[Paul Wilson]

Apologies to anyone reading this past and present. It’s been a while and I’ve never been back.

Due to Grants response I thought I’d better come back and say something.

That “something” is that Vegas is rubbish. It really shouldn’t have “pro” in the title.

After much back and forth, which I’ve probably talked about above, (I really cant be bothered to read over my old posts) I finally got a copy of a CD to Sony in the US with my latest project (at the time).

Sent it by snail mail as uploading was not working. I thought it was my terrible connection. Turns out it was actually a dying modem but that’s another story.

Although they repeated for weeks they hadn’t received it I finally got a msg from them telling me my problem was “too many instances”.

Basically. A keyframe FX, an indivdual input media, a transition etc all count as one instance each. I’m forgetting but from memory they said that Vegas only allows a maximum of 100 instances (I think) per render.

As my productions are mainly gaming footage compiled into montages it consists of many small recorded snippets with lots of editing work in the key frames both as SFX and pan / crop etc.

Therefore, according to them, Vegas can only handle 100 or whatever instances. This means I can only render about 2 mins (final output length) at a time dependant on complexity.

Now the error has always been “system running low on memory”. The msg was wrong as I wasn’t even using 3 gig out of my available 8. This same msg I assume is the one that appears when “instances” have been exceeded which is something they need to resolve if what they were telling me was true.

Affectively they say that Vegas can use up to a Terabyte of RAM. Fine if you have a long project. Lets say 3 different 2 hour wedding footages put together with 10 special effects each. That’s a big input (file sizes), a big total output (file size) and well under the instance allowance. I’m assuming that would work by what they told me, would take a long time to render but not fail and would start to use more of the actual RAM available but without any errors.

Now this is what Sony told me RE too many instances being the problem. As to whether they are telling the truth is another matter. They supposedly couldn’t find the CD for more than a week even though I sent it registered post and the post service confirmed “signed receipt” for my delivery.

It could still be a Windows 7 issue. I’m no uber techy. I’m still making my montages and cant afford a better editor. I’m starting to wish I had gone with Final Cut as it seems in the “pro” video editing employment world that is the editor of choice.

My projects are getting more complex as I become more proficient with Vegas. It just means my videos (max of 10 mins) are only allowing me to render 1 – 3 mins at a time dependant on complexity.

My next production is going to be very complex, will probably be around 9 mins and I’m sure I will have to render it as 9 seperate parts and then strap it all together.

For an example of the montages I do then feel free to visit my Youtube channel here….https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlbinoRat

Along that line. What follows is a link to my most recent and possibly most complex production to date. Warning strong language hip-hop music (It’s what the kids like these days)… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6PArLPL7Mw

Thankfully now I can recognise signs of when Vegas is struggling and will likely be unable to render. I also render constantly to make sure I haven’t gone too far which sadly eats up a lot of my time.

I’ve still got an open ticker with Sony support RE other questions and issues with Vegas but I think they had enough of me as I’ve still not had a response in over 8 months and I really can’t be bothered chasing their absolutely useless customer service.

EDIT. Link to my Youtube channel not visible. Nade Nation 2 link / embedding working so go to that video and you can access my channel from there.

Ratty
; )

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[Paul Wilson]

I was hoping too early.

Fail. This is all on the long vid again by the way.

Crashed at around 50%. Low memory error.

Tried again with sound entirely disabled on render.

Fail

[Paul Wilson]

Right so I followed this guideline

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSNUwUIE4D0

Guys saving to MP4 rather than WMV.
Gave it a go exactly as this guy describes. It worked.

ISSUES. Final MP4 vid has poor frame rate. Stutters a bit.
Loss in FX they dont appear as they should
Its extremely dark.
Vid in middle with black edges left and right. Basically square overall but it letter boxes top and bottom to account for the widescreen format.
and
The sound quality is poor.

Does not look HD at all.

If you watch that vid he points out theres a way to match the project properties to the input media which I never knew about.

ANYWAY. Tried all the options he did but rendering as WMV. This time I got a different error. States Audio bit rate on output and input not matching.

Have tried fiddling with the options in the audio render. Notibly changed it from something like windows audio 9.2 to professional 10.0.

