Vegas Crashes with HDV Thumbnails

[Kevin Janisch]

Vegas 8a has been great to me with literally only 2 crashes in 2 months time with SD, both were bc of the help file. Now with HDV, it doesn't want to generate the thumbnails of my media without crashing. It generates most of them and then "An Exception has occurred". If I only have 8 clips in the project media than all is fine, but once I exceed 15 or so, it crashes, everytime and this is only with thumbnails, any other view is fine. I tried 8b and same thing. Clips captured from XHA1 in Vegas 7. Any help would be appreciated.

Windows XP SP2
HP Pavilion Laptop DV9000t
Core2Duo 2.0Ghz
2GB Ram
Lacie 2TB External Drive Firewire
Lacie 1TB External Drive USB

[Stuart Campbell]

Sounds like your rushes are corrupted. Maybe some bad timecode somewhere or a change in recording format on the tape?

Try deleting the clips and re-digitising them.

Hope that helps

[Kevin Janisch]

Thanks for reply Stuart. I originally captured with HDVSplit and had the above problems so re-captured with Vegas 7. I have noticed that right before the exception error msgbox I sometimes get a quick flash of a low memory message box that appears for only a brief second or two.

[Jack Zhang]

This is common when HDV scene detection is on. The feature has not yet been perfected for long-GOP so turn it off and make a file with multiple shots.

[Kevin Janisch]

Thanks Jack. I originally captured without scene detection and although I didn't have the above problem, performance was downright terrible with just basic playback. Very unresponsive, it would take 5 seconds for it to even start playing.

[James Hooey]

Kevin,

A question, and a few bits of info for you.

What framerate were you shooting? 24f, 60i, 30f?

I ask because I have had a problem with Vegas 8 that has been figured out, but not entirely resolved.

Try this.....(and I'm assuming you are using 24f files)...in the Vegas explorer click through each of your files but do not add them to the timeline. While doing this have Windows Task Manager open looking at the performance tab and particularly the PF ram use. Watch and see if this climbs continually while you are previewing your files. BTW, I don't use thumbnails view, so I suggest turning it off for this test. I suspect that thumbnails view is doing the same as if all the files are trying to be previewed, hence the crash while they are being created.

In my instance with 24f files, simply previewing them in the Vegas explorer causes the PF use to climb continually to the point where all my 2gig of ram gets used up and Vegas crashes. This is the same result as if the files are actually on the timeline. This using files from a XHA1, 24f, captured in Vegas 7.0d.

I have since opened up numerous Sony support tickets to find solutions to various problems I have had with the XHA1/Vegas.

1) Vegas 8 cannot capture 24f XHA1 content

2) Vegas 8 cannot work comfortable/properly with native m2t 24F XHA1 content.

3) Vegas 8 improperly references the cineform CFHD.dll from previous Vegas installs and creates corrupted renders.

Long story short here is the best/only solution to my and possibly your problem. In small batches render your 24f content out to cineform avi intermediates. These do not seem to exhibit the same PF use problems that the native m2t 24f files have. The downsides here are of course threefold.

1) Creates another laborious step.

2) Uses much more hard drive space for the avi files.

3) Decreased timeline performance as Vegas actually plays m2t content better than avi.

Another solution may be to capture with something like NeoHDV directly to cineform, but I am not wise about this route and don't want to drop the money on it to find out.

Finally, through my support tickets it has be expressed that this is a known problem at Sony and they suggest (choosing my wording carefully) that the upcoming release of 8.0c this summer will resolve these issues with the XHA1. Having said that I feel better not holding my breath.

And Kevin, PLEASE open a support ticket with Sony even if you know the solution to your problems. I ask this because I believe the best way to effect a change in the software is to make Sony fully aware of issues users are having and also show that there are a lot of XHA1/Vegas users who are having some major problems. Your support ticket is one more thing that will help to drive them to create a solution.

Hope that helps,
James Hooey

[Kevin Janisch]

Hi James,

Thanks for the in-depth reply. Yes, 24f. M2T files play fine but only if I have under 10 clips in the project, otherwise it crashes. This is with Capturing with Scene Detect. Without Scene Detect, playback is atrocious with the 1hr 13GB file. It takes literally 5 seconds just to start playing. I've been testing GearShift from Vaast which creates a proxy DV file along with a Cineform file for your m2t files. You can edit with the DV files with DV performance and shift back to HD files for rendering. No crashes going this route, but 50GB per hour (including proxy) hurts. I've done some testing to establish my workflow and would have liked to just created DV proxies and use the M2T files to swap in for the HD render, but even without the thumbnail previews, it crashes on the swap. Using the non-scene detection file (full 1 hr, 13GB) swaps without crashing but who knows what will happen upon rendering. Will put in a ticket with Sony. Thanks again.

Kevin