Help w/8.0c: render to SD fine, but crash/hang when to Blu-ray
 

I *may* have computer gremlins that warrant system wipe and clean install of everything, but first I'd like to diagnose and fix before that. No viruses, no malware, etc. Everything defragged and squeaky clean.

In short, I render HDV source material to SD output (for DVD) with no problems at all. Tried rendering exactly the same project to Blu-ray, using the 1920x1080 24p template, except with quality set to 31 and CBR = 30,000. The BR render either (1) crashes Vegas (closes automatically), or (2) hangs with or without giving an error code about 5 minutes into the 2h projected render time, but not at the same frame each time. In other words, apparently erratic symptoms for totally failing a render.

My computer specs are here, though I don't think they're relevant. System temps are cool during renders and I have no dustbunnies.

Vista 64 Ultimate, Vegas 8.0c. Standard 1080 x 1440 24p project template. 8-bit color. Only lots of m2t clips (from Canon XH-A1) on 15 minute timeline. MB Looks, levels, and unsharp mask on all clips.

Possible red herring: The failed Blu-ray renders seem to occur during or shortly after a dissolve to/from black using the SMLuminance transition plug-in to emulate film-like optical dissolves. The facts that (1) some failures occurred after the dissolve, (2) some occurred almost immediately upon starting the render, and (3) the HD-->SD renders went without a hitch makes me believe that the dissolves aren't the culprit.

Further grist for the mill: set up a new project with same properties, tossed 10 minutes of Cineform avi files on the timeline (converted from m2t), MBLooks, levels, unsharp mask, though with no dissolves. Rendered to Blu-ray with identical settings. The render is still going as I type this with no problems whatsoever. I tried these CineForm clips thinking that something about the mpeg-2 source format in my original project wasn't working, but, heck, I think the renders should work no matter what the source.

Also tried lowering rendering threads from 4 to 3, and lowering RAM preview from 128MB to 56MB. Didn't seem to make any difference: renders still failed.

This is my first stab at rendering for Blu-ray, which is the whole point of my workflow and computer build, so I'm aggravated that this isn't working. Any ideas? Smack me with an obvious fix? Tell me to reinstall my OS and proggies?

Thanks,
Steve

Have you tried opening task manager and watching your RAM as the render proceeds? HD takes a LOT more RAM than SD. Sounds like you may be running out of memory. Erratic errors nearly always lead me to look at memory first.

First thing is aren't your bitrates set too high? I think the preset template is 25Mb/s or something like that (the 8M template looks crappy to me). I've been experimenting with burning to a "regular" DVD and it seems 18M maxes that out, and I've been using 16 or 17.

I too have run into a similar gremlin though - mine seems to be a repeatable freeze on a transition or an added font/type effect... it will render through to that specific spot, then choke, sometimes sputter, then crash - you can look at the file and see the "fail", yet I've not been able to figure out for the life of me what causes these - sometimes I'll do a minor tweak, or render portions of the thing then re-attach them in a secondary render, it's sort of a jump through hoops thing to get the final desired result.

I too have a system due for a rebuild, and due to accidently frying my CMOS, I guess next weekends festivities (assuming the new i7 parts arrive) will be building a Windows 7 box from the ground up (probably put a WinXP install together on another drive too, for dual boot just out of paranoia). It will be interesting to see if the strange Vegas glitches disappear!

I didn't think CBR = 30,000 was too high, given that the BR template already has bitrates set for VBR at 30,000, 25,000, and 20,000. Ironically, I went the Blu-ray disc route precisely so I could avoid all the hoop jumping with cramming a BR project onto a regular DVD. Hmph.

No, I didn't try that, Perrone, but it's a good suggestion that I'll follow. (Still, I already have 8G of RAM in my rig!) Anyway, I see this morning that my 'test' project of rendering from CF files -- recall, same project and render settings as with the failed project -- completed perfectly with nary a hitch. Apparently it didn't experience errors, memory or otherwise. Hmmmm. I'm wondering if I have some glitchy media on my timeline that causes Vegas to stumble when rendering an MPEG2 to BR format but not to an MPEG2 for DVD. I'll continue to tinker, including monitoring the RAM next try.

Thanks,
Steve

Update
 

OK, I tinkered with my project today, following Perrone's advice of monitoring memory during renders. Still having seemingly random crashes and hangs. I tried the following while monitoring memory:

1. Rendered the whole project. Crashed at about the same point (a dissolve to black, as I explained in the OP).
2. Rendered a short section just around the dissolve. No problem: went to completion.
3. Rendered everything *after* the transition. Crashed a few minutes later.
4. Threw CineForm files onto a new timeline, added MBLooks, levels, unsharp mask, and threw in a bunch of dissolves using the SMLuminance film-like optical preset. Rendered totally with no problems at all.

