Vegas Pro 11 released - Page 14

The latest one.
Yes, maybe the lot of source files is the problem?
That's why i buyed 8GB ram, but Vegas64 don't use more than 4.5

relaxman- I saw you stated this:

So tell me, how are you getting MTS files from the TD10 into VegasPro? If you are using Device Manager in VegasPro, I'm OK with that. If you are using windows explorer to transfer the MTS files from the TD10 to your hard drive, that is likely your problem. It is a known issue that VegasPro does not work at all well with the virgin camcorder files, like the "00234.MTS" PMB produces an m2ts file and Device manager maintains the MTS extension but does correct the data and sets up the filename to a date/time prefix.

There are only two ways one should ever transfer the video clips from the TD10 to Vegas, 1. use the PMB software that came with your TD10. 2. Use the Device Manager in VegasPro. ANY OTHER Method and that is not supported.

Thanks.
Finally i have success in rendering with dynamic ram preview set to zero.
I hope this was just the problem, and not the method how i import the files.
Yes, i just copied the files with Total commander from external hard drive to internal.
(each day i copied the footage to external hdd with the TD10)

"correct the data"
What does Vegas when i import with device manager?

"ANY OTHER Method and that is not supported."
Is there an official statement about that? I never read on Sony homepage,
that i should not import the files as there are in the card.

My 2x4GB ram is 100% for sure, i tested it when build the pc, and tested now again.

thanks!

I don't know of any manufacturer that lists what is not supported, as the list would be way too long. Rather they list what is supported and those two methods are the only ones that I have seen. I'm not sure what Total Commander is but I know it is not a third method described in the TD10 or Vegas Pro instruction set.

Just so everyone knows- One of my pet peeves is when people decide to not follow tested procedures and when things don't work properly, they don't see it as wrong but assume the software is buggy, when in fact the problem is most often the user not following procedure. Reducing Dynamic Ram to zero is a strange fix and I have seen this documented by many users. I don't know why that should make a difference but many find that it does. Personally, it hasn't made a difference here but then I'm usually allocating 4Gb of ram for the dynamic preview or I don't need it so I simply set it to zero.
I have 12Gb of ram in my win7 and 8Gb in my Vista system.

The antivirus adds rendering time and reduces timeline playback so when I get ready to do some serious editing I disable it and pull the lan cable for the duration of the session. I have other computers for communications.

Total commander is the best file manager for windows for many years.

Anyway, i did a test:
i imported files from the camcorder with device explorer to the local hard drive. Then compared the imported files and the original, native MTS files with binary mode.

The result? The two files was always exactly the same.

Maybe so for small or short files but I know for a fact that if you copy paste MTS TD10 files from the TD10 that are a part of a total run clip then the copy paste file will be truncated as opposed to using the supported methods, will stitch two or more TD10 files into a single complete file that is not truncated. There are other issues such as mismatched audio that others have reported using copy paste TD10 file transfer.

But, as I have stated before, you are welcome to use any method you wish but when stuff doesn't go right your first order of business is to stop using methods that are experimental and known to have problems and test using the standard recommended procedures.

Just to be clear on this- I don't refuse to experiment with non-supported work flow. After all, I spent quit a bit of time coming up with a non-supported way to export a full resolution T/B in 24p for import to PD10 to make specification 3D BD with menus and DTS sound track in an *.iso file. So if your Commander works and you are not having problems,... enjoy! Show me it is superior to PMB and I'll switch to it myself.

I think you write about the big files which are more than 4GB,
because of fat32, so TD10 split these to more files while recording.
I don't use such large files...

Actually, with the TD10 it's not 4gb but 2gb. Anyway do you see a time difference between the audio and video?

Back to other topic- I just completed a timeline of 86 clips in 11 min piece and observing a new record speed rendering here that is taking 25 minutes. This is the first rendering with the ATI V8800 graphics card. It is rendering at twice the speed than before. This project should take about 56 minutes with the older graphics card.

