Vegas and black frames in timeline (showing up in render as well)

[M. Gilden]

I did some quick Google searches on this problem, and it appears that similar things have happened to others as well.

Here's what I'm trying to do:
I have a lot of footage shot with a Canon DSLR that I am grading in After Effects, and would like to then import into Vegas. The idea here is two fold: 1) the grading tools in AE are more precise, and 2) H.264 is difficult enough to edit directly, trying to edit footage with grading applied to the timeline is slow as heck, so I'm rendering out to a less CPU-intensive format as well.

I'm using Avid's DNxHD codec as an intermediate format since it is free, and I have been pleased with it on other systems.

For some reason, on this computer Vegas is rendering certain frames of the DNxHD footage as black on the timeline, and when rendered remain black on the finished product as well. I checked the clip outside of vegas and it seems to be OK. In fact, I know it must be Vegas' problem because if I cut up the clip, sometimes the blank frames move over to a second before or after the location it used to be.

This is exceedingly annoying. I'm currently using Vegas 9e (latest version as far as I can tell), I tried updating my quicktime and graphics drivers, as well as restarting the computer a few times. The frames continue to show up blank!

I've read of similar problems with HD footage in general on earlier versions of vegas, but the original H.264 files seem to load just fine on this computer. Is this a problem with DNxHD and Vegas?
Is there a better intermediate format I should use (preferably a free one- I'm not buying Cineform just for this project)?

I tried that new Matrox I-Frame codec as well, but it seems to be creating more problems (actually CRASHES vegas rather frequently, which is something I've never managed to do before!).

Any suggestions/advice? This is my first real frustrated experience with Vegas, after using them since they were Sonic Foundry!

 

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

I had the black frames problem with Cineform and many AVI codecs. The culprit were various AVI codecs that were colliding, with the Matrox AVI codec doing the most damage, especially in Cineform timelines. After I uninstalled Matrox AVI, my problems went away.

But since this is DNxHD, which is used via Quicktime instead of VfW, I really don't know why it might be happening. Try uninstalling any other MOV third party format (except with whatever is coming with quicktime), and upgrade to the latest version of DNxHD -- just in case is its bug.