During each of (1) - (4) above, including at times of crashes or failed renders, my memory usage never surpassed 35%. Physical memory (in MB) was reported by Task Manager as the following: Total = 8189, Cached = 6360, and Free ranged from 0-30. Do these numbers look bad? I just don't know enough to tell.

When Vegas was kind enough to provide a detailed error report, this is it how it read (typically):
Sony Vegas Pro 8.0

Version 8.0c (Build 260)
Exception 0xC0000005 (access violation) READ:0x8 IP:0x6C832E
In Module 'vegas80.exe' at Address 0x400000 + 0x2C832E
Thread: ProgMan ID=0xC74 Stack=0x58AD000-0x58B0000
Registers:
EAX=4f1dae58 CS=0023 EIP=006c832e EFLGS=00010202
EBX=43a83b78 SS=002b ESP=058ad894 EBP=11a9aaf8
ECX=00000000 DS=002b ESI=43a83b78 FS=0053
EDX=00000002 ES=002b EDI=00000002 GS=002b
Bytes at CS:EIP:
006C832E: 8B 51 08 50 FF D2 83 7E .Q.P...~
006C8336: 04 00 74 0B 8B 46 04 8B ..t..F..
Stack Dump:
058AD894: 00000002
058AD898: 43A83B78 43240000 + 843B78
058AD89C: 11A9AAF8 113D0000 + 6CAAF8
058AD8A0: 43A83B78 43240000 + 843B78
058AD8A4: 006C866C 00400000 + 2C866C (vegas80.exe)
058AD8A8: 4D279190 4C400000 + E79190
058AD8AC: 4D279190 4C400000 + E79190
058AD8B0: 4D279188 4C400000 + E79188
058AD8B4: 006C8CE1 00400000 + 2C8CE1 (vegas80.exe)
058AD8B8: 43A83B78 43240000 + 843B78
058AD8BC: 00000002
058AD8C0: 00000000
058AD8C4: 006C8D67 00400000 + 2C8D67 (vegas80.exe)
058AD8C8: 43968708 43240000 + 728708
058AD8CC: 4D279180 4C400000 + E79180
058AD8D0: 006C8E60 00400000 + 2C8E60 (vegas80.exe)
> 058AD8D4: 006C8DBB 00400000 + 2C8DBB (vegas80.exe)
058AD8D8: 4D279180 4C400000 + E79180
> 058AD8DC: 006C8E79 00400000 + 2C8E79 (vegas80.exe)
- - -
058AFFF0: 00000000
058AFFF4: 00527950 00400000 + 127950 (vegas80.exe)
058AFFF8: 00AE7AB0 00400000 + 6E7AB0 (vegas80.exe)
058AFFFC: 00000000

Any more ideas? The fact that crashes/hangs are random, some with error reports and others without, makes me think they have little to do with media on my timeline, although for some reason my CineForm-only project worked terrific.

Thanks for any help, folks.

Steve

Final Update
 

Looks like I've run out options on this forum and on my own. Changing the number of rendering threads to 1 and RAM preview to 0 MB resulted in the crashes occurring at slightly later points in my render. I also played with bitrates -- using Sony's template and modifying it, too. Nothing worked. I even opened a new instance of Vegas with the same properties and dropped my veg onto the timeline. No dice. Tried to copy all media from one instance of Vegas into another, which immediately crashed the program -- couldn't even get to the render stage. Memory usage always stayed below 35% utilized, although "free" physical memory was reported to range from 0-50MB (not sure how to reconcile these figures). I also let Vista manage page files on all of my drives: the PF never exceeded 2.5GB (8GB total phyiscal memory on my rig).

In contrast, renders were absolutely flawless with CF avi clips on the timeline -- same project properties, same FX, 8- or 32-bit color. No problems. So, I guess a "solution" has presented itself. I will edit CF files, not m2T's, from now on.

Steve

I think you are running out of RAM. If you can, render the same project in 8.1 and see what happens since it can address ALL your RAM. The fact that you have 0-50MB free of physical RAM means you've run out.

RAM limitation of 8.0?
 

Thanks, Perrone. I'll try your suggestion after work (although in 8.1 I won't have my MBLooks --> won't be a strict comparison, therefore).