Relaxman,
I think Don was recommending to use PMB to get the TD10 files off the camera onto the computer. Once on the computer, any file manager should be able to copy or move them from place to place.

Don: i never had problem with the audio, like time difference, etc.
How can be, if the two files are binary exactly the same?

TrickMcKaha:
Yes, i understand it.
I know he recommended two method, but i don't want to install and use PMB, if not needed. Now it seems for me it's not needed, because for smaller files, PMB doesn't change the files, besides the filenames.

The longer the clip the more exaggerated the difference. When people come here seeking help because they have instability in their editing, the obvious things are needing to be fixed first. If one refuses to use the product the recommended way then they need to recognize that their methods may come with unknown trouble. Its obvious to me you don't understand everything about what you are doing and how it is affecting the stability of your system or you wouldn't be seeking help.

I don't care about "binary analysis," when the differences are obvious. Yes you can restrict your shooting to limitations that will hide the superficial differences, like shooting with short clips. But you still don't know what hidden trouble you are causing.

Both the clips below are the same file

Don: those clips was long, isn't?
I don't sayed i will edit long clips with total commander copy method..
I just tried with 1GB files:
importing with the two ways, again, the files are exactly the same when comparing the files bit to bit.

Wolfgang- In addition to audio holes, the audio - video sync is not correct. I have looked at this very carefully a year ago when strange troubles were first observed and discovered users were claiming copy-paste because they felt they didn't need to follow Sony procedure. I'm wondering if PAL users see this issue but it is most present in NTSC video. I think the clip length where precise timing sync becomes irrelevant is in clips under 10 seconds. The longer the clip the greater the error and then in a clip that is close to 10 up to 30 minutes the holes become a problem. Now edit two of these with a dissolve and errors start compounding. The best way I describe procedure like this when we know its wrong is "sloppy editing" I have lots of war stories of working with interns who insist on sloppy editing technique and then have problems later that they can't explain. Problems like black flashes, clicks and pops in the sound track etc.

relaxman- I don't know how you are comparing files but maybe you aren't seeing the differences. Like- when you look at 5 = 5 and they are the same right? But maybe its hidden from your view and the comparison is really: 4+1 is it the same as 2+3 ? No the two 5's are different. Of course we're also working with apples and oranges too in that you are working in PAL and I use NTSC.

Anyway, I think you understand the basic principle here and that is if you choose to use procedure that is known to have some issues, you are subjecting yourself to possible additional unknown issues. When you have instability problems with your editing it is time to examine and eliminate what you are doing that is known not to be procedure even if it appears to your eyes and ears the two are unrelated. Occam's Razor.

Don: come on, i compared the files with Total commander, i sayed it's the best It can compare two files from byte to byte. It will show even a single byte or bit difference! But there was none. Even with 1GB files, which is 5 minutes long.

Today i talked with my colleague, who sayed he also had the same rendering problem, when he used the device explorer for importing the files.
So now i'm 100% sure, this was not the problem. I recommended to set ram preview to zero. Maybe Vegas has some "internal" memory limit (say 1 or 2GB), and when a lot of source files are used, this fills up, and even for a PC with 8GB ram cannot do correct rendering?

Anyway i will do another 3-4 tests, and when all is done, can i say that was the problem.

Actually, the longest rendering I ever did was an experiment to put 4 hours of over 800 clips on a timeline. My system was a Vegas 10e and the system was Vista 64bit with 8Gb. No problem but the rendering took over 30 hours.


