Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer issue

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rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer issue

Hi all,

This is a computer-related question. Perhaps Simon or other tech-savvy (particularly video editing) folks can offer some insight.

I have this machine (see image) which I consider OK in terms of speed and performance.

I have always been able to drag two videos (each with its audio) into Vegas so as to edit them for a split-screen or picture-in-picture effect (you know, one final product that has me playing the solo and an inset of me playing the chords). Vegas has a "live" preview window in it so you can see what is going on without having to render and look at the final product each time you make some adjustments to the project.

At some point, my computer starting getting slow. I've had this machine about 4 or 5 years now. The problem started where I would at times play the video in Vegas to see how the preview looks, and the preview instead of playing smoothly would just freeze and I'd only see a frame or two here and there. I would usually get away with closing all other running apps and re-opening Vegas, and it'd work fine.

Today, after some time of not having done two-video projects, I tried it (you can see the Argentine tango vals video I just uploaded in this section of the foro), and wow - Vegas was just DYING in the process. The preview window would just not work or be frozen completely, and the application would keep idling and becoming non-responsive each time I'd try to play the video to see how my edits are looking. Even rendering sort of got stuck and gave me an estimated duration of hours instead of just what would have been required of 2 or 3 minutes for a 2 minute video. Of course, I was able to get around all of this by saving the project multiple times and restarting Vegas with each edit because God knows I was NOT going to let the recording and preparation of this vals go to waste.

Eventually I was able to get the final product out, but clearly this is NOT sustainable. Something is wrong...

The other really weird thing (which has happened before - Simon, any thoughts?) is that I just could NOT sync the chords video with the solo video. I would get them synced up at the start, but as the video played, they would slowly drift away from each other as though one was getting faster than the other. I have NO CLUE how that was happening (I've had this issue in the past - can't remember if it was in the context of my previous PC also getting to the point of beginning to slow down). The process I used to create these videos is like I always do, as follows:

1- While listening to a metronome, record the chords video.
2- Play the chords video on my PC while listening to the sound via headphones.
3- While listening to the chords video play, I turn on my recording software and record myself playing the melody along to the backing of the chords video (thereby ensuring proper sync)
4- I sync them according to the first few notes played (using Vegas), and the rest of the video follows suit and is all in sync (no drifting phenomenon occurs)

I did this as usual, however this time, I just had this problem of drifting / inability to sync, and barely keeping Vegas from crashing. Eventually what I had to do to sort of sync the videos (y'all can tell the first few seconds of the video are not 100% synced still, but whatever) was to cut each "section" of the melody and move them a bit to re-sync them with the chords video. Without this, I could only either sync the start of the videos or the ends of the videos together. I noticed that when (in the vals) the first "A major" part starts, the syncing goes perfectly until the end. Thus, I used that part (which is about 65% of the duration of the video) as is. Then for the first couple of sections of melody, I had to split the video into chunks, and move them a bit to get them to line up as well as possible with the chords video.

This was NEVER necessary in the past, even though I've had this "drifting" problem before and I never could explain it and I don't remember how I fixed it (if any). Maybe that's when I bought this new computer.

Anyway - what are your thoughts?

The other issue I'm now having is with Firefox. I cannot start it anymore if there are any other apps running. I have to kill all apps, then start Firefox, and then I can start other apps (and all works fine - no crashing). However, if any other app is started (like iTunes, VLC, etc.), no matter how many times I try to start FF, it will just NOT start-up (and I'll see several instances of FF in the task manager because I've clicked it many times to try to nudge it into starting, but it rarely does or just does not unless I close all other apps and open FF alone).

What are your thoughts on what might be going on?

Is this a CPU issue? Is this something I can solve by getting more RAM (such as 32 GB instead of the current 16 GB)? Do I need a faster video card now?

Is this a "virus" or some other crap that is slowing down my machine and causing these issues?

I'd really appreciate your wisdom.

Cheers!

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Ramzi

http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 25 2016 5:59:29

Escribano

Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

Maybe your PC is tied up with another process (or processes) or your main disk is badly cluttered. I would look at some kind of clean-up utility. I haven't used a PC for a while, so cannot recommend a product but that is what I would try. Look for something that does a complete scan, defragments the boot disk and isolates any viruses.

In no particular order:

1. Defragment disk
2. Scan for viruses
3. Scan for redundant processes
3. Run a RAM check
4. Run a hardware check - especially looking at the GPU
5. Install all software updates

Good luck.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 25 2016 9:11:51

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to Escribano)

Gracias, Simon. I've started doing some of those things. I think one thing I'm going to try is to expand my RAM and try to move my apps to a solid state drive instead of my current spinning one. In 6 months I plan to buy a whole new beast, but from until then, I'll have to hold on.

