Could be heat related too, if it "randomly" happens near the end of long encodes.

@FF22

Hi

. . . . I am on the Tab for Part1. Do I have to now Merge Part2 and then Part3 into Part1 . . . .

The safe way:-

1. Select part 1
2. Select file Manage project, Export movie, Magix Movie file....
3. Save the project giving a meaningful name
4. Repeat 2 - for the other parts
5. Start a new project
6. Select File, Manage project, Merge movie
7. Import part1
8. Repeat 6 and 7 for the remaining parts in order
9. Save the project with a new name

You can still edit the project using this method and keep the original 3 movie project.

. . . . "no hardware acceleration" - where can I, if I can tweak that if it speeds up the export . . . .

Exporting with Hardware acceleration is possible for MP4 video, however it may be that the GTX 750 has disabled the Intel HD4600 iGPU in the processor.

A quick check to see if it is enabled is in MEPs program settings - is the Intel HD4600 available or displayed in this dialog arrowed

If not then to enable this on involves going into the BIOS of your computer - you need to consult the manual for exactly where in the BIOS the setting is.

Also ensure that on the Import/Export tab that both Hardware acceleration options are checked as shown below, if the area to the right may be blank as shown below, however if there is a drop down option in the blank area ensure it is set to Default. otherwise you may have issues.

. . . in the last 15 or 20 minutes of the export, MEP crashed very gracefully . . .

When you restarted MEP did it ask you to send a crash report?

The more likely causes are

1. you were exporting to an external hard drive in which case the USB ports may have powered down.
2. an issue with a video clip or image at the time in the timeline where the export had got to
3. the RAM is overheating

HTH

John EB

@FF22

Hi

. . . . I am on the Tab for Part1. Do I have to now Merge Part2 and then Part3 into Part1 . . . .

The safe way:-

1. Select part 1
2. Select file Manage project, Export movie, Magix Movie file....
3. Save the project giving a meaningful name
4. Repeat 2 - for the other parts
5. Start a new project
6. Select File, Manage project, Merge movie
7. Import part1
8. Repeat 6 and 7 for the remaining parts in order
9. Save the project with a new name

You can still edit the project using this method and keep the original 3 movie project.

. . . . "no hardware acceleration" - where can I, if I can tweak that if it speeds up the export . . . .

Exporting with Hardware acceleration is possible for MP4 video, however it may be that the GTX 750 has disabled the Intel HD4600 iGPU in the processor.

A quick check to see if it is enabled is in MEPs program settings - is the Intel HD4600 available or displayed in this dialog arrowed

If not then to enable this on involves going into the BIOS of your computer - you need to consult the manual for exactly where in the BIOS the setting is.

Also ensure that on the Import/Export tab that both Hardware acceleration options are checked as shown below, if the area to the right may be blank as shown below, however if there is a drop down option in the blank area ensure it is set to Default. otherwise you may have issues.

. . . in the last 15 or 20 minutes of the export, MEP crashed very gracefully . . .

When you restarted MEP did it ask you to send a crash report?

The more likely causes are

1. you were exporting to an external hard drive in which case the USB ports may have powered down.
2. an issue with a video clip or image at the time in the timeline where the export had got to
3. the RAM is overheating

HTH

John EB

 

 

 

Thanks. It will take some time to digest but as I do that, another little hassle.

Last night before your reply, when I did try to merge, I got one of those prompts "resolution does not match". It appears that Part1 is 3840x2160. Whereas the other two parts are the more normal (for me) 1920x1080 (half). I must have inadvertently imported something into Part1 which was a different resolution and accidentally said "ADJUST" which I never do. So now I have movies (in the one Project) with different resolutions. I know in exporting to MP4 I can adjust that but is there an "easy" way to fix/lower the resolution of Part1 in the various movies in the ONE PROJECT. Again, I have not mulled your answer above just yet.

And I can't THANK YOU enough for your generous help. Same for the other respondents - thanks.

As an aside, MEP seems to have crashed just exporting Part1 again overnight - no signs of the crash, just gone from the computer this morning. No crash report, no error, no evidence in Task Manager.

@FF22

Hi.

Just to say that when not so long ago, I was running and old generation i5 processor myself, that I had to keep a constant eye on my CPU temperature to prevent damage. It almost instantly got above 50c and shortly after rose to above 65c and within 20 minutes was creeping into 90c and above. I constantly had to pause the exporting to allow the CPU to cool down in increasingly short intervals.

Thankfully I bought a heat-pipe heat sink for the processor and it settled to a more reasonable 55c all the way through.

I never personally suffered from overheating ram but I used Crucial Extreme ram with decent heat spreaders. Normally, overheating the CPU caused MEP to crash and the pc to shut down so it's more than possible that John's explanation is the correct answer in this case. Placing an extra fan over the ram could help. You can also get ram heat spreaders separately.

