Oh, of course, and on reflection, as to what you exactly WANT to ACHIEVE - I'm still not 100% clear - there is the other option for keeping track and viewing EVENTS and that is through Media Manager.

I use this all the time. If you still have the Events as unedited lumps of media then this is definitely something to explore.

Before using a method on a large project, one should try applying the process to a single file to experiment if it really works or not before get going with the whole project.

I think the working method you have chosen is wrong and it leads you into trouble. To recover from that state, you try to patch it with functions that Vegas does not have.
You'll just build a long list of "what you can't do with Vegas" if you keep it this way.

In my opinion, it's not fair to blame Vegas for building proxies and not allowing you to access events in nested project.

Regarding crash and saturation; 3rd party scripts combined with Vista memory and API issues and possible bugs in Vegas 8.1 may cause it. I think you should send the error report to MS, Sony and 3rd party script author.

@ noisywan

I do appreciate your thoughts - they sound like something I would write.

Well,
I did try numerous experiments with just a few files in place to check that my method would work, and (a) the problems did not start until the project file had many files in place - I don't think I could have checked for that in advance, and (b) I started trying to address these issues on another forum 3 months ago, back when my colleague had only selected clips from 4 of our ~60 tapes.

I agree the working method I chose was wrong. I've been posting questions on the other forum as I tried to get my method right. As of this morning I learned I shouldn't have been using intermediate files in the first place.

In the opening of my original post here I noted that thousands of people have done what I'm trying to do. I wasn't so much blaming Vegas as asking 'What am I doing wrong? Everything I think of, for trying to do what thousands have done, leads to a dead end. How do they do it?'.

Still: I do think you should be able to copy subclips between projects, with names intact.

And I think there would be value in being able to access events and markers and regions in nested (sub-)projects, and to insert sub-projects without generating proxies/previews, but I am now understanding the purpose of nested projects better, and appreciate how they can be useful.

I should have stated more clearly that the problem seems to not be just this script. I had produced 10 of my low res files in mov format (converting from DV using Adobe Media Encoder), but then found the audio was 'crunched'. So I went to replace those mov's with low res avi's, and found Vegas crashed if the project was 'full' (but replaced the files properly if I removed some files from the project).
And since the script works fine except with 'full' projects, I don't think the problem is the script - but yes, it could perhaps be improved, so I will advise the writer.

@ Grazie (and anyone else interested),

Thanks for your tips on your workflow/method and use of nesting.

Re Media Manager, I agree. As I wrote: I think my problems have been solved, as I have learned I should not have been using intermediate files in the first place. The discussion for that (and a bit more) is here:
Re: Am I really the first to use Vegas to edit a documentary?

Re NESTING WITHOUT PROXIES:

You wrote: . Yes, that's it - it's instantaneous on my computer. I was asking Vegas to enable working on the nested project as if I was working in its own project file. Perhaps that does require a render of the "Build RAM Preview" variety, but even on my complex projects it seems to be done in 00:00:00,00 (no time).
I was asking for Vegas to not enable previewing, to nest without proxies, other than what I now understand are "Build RAM Previews".

You asked: I know this is abnormal, but I have 50 project files which contain nothing but an uncut video file in the timeline (a pair of video+audio tracks) along with (on average) 20 regions. Surely there's no need to render a proxy for that!? Vegas should know it can just use the existing video file.

You asked: I was thinking it would be up to the user, based on his or her projected needs.

I think there would be value in being able to access events and markers and regions in nested (sub-)projects, and to combine projects without generating proxies/previews, but I am now appreciating the purpose and usefulness of nested projects, with proxies.

Final thought:
If I edit a nested project, I suppose Vegas has to generate a new proxy (sfap0). Am I right? That makes me want to avoid nested projects. I want to be able to edit without Vegas coming to a standstill while it generates proxies, and swallowing disk space.

Thanks. After weeks paddling in circles, I'm almost sailing free now.

Grazie is "blatantly" wrong. If he'd read the manual he'd know it, too. The "a" in .sfa0 stands for "audio", that's why it's called a "audio proxy". So, yes, even the manual informs about the option to cancel proxy rendering at import, and yes, you will still see the video and be able to work with it just as if you had built the audio proxy. No difference there, except: you have no audio. The audio will be offline. But at the end of your editing, just as at any time you please, you can use the option "TOOLS -> Rebuild offline nested audio" and the proxies will be built.


The major annoyance with this audio proxy business is, that it will always be built for the entire duration of the source project, even if you only import a small region via the vegas explorer. So you might want to consider trimming your source project to the bit that you're planning to use in the target project and save it as a new project file. Advantageously save all those files in one new folder, so you can later, after finishing your main project, easily select and delete the proxy files again.

Alternatively, if you don't mind the use of space by the proxy files, you could avoid that your editing comes to a halt everytime you import a project for nesting by creating one dummy project, where you import (nesting style) all the projects that you plan to use and – take a break. This way all proxy files will be built and put in th esource projects' folders. So when you start with your real project they will be readily available, and no wait.

And the answer is: Final Cut Pro et al. Management of sequences for large, complex projects is really lame in Vegas, as is support from Sony in general.


Hope this helps a bit to improve your work flow further, Jilligan.
Best,


initialz

Your correction is most welcome and informative, however the manner in which you made it is questionable.

__________________
Tim

I was referring to his 3rd post on page 1. I find that questionable.

I might add that all prerenders in the source project are available in the target project.

greetings.

That's as maybe. But in the great, yet not so very long, tradition of forums, a member who has been around for a while and has helped many people along the way, is given a little more latitude than a first time poster.

Welcome aboard.

__________________
Tim

intialz, many thanks for clearing that up.

Regarding proxies, I have always waited for both the video and audio to build. Actually what IS offline?

"Offline" means the program knows about a piece of media and where it would be positioned in the project, but isn't connected to it and so it cannot be used until the connection is made.

If you move a video file to another location on your disk, outside the program that hosts the project with a reference to it, the program will indicate the events referencing the video file as "offline".
In this here case the program cannot provide the project with direct access to the audio data, since Vegas is doomed to use a proxy file for that purpose. So it just shows the empty event and flags it "offline".

I'll check back here tomorrow if any more questions have come up. Cheers and good night,

i/o