Render Sub Projects Instead of Nesting?

[TimothyJinx]

I've always done short form work (shot films, 30 second TV spots, etc.) But now I am editing a 90 minute documentary using Vegas 10 Pro (64 bit) and I'm running into problems rendering. Each chapter or segment is a separate Vegas project and I've grouped them all into one master project. This is how I've always done my short form work. But my PC either crashes or I get an out of memory error halfway through the render.

My question is, is it a viable option to render each subproject and then create a master project using the rendered files? If so, what is the best format/settings for these individual renders? I am creating standard DVD's and Blu-ray discs.

[Ken Hull]

Timothy,
I haven't done that yet, but I'm considering doing that for a project I'm planning, which will probably run about 75 minutes. The longest project I've done so far ran about 10 minutes. My plan is to render the sub projects to a Cineform codec, since that seems to be the least lossy codec that still does significant compression.
Cineform currently offers 3 versions of their product:
-- Cineform Studio is free.
-- Cineform Studio Premium costs $299, and does 4:2:2 and 4:4:4 color, unlimited spatial resolution, minimal 3D capabilities, and other things.
-- Cineform Studio Professional costs $999, and adds many professional 3D capabilities.

I'll get the Premium version.

Here's a link: http://cineform.com/product-grid

-- Ken

[HotConductor]

PC crashing... you mean Vegas crashes or your PC crashes?
Out of memory... ram or hard disk?

[TimothyJinx]

PC crashing... you mean Vegas crashes or your PC crashes?
Out of memory... ram or hard disk?

PC crashes. Actually it just reboots itself. I have read that it may be the GPU overheating. I have installed EVGA Precision X and I run the fan a little higher during render, which does seem to keep the processor cooler, but it doesn't seem to help consistently.

Out of memory - not hard disk space.

[HotConductor]

Does this happen with all formats? Avc/mp4 is gpu accelerated so you could turn that off in the render dialog.

[TimothyJinx]

Not seeing any option to turn on or off GPU acceleration. I'm using a GeForce GTX570. Happens no matter what sort of file I render to.

[HotConductor]

Your graphics card is solid. GPU acceleration in Vegas is only (to my memory) applied when rendering to AVC (mp4). When doing avc you can render automatically/withgpu/withoutgpu. My main card is a Galaxy 670 but I have a GTX570 is another workstation and it rocks.

My immediate thought is that your RAM might be the culprit. How much do you have? What are the other specs on your system? Windows 7? Slow processors don't normally crash computers, but running out of ram can certainly do it. If you are hard up for ram and don't have the time/ability to upgrade then you could consider increasing the page file system...

Right click computer > Properties > Advanced System Settings > Performance 'settings' box > Advanced > Virtual Memory 'change' > Then pick the drive you want to use and set a custom size that doesn't eat up the entire disk... This is NOT a good idea if you are running a SSD drive, but IS great for normal platter drives.

[TimothyJinx]

The workstation is pretty powerful. Bought a turn-key system from ADK a little over a year ago. Here are the specs on the processor and RAM.

Windows 7 Pro
Intel - Core i7 2600 Processor: 3.40GHz Quad 8 meg cache w/HT (Sandy Bridge)
16G RAM: Mushkin - DDR3 4G 1600 memory 1.65v 9-9-9-24 (x4)

[HotConductor]

Yeah that sounds very reasonable for what you are doing. Personally I'd opt for another 16gb of ram, but I don't think thats really your problem.

When you try to render out the nested projects opening task manager and checking out the 'performance' tab? Does it max out your ram/processor? Is Vegas using all of your cores? I'm rendering out a fairly heavily graded project with multiple layers, so forth (in Vegas 11) and my CPU usages is maxing out around 40% (top end i7 with 12 threads) and memory is just under 9GB (out of 32). So I don't think your specs are the issue.

What IS possible, is that your motherboard/CPU is overheating. I'd run all of your fans (and you may not have enough) full speed. My CPU is sitting around 38*C and MB at 40*C. I rarely see it go above 50*C on any project, and thats thanks to lots of fans in a mammoth Fractal case and liquid cooling on my CPU. HOWEVER, in previous builds and on other folks computers (usually laptops) they can overheat and just crash the whole thing.

Does your machine have crashes with other applications? Lightroom/Photoshop for example...

To REALLY answer your original question... If you render out an uncompressed video file (AVI for example) with uncompressed audio, of each of your projects, and then drop all of that on a timeline, it will work for your purposes. Just render out to the max setting you want to use.

Another alternative which people seem to forget is good old copy/paste. Open up your project and a new blank project, same settings, same machine.. CTRL+A so that you get every video/audio track on the timeline, copy, then paste it into your new BLANK project. Do that with all four projects and you will have all four projects, NOT nested, on a timeline. Everything you did to the individual video files should be retained. You will probably have to modify your masters if you applied treatment on a track level and not a clip level.

Hope this helps! Feel free to PM btw.

[TimothyJinx]

Worked with tech support at ADK today. Updated my BIOS, made some changes, etc. Knock on wood but since then I haven't had a crash. I also haven't tried to render my super long project but I plan to start the render right before going to bed tonight. I'm sure the changes will not solve my out of memory issues but hopefully the PC crashes have been addressed.