Vegas rendering and crashing problem

[chuckakers 426]

Just started using Sony Vegas a few weeks ago and everything was working great - until....

Last week the program seemed to freeze while rendering. The progress timers kept running but the progress bar stopped at 47%. After well more time than it should have taken (like 10 or 12 minutes when 5 or 6 was the norm) I finally rebooted the program and started over with the render. That worked.

Then yesterday I had several variations of the propblem. First, it did the same thing listed above. After a reboot and a second attempt, the program crashed - it just shut down halfway through the process. It did the same thing 3 times.

BTW, I have my wifi off, anti-virus off, and have no other programs running. I'm rendering as .mpg2 and using Architect to burn DVD's.

Back at the casa, I have tried numerous things to isolate the problem. I have:

reinstalled the program

tried "render as" instead of "make movie"

used different video clips

used different audio clips

several other things that I can't even freakin' remember

Today I was back to the original problem. Each attempt to render or "make movie" results in the timers counting, but the status bar stops in the 40ish% completed range and then it just stares at me.

HELP!

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[chuckakers 426]

Might have fixed my problem. Deleted all the crap in my temp folder and it's all working fine - at least the one sample vid I did rendered fine.

IT checked the event log and found an error message about a file in the temp folder. Dumping the contents seems to have worked.

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[DSE 5]

you can also help the process by pointing temp renders to a different drive location (assuming you have a secondary drive).

[chuckakers 426]

Quote

you can also help the process by pointing temp renders to a different drive location (assuming you have a secondary drive).

Would a USB hard drive be ok, or would the transfer rate not be fast enough?

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[DSE 5]

Assuming that the USB bus is reasonably free on your system, yes. A USB hard drive is usually just fine.

[bwilling 0]

Quote

Would a USB hard drive be ok, or would the transfer rate not be fast enough?

Even if a USB drive is 'fast enough', you will be a lot happier with eSATA. It's three to six times the throughput of USB depending on SATA version.

On a desktop computer with built in SATA, it's possible to buy an adapter and pipe the internal SATA ports to the outside of the machine at a very minimal cost.

"If all you ever do is all you ever did, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got."

[chuckakers 426]

Quote

you can also help the process by pointing temp renders to a different drive location (assuming you have a secondary drive).

Can you give me a quick walk-thru on "pointing temp renders"?

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[DSE 5]

Quote

Quote

Would a USB hard drive be ok, or would the transfer rate not be fast enough?

Even if a USB drive is 'fast enough', you will be a lot happier with eSATA. It's three to six times the throughput of USB depending on SATA version.

On a desktop computer with built in SATA, it's possible to buy an adapter and pipe the internal SATA ports to the outside of the machine at a very minimal cost.

While this is true in theory, it's not necessarily true in "real life." USB does share the bus, and is assigned by the CPU, but so is eSATA as well. I have a new monster system that doesn't work well with any external eSata drives, but runs just fine with USB2 externals. YMMV.

As a general rule, all things being correct and optimal, eSATA should kick tail on USB. However, it's also a question of whether the data can stream fast enough or not. If your USB 2 drive can't stream HDV or AVCHD fast enough for a couple streams simultaneously, then there is something not set up well with the system.

[DSE 5]

Quote

Quote

you can also help the process by pointing temp renders to a different drive location (assuming you have a secondary drive).

Can you give me a quick walk-thru on "pointing temp renders"?

FILE/PROPERTIES, in this dialog set the temp render location, file properties, and then choose the "Start all new projects with these settings" tick box.

[chuckakers 426]

Quote

Quote

Quote

you can also help the process by pointing temp renders to a different drive location (assuming you have a secondary drive).

Can you give me a quick walk-thru on "pointing temp renders"?

FILE/PROPERTIES, in this dialog set the temp render location, file properties, and then choose the "Start all new projects with these settings" tick box.

I'm using vegas studio 9 and don't see a "file" drop down, only one marked "project". Is this the same?

When I open the "project" dialog, there is an option for "folders", but I don't see anything about "temp". Under "folders" there are two locations listed - one for "recorded files" and one for "prerendered files". Are one of these what you are talking about?

Chuck Akers
D-10855
Houston, TX

[bwilling 0]

Quote

While this is true in theory, it's not necessarily true in "real life."

My 'real life' experience with it is that both of my servers here at work that I've switched to eSATA are about 4 times faster than the USB2 interface they were on. My backup times are literally about a fourth of what they were with USB, which is consistent with the difference in 'theoretical' throughput.

If your 480Mbs USB2 interface is faster than your 3Gbs eSATA interface, I'd suggest that there's something wrong with your eSATA interface, and if your resolve that issue you'll be a lot happier with eSATA too. YMMV.

There's a reason that all internal hard drive interfaces on a modern PC are SATA and not USB.

"If all you ever do is all you ever did, then all you'll ever get is all you ever got."

[DSE 5]

All of our internal eSATA drives are terrific. Several externals (cheapies from Costco/wherever) have shown issues with stability, bus accessibility. USB 2 drives have that issue as well, but in my own experience (using roughly 50-70 drives per year) eSATA hasn't been as reliable. Obviously it's faster and more stable if all things are consistent. Firewire was too, in *most* situations.

In the question asked, "Is USB2 fast enough" for writing temp renders, the answer is "yes." Is eSATA fast enough? "Yes." Is 1394 fast enough? "Yes."

The answer to that question, however, still remains based around system resources regardless of the port used.