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Ramzi

http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 25 2016 18:13:48

Johnc

Posts: 114
Joined: Apr. 16 2011
From: UK

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

In addition to the things Simon said
Check you have a fair amount of free space on the drive windows is installed on!

And a sanity check it's 64bit windows not 32 bit?

16gb is enough for just about most things :)

Happy Christmas:)

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 25 2016 20:34:43

Escribano

Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

quote:

I think one thing I'm going to try is to expand my RAM and try to move my apps to a solid state drive instead of my current spinning one

SSD is a big deal for improving video rendering but not for the editor, use it for the rendered the video files. RAM is the main factor for application performance but 16GB should be more than enough, assuming nothing else is hogging it all. I use 8GB on a SSD MacBook with Final Cut with no issues. As John suggests, check your disk space - which might be a factor for caching/paging/temporary files.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 25 2016 20:56:30

kitarist

Posts: 1715
Joined: Dec. 4 2012

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

With that setup you should not have any issues like the ones you describe - you have plenty or RAM and the GPU and CPU and powerful enough for what you are doing. I would investigate what else is going on in the background that might be gobbling up resources - unnecessary/parasitic processes/programs are the most likely culprit here, IMO.

I'd recommend downloading the free and excellent "process hacker" software from http://processhacker.sourceforge.net/ - it is a much better and more expanded version of whatever comes with Windows (process explorer). With it, check for any resource "leaks" - memory, disk I/O, internet I/O, cpu and gpu usage - anything unusual.

As for fixing whatever you find - depends on what it is - could be malware or just some stupid windows or third-party software processes you don't need to be running. Post your findings if it is not clear what to do once you diagnose your machine.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 25 2016 22:18:33

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to Johnc)

I have 64-bit Windows. I have only one hard-disk with a single partition, so everything is on it (Windows, all applications, all data). Perhaps this is a problem? It is a SATA 2 TB drive that has 556 GB free.

I will check out Process Hacker.

Thanks y'all. I will report back soon!

PS: can someone explain this weird "inability to sync" situation where I expected the videos should line up well, but they start up OK then start to drift apart as they continue to play? Very odd... It's like one of the recorded videos I was trying to sync with the other one strangely got recorded with a variable speed, so it started slow then got fast, or the other way around?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 1:08:47

kitarist

Posts: 1715
Joined: Dec. 4 2012

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

quote:

ORIGINAL: rombsix
PS: can someone explain this weird "inability to sync" situation where I expected the videos should line up well, but they start up OK then start to drift apart as they continue to play?

Is it possible that the audio is recorded at a rate of 48k samples per second (say), but your software assumes that it is 44.1k/sec? This would cause drift when you put it together but it will be pretty severe - like 1 sec every 10 seconds or so.

Oops this is combined video/audio - so then this drift would happen if one video is recorded at a different rate than the other video - is it possible you are somehow doing that? like 25 fps vs. 24 fps?

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 2:33:39

kitarist

Posts: 1715
Joined: Dec. 4 2012

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

quote:

ORIGINAL: rombsix
I have only one hard-disk with a single partition, so everything is on it (Windows, all applications, all data). Perhaps this is a problem? It is a SATA 2 TB drive that has 556 GB free.

No that's not a problem.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 2:39:03

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to kitarist)

quote:

Is it possible that the audio is recorded at a rate of 48k samples per second (say), but your software assumes that it is 44.1k/sec? This would cause drift when you put it together but it will be pretty severe - like 1 sec every 10 seconds or so.

Oops this is combined video/audio - so then this drift would happen if one video is recorded at a different rate than the other video - is it possible you are somehow doing that? like 25 fps vs. 24 fps?

I don't think so. I used the exact same software with the exact same settings, exact same camera and microphone. Perhaps it still automatically changed the frame rate without me realizing it? I don't know. I think I never used this recording software before to try to create a video-in-video product, so maybe this software creates each video with different settings, and previous software I used did not.

By the way - I downloaded and installed process hacker, but I have no idea how to use it. I could not find any user manuals to tell me how to work with it, so it's just sitting on my PC now. I am going to try to fiddle around with the services tab. I arranged these by running/stopped, and I'm looking at the ones that say "running" which I don't expect should be running. There's a column called "start type" which has five options:

Disabled
Boot start
System start
Auto start
Demand start

I am going to change some of these to "demand start" because some of these things I feel should not even be "running", so I'm guessing "demand start" means this service will be dead unless I actively start it. So perhaps these are some of the things running in the background that are slowing things down.