Started render. NO ERROR message. 5 mins in. 5% rendered. Approximates an hour to go. To be expected

BUT

No instant error message.

Crossing my fingers that it works and output is good.

I must admit I have largely left the audio rendering options alone and tried multiple changes in video settings.

Maybe thats the incompatibility I’m coming across. I will let you know shortly.

Maybe with my outputs not matching inputs and Vegas trying to recode its working out theres too much work but this last test (if its the answer) seems to indicate Vegas having problems in WMV formats with the audio side of things.

I remember reading a while back whilst doing this research where someone stated Vegas I think (Could have been adobe) was advertised as multi sound track BUT was not supported by Dolby as this would cost too much and that he thought it was not geared on the sound side of things.

Maybe I haven’t given enough info to Sony and to them its “ok it could be multiple things causing his issue”. The question then is WHY DONT THEY GO THROUGH SOME OF THE MORE OBVIOUS THIGNS FIRST rather than blaming restrictions etc etc and searching their own forums.

You’ve been more help in the last 48 hours after only a couple of responses than Sony Support have in the last 2 months.

I’m counting chickens too early again anyway as this may not be the fix BUT thank you.

Right. Less waffle. I will be back to give you my findings

[Paul Wilson]

Lol @ Breath. I know. I’m awful. Lol

Anyway. Bit Rate.

On the Xbox itself when playing through composite hi def cables (only things that attach to the capture device), the console itself allows about 2 options. Haven’t checked but they are basic.

1 of about 2 different resolutions and either widescreen or square.
Basically not a lot can be done with console.

Its outputting widescreen 1280 x 720p I believe.

In the capture software it as more choices. It has set itself as default 1280 x 720 @ 60 frames per sec.

Bit rate has a scroll bar you can move. I have not changed it. Can go as low as 0.2 and as high as 13.5 but I have it left at default (8). It states Constant Bit Rat.

Audio is saying 2 channled AC3.

That saves the capture as MP4 H264 or whatever.

In the capture suite theres a converter which auto converts to WMV.

I must admit. I have never got as far in a project where it starts to fail by using other options at the capture end e.g. it can capture straight to MT2S and AVCHD. I have tested these in Vegas to see it accepts them but made the decision to use WMV as the files were only slightly larger and, although its hard to tell, the quality looks better.

When I render in Vegas I was doing it at HD 6 mbps 720 – 30p.

I think the most testing I have done is in the rendering side when things go wrong by changing multiple variables.

The only constant is Vegas as the editor and the WMV files always captured and converted the same way.

Maybe thats the problem?

I dont think so tho. I think I mentioned that I did a project with no issues, recorded the same way and converted and using the simple movie maker on a really old machine?

Perhaps something is my fault. I hope not and most of the vids I cannot “recapture”.

Just watching some utube vids now. Got people on there with Vegas and the same Capture card.

PS. Yeah. Never had a problem with the editing side. Had it freeze coupla times when project has got big but usually due to me clicking things too fast. Also it does take a time to load up on big projects.

[Paul Wilson]

You said…..

“What I find odd is that Vegas will render to a format that you cannot then again place on the time line. EX…AC3 audio.”

Sorry. I didn’t understand that sentence fully.

————————————–

The render of the really long one took just over an hour but I have always maintained I dont care about render time just as long as it works. I was expecting render times to be long anyway. I was pleasantly surpised (when render works) at actually how quick it is.

Your info about file sizes helps my case in the fact I had worried my files were perhaps too big and uncompressed. Obviously not.

Really it does seem like multiple different files that are hi def WMV format really throws vegas.

Whether its some “talking” between the software and windows 7 which is the cause then who knows.

The File Transfer thing is no good for me. Unfortunately I have moved back with my parents who have broadband but its somewhere around a 1mb connection and the upload / download speed is “RIDICULOUSLY SLOW”.

When Movie Studio played up I tried that with Sony. Managed to upload the jpg and 1 WMV. Queued em. Also tried individually. Individually it would say IE was still working for like over an hour on 1 clip. After queuing and leaving PC on over night they came back to me stating only the 1 WMV and jpg got thru.

No worries in the sense I know its my awful broadband BUT a shame in the sense it would be ideal so that Sony can work out whats going on.