More generally, it looks like I've bumped into a limitation of using 8.0: I can throw only so many RAM intensive things into a project. I guess that leads me to ask a dumb question: what should I be doing differently to free up more RAM when using 8.0, if in fact a memory shortage (or inability of 32-bit Vegas to address more) that is my problem? I really don't have other RAM-hungry processes running.

Thanks again,
Steve

If you're overclocking lower your cpu speed Steven.

This is why I have both 32bit and 64bit 9.0a installed. I render anything that needs looks in 32bit, and then move that stuff over to 64bit.

I avoided Vista because it is so RAM hungry on it's own. I had XP64 and then went to Win7. How much physical memory do you have free BEFORE you start up Vegas?

Yeah, based upon what I've read here and elsewhere, I think Win7 is looking good to me now, at least for the reason of not hogging so much RAM.

BEFORE I load Vegas, TaskManager shows about 5GB or so physical memory free, I think (out of 8GB total). When I load Vegas, free memory drops slightly. But when I start the render, it plummets rapidly to 0-50MB, where it stays until a crash occurs, as I detailed above.

Hadn't thought about rendering out with MBLooks only, then migrating to 8.1. For this multiple-render scenario, I would be inclined to CineForm files so as to avoid generational loss. But these seem to work just fine on my single 8.0 timeline with all FX.

Nope. Just running stock, Jeff. Thanks for the suggestion anyway. By the way, I know that you're running Win7. Any memory problems with running 8.0/9.0 with FX strings like mine (MBLooks, levels, and maybe unsharp mask)?

I ran across this spirited thread on the Sony forum that speaks to my memory loss issue, albeit with a focus on crashes from editing AVCHD and, to a lesser extent, HDV files: Sony Creative Software - Forums - Vegas Pro - Video Messages In short, the OP figured out how to make 8.0 utilize more than 2GB of RAM. Since the reported symptoms are identical to mine (as far as I can tell), I'll try this workaround when I get home, then report back on how it worked. For now, until I can migrate to Win7 or MBLooks can work with 64-bit Vegas, this workaround looks promising.

Steve

No Steven, I haven't tried to render to bluray yet, so I can't help there.

I do remember that in the past some have lowered bit rate settings to deal with issues, that the some of the default templates need to be altered. More than a few people found this to be necessary as I recall. You might revisit Dave's suggestion if you haven't already.

Windows 7 likely has better memory management than Vista. It runs so well that when I get my pre-ordered copy of the retail version I will be in no hurry to install it. The release candidate is close to perfect for me.


Everything runs better on it. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, though I doubt it will fix your current problem, but who knows?

My first thing to try would be the bit rate thing if it were me.

Thanks for the candid assessment of Win7! (Off topic: any issues with H/W drivers?)

OK, yes, I tried Sony's template for MPEG-2 Blu-ray, which has a VBR of 30-25-20 MB/s, but since my project is so short, I set it to CBR = 25Mb/s. Set quality slider to 31. So, yes, I tweaked the template a little bit. But, dang, it made not a hill of beans' difference: renders crashed at the same point (~7% complete). Per Dave's post above, lower BR's may be necessary for burning to regular DVD, I understand, but I'm (going to be) using Blu-ray media. In any case, I can render out CBR of 30Mb/s with the CineForm timeline no problemo, so my solution can't reside wholly within minor tweaks to bitrates.

I'll post back when I have a chance to tinker with Vegas' memory allocation, per the thread I linked above.

Steve

Oh well. Too bad that didn't work. I'm anxious to hear your solution as I will be doing some bluray soon I'm sure.

Steven -
I'm pretty sure you've got a similar problem to what I've observed wen I try to do a BluRay render - although my crashes always are repeatable. I know one crash would happen on a single still/.jpeg - had to remove it and re-insert, and then it was fine... strange. Another was something with the settings on text credit rolls - always crashed when it hit one particular section of the credits overlayed on the video - had to go change all the properties on that one, and again removed and reinserted the "effect" until it would go.

I've got one other project where it would start to "stutter", with a series of short black frames and frames from the video, then finally choke and crash - you could watch the rendered file, and see the render start to choke, and finally fail... I'm not sure what I finally did to work around that one...

In short, you're not alone, there are some mighty odd, seemingly random glitches when rendering out to BR files, while the SD files go smoothly. I suspect that as more people start moving to BR, these bugs will get ironed out.

I'm planning on doing a ground up i7 build shortly with Win7, a week or so I'll know how it goes - got some projects I need to get back on top of, and goofed up my old motherboard under my Q6600... so it's upgrade time.