Vegas MS Platinum 9 - Video file size limit reached?

[E6600]

Some time ago I purchased an upgrade from Vegas MS Platinum 6 to Platinum 9 but for many reasons never installed it. Now with a Canon compact camera that shoots video in .MOV format I have installed it because Platinum 6 won't allow me to edit .MOV files. All has been well until today when I did this

1) Started VMSP9 and created a new project
2) Selected 118 (yes, one hundred and eighteen) .MOV files totalling 8.68GB and added them to Project Media
3) Selected all 118 .MOV files in Project Media and dragged them to the Video and Voice timelines
4) Observed that the first frame of the first video clip displayed correctly

As soon as I clicked "play" or tried to use any editing features VMSP9 stopped responding and if left long enough on the eggtimer, crashed.

This is almost certainly a "sheer weight of bytes" problem but I'm puzzled why because at no time does PC memory consumption rise above 2.3MB out of the available 3.0MB and I hear no frantic HDD activity indicating virtual memory swapping going on.

Some pointers, please, because I do need to edit those 118 files in to a movie and don't want to do it in bits and pieces.

TVM

O/S is XP MCE 2005 SP3

[budwzr]

Try half that many and see what happens. If OK, then bring in a few at a time.

118 is not that ridiculous.

[edDV]

Try them one at a time and see what happens.

What resolution are these files? Can you play the files with VLC?

What video codec are these *.mov files? Early Canons used MJPEG. Later cameras used a variation of AVC h.264. Your computer is weak for the latter. Go slow and walk before you run.

Not sure of Platinum 9 but most edit programs won't attempt playback until all files have been rendered for playback. The rendered files are saved to tmp files not memory so it is more likely your C:\ drive choked on the tmp files. In preferences, you can move the temp directory to a different drive. This will also improve performance.

[E6600]

Thanks for all the replies.

Yes, the files play fine with VLC (and WMP11 for that matter).
They are 720p encoded with a variation of h.264 as correctly guessed by edDV.
No drives are choked; two SATA are 320 GB, two SATA are 500GB, and one eSATA is 1TB.
All are partitioned too and all partitions have stacks of space.
The o/s is on one physical drive, all Program files on a second physical drive, the temp files on a third, the source on a fourth, and the rendered output on the fifth (eSATA) drive.

The PC has zipped along nicely for what I use it have used it for to-date and renders MPEG2 in nearly twice real-time, if you see what I mean.

I will try half the files and if works, add some more, and so on. Stay tuned. I agree though that 118 files is not ridiculous.

Stay tuned!

One question though - why is my PC weak for what I am trying to do in the context of this post?

TVM!

[E6600]

And what did I find?

If I add the files to Project Media in three tranches, copying the files from here to the timeline before adding the next set to Project Media, the total consumed memory peaks at 1.98GB instead of the 2.3GB that happens if I add them in one go. Why this difference should happen I have no idea, but it gives me a workaround because Vegas works perfectly. (At least, the files "play" in the preview window and the Application responds to any button clicks - I have not yet tried to edit anything)

If I delete the source files from the HDD one by one and then add the remaining ones to Project Media in one go and the to the timeline in one go, I find that this works fine until the total committed memory consumed by Vegas exceeds 2GB. As soon as I go the tiniest amount over this threshold, Vegas locks up. For example, if other processes and services consume .5GB memory and Vegas consumes 1.997GB (so a total committed of 2.497GB), everything is hunky-d. If Vegas however consumes 2.001GB then it crashes, regardless of how much or how little is consumed elsewhere.

For the record the installed memory is 3.0GB (all of which is shown as available for use given that it is under the approx 3.2GB "normal" limit of 32bit XP) and a huge paging file reservation exists, this being spread across three physical drives.

So, I have a workaround, but I am still interested as to why my PC is considered weak for h.264 .MOV file processing as well as why this apparent 2GB limit exists?

TVM.

[edDV]

You didn't fully ID your CPU, just 2.6 GHz. Judging by the other components such as the the 7600 GT I'd guess the CPU is a P4.

H.264 editing should work at 1280x720p. 1920x1080 will demand a Core2 Quad up for timeline responsiveness.

[E6600]

Different (older) version but it seems I am not alone... https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/291621-Sony-Vegas-Movie-Studio-8-Memory-Issues

[E6600]

Hi EdDV

The CPU is an Intel Core Duo E6600 2.4Ghz (Computer spec in my profile now corrected in this regard and updated in several others).
My HD files are only 720p.

Cheers,
E6600

[edDV]

What you have in common with jrockford is a large number of short files.

When I upgraded form Vegas Pro 8 to 9 I also increased memory to 4GB total. Now I'm using Pro 10 with 4GB RAM.

[E6600]

But how will that help please?

I am on 32bit XP where without fiddling the addressable memory limit is about 3.2GB.
In any case I have 3.0GB installed and never use all of it.
The issue is when Vegas tries to consume more than 2.0GB regardless of how much or how little is used elsewhere.

[edDV]

But how will that help please?

I am on 32bit XP where without fiddling the addressable memory limit is about 3.2GB.
In any case I have 3.0GB installed and never use all of it.
The issue is when Vegas tries to consume more than 2.0GB regardless of how much or how little is used elsewhere.

I'll have to load mine up with 100+ small files and see if I find a limit.

[E6600]

You are most kind, thank you!

I will give my prediction though and say you won't have a problem just on file numbers alone.
I guess as I do because I just did another test that reinforces my belief that it is actually a 2GB ceiling that I am hitting, not a file number limit; I left my camera running on my desk this morning shooting several long clips. I then loaded these clips in to the Vegas timeline using the method described. Although there were only six files, 2GB (consumed by Vegas) was the limit again before the Application crashed.

Cheers,
E6600

[Gavino]

On 32-bit Windows, individual processes are (normally*) limited to 2GB, no matter how much memory you have.
If an application is able to use more than that, it must be running several distinct processes.

(*)There are tweaks to get round that but it requires both system config changes and a modified .exe file.

[E6600]

Thanks for that Gavino. Given that it is a 32bit Windows limitation, will the following trick work that I learned thanks to your pointer: http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~sb517/public/largememory.pdf
I ask before I fiddle because no modified .exe that you mention is involved.

Cheers.

[Gavino]

If you look at the 2nd part of the document you referenced, you will see that the application needs to be relinked, ie a new executable built. It also mentions the possibility of using editbin.exe to do that, but I don't know if this works.

[budwzr]

Reducing "Preview Ram" in preferences will give you some memory back. You can set it to zero even.

[E6600]

Thanks again Gavino - I now follow what the re-linking means.
Thanks, too budwzr (the original Czech one I hope ) - I already have it at zero but it was a nice try.

I've currently got the project just small enough to be editable and to start rendering, but rendering crashes after ten minutes so I guess I need to shrink it some more because I don't want to reduce video quality.

[poisondeathray]

A lot of weird crashes in vegas pro were traced back to new versions of quicktime. Downgrading quicktime to 7.4.x or 7.5.x seem to fix it for many users. It might be the same in the platinum version

[E6600]

A courtesy post to say thanks for the ideas along the way to proving that I had hit a 32bit Windows limit about which there was very little I could do!
Required movie now rendered as two parts. It niggles the purist in me but as workarounds I've used worse for other things in the past so I'll call it a result!

[budwzr]

Thanks for your courtesy