Network render - no subclips in media pool - what!!!

[Magnus Helander]

When using a second computer to network render a project my background loops (subclips) are not available/found/included in the output - even though the render client can open the .veg project and read the media files from which the subclips are made. I get an error "some assets are not available in the media pool" when opening the project in vegas on the render client across the network.

Anyone else has any experience with this?
The media pool is stored in the .veg, yes?
Is there any other place where Vegas stores the media pool?
How can i make Vegas understand which clip is the basis for the subclips? They show up gray in the media pool....

/magnus

[Rob Lohman]

This is Vegas 6, right? Which exact version of 6 are you using?

The Media Pool in vegas 6 is stored in an external (as in not in Vegas)
desktop database program from Microsoft called MSDE (little brother of
Microsoft SQL Server). So other computers have their own media database.
However, it is possible to have all of them point to one database "server"
for the media library. But at the moment I have no idea how to do that.

More likely, however, is that the other computers simply cannot access
the specific media files you are having problems with. Make sure they can
access those files OVER A NETWORK (a network cannot per default see all
your files on your computer, which is a good thing).

Media files are NOT stored in the Media Manager, just references and meta
data to those files.

[Magnus Helander]

Originally Posted by Rob Lohman

This is Vegas 6, right? Which exact version of 6 are you using?

6.0b build 115 - latest

Originally Posted by Rob Lohman

The Media Pool in vegas 6 is stored in an external (as in not in Vegas)
desktop database program from Microsoft called MSDE (little brother of
Microsoft SQL Server). So other computers have their own media database.
However, it is possible to have all of them point to one database "server"
for the media library. But at the moment I have no idea how to do that.

Media files are NOT stored in the Media Manager, just references and meta
data to those files.

The render client can access all media files. Here's how I verified:
I de-selected the "remove temp files" option in the network render dialog. After the render finished I started vegas 6.0b 115 on the render client and opened the .veg across the network. This is the .veg which has network paths to all media. All clips are accessible and can be read by the render client. The project opens with "unable to locate media in media pool" errors, and the subclips are gray and does not have any "properties" available to them in project media tab.

Everything works fine on the host machine. If you check "properties" for a proper (working) subclip it seems to me something is fishy because there is no reference to the source clip for the subclip in the dialog, so then how can the render client locate the source clip?

/magnus

[Rob Lohman]

That's a very good question. What happens if you delete the sub clip from
the project and then drag it (from the HARDDISK) back onto the timeline.
What do the properties say then?

[Magnus Helander]

Originally Posted by Rob Lohman

That's a very good question. What happens if you delete the sub clip from
the project and then drag it (from the HARDDISK) back onto the timeline.
What do the properties say then?

The fix for this is to render the subclips to uncompressed AVI and then replace the subclips with "real" clips - and everything works fine. I don't know how to drag subclips from harddisk to timeline, as I understand it they don't exist outside of media pool/vegas project....

This is a major SNAFU for a very complex 13+ track project...

/magnus

[Rob Lohman]

I assumed with sub-clips you meant another Vegas project (ie, .veg file)? If
so you can just drag the .veg file to the timeline. If not, can you clarify what
you mean?

[Magnus Helander]

Originally Posted by Rob Lohman

I assumed with sub-clips you meant another Vegas project (ie, .veg file)? If
so you can just drag the .veg file to the timeline. If not, can you clarify what
you mean?

Oops, I've been talking about sub-clips all the way, i.e. clips which are created in vegas by ....

1. Open regular clip in trimmer
2. Select a region in trimmer and right-click it, choose "create subclip" from pop-up
3. Name subclip, klick ok, it now shows up in media pool.
4. Drag subclip from media pool to timeline. Great, a perfectly looping clip, for backgrounds and rotating logos and what have you....

/magnus

[Rob Lohman]

Aha, I seem to have mixed up some names. I haven't used that feature a lot
myself. So somehow it is not seeing the reference to the original file. That's
interesting. I have no idea what could be wrong here. I'll send Edward an
e-mail for you, he should wake up in a couple of hours and hopefully he has
some time to look at this thread.

Sorry I can't be of any help.

[Magnus Helander]

Originally Posted by Rob Lohman

Aha, I seem to have mixed up some names. I haven't used that feature a lot
myself. So somehow it is not seeing the reference to the original file. That's
interesting. I have no idea what could be wrong here. I'll send Edward an
e-mail for you, he should wake up in a couple of hours and hopefully he has
some time to look at this thread.

Through the Swedish distributor I have a contact at Sony who's looking into it, I'll post any answers/results here...

/magnus

[Edward Troxel]

While I do have Vegas 6 installed on a couple of machines here I don't have a network set up so I can't do any actual testing here. Let's back up a step and verify the facts:

1) Both machines are on 6.0b
2) Choosing Network Rendering shows blank areas where you used sub-clips
3) Rendering the sub-clips to something (you said uncompressed AVI but DV-AVI should work equally well) and replacing them works fine.
4) Manually opening the Veg file on the remote machine gives you _________ (i.e. can you see the sub-clips at that point in time?)
5) Did sub-clips and network rendering work in Vegas 5 OK?
6) The media pool is still stored with the project. The new media manager is an entirely different animal.

Sounds like you've done a lot of testing. It may become necessary to talk directly to Sony tech support.

[Magnus Helander]

Originally Posted by Edward Troxel

While I do have Vegas 6 installed on a couple of machines here I don't have a network set up so I can't do any actual testing here. Let's back up a step and verify the facts:

1) Both machines are on 6.0b
Correct - build 115

2) Choosing Network Rendering shows blank areas where you used sub-clips
Yes. Backgrounds are gone

3) Rendering the sub-clips to something (you said uncompressed AVI but DV-AVI should work equally well) and replacing them works fine.
Yes. all clips are available to render client.

4) Manually opening the Veg file on the remote machine gives you _________ (i.e. can you see the sub-clips at that point in time?)
Manually opening the veg files on remote machine gives me
(a) Error - "The project file is missing one or more media pool elements"
(b) Media offline on subclips in timeline
(c) gray mediaclips in media pool

5) Did sub-clips and network rendering work in Vegas 5 OK?
Never tried subclips&netrender on 5..

6) The media pool is still stored with the project. The new media manager is an entirely different animal.

>Sounds like you've done a lot of testing. It may become necessary to talk >directly to Sony tech support.

I'll post here know when I get answers from Sony, my guess is that subclips don't have the network reference stored \\Machine\dir, but only clip name,
and vegas can then not locate the source clip for a subclip on a render client.


/magnus

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by Magnus Helander

my guess is that subclips don't have the network reference stored \\Machine\dir, but only clip name,
and vegas can then not locate the source clip for a subclip on a render client.

Based on your responses above, I would tend to agree with that.