I’m sorry. I’ve been taking my frustrations out on Sony. It may not be all their fault. To me it does seem a lot is but as you stated, the complexity of these apps and different media involved really doesn’t make their life easier.

It would be nice if somehow you could (even if you had to pay) get a technician to come out and look at your PC directly.

I dont want to assume things but they say now that its compatible with Windows 7 and that was under a week after Windows 7 launch. I highly doubt that gave enough time for testing.

On that link I provided to the guy with a similar problem he was using Vista anyway.

Surely they go through multiple instances when testing. Surely they test each render option on each output file type on a project comprised of certain types of video.

Maybe thats asking too much as that opens up a HUGE amount of combinations.

I can imagine a tester trying WMV’s. Putting in 5. Render as all different formats and qualities. It works.

Vegas 32 bit had its cap and maybe they test to that size. Remove the cap from pro but dont bother testing multiple files that way.

Sorry I’m reaching and waffling again. Lol. Thanx for your response.

I will be back on Sonys case 1st thing Monday. Shut at weekends.

EDIT. Brainwave although unlikely. If I get no further luck with Sony tech support I might see if they’ll let me mail a CD. I cam just burn all the data to disk. Gonna take longer due to post especially due to Xmas but I NEED to get this sorted.

[Paul Wilson]

SORRY. This should be my last post of the weekend.

Another interesting find. At the point I had got to in my vid proper it was failing render about 50% of the time.

I did the test above by adding more vids so that it failed render every time. You can see the testing above (read my previous 3 posts).

Anyway. Extended to 6 mins. Last theory in last post was output file size.

Tried to check this.

OK. Forget the bits I added. I removed them. I also removed half the other vid clips. Basically half its size with half the input data as before. A lot smaller to a point it was working fine.

Ok.

So then I copy and past that whole project 6 times.

Its 8 mins long.

Render as WMV. FINE.
WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cause to me is either number of files, number of keyframes or FX.

I had proved input media total file size as not the cause due to adding way more where render was failing but worked fine on output as low def.

Output file size not the issuse as something 6 times the length is fine.

It all stinks of Sony scams to me. Anyway. I’m too Irate. Keeping away from Vegas until I get a reply after the weekend.

[Paul Wilson]

Right. 3rd post and some interesting finds.

Was googling as ever.
Found this post on a forum

https://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=163785

Guy with similar problems to me.
Rendering same way. Same inputs. In fact same video game. Assuming he might be using same capture as me.

Almost identical problems. Differences = He’s on Vista and I’m on Windows 7. His PC specs are lower. he mentions later 32 bit but intially 64 bit which is what I’m on both in OS and Vegas Pro version.

Anyway.

I’m rendering at 6mbps or whatever it is. Widescreen hi def WMV. Like him.

He said 3mbps works.

So I added about 8 more clips, stretched them out hugely, added a random different FX to each of them. Video totals 6 mins now. Renders at 2 mbps no probs.

This (AS FAR AS I’M AWARE) indicates the size of the input files / memory regarding that, is not to blame as theres more rather than less.

Anyway. Final vid is not of Hi Def standard and is letterboxed rather than proper widescreen. Still same aspect ratio just smaller with black edges and worse quality.

SOOOOOOoooooo. Whats the difference. Quality of course BUT the final output file is smaller.

This to me means that the problem on rendering is the size of what the output file will be.

Perhaps a bug in Vegas that output file is restricted in someway RE memory although I fail to see that it would come close to my mem total.

Maybe Windows has a bar whereby when it sees a file being created that goes above a certain size (500mb’s?) that it thinks theres a fault and restricts vegas doing that? and Vegas not knowing what windows is doing chucks out the low memory error.

Either that or Vegas is wrongly giving the error message. Unfortunately I use the computer for nothing more than browsing the net and video making and was the sole reason I got it.

There is nothing I can do to PUSH the RAM with another non-MS app that will see if this theory is correct.

please see the link I put in as it is similar to my error.

Seeing it in the background now the guy states he actually rendered ok as AVI and that ended up with a file of 110GB (WOW) BUT it has problems purely with widescreen WMV.

personally I think Vegas is bugged and sorry but I’m really tearing my hair out.