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Please note as I don't think this was previously posted here-

2.0 What’s New
Notable fixes/changes in version 11.0 (Build 682/683)

Fixed a crash that could occur on some computers during playback if the Split Screen View was used in the Clipboard mode.
Fixed a crash that could occur when right-clicking the Pan/Crop ruler.
Fixed a crash that could occur opening certain FLAC files.
Fixed a crash or hang that could occur when switching between Video FX and Compositors windows with certain OFX plug-ins.
Fixed a hang that could occur with Spiral, Split, Squeeze, and Zoom transitions on certain NVIDIA GPUs.
Fixed the ability render more than 4 channels of audio to Sony MXF format.
Fixed an issue that could cause garbled audio in the rendered file if the last playback direction was reverse.
Re-enabled GPU acceleration of Cookie Cutter (Video FX) and Page Loop (Transition) on AMD GPUs when running Catalyst 12.2 or newer.
Fixed an error message that would appear when writing to theSony XDCAM Professional Media Station (XDS) internal drive from Vegas.

Vegas timeline performance work-
This evening I installed the new OCZ Vertex 4 SSD. The cloning of my C drive went well and the system fired up immediately. Bout time I do something major that works the first time.
Anyway, this has now cleared up the last bottleneck in my timeline playback at 29.97 fps. Unfortunately, while the evaluation program is not indicating any bottlenecks in any of the components, the fps is still not ideal. Here's my results-

TD10 clip played with my timeline color matrix, internet cable connected and antivirus loaded: 25-27 Fps monitor is jerky, not smooth.
Shut off antivirus and pulled the lan cable: 27-28 FPS still jerky.
Shut down my color matrix correction and now the timeline plays 80% of the time at 29.97 and smooth but when large camera movements the FPS drops to 27fps and hesitates.

I don't need to view my editing with my color correction on as this is a global setting to tweak the color in the TD10 for perfection. ( It makes metallics look like shiny metal and not dull.)

The SSD's I'm using are rated for 490 Mbs and the eval program says the video is being fed at a rate of 380-450 Mbs so theoretically, it should be enough but I'm concerned this is just too borderline to achieve perfection. At least I'm making progress. Anyway, this was the last of my planned upgrades for editing so its now time to get back to work on the projects.

I'm open to any suggestions on getting more speed from this box, if possible.

Thanks for the suggestions.

ati V8800 graphics card does not use CUDA. That is an nvidia trademark. However, I believe the V8800 has double the amount of video processing power of the top nvidia card for a single display. I'm not sure where to tweak the ati card other than the place where you can change it from GPU to off. If I set the ati card to off the timeline plays back at not better than 2-3 fps.

Dynamic ram- We went over this before- there is no change regardless of where I set the dynamic ram from zero to 7Gb ( maximum I can do without affecting Vegas stability) but I normally keep it at zero except when needed.

The big improvement here was getting the V8800. The second improvement was adding the SSD for project and temp files. The third, but less significant improvement was switching from standard SATA hard drive to the Vertex 4 SSD for the C drive.

Since it seems the playback of the timeline is just barely able to keep up at 29.97 fps now, I agree it is the V8800 that would be my next improvement. However, according to Sony, there is no card faster than this at this time. I've hit the wall! Wait for a faster graphics card. Unfortunately, it seems the industry is pushing for more parallel monitors horsepower than faster on one monitor at this time.

BTW- if I dumb down the image quality by setting to preview auto rather than full, the frame rate even with two clips in dissolve plays at full rate.

At this point, I want to upgrade my work drive SSD from a Version 3 to a 4 and to 256GB which will add more cushion to the feeding of the frames. Besides, as the prices of the SSD's are coming down fast so now I want to add more storage for larger projects anyway. Probably in June or July I will be able to afford more upgrades.

FWIW, I'm sure you're well aware of this Nvidia Quadro 6k card, but it's $4k. Your v8800 has so much horsepower already. It doesn't seem like it's the bottleneck.

Darkside- I may experiment with a Raid0 of two SSD's later this summer. I really need about 400Gb of storage anyway for my projects. Right now, I'm having to dump projects back and forth as I have 3 open work in progress now.

The V8800 has 1600 parallel processors. Not sure it is the same comparing it to the quadro 6000. Some workstation cards are more designed for multiple monitors. I just wanted higher processing for one monitor. Besides, the ati V8800 is what Sony is recommending for best performance for 3D work in Vegas Pro. They said they optimized the preview and rendering around that card.

