Any ideas?

[Gerald Webb]

Multi cam project with 5 nested projects.
Vegas keeps trying to bring media online, click anywhere in project and it freezes (windows spinning timer, white Vegas) for approx 10 sec, click again does same thing over and over and over.

Seems if I navigate away from Vegas it comes back to life sometimes.

Eventually settles down and I can edit, render portions etc. Then come back and same fun and games start.

Tried to copy all media into a new project, no change.

Opened each nest, they are all good, play happily in there own project.

Workflow is fine, this is 5th multi cam comp in about 6 weeks, all others were and still are fine.
Just something to do with this project. Don't know what.

Any thoughts appreciated. This is a massive time waster.

[Jeff Harper]

Try moving all files to another hard drive? Disassociate the project files from previous location to be sure it's accessing new location. You're checking to make sure issue is not hard drive related.

[Gerald Webb]

Thanks Jeff,
It wasnt that but it did lead me in the right direction.

I was in so much of a hurry yesterday to get going on this one I hadnt moved the sfap and sfk files to their appropriate drives. So it was trying to read all 5 nest files from my Home folder rather than individually on the 5 Raid drives.

Moved them and all is now good.

Wish I understood more about the relationships between sfap, sfk files etc and hard drive location.
My findings definitely show better performance with them spread out to the locations of the source files.... just not sure how and why?

[Jeff Harper]

Good thinking, Gerald, glad you figured it out!

[Ian Stark]

Are the sfk files etc the graphics for the waveforms? Sounds like Vegas was trying to redraw them each time.

[Gerald Webb]

Dont really know Ian, but since moving the sfk and sfap files to their respective source media drives all has been stable.
Would love to find a Sony says article about where all the vegas files should be on a multiple hard drive/raid setup.
Ive searched and can only find basic "Dont have your media on your C drive" type discussions.

It will only become more relevant as 4k starts to move in with media thats 200Mbps and up.
6 or 7 cams of 4k in a multicam project.......without proxies.... Ha! :)

[Ian Stark]

Curiosity got the better of me. Yes, the sfk files are the waveform graphics and the sfap files are metadata for when you save with markers. If you delete the sfk files Vegas will attempt to redraw them on opening the project unless you press cancel in the bottom left of the screen. I suspect that is what was going on.

There's an interesting discussion on the official Vegas forum about why they should be kept in the same directory: Sony Creative Software - Forums - Vegas Pro - Video Messages

[Juris Lielpeteris]

Originally Posted by Ian Stark

the sfap files are metadata for when you save with markers.

Metadata are stored in the *.sfl files, but *.sfap0 contains the prerendered audio stream of the embeded project.

[Ian Stark]

oh sorry, got them the wrong way round.

[Gerald Webb]

question.
So sfap files have the pre rendered audio yeah?
But they must have other info as well because if you apply heavy fx in the nested project, then vegas rebuilds the sfap file in the parent project, the nested clip (with fx) will play like a native clip at full frame rate.
So what is in the sfap file to do with video?

[Ian Stark]

It's not pre-rendered audio, but the pre-rendered audio waveform that you see on the timeline - literally the graphic itself. That would redraw every time there's a change, eg if you apply audio effects. Don't know whether there are video references in there as well. Juris?