I dont expect to buy a top notch PC and a “professional” piece of software for £1000 ($2000) and have it not work. Sony really need to pull their finger out.

Their latest suggestion. Maybe Vegas is keeping other stuff in the RAM it doesn’t need. Try doing a fresh render after restarting the PC. WTF. “You dont think I tried that already” as well as totally turning off, not having anything else run, not being connected to the net and the 300 other things I’ve tried.

GRRRRRRRRR.

Sorry. Gotta stop typing!

[Paul Wilson]

Sorry. Another side note which might be irrelevant.

1st montage I did must have been about 60 vids.
Equally as many FX.
Exact same source material from same capture device and convert to WMV.
Rendered fine and was 6 – 8 minutes long

BUT

I wasn’t using Vegas. I was using MS’s free Movie maker.
Further to this it was on a different machine.
1 gig RAM. 1.8 gig processor. Windows Vista 32 bit. Really old rubbish machine.

Ok Movie Maker might not be comparable to Vegas in the operations its performing BUT output was very very good. Many special effects. Up to 4 times the lenght. Rubbish PC and it could still cope.

So far I have attempted 4 projects on Vegas.

1st Project granted was less intense FX wise and less files. I am trying to remember but I dont think that had any problems. 4 mins long.

2nd Project was a most intense FX wise and had most vids. 12 mins long. Think I had to do that in 2 pieces.

3rd project was shorter (8mins) than the one above. Less FX. Had to be compiled in 3 parts.

4th project. This one. Possibly the most intense to date and wont go past 2 mins 15.

NOTE. THOSE ARE NOT CHRONILOGICAL. 1st and 2nd should be swapped.

Almost like Vegas is degrading. Really odd.

My projects are games related and most were for my own pleasure. Currently unemployed so moneys tight and (sounds sad I know), my Xmas present to my brother (if it works) will be this current project I’m on.

PS If anyone actually wants to check out my vids then heres the info.
original Movie Maker vid and 12 min vid not on youtube due to music copyright and / or max length of 10 mins.

Basically 2 projects are on youtube.

Not sure how to produce link but

Just Search Youtube for “thealbinorat”
You should get 2 search results.

1 is simply called “Y”
The other is “L4D2 : Seen Too Much”

As explained. Gaming so if your not into that kinda thing. Seen Too Much is rather gory too.

[Paul Wilson]

I am using WMV but I dont think personally thats the problem. UNLESS VEGAS HAS compatibility errors with WMV?

BUT then I have tried in other formats (see below)

I record Xbox footage using an HD PVR.

It auto saves footage as MP4 H264 (The 264 might be wrong) BUT anyway a hi def version of MP4.

Vegas does NOT like this so the software with my HD PVR has a file converter to convert the MP4’s to WMV.

It also has the choice to intially save as other formats. AVCHD and M2TS I think.

Anyway. I have checked. Whether it saves to any of those formats or even as converted to WMV the file sizes are fairly large but only fairly and the size difference is minimal.

I will state that I haven’t tried a whole project from scratch using other input files only WMV but that was due to their being very little difference in size but WMV quality looked slightly better.

I have tried rendering “outward” to M2TS, AVCHD and various other formats including low def ones. Literally any file type my computer can view (low def, hi def, AVCHD, MT2S, MPEG2, MOV, WMV etc etc etc)

If I render to a different output format and / or low def IT WILL USUALLY allow me 1 or 2 more snippets of vid within my overall project that will render but after the addition of a couple more it will also start to produce the low memory error.

This, to me, proves that IF there’s an error at my end then its telling me the original file sizes are too large and it doesn’t relate to the output only the input files. WHICH I think is what your getting at.

BUT

Again this is a hi def editing suite and by nature these files are going to be fairly big. It can’t be this can it? (read on)

I’m just going to get you some data now.

Project I am currently on as follows…..

1 MP3 track 3.77Mb

45 vid snippets. Usually no longer than 15 seconds for the original file.

Adding up total file size in MB and dividing by number = average, which is…… 19.167 MB per file

Total of all vids = 862.53 MB

Have increased volume on some so project media shows wav’s for these.
(11 in total) 1.27MB average.

1 jpg at 46 kb.

Aside from that there’s the simple vegas text (5 in total) doesn’t comment on file size but they are basic
and
The default solid black colour, again not showing sizes.