If you can, see if while exporting, if you can monitor the temperature of the various bits of kit while exporting. All that information is monitored in the bios and all you need is a monitoring program within Windows. Not sure ram temperature can be monitored. I use my motherboard manufacturers program that came with the motherboard. If yours did not, you may still be able to download it from the manufacturers' website.

I still can't help with the first part of your query. Sorry.

Ray.

@FF22

Hi,

Interesting. It seems that Merge Movies is new in MEP2020 as it is not in MEP2019. I have it in VPX.

So, from the manual:

Merge movies

Using this function you can attach a movie to an opened one. This is then attached to the end of the movie and automatically takes on the original movie's settings.

If you have 3 movies in your project and you want to merge them into 1, then get the Merge Movies dialogue on the screen - 2 ways to get this - from File, Manage project, Merge movie or by clicking on the popdown menu for the movies beside the movies tabs and selecting Merge Movies.

The movie that was selected will have the next one appended to its end. With 3 movies, to get one, you have to do this twice, once for each movie.

If you also want to keep the movies separate, then don't do this. Select the first movie that you want to append to the main movie, Ctrl+A (select all), Ctrl+C (copy), go to the movie where you want to append this, End, Ctrl+V (paste). Repeat for the second movie. Of course, if you want to keep the 3 movies separate, then you can open a fourth movie and append the other 3 into it.

There is another way by exporting the movie from the Movies command to get an MVD file, not File, Export movie to an mp4 or something (just to confuse things). MVD files can then be appended or opened in a new project and appended.

If you have 3 movies, going to File, Export movie, Video as … will export the currently opened Movie, not all 3. So if you just want one exported file, say an mp4, then you have to do as John EB indicated or merge the movies and then export.

If I don't want individual files but rather an intermediate file that will be appended into another project, I export Video as Magix video. So I would export each to this format, movie1/2/3.mxv, and then import each into a new project (or movie) one after the other, and then export. This goes a lot quicker.

Multiple movie is there mainly to create a DVD/BR with multiple movies and each can have chapters. There are other uses as you have found. In VPX, we can use multiple movies to make nested clips in the first movie - not in MEP.

If something is new to me, before doing things like this I create a test project and drag in some clips quickly and use that to learn and practice. I have hundreds of test projects. I do not do new things on serious projects without testing first to make sure that I understand what I am doing and that it actually works.

To answer your last question about the movie settings, shortcut E to open the Project/movie settings dialogue, Movie Settings tab, and change the movie settings to be what you want. In your case, 1920x1080. Make sure that you match the settings of the other movies.

John CB

I see the Hardware acceleration option in the dropdown in the first image you showed and now selected it. It was not the default. The other showed it (maybe now that it is selected).

I've opened Asus' monitoring program. I've also closed a number of other tasks (the pdf reader for MEP's manual and another pdf manual. Closed Chrome browser as well as a number of Win explorer windows of folders. Basically everything except this Firefox program (which I will close) and the Asus manager.

I saved mvd files for each of the three parts. I've Ctrl-A, C and V each part into a 4th movie and closed the other three.

Fingers crossed. But I won't be baby sitting constantly to check the temperature. But will periodically check. But I'd think that if it ran for 4 hours without overheating, it would not implode in hour 4.5. But computers do what they want. I had not thought of PAUSING the export but can try that occasionally.

And, NO, no option for a crash report - I have gotten those on occasion but not these last two times. JUST GONE.

Oh, briefly opening the export-mp4 option on the combined, I see the 1920/1080 format which is nice. I also did not get "adjust" on consolidating the three parts.

I have done experiments when playing so as to not risk a real project.

(oh, and in reference to others posts, I still have some phantom audio popping up occasionally and in two places I think phantom NO sound lasting 10 or 15 seconds, with nothing on that music track to interrupt the main audio track. Just silence and then the music starts up again)

Again, thanks ALL.

@FF22

Hi.

I'm not saying your system is overheating, just that it may be good to check if it is. Your current heat sink may be better than my original one was which was also not a stock heat sink but before Heat pipes came out. Some CPUs throttle back as they get hotter so would also increase export times. But as John suggested it may be the ram overheating that as far as I'm aware I never suffered from.

I find even now with a new system it can be tuned a bit for better performance but MEP almost runs in the background with no way of speeding it up further for now without additional extra hardware which for me will have to wait until I'm allowed to work again. And maybe a bit after that 🙁. The up side is I can run other programs while waiting without impacting MEPs current performance which I find strange.

Sometimes when something goes wrong with MEP it can be better and quicker to start again rather than spend time trying to fix a problem. I've got into the habit of saving a new session with an alternate name or two. So I might have 'Project X V1'. Then the next time I save it will be 'Project X V2' so when I re-open MEP if something is not right I can go back one step. If all is well at the end of the session I will save it as 'Project X V1' again and keep bouncing back and forth between the two names. That way I would only miss one session's work.

