GB for a C: drive might be a bit on the low side. Your programs will fill them quickly, especially with temporary/render files which are not always easy to track down. Generally, you should keep your drive below 80% capacity. Most hard drives get inefficient as they get full.

The only consideration of a small form factor is heat gets concentrated in a smaller case, and these i7’s pump out a lot of heat under load. It can stress some components to the point of failure. As I live in Eastern Australia, it can get to mid 30 degrees centigrade. My editing suite once got to about 40C (104F) when someone accidentally closed the door in the middle of a big render.

I run 5 HDD’s and 3 burners to save all the mucking around. In your case, you might want to consider getting an e-SATA drive caddy if you have not already, and swap drives in and out. USB 3.0 drives are still quite rare in Australia, so HDD’s are the cheapest option for me.

Given that Vegas takes advantage of NVIDIA video cards, have you considered the GTX470 or even the GTX580?

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Lord

I do a lot of weddings and find that having everything in 1 project was not only time consuming, but risky if the project developed a problem. I break my project into smaller sections such as the ceremony, photo shoot and reception, and then combine in DVDA and use playlists. If the client requests a change due to a typo, I only have to rerender the subproject and then recheck and relink in DVDA.

Nigel

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Charles

I have had no issues on ASUS P6T and have not touched my BIOS since July 2010 when I had the system built. It was originally Vista x64 Ultimate which I upgraded to Win 7 x64 Ultimate.

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6

[Nigel O’neill]

Charles

You did not mention if you were getting the error in the 32 bit or 64 bit version of Vegas. I occassionally run into out of memory errors and immediately switch to the 64 bit version. Note that some plugins or CODECs are not available in Vegas x64, but if you are doing relatively straightforward edits, your project should render.

I used to run Vista x64 and had a number of issues, not necessarily related to Vegas. I reckon I was one of the early Windows 7 x64 adopters, but do not regret it. Windows 7 x64 is snappier, more stable (zero blue screens unlike Vista) and has excellent device support, including legacy devices such as my firewire connector.

In relation to your issues, have you tried the obvious such as uninstalling and reinstalling Vegas?

Was your path to Windows 7 an upgrade or fresh install? Although I chose the upgrade path and have had no issues, sometimes a fresh o/s install may be in order to remedy issues such as this.

Nigel

Intel i7 920, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6