Preview problem with Vegas 8 Pro

[CycleWriter]

I'm just starting to use this program having come from Vegas 8 Platinum. Last night I was playing around with it and discovered a very serious problem. I like/need to preview clips in my Project Media window before I put them on the timeline. I can do this without problem in Platinum. I just select the clip and click on the Play arrow at the top of the Project Media window. I have my Preview window detached from Vegas (both versions) and on my secondary monitor. I have always edited this way.

For some unknown reason when I do this in Vegas 8 Pro there is nothing in the Preview window. I can hear the clip's audio and the frame counter is counting, but there is no video. It works fine in Platinum, so it can't be an overlay or monitor issue. I can see video in the Preview window if it is from the timeline without problem. I'm baffled. Any ideas?

And yes, I did do a search first.

[Rumpelgeist]

Yes, this sometimes happens to me as well. I think it is a bug. It may depend on which video you are previewing, or on project config, or something else, I don't know. I was too lazy to look/file a bug on Sony's site.

Vegas 32-bit 8.0c.

[CycleWriter]

Damn! This is unacceptable. I don't want to have to drag a clip to the timeline every time I need to preview it. I am working on a project right now with hundreds of clips in my Project Media window. It has to be a program bug because even when I dock the Preview window to Vegas on the main monitor it does not work. I can't believe no one has complained of this before.

[eight]

I just went from Platimun 9 to Pro 8 and noticed the same thing. Exact same thing happens in the Trimmer window, which makes the Trimmer window completely useless.

[CycleWriter]

Wow! This is a basic feature of the software. I purposely went to Pro because of this project and I based my decision on the perception that Pro was better tailored to big, professional project management. I can't work without this function, it will be way too tedious not to have access to previewing a clip before adding it to the timeline. I'm going to check some of the Vegas forums and see if anyone has a fix for this issue. Can't believe that something that works fine in Platinum is so problematical in Pro and that Pro users aren't screaming at Sony over this.

[eight]

Let us know if you find anything. I haven't looked for a solution yet, as I just noticed it 2 nights ago playing around with a small project. I assumed I had something set wrong somewhere, although I didn't have to set anything in Platinum to get it to work correctly.

[LouieM]

I think your solution can be found here.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=639927

[CycleWriter]

OK, I think I found the problem. Apparently, the program defaults to thinking you only want to preview clips in the Trimmer window, so that's where the output is routed. Unfortunately, unless you double-click on the clip (which opens it in the Trimmer window) you would never know this and would be left as we were wondering where your clip is being displayed. If you click on the Trimmer tab and look for the icon in the upper right that says "Show Video Monitor" when you hover over it, then click it so it is off, the preview will play on your Preview window as it should.

Thanks go to Ed Troxel's great video site, JetDV.

[Rumpelgeist]

Gee, it is a pro tool, not some consumer junk like the Platinum. Pros use trimmer for everything, consumers don't. By this definition, you and me are consumers.

Thanks for the solution!

[eight]

I'm not sure that will fix the problem I am having. Like Aramis said, it happens sometimes, not all the time. Yesterday I dragged a video file from the Explorer tab to the trimmer tab. The video displayed and played correctly in the trimmer tab. I dragged another file to the trimmer tab, and no video. I dragged 3 more videos to the trimmer tab, no video, but audio played fine. Opened it later, and same results. Sometime it worked, other times it didn't.

This was just preliminary playing around right after installing Pro8. I'll try the above suggestions and see how it goes.

[CycleWriter]

Gee, it is a pro tool, not some consumer junk like the Platinum. Pros use trimmer for everything, consumers don't. By this definition, you and me are consumers.

Thanks for the solution!

Apparently, this was a feature added with the 8.0c update. Why it was turned on by default is beyond me. Besides, who would want to preview something in that itty-bitty Trimmer window instead of the Preview window or have to hassle with constantly moving back and forth between the Trimmer and Project Media tabs?

[eight]

Got it to work, somewhat. I usually drag a clip to the trimmer window anyway, but double-clickling just adds the file from the Explorer tab to the timeline. It does not start playing in the trimmer tab.

Also, I had another crash when trying this. I had a few crashes the other night when trying to play files in the trimmer window. Today when I double-clicked a file in the explorer tab trying to play it in the trimmer tab, like CycleWriter mentioned, it added the clip to the timeline. Tried double-clicking 2 more clips, added them to the timeline. Then right-clicked the timeline to delete the clips, and got an error message and Vegas closed. This happend twice a couple of nights ago.

Also, the trimmer functions are buggy for me. There is a button to "Show Video Frames" when the "Show Video Monitor" button is clicked. Even when the video frames button is turned off, it still shows the frames some times. I guess it's not a big deal, because I will turn the video monitor option off now, but it still doesn't work right all the time.

I'm not sure what the problems are, but I never had any of these problems with Platinum9. I'm running Pro version 8.0c build 260.

[CycleWriter]

There is a setting in the Preferences to switch double-clicking adds clip to timeline to opening it in the Trimmer.