Dear Hugh,

In my opinion, it is much better than the Media Pool.

I believe that the Media Pool applies to a particular Vegas Project. In other words, it is unique to one Vegas Project.

The Media Manager is system wide; it is not restricted to one Vegas Project. This is a hugh improvement.

Hugh: a normal 32 bit version of Windows XP should run on that 64 bit CPU
(since it can still work with 32 bit x86 code!). You could even install that
BESIDES the 64 bit XP (do install it to a different drive / partition though!).

This might be a good workaround for the time being? If you have a 64 bit
XP license you are allowed to run XP 32 bit I think. You can then upgrade
back to XP 64 bit when everything is compatible on that platform?

I'm not sure a move to PPro (if that supports 64 bit) is good due to your
large number of stills you have in the project (which seems to be one of
the areas Premiere never worked well with).

Good luck with all the mayhem!

Thank you to everybody! What a comfort knowing I can get the answers when I need them! I really want to stay loyal to Vegas because its served me well since version 3.0. I think my culprit is the photos on the timeline.

To Dan: Was your response about the "hugh" improvement tongue-in-cheek? Hahahahaha

To test my theory about render freezes caused by too many high resolution pictures on the timeline, I attempted to render a 32 second interlaced clip using the 24p 2-3 pulldown.

The render stopped halfway through then the entire program just shut down. Disappeared. As if I had clicked the exit button. NOW WHAT? I am losing faith here, loyal Vegas users.

maybe try:
A- breaking up your project.
B- Vegas 5.
C- Turning RAM preview down.

I did all of that. Could the culprit actually be my 64 bit O/S?

Why don't you check that?

Install Windows to a dual boot configuration, one 32bit and the other 64bit. Can you do this?

Normally I would do that, however, Vegas 6.0 acted up with my last system, Pentium 4, 3.0 ghz hyperthreading, Windows XP Home 32 bit, 2 gig of ram.

Could it be my hard drive? I doubt it. I even tried it with my new SATA drive.

I hate like hell to do this, but I think I may swim over to the Premier Pro 1.5 island.

During all this time, have you contacted Sony Tech Support?

Yes. The first time they told me to defrag, shut off all background apps, download version 6.0b. I did that.

The second time they told me Vegas 6 is not engineered for 64 bit O/S.

The third time a fellow told me he had a similar project like mine with over 100 600 dpi pictures on his timeline and that his render locked up as well. Here are the cut and pastes from Sony:

The problem may or may not be related to Windows 64, but we do not currently offer any support when running the software on that OS.

Sincerely,

Brian P.
Technical Support
Sony Media Software
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, WI 53704
http://www.sony.com/mediasoftware
http://www.acidplanet.com

Hello,

How many still images do you have on the timeline? Vegas can have problems when you have a lot of high res images like that. Last night I actually put together a montage of about 150 pictures at 600 dpi, and Vegas hung at 52% of the render. I ended up creating a loop region around the first half, rendering that, and then rendering out the second half separately. After which they were stitched together in a new project.

Sincerely,

Brian P.
Technical Support
Sony Media Software
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, WI 53704

You are using the 64-bit version of Windows XP? The 64-bit version is not a supported operating system at this time. We have not tested our software with it, and do not offer any support for using it on that OS. Do you have a copy of the 32-bit edition available to use?

Sincerely,

Brian P.
Technical Support
Sony Media Software
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, WI 53704


Hello,

Thanks for writing. I sincerely apologize for the lengthy response time. Due to the volume caused by our Sound Forge 8.0 and Vegas 6.0 product launches we have fallen a bit behind on service requests. We have been working diligently to answer as many emails as possible in the order that they were received. I hope you understand and sincerely appreciate your patience. Couple of things to try. First would be find what is running in the background. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del at the same time and you will see a list of the programs currently running (some users will have to hit the "Task Manager" button). Move over to the Processes Tab and click the "Image Name" heading at the top left of this window , you would be able to view these items by alphabetical order by user/system. Once all these items are arranged, look under the User Name column for items that are listed as belonging to your User Account. You would only need to leave running the following;

explorer.exe
taskmgr.exe
Under the User Name "SYSTEM"
System Idle Process
System
smss.exe
csrss.exe
winlogon.exe
services.exe
lsass.exe
svchost.exe
spoolsv.exe

You may have other Users logged into the system and displayed on this list, but make sure you log them off and close down on their processes as well.
How long has it been since you have ran Scan Disk on your hard drive? Try running a Thorough Scan Disk, followed by Disk Defragment to see if you have any drive errors. These tools can be found in Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools.

Do you have any Anti-Virus Software on your computer? Make sure you update this software from the manufacturer, then run a full system scan. If you do not have any Anti Virus Protection, it is suggested to either purchase or download a copy and install it onto your system as a preventive maintenance

When was the last time you had updated your Computer's Drivers from the Manufacturer's Web Site? You would be able search for any newer, updated Motherboard, Sound Card, and Video Card drivers. Also check for any Peripherals that would be installed (i.e. Printers, Scanners, Card Readers). If you have an outdated or improper driver loaded, you may not be using that device correctly and it could potentially be causing problems.

Lower your hardware graphics acceleration.
Go to your control panel -> display -> settings -> advanced -> troubleshooting tab

Disconnect all USB and firewire devices from the system, along with all dongles.

Go into Options and Preferences in Vegas and click on the Video Tab. Change the Dynamic Preview setting to 300 and press Apply and OK.

If the information provided does not completely answer your question, please update your incident so I may further assist you.


Sincerely,
Kimberly K.
Technical Support
Sony Media Software
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, WI 53704
http://www.sony.com/mediasoftware
http://www.acidplanet.com

I agree that many large images can cause problems. I, too, have rendered smaller sections to DV-AVI at times to get a render completed. I guess I've kind of lost focus here or something. Can Vegas freeze? well, yes - it's software. Does it freeze all the time? No. Can it freeze in certain circumstances? Yes (and knowing those circumstances can help Sony eliminate those circumstances). Are work-arounds usually available? Yes - as in pre-rendering several smaller sections before doing the "final" render.

This couldn't hurt.. test your ram. You mentioned that you had the same problems on a 32bit computer (same ram?).

Go here: http://www.memtest.org/

Download the bootable iso and burn a CD. Test your ram. You'll know pretty quickly if your ram is the culprit.

If you get errors, replace the ram (and retest it as soon as you install the fresh stuff).

If you don't get errors, sounds like you've exhausted a lot of other avenues and possibly XP64 is the culprit. Go back to 32bit XP

I think my culprit is the photos on the timeline.

I think it might be, too. Try reducing the resolution on each to something closer to DV res and see if it doesn't work better. If you had planned to zoom in on any, you might need to go to a little higher res but still less than what you have now.

Good luck and let us know hos it works out.

Dennis

Fellow Vegasites, I have solved the render freeze issue when working with a project having many stills on the timeline. Keep ALL of the stills that you are using in your project segregated on their very own hard drive separate from your captured clips hard drive. Not only do I no longer have render freezes but the program no longer freezes during normal use.

I suspect that the hard drive had to work too hard reading the clips, their accompanying sound and the many stills scanned at 600 dpi.