Could Use Help - Render Will Not Complete
 

I have completed editing a 35 minute project and I cannot get an MPEG-2 render of the project completed for DVD. I have tried multiple times with different failures. In one case the render failed at 65% with a memory read error. I have 4GB in my system. It all checks out fine and no other apps are giving my problems. In other cases, the rendering has just ground to a halt on a frame and never continued for hours (until I stopped the process). I noticed that the problem seemed more likely to occur while rendering computer animation footage from my Digital Juice products in QuickTime. I converted this footage to intermediate using Cineform and this improved the length of my render but it still didn't complete. I tried converting any QuickTime footage with Alpha channel to AVI with Alpha via After Effects. This did not help. The clips, though small, still brought the rendering to its knees and either a crash or perpetual hang ensued. I have reinstalled the OS, Vegas 7, QuickTime and Cineform NEO with no visible benefit. All applications are up to date. I have noticed that when my rendering just halts on a frame, the CPU utilization drops to around 25% and stays there. I have a 3.2 GHz Pentium D processor. I tried to render the whole project out to Cineform intermediate and it failed rather quickly. My workaround has been to render out the project in four parts which I then treated as a compilation in DVD Achitect. But this should not be necessary. I am concerned about the inability to render a complete project especially since I plan to have similar projects in the near future. Got any ideas? I sure would appreciate any input.

Clay, try any or all of the following:
1. Lower the number of Rendering Threads to 1 or 2;
2. Set Dynamic RAM preview to 0;
3. Close the Preview window.

#1 & 2 are under Options - Prefs - Video.

Whenever I've had a project crash on me, # 1 usually does the trick by itself.

Get the latest CineForm downloads, then render your 35mintues to a single CineForm AVI, then take that AVI to create your MPEG.

Thank you both for your feedback on this perplexing issue.

Mike I will try all your suggestions.

David, Cineform really rocks and I had tried exactly what you had suggested. Unfortunately, my system crashed at about 20% in. The crashes seem to occur just as Vegas begins rendering somewhat complex motion graphics most of which I was able to overcome by converting these elements to Cineform. However, I did not seem to be able to encode motion graphics with transparent backgrounds with Cineform as the transparency was not preserved, so these I rendered out in QuickTime or uncompressed AVI. Either way, when that crunching begins, I either get a crash or Vegas drifts into the void leaving my processor at less than 25% utilized. I think it is still rendering in some cases at about a one-frame-per-day rate. ;)

Weird. OK, render in 5 minute segments to make seven separate movies -- trying to see if Vegas is falling over due to your project's complexity. If this works you will then have seven simple clips to render out.

Sounds like CPU/System overheating
 

Had the same mysterious random crash at end of MPEG2 render.
Take lid of computer, increase CPU and motherboard cooling, use external fan to blow into chassi.

/magnus

Success!
 

Thank you all for your input - it helped! My render completed last night in about 4 hours. I was getting very concerned about this to say the least.

I believe that given the nature of my previous crashes and hangs, I am likely experiencing a heat problem as was pointed out might be the case. I've got a decent Zalman CPU cooler, but the multithreaded demand just may be too much for it. During the successful render, my CPU utilization stayed between 50 and 60 percent as opposed to pegged. I'm looking at liquid cooling options now.

BTW, it may have still failed if it weren't for the fact that the more complex animations had been encoded with Cineform. That product is really very useful.

Thank you all again for your excellent suggestions. I'll donate money for your consulting fees to charity. :)