Which Quadro?

Please understand the primary reason why I went with the ati V8800 as opposed to the Quadro series is because the engineers at Sony claim they developed the Latest V11 of Vegas Pro around the ati V8800 and optimized the Vegas performance using this card. I felt that while nvidia cards are good too, it is the best approach to use the card that Sony used to develop the product. Is there a problem with that logic? The model series "Quadro" is not a GPU, but rather a series of card models whose claim to fame is that they are "certified Open GL" professional line of graphics cards. ATI's equivalent pro line is just called "FirePro" "Cuda" is what nvidia refers to as a parallel processor. The FirePro V8800 has 1600 parallel processors while the Quadro's have about 1/4 that many, but, the number of parallel processors is not the whole story. The card's speed, and type and amount of memory, ECC (or not) all play a role in how the card performs. The issue is not simple. There is also the difference in where the firmware optimizes performance, polygons or pixel bits, 3D or 2D, etc. A card that bench marks stronger in autocad, is not necessarily the best for Vegas timeline playback or project rendering. The question of price ( IMO ) should not play a role when looking for the BEST performer. Price would only be important when making a buying decision. For me- the Quadro series in the 6000 model would be price prohibitive but the V8800 was at the top of my ability to afford and justify the purchase. In my research- Quadro was the card of choice for autocad and polygon calculations performance, for Vegas Pro it was the FirePro series with V8800 being the model Sony used in their development of V11 Open CL GPU access.

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Is Vegas Pro stability is getting worse?
Looking for opinions from those who made the upgrade.
I admit I have made many changes to my Vegas Pro system in the past 2 weeks-
1. New ati V8800 graphics card.
2. New SSD for all my video clips and Vegas temp folder.
3. New SSD for my windows 7 OS and Vegas Pro install
4. Update to latest build of Vegas Pro V11.

Current project is using over 500 clips and a timeline that is 5 hours long. The main edit is only 26 minutes and when finished will be about 90 minutes long but I have many 20-30 minute clips sitting on the timeline to the right temporarily that I am extracting segments from.

It seems to me that this latest build is crashing considerably more than I used to get with build 595. Crashing message box says Vegas has stopped communicating with windows. I have gotten into the habit of doing a control S after every move because I never know when this crash will happen. The crash usually happens as I move, split, control stretch, delete, hit play, hit pause, change volume, add a fade, or just about any timeline operation. A couple times when I got the message that Vegas Pro is ( Not Responding) I waited for about 3 minutes and it finally refreshed the screen and began responding. Other times it never recovered. Windows 7 doesn't lock up, just Vegas Pro turns white and only thing I can do is close it and start over. Doesn't seem to matter if I reboot or just start over as the frequency and cause of Vegas crashes remains about the same.

I wish I could turn back the clock and revert to the previous build as it seemed far more stable. The latest build should never have been released from beta!

I wonder if the problem is in my system where the recent hardware changes have added something that is unstable or is it the latest Vegas Pro build?

"wish I could turn back the clock and revert to the previous build "
Why you cannot revert to previous?
Just uninstall and install that one.

It might be that simple but in the past, a veg file stored with a newer version could not be opened with an earlier version. I currently have 3 of my 6 projects started or updated with the most recent version build. Then there is the unknown factor of my hardware changes that could be the source of my troubles. Yesterday's edit session was done with my lan cable connected and antivirus active. I plan to shut that down for my next edit session to see if that is causing the "communications stoppage between Vegas and Windows.

Last night I rendered the 26 minutes completed of my one long project to an iso file and it rendered very fast. Only took 40 minutes! I viewed the iso file on my OPPO player's HDD and to my amazement, having the real time preview now, I had very few changes to the first cut. In the past, I never made a first cut with so few changes. Even with the constant rebooting of Vegas due to the crashes, I edited easily 5 times faster than before.

I can always load a project in a previous build, not to previous version of course, like 10 for example. But between builds it worked.