I would say around 50% of the vids have some keyframe work on (Pan and crop things).

Only about 2 vids with Vid FX on them etc.

About 75% have been either slow mo-ed, sped up and / or reversed. (mostly slow mo via stretch)

As previously stated though I have an 8 gig RAM machine.
Quite a few people making game montages use the HD PVR as its one of the favourites.
Typically these people have worse systems than mine which is brand new. They use the HD PVR and Vegas with no problems.

Typically gaming montages aren’t much longer than 10 mins online so I dont know anyone from that field who has hour long videos but people I know are making hour long hi def videos with no probs. e.g. weddings etc.

This newest one being more intricate than my last is a total of 2 mins 15 long and it wont render.

The Low memory does seem to come from when more and more videos are in BUT due to number of videos and NOT the file sizes / overall size of all files. Personally if I had 45 vids of 1 second in low def at under 1 mb each I would still get the problem.

I mean my last project got similarily as far (similar amount of input vids) BUT these vids were up to 4 times the size.

SO with last project I could get to the 3.5 min mark before low memory error. Had to snip it together in 3 pieces.

FX about the same maybe less than this one (certainly on the pan crop side)

SOOOOOOOOooooo. Its more like its number of inputs rather than their actual size and / or any large number of FX whether they are pan crop effects or vid FX

I have some vids reversed and they are repeated in project media but factored those in.

BUT

Again I have system checked. When Vegas runs at about 2 – 2.5 gig.
When it renders it jumps to a max of 3.65. Fluctuates around that mark. About 3.45 – 3.65.

When render crashes it can be at any point and there are no sudden spikes.

Memory usage is showing correct at the 3.65. Shows around 4 gig not even being used.

Terabyte HD with around 90% space. Its brand new.

Something is majorly up. The biggest things consuming in Task manager is FileIOSurrogate which relates to Vegas anyway (well I think it does cos if you shut it Vegas goes and Vegas on loading mentions this?.

However the IO surrogate is having large usage (426MB) and Vegas exe is 88 mb there is still plenty of RAM left over.

3rd highest = IE which I’m on now at about 90mb.
50 processes running

BESIDES thats all irrelevant (Apart from the IO thing maybe?) as I have tried this all before by only running MS stuff (the whole run with nothing running other than whats needed via MSconfig)
and
Again back to my original note that not even half the RAM being used.

Dont know if that helps you?

Paul

[Paul Wilson]

See what I’ve been told by Sony directly is that the lower forms of the software (Studio etc). The ones that cost under £100 ($200 approx) are the ones that only see the 2 gig thing or whatever the cap may be.

They managed to pursuade me to get Pro on that basis although some of my problems with that were the same as this one.

What they stated was that Pro allows Vegas to use up to A TERA BYTE of RAM. WOW I thought. At the same time thinking what a con Studio and the cheaper versions were due to it having this “RAM cap”.

On the Studio box it states “Edit in Hi Def”. Was thinking to myself…. Cheeky, U can edit in Hi Def but you cant render. What a scam.

I’m making gaming montages and as an e.g. my last project before the one I’m on was possibly the biggest. Recording Hi Def WMV via video capture card. Longest clips abotu a minute long but typically I’d only “snip” 10 – 30 seconds of that.

Perhaps up to 100 clips. Pretty large files and uncompressed as far as I’m aware. So I can see how its intensive

BUT

(A) Pro is a hi def editing suite

Dunno if I stated before but people have talked in other forums not regarding problems of making film length hi def productions etc.

AND IMPORTANTLY

(B) My last project had the same error and I had to break it down into 3 segments. It would only render a 3rd of the vid so thats even smaller still.

Something isn’t right. Its almost like Vegas isn’t conversing with the RAM properly. Odd. Oh well.

Searching for problems like mine typically people have found answers where they fixed it (none help for me), are having similar but slightly different problems due to version etc OR their posts have no response and I assume they disappeared into the blue yonder.

Oh well.

More than anything this posting and waffling helps me get some anger with Sony off my chest. Lol.

Still awaiting a response to me updating them that its still not working but it was only when I called them last that they responded to my last email so I’ll probably have to call again to get a response. Ridiculous.

Paul