Vegas freezes during Windows Media Render

[Tim Cee]

I have been able to render a few small test clips to WMV so far but only 30 seconds in duration and with very few edits and affects added. I decided to try a longer clip of about 2 minutes. The progress bar gets to 9% then freezes. The Time left box runs to Zero and the preview window goes black. Am I missing something here? I could sure use some help.
Thank You...
Tim

[Andrew Kufahl]

Maybe you could supply some additional details about what you are trying to render... What type of material are you editing (video, photos, both...)? If video, is it SD or HD? Do you have effects on the material? If yes, what effects? How many tracks of material do you have?

In places where you have little to no effects (for example) the render should go pretty quickly (i.e. you will see the percentage increase steadily). But, if you have spots that have a lot of effects your render will slow down when it gets to those spots (i.e. you will see the percentage slow down considerably or pause).

Give us some more information, and we'll see what we can recommend.

Oh, and it might not hurt to list what kind of processor, and how much memory, your computer has. Also, what version of Vegas are you using?

Andrew

[Tim Cee]

Thank You Andrew, Here are the specs.

PC is Dell XP 420 running Windows Vista 32 Bit
Core 2 Quad processor at 2.66 GHz
4000 mb ram
Just defragged

Vegas Pro 8 with latest update
Rendering in HD to Windows Media Player file or WMV
Project has two video tracks, one for video and one for a couple still image effects I did a pan and motion to
one audio track with a short section of music
project length is only about 90 seconds
Project has a few cross fades and a couple text effects for titles

it is my first attempt at rendering after editing other than a practice clip of about 15 seconds wich had no effects at all. It (the 15 sec clip) seemed to work fine and plays great. This one of a longer duration and with a few effects is giving me a problem.

What I notice is on this second clip, it seems to stop at 9% and the progress bar goes blank. It is like everything just stopped. Maybe I should leave it run for a while and see what happens?

I am not sure as I am brand new to all of this but sure could use some help. It is discouraging working on a project and learning all the Vegas editing work flow if the projects will not render to a viewable format.

I hope this info is enough to see what I am doing wrong, if any thing.

Thanks again Andrew, and anyone else who can lend some advice.

Tim

[Tim Cee]

Eureka....I figured it out. At 9%, where it hung up, I had an image set up pan/scan motion. It was a TIFF image and Vegas can not handle Tiffs. I have since then changed the image to a jpeg and the project flew nicely.
My appologies for being such a newbie with such lame help questions but coming from DSLR imaging to HD Video and learning Vegas plus the new HD Cam all at the same time is a bit overwhelming. I will catch on.

Thanks again Andrew!

Tim

[Edward Troxel]

Well... Vegas *can* handle TIFs - it just handles other formats better. TIF is definitely not a recommended format as Quicktime is used to decode the files. Plus, smaller images are better. So if you have a large TIF, I can see how it could cause issues.

Instead of JPEG, you might want to consider PNG as it's a less lossy format.

[Tim Cee]

Hi Edward, As part of my Still Image Post Process Work Flow I usually save a full size Tiff image copy along with what ever size and type of image I need depending on it's use. I inadvertanly selected a Large Tiff Image, 30 MB at 3888 x 2592 for the HD project in question. I have changed it and it works well now. Thansk You, I appreciate your help and reply.
I also want to Thank all you Folk's here at DVi for the help and sharing of Knowledge. As a newbie to HD Video and all aspects of it, I would be lost with out this forum.
Thanks,
Tim

[Jack Zhang]

Anything larger than 2048x2048 will cause performance issues in Vegas, either try downsizing or don't use Dynamic RAM preview.