I've had one MEP crash since I've been on my new pc build that generated a crash report, but it failed to be uploaded to the Magix's servers.

Ray.

CPU seems to be between 62-66C.

GPU 32-35C

@FF22

Hi.

I'm not saying your system is overheating, just that it may be good to check if it is. Your current heat sink may be better than my original one was which was also not a stock heat sink but before Heat pipes came out. Some CPUs throttle back as they get hotter so would also increase export times. But as John suggested it may be the ram overheating that as far as I'm aware I never suffered from.

I find even now with a new system it can be tuned a bit for better performance but MEP almost runs in the background with no way of speeding it up further for now without additional extra hardware which for me will have to wait until I'm allowed to work again. And maybe a bit after that 🙁. The up side is I can run other programs while waiting without impacting MEPs current performance which I find strange.

Sometimes when something goes wrong with MEP it can be better and quicker to start again rather than spend time trying to fix a problem. I've got into the habit of saving a new session with an alternate name or two. So I might have 'Project X V1'. Then the next time I save it will be 'Project X V2' so when I re-open MEP if something is not right I can go back one step. If all is well at the end of the session I will save it as 'Project X V1' again and keep bouncing back and forth between the two names. That way I would only miss one session's work.

I've had one MEP crash since I've been on my new pc build that generated a crash report, but it failed to be uploaded to the Magix's servers.

Ray.

No, I appreciate the feedback and possible issues.

I've also learned over years of using MEP to save and save often and rename and copy saved versions. But this damn show is so long that I'd have no idea what or where there's something killing it.

Here's what I've got as far as components' temperatures.

Operating System
            Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
        CPU
            Intel Core i5 4690 @ 3.50GHz    63 °C
            Haswell 22nm Technology
        RAM
            16.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 799MHz (11-11-11-30)
        Motherboard
            ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Z97-A (SOCKET 1150)    29 °C
        Graphics
            S24D590 (1920x1080@60Hz)
            2047MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti (ASUStek Computer Inc)    34 °C
        Storage
            931GB Crucial CT1000MX500SSD1 (SATA (SSD))
            931GB Seagate ST1000DM003-1ER162 (SATA )    31 °C
            4657GB Seagate BUP BK SCSI Disk Device (USB (SATA) )    40 °C
            1863GB ASMT 2115 USB Device (USB (SATA) (SSD))

Even down to the temps of drives. These devices are all so smart that they take their own temps! (g) Of course, they are all probably reporting home (which gets intercepted by Google for their record keeping!)

Still exporting and no real changes in temperatures. Just the endless but hopefully, not fruitless export...

Oh, why M2TS rather than mp4 in the export? Is there, perhaps, something I can change that might lead to different results in that format category?

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

Although I do find the CUDA cores on my Nvidia card being used during playback where graphic processing is needed, there is no evidence of them being used on export or making a difference to export times.

I find that activity related to CUDA in your screenshot fascinating in that I have never seen that graph available while playing back or encoding. Did the graph just appear in TM or did you have it selected from the dropdown in the 4 x graphs. I was wondering what the effect or transition it was processing was in that SS - which by the way is during an encode despite your comment above. Do you see it in playback also? Was it just a standard transition and what was the video material being rendered?

Peter

YAY!!!! (gggggggggggggggggg).

I happened upon the computer and it said about nine more minutes remaining. I was clearly trying to be optimistic and not very pessimistic. I opened another view of the output folder which still showed ZERO bytes.

Looked at MEP again and still showed about nine minutes. Suddenly the Export Window disappeared and I got a sinking feeling and the MEP program window then disappeared but fortunately it was the VLC window automatically opening and it was playing my long sought after, full length feature presentation. . I quickly moved the cursor to the end and the fading night jpg of Sea-Tac lights was shown along with the slowly fading sound track.

Trusting nothing at this juncture I have made three copies (four in total) on three other separate disks. It is a ridiculous 18,904.902 KB. It is a boring 2:02 hours in length! I hope it rains a lot tomorrow. That, of course, is when you notice the errant absence of the fade transition between slides or the accidental overlap of two images or the misspelled text.

It would not attach the image (why does that periodically happen?)

@FF22

Hi

. . . . I opened another view of the output folder which still showed ZERO bytes . . . .

During exporting the file will always show 0 bytes, the final size cannot be read until the rendering is complete and the file is closed, it is during the closing that the 'meta data' is written to the file header ie file size time modified etc.

Added after seeing Peters post below: I am referring to the file size as seen in Windows File Explorer.

To ensure you have hardware acceleration see this topic see this comment where it mentions the UHD 530 you should see HD4600.

