A Difference Between Event FX and Media FX
 

I'm a relatively new convert to Neat Video, which is a dandy noise removal FX. Unfortunately, it is EXTREMELY CPU intensive, much like Magic Bullet Looks, in my experience. I run 8.0c on Windows 7 x64 with an overclocked Q9550, so renders aren't so bad. Still, Neat Video brings my system to a crawl.

Now, here's the interesting part: I applied NeatVideo as event FX to each event on 1440 x 1080p avi (Cineform intermediate; PAR = 1.333) events. When I rendered to 1920 x 1080p avi (Cineform; PAR = 1.000), I could get no farther than about 5-7 events before Vegas crashed. It didn't matter if I lowered RAM preview to 0 and rendering threads to 1. Always Vegas crashed with no given reason for the crash. I watched Task Manager and CPU temps and nothing -- I mean nothing -- so much as hinted that something about my hardware, memory, CPU utilization, whatever, was amiss just before the crashes.

CPU/core temps during the renders never exceeded 65*C, Task Manager indicated plenty of RAM available (8 GB total in my system), so I don't think I have a hardware problem. All cores of the CPU were being utilized to about 80% max each.

Next, I created exactly the same project and render properties, EXCEPT that I applied Neat Video as Media FX, not event FX. So far -- I'm rendering right now -- Vegas has gotten through 32 clips without a hiccup. No crash. Nada. Just butter smooth rendering, albeit slow. I have many, many more clips to render in this project, but the performance so far has totally outstripped what I observed when Neat Video was applied as event FX.

I think my problems with the former renders have something to do with how Neat Video plays with Vegas. But can anyone explain why I observe such a profound difference when Neat Video is applied as Media versus Event FX? The Vegas manual doesn't offer insight, and searches on the Sony and NeatVideo forums don't turn up anything other than what I've explained here.

So what gives? I'm not complaining -- I'm thrilled, actually. I wonder if I could apply other resource intensive FX, like MB Looks, in this way and avoid crashes. Any ideas?

Steve

Vegas allows many ways to do the same thing as you have found.

You can apply FX to the: Track, Clip or Media Pool.
All will do the same job to the finished product.

It has always seemed to me that when applying FX to the clips it took longer to render than when applied at the track level or media pool level BUT I have never timed it so it could just be a head thing.

MB is the biggest resource hog I have ever seen and while it has never crashed my machine I have found the NewBlueFX Video Essentials will do virtually the same the and not really slow down the render by more than about 10% if that. I'm not saying that NewBLue replaces MB but many if not most of the same effects can be done in NBF that can be done in MB.
YMMV.

Well, apparently Vegas has allowed itself to crash in more ways than one (at least with Neat Video). My render reached 42 clips and then it crashed. That's still better than about 5 per my previous method using event level FX. Argh. I guess I was more optimistic than I should have been.

Steve

I’m not sure, why either. When applying NEAT to events, how many events were you applying it to?

Were you applying NEAT to the whole track? Or to each event (clip)?

If it’s the latter (each event) then its much like when mixing audio, we’ll group all the drums together, send them to one bus, and apply an effect there instead of applying it to each track: i.e. snare, toms hats etc. The effect is the same but now we are only using one instance. Instead of several.

If it’s the former (whole track)… then I haven’t a clue, sorry. It makes me wonder if when NEAT is applied at the track level, maybe it’s opening individual instances for each event on the track even though we can only see one instance of the effect running.

Off topic
Magic bullet Looks, I have found, needs a REALLY kickin GPU! I have a very powerful GPU that when inserted in two different computers; one slightly old dual core 2.1ghz w/1gb RAM and one 3.0 ghz quad core powerhouse!!! w/4 gb RAM, a MBL clip rendered in pretty much the same time, much to my surprise!!! A normal render without MBL is a different story with the quad core powerhouse taking quite a lead, at least 40% faster.

Well, now that you've tried media level efx and event level efx, wouldn't the next thing to try be track level efx?

You'd group all your clips for a specific NV look to a track...

I'm getting some sort of idea about NV not really releasing back resources to Vegas (RAM, threads, ???). So, if true, the fewer instances of NV in the project the better. You might have just just a handful of instances with this approach.

To be clear, this is just an idea, but probably worth experimenting with. If this seems to bear fruit, you might want to report your results back to NV.

Right: so far I've tried Event and Media FX. I have ~200 events on the timeline, all of them with NeatVideo.

I'm not sure that NeatVideo works as a track level FX, but I'm willing to try once I get home.

Seth, your impressions seems to track (no pun intended) what little the NeatVideo forums document about Vegas in this regard: much to the plugin author's dismay, a lot about the Vegas code, particularly with how it serves frames to/from NeatVideo, does not work well with NeatVideo. I think it has something to do with Vegas being unable to handle temporal shifts, such as when NeatVideo skews the A/V out of sync to handle temporal noise filtration: Vegas cannot put humpty dumpty back together again.

I'm using NV on all of my clips, so my entire project is quite intensive. If I understand you correctly, you suggest the experiment of applying NV to just a few clips in a large project and see if Vegas then renders to completion? In other words, sprinkle NV throughout and see if Vegas stumbles? I've monitored RAM (available, cache, free) and the number of threads in Task Manager during my renders to date. I don't understand all of these quantities, but they don't change appreciably over time during the renders.

Still, I got the project to render reliably in ~2h segments at a time. I'm not sure what is significant about the 2h mark (probably nothing), but it and the 40 clips rendered during that time still is better than what I got with event FX. Hmmm.

As you know from my posts in another thread, I'm using Excalibur to batch render all of the clips with the NeatVideo FX. This morning, as is often the case, I saw that Vegas had stopped rendering mid-project and presented a short and totally uninformative notice that it had encountered a problem. I hit "OK" and, oddly enough (to me), the Excalibur script 'took over' and prompted Vegas to resume rendering where it had left off as if nothing bad had happened at all. Again, I'm not sure why Vegas paused or encountered an error, but it seems that I simply need to give it a kick and its up and running once again. Weird.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I may have to bug Neat Video about this.

Steve

Don't forget there's a FOURTH option for applying the effect. If it's going to apply to ALL clips in the project, just drag it to the preview screen! Then everything in the project will get the effect and you'll only have ONE instance per project.

Thanks, Edward. Yes, I also have that fourth option in mind, although it removes a degree of control that I sometimes need for adjusting NeatVideo parameters on a clip-by-clip basis.

I'm beginning to think, based on my experience here, others' comments, and the NeatVideo forums that it really doesn't matter at what level NV and how many times/instances it is applied in order to induce crashes, just that it is applied at all for long enough duration, i.e., enough clips. I need to document a few more things such as error messages before I write the author of NeatVideo later today. Hopefully, after that exchange, I can post something here more useful than a chronicle of my frustration (i.e., actually contribute).

Steve