Does that sound like a good idea?

PS: it's weird that this program has no user guide...

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http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 2:50:31

kitarist

Posts: 1715
Joined: Dec. 4 2012

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

Create a system restore point before you start messing with it. And try to look at processes first, before services. In theory 'demand start' should be OK for services you do not think you require, but be careful.

Maybe process hacker is a bit advanced but I thought it was mostly self-explanatory, combined with the description of features you see on its sourceforge page I provided (the project page).

Honestly for the big change you describe in performance, whatever is happening should not be very difficult to identify - like a combo of processes sucking most of your CPU or some relentless writing on the hard drive by a weird process, etc. You can also let process hacker run and monitor it while you start your Vegas program and see what happens as you experience the slowdown or stuttering in the program.

Also need more info about your out of sync problem. It would help even if you just tell us how many seconds out of sync over what video clip length - it gives a clue about the possible mismatch of frame rates (if any). It is also possible that the rendering drops video frames when choked but handles it inelegantly, resulting in drift in resulting video vs. the audio portion.

Hey I just thought of something. If you are comfortable with it, you can just upload the original two videos on google drive for example. I'll download them and take a look and will try to combine them PIP style in a video editor and see what happens.

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 4:20:32

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to kitarist)

quote:

Create a system restore point before you start messing with it. And try to look at processes first, before services. In theory 'demand start' should be OK for services you do not think you require, but be careful.

Whoops - I should have been more patient and waited for your response first.

I went on a rampage changing a lot of "auto-start" services to "demand start", and I think I broke my NVIDIA automatic updates for the video card.

Now each time I try to run the auto-update, it says "cannot connect to NVIDIA server".

But no worries - I can update the video card drivers manually. God knows what else I am going to discover that I messed up now once I start using some of the other usual functions of my PC because I changed a lot of the "auto-start" services to "demand start". I thought that meant some of these start up with booting, and that "demand start" makes them only start when I start them. I guess that's not the case because I was trying to force the automatic update to run for GeForce Experience, but it was not working anymore.

Oh well... Maybe I have a system restore-point from few days ago. I remember Windows updated some stuff recently.

Yeah that project page was too general and did not help me.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Over the past few months when this slowing down started to happen, I noticed that I would hear the computer's fan running at weird times when I am not really doing anything, so I assume that means over-heating (from over-processing) is taking place due to some strange background operations. I did run Process Hacker though and CPU usage was always at a minimum. I also have BitDefender and GlarySoft Utilities Pro and I use those to fend off malware and clean the registry, etc. regularly. All this is NOT helping. The problems persists...

Hmmm... about the video lag: it's a strange phenomenon: you line up the two videos perfectly, and within the first 5 to 10 seconds of them playing side by side, they are basically sort of in "opposite phase" when it comes to the downbeat of one and the downbeat of the other. The interesting thing is that if you line them up at roughly the 40% mark (just a bit before the halfway mark) instead of the 0% (beginning) mark, they continue to be lined up perfectly all the way to the 100% (end) mark. I hope that describes it well.

The drift actually takes place in the preview mode "live". I never thought of actually lining up the first note of each video then rendering the project to see if the resulting product would also be drifted or in sync. I should try that.

I can upload the videos, but the ones I have are not the "raw" files. What I did (because I conducted this project in stages and I was NOT planning on doing a video-in-video but rather only the chords backing track) was render the original raw file (backing chords) then later record the lead while listening to the rendered backing chords video (maybe this was the problem!!! Perhaps I should have listened to the raw file or the 190 bpm metronome as reference! Maybe this is the Eureka moment! Haha!). I then thought I'd just render the melody video to show that as a pure solo video, and I deleted all the raw videos thinking I won't need them. AFTERWARDS is when I decided to do the video-in-video, so I tried to splice the two rendered videos and I just could not sync them.

I guess I just thought out loud and figured out the problem with this syncing issue.

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http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 7:20:26

Escribano

Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

quote:

I noticed that I would hear the computer's fan running at weird times when I am not really doing anything, so I assume that means over-heating

I had a similar experience once - it was the GPU failing. The laptop got very hot and the screen would start to take on a random magenta tint. It failed completely eventually and being a laptop, required a new GPU to be soldered onto the motherboard. Could be a suspect.

Run something like https://www.msi.com/page/afterburner to get more information about the GPU temperature, check your fans are working and not full of dust.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 8:21:15

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to Escribano)

quote:

Run something like https://www.msi.com/page/afterburner to get more information about the GPU temperature, check your fans are working and not full of dust.