If it is not there, then the GTX 750 has disabled it and you need to turn this on again in the BIOS of your computer before setting it in Windows.

John EB

@FF22

I opened another view of the output folder which still showed ZERO bytes.

You do not need to wait till it's baked - if there is going to be a Zero byte file at the end you will see straightaway in your Mixdown window that the Video and Audio file sizes will not be incrementing and will say "Not Available".

That, of course, is when you notice the errant absence of the fade transition between slides or the accidental overlap of two images or the misspelled text.

That is why you definitely should try to get the HD4600 enabled for HW Acceleration. It could halve that time, or better.

Peter

@FF22 @Scenestealer @browj2 @johnebaker @pmikep

Hi FF22.

Glad to see you finally got your export. Now I'm wondering what changed that allowed it to complete.

Hi Peter.

It appears in any drop-down box when MEP is in playback or record. Disappears when static but remains when apparently not in use during playback / rendering. I, too, was surprised to see it there. There is definite dynamic interplay between CPU, Intel GPU and my Nvidia GPU depending on what is happening within the timeline. Just observing as MEP plays or exports I see that a basic clip with no effects is mainly taken care of by the Intel GPU. That adding some graphic processing, but not all, seems to invoke the Nvidia card. One that doesn't is the size / position plugin. It's also when exporting slows down a lot, so I'm wondering if I had more CUDA cores (I only have a 130 odd cores) whether this would speed up those sections.

Ray.

@CubeAce

Hi Ray

. . . . It appears in any drop-down box when MEP is in playback or record. Disappears when static but remains when apparently not in use during playback / rendering. I, too, was surprised to see it there. There is definite dynamic interplay between CPU, Intel GPU and my Nvidia GPU depending on what is happening within the timeline . . . .

I had to read that a couple of times before I twigged you were talking about the 'CUDA' text appearing.

What driver version do you have for the NVIDIA card?

John EB

@johnebaker

It's in my signature John, Hasn't changed.

Ray.

@CubeAce

It (Cuda usage graph) appears in any drop-down box when MEP is in playback or record. Disappears when static but remains when apparently not in use during playback / rendering.

I have played around to try to make this graph with some activity appear and can select it from the dropdown in the Nvidia part of TM in MEP2020 but not in VPX11 or MEP2016. I can not do anything during preview or encoding that creates any activity to appear even in MEP2020. Does this activity show during your 2 projects "Santa" and "Audio Master" that you made available to me? If not can you be specific what was occurring in the timeline during the crossfade and virus sequence in your earlier ScrShot? When you say "Disappears when static" do you mean the graph or the activity on it?

I, too, was surprised to see it there. There is definite dynamic interplay between CPU, Intel GPU and my Nvidia GPU depending on what is happening within the timeline. Just observing as MEP plays or exports I see that a basic clip with no effects is mainly taken care of by the Intel GPU.

I think the Intel is where all the decoding and transcoding, decompression and compression for largely unaltered clips occur

Interesting that the Magix blurb says that the new Infusion engine is responsible for faster processing of movement effects (size / position):-

INFUSION Engine " A milestone in performance for years to come. The new program foundation ensures smooth editing of 4K/UHD recordings. As well as smooth playback in the preview monitor, processing time has been significantly reduced for movement and colour effects".

Somewhere else on the VPX site they mention CUDA being involved but are not specific. I can only surmise that they are referring to the CUDA cores aka Stream Processors being used for normal effects processing on the Nvidia card and that they are doing something different with the new engine. Further, they talk about a change where data is kept within the GPU and is not required to be written to (system?) memory so maybe VRAM becomes more important if you don't have sufficient?

It's also when exporting slows down a lot, so I'm wondering if I had more CUDA cores (I only have a 130 odd cores) whether this would speed up those sections.

So maybe, but I think this is likely to mainly affect playback.

BTW Your Sig says you have 384 Cuda Cores..! I have been meaning to mention that Magix used to specify a minimum Graphics Memory Bus Width of 256Bits for HWA but this was with DDR3 VRAM and this could be reduced with faster DDR5 memory. But your card has only 64bit for a bandwidth of only 48GB/s as opposed to my GTX1060 with 192GB/s and a bus width of 192bit, so it might have some effect in various areas of performance.

Peter

@Scenestealer

Hi Peter.

I think I made one mistake. The CUDA shows regardless of whether playing or not.

It is doing something (not much) during the opening title sequence of The Santa Fun Run which would seem to confirm its mainly dealing with graphics sections and some motion effects amongst others. I know it gets used on the cookie cutter for sure. (Cookie Cutter not in use on the Santa Fu Run) It was used both on playback and record.

I don't appear to have enough V-ram for sure. Look how it looks like it's bringing the rest of the system down with it. Low CPU and Intel GPU use during that passage. It can crawl at around 15 frames a minute or less during those parts.

Ray.