Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum: Render Error Still Occurs in v11

Update: Since I wrote this post I upgraded to Movie Studio Platinum 12 - the program has gone 64-bit which seems to answer this problem that we were experiencing in prior versions.

I am a huge fan of Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. For the money (around $100) it is impossible to beat on the Windows platform. However, ever since I started using it 3 versions back it has been plagued by a bug that Sony are either unwilling, or unable to fix.

The problem occurs when you are trying to render HD video out above a certain, unknowable complexity on a 64 bit platform. The error you see when you're trying to render out (just before the application crashes) is "The system is low on memory. You may be able to reduce memory usage by closing other applications." I'm here to tell you it doesn't matter how many programs you close, once you hit the threshold and start seeing this error your video will not render. I am also here to tell you it is not an issue with the amount of memory you have in your machine (unless you have less than 3gb). I have 8gb memory in my Vista 64 bit desktop and 3gb in my Win 7 64 bit laptop and both were plagued by this issue trying to render the same project recently - the project had 6 video tracks and 8 audio, with effects on most clips and tracks but it was only three and a half minutes long.

First an introduction to some boring Windows fundamental architecture. 32bit versions of Windows can only use a maximum of 2gb of memory. 64bit versions are not restricted in the same way which is one reason geeks like 64bit systems. Unfortunately many consumer pieces of software are 32bit. Now, you can run a 32bit program on a 64bit version of Windows but it won't be able to use more than 2gb of memory itself. With me so far?

Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum is a 32bit program (Pro is 64bit) which runs well on 64 systems but has had this memory leak issue when rendering in all versions I can see to date. Basically the render process is using as much memory as it can get (2gb) but at some point it doesn't release a part of memory it has reserved - it then tries to get more memory and the crash occurs. Why Sony haven't fixed this issue is infuriating - I was sure they would have it done in version 11 but no; I installed the software and the bug was back.

Luckily for us there is a tried and tested way to address this issue that has been documented for previous versions of Movie Studio and this is my update to those instructions for v11.

• Close Sony Vegas (if it hasn't already crashed on you.
• Download and install CFF explorer from www.ntcore.com/exsuite.php.
• Run CFFExplorer
• File > Open "C:\Program Files (x86)\Sony\Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11.0\VegasMovieStudioPE110.exe
• In the left plane of CFF Explorer click NT Headers > File Headers
• Bottom right of the resulting grid will read "Click here" - click there
• In the resulting dialog window check "App can handle > 2gb address space" and then click "OK"
• File > Save As and save the file to a local directory (somewhere in your documents or desktop)
• Close the file in CFF explorer
• In Windows file explorer make a copy of the original file you just opened (this is so, if things go wrong, you can get back to where you were)
• In file explorer move the file you saved in a local directory over the one in the installed directory: whenever you try to copy or move a file in the installed directory Windows will probably ask you exactly what you want to do to try and stop you corrupting installed applications - Click "Move and Replace" and then hit "continue" if it says you need to confirm your administrator privileges. This may seem long winded but you have to get around Windows security that is trying to stop you messing up your system.
• Repeat the CFF edit for the following files:
• VegasMovieStudioPE110.exe (you just did this one)
• vegasmoviestudiope110k.dll
• all dlls in the FileIO Plug-Ins dirrectory - in my installation this was:
• ac3studioplug\ac3studioplug.dll
• aifplug\aifplug.dll
• atracplug\atracplug.dll
• aviplug\aviplug.dll
• compoundplug\
• compoundplug.dll
• mc_dec_aac.dll
• mc_dec_avc.dll
• mc_enc_mp2v.dll
• sonyjvtd.dll
• sonymvd2pro_xp.dll
• fhgaacplug2\fhgaacplug2.dll
• flacplug\flacplug.dll
• gifplug\gifplug.dll
• lpecplug\lpecplug.dll
• mcmp4plug2
• mc_dec_aac.dll
• mc_dec_avc.dll
• mc_enc_aac.dll
• mc_enc_avc.dll
• mcmp4plug2.dll
• mcplug2
• mc_config_mp2m.dll
• mc_config_mp2v.dll
• mc_config_mpa.dll
• mc_dec_dd.dll
• mc_dec_mp2v.dll
• mc_dec_mpa.dll
• mc_demux_mp2.dll
• mc_demux_mp4.dll
• mc_demux_mxf.dll
• mc_enc_mp2sr.dll
• mc_enc_mp2v.dll
• mc_enc_mpa.dll
• mc_enc_pcm.dll
• mc_mfimport.dll
• mc_mux_mp2.dll
• mc_mux_mp4.dll
• mc_mux_mxf.dll
• mcplug2.dll
• mp3plug2\mp3plug2.dll
• mp4plug3
• aacaenc.dll
• mp4plug3.dll
• savce.dll
• sgcudme.dll
• sgocldme.dll
• sgpuclb.dll
• sony4vem.dll
• mvcplug
• mvcplug.dll
• sonyjvtd.dll
• oggplug\oggplug.dll
• qt7plug\qt7plug.dll
• rm9plug
• rm9plug.dll
• pncrt.dll
• sfpaplug\sfpaplug.dll
• stl2plg\stl2plg.dll
• swfplug\swfplug.dll
• wavplug\wavplug.dll
• wicplug\wicplug.dll
• wmfplug4\wmfplug4.dll

This fixed the crashes while rendering for me and I hope it works for you but if you're not comfortable messing around with dll files please be careful - you could do more harm than good .If you can't see the dll files of the folders they are in you may need to make hidden files visible. All the dlls in the file IO directory that I listed may seem like overkill but I just wanted to never face this error again ... until the next time when Sony release v12 and I've forgotten all about this pain. Then again, Sony might actually get its act together and fix this issue for us ... fat chance :)