I installed AfterBurner and ran in live side-by-side with Vegas and Firefox and Webcam Companion 4 (each program of which if used heavily will always cause that "ramped up fan" sound to happen). The GPU temperature stayed at 39 or 40, and the CPU temperatures stayed at 66 to 70 max. Also the GPU fan speed (tachometer and percentage) did not increase beyond 1110 rpm and 28% even though I would hear the "fan sound" coming from my computer tower. The CPU usage increased from idle to about 30%, and one of the CPU usage graphs showed a spike to 100% that last few seconds then decayed back down to 20%.

I am going to try one thing before I make major hardware changes or format the PC. I'm going to get Movie Studio Platinum 13 instead of my current Sony Vegas Pro 12.0 and see if Movie Studio is "lighter" and works better.

The main problem I have with this machine so far is with FireFox (Chrome works very well. IE has always been crappy) probably because I have it SO full of add-ons and extensions. Also the other problem is Vegas Pro 12.0. FF works even though needs some encouragement. Vegas is the one that is becoming really hard to use. I'm going to try to drop Vegas and get Movie Studio and see if that works fine.

If yes, then I'll stick with that for now, then consider getting a faster GPU or expanding RAM.

In 6 months, I plan to buy a whole new machine, so hopefully this one will last until then.

I'll keep y'all posted.

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http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 19:57:55

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

Guys, I think I solved the problem (or at least highly mitigated it).

1- Empty recycle bin (had 100 GB of crap inside)
2- Clear ALL of the cache and any saved crap in FireFox
3- Enable GPU-acceleration in Sony Vegas (so the CPU gets freed)

I was then able to run iTunes, VLC, Vegas, and FireFox all together at once and they all started up fine.

I hate computers...

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Ramzi

http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 21:57:49

kitarist

Posts: 1715
Joined: Dec. 4 2012

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

quote:

ORIGINAL: rombsix
1- Empty recycle bin (had 100 GB of crap inside)

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 22:05:04

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to kitarist)

Hahahaha!

Also for Firefox, I downloaded a tool named "Prio" which forces the CPU priority of a program to remain at "high" even after you close the program or reboot the PC. Let's see if that helps with Firefox too...

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Ramzi

http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 22:30:13

Escribano

Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

quote:

Empty recycle bin (had 100 GB of crap inside)

Good grief!

quote:

I hate computers...

... and computers hate you.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 26 2016 22:52:37

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to Escribano)

What is the reason that a flooded recycling bin will slow things down? Does it really, or are you all just commenting about my lack of wanting to delete stuff permanently rather than just shoving it into the RB?

I'm genuinely interested in understanding.

Cheers!

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Ramzi

http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 27 2016 7:20:44

Escribano

Posts: 6415
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

quote:

What is the reason that a flooded recycling bin will slow things down? Does it really, or are you all just commenting about my lack of wanting to delete stuff permanently rather than just shoving it into the RB?

More the latter. It shouldn't make a difference but it does indicate a lot of use that may clutter the disk directory. Did you defragment the disk?

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 27 2016 8:47:17

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to Escribano)

quote:

More the latter. It shouldn't make a difference but it does indicate a lot of use that may clutter the disk directory. Did you defragment the disk?

It was only 4% fragmented, but I defragmented it anyway.

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http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 27 2016 13:02:20

Ricardo

Posts: 14806
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

quote:

ORIGINAL: rombsix

Guys, I think I solved the problem (or at least highly mitigated it).

1- Empty recycle bin (had 100 GB of crap inside)
2- Clear ALL of the cache and any saved crap in FireFox
3- Enable GPU-acceleration in Sony Vegas (so the CPU gets freed)

I was then able to run iTunes, VLC, Vegas, and FireFox all together at once and they all started up fine.

I hate computers...

I read through this and figured out the exact problem.

you need to get a MAC.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 28 2016 2:07:17

rombsix

Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to Ricardo)

quote:

you need to get a MAC.

Maybe.

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Ramzi

http://www.youtube.com/rombsix

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Dec. 28 2016 3:54:28

ToddK

Posts: 2961
Joined: Dec. 6 2004

RE: Sony Vegas Pro issue + Computer ... (in reply to rombsix)

kinda late here, but your sync problem comes from VFR. Variable Frame Rate.

Your video's need to be rendered to CFR constant frame rate before editing.

This is due to whatever camera you're using. You happen to use a camera that
records VFR. Usually a web cam, Iphone, etc..

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Jan. 19 2017 18:26:25