Rambling: Sony Vegas Pro gives black videos

Hello! Today I want to write down what I found out about Sony Vegas Pro 8.0, since I had a problem with it and it seems that the solution is nowhere out there. So I figured, altruistic as I am, let’s help those people out there with the same issue.

This is what happened: I edited a video for a long time, sped up some sections, slowed down some sections, added music to it, adjusted the volume levels, etc. Eventually, I got ready to save the file. How to do that? You click on File -> Render. But once I rendered the file (I tried saving it as an MP4), all I got was a black video with the sound. On second look, I noticed that a few of the scenes actually worked. It made no sense. Eventually I figured that the part that worked was slowed down and had a lower playback rate because I had slowed it down. Choosing every video and right-clicking on properties and adjusting this to the rate that worked helped. HOWEVER, there is an easy way to make it all work.

SOLUTION: Choose all your video files (you know, click on one and then SHIFT and go to the last one. And don’t forget the videos on other tracks either!) and then right-click on them and choose SWITCHES and then DISABLE RESAMPLE. That should work. At least it did with me.

So yeah, I hope by putting this out there I can help people with the same problem, because this was close to driving me crazy. ;)

159 Replies to “Rambling: Sony Vegas Pro gives black videos”

  1. OMG thank you so much! I have the same problem every time! I didn’t have the hope to find the soliution of this problem but I found your text and THANK YOU SO MUCH! I am going to try your advice~

  2. OMg It works! I tryed! Once video was black just with sound, then I clicked your switches and Disable – resample and it works! All videos render good and no problems anymore! Thank you so much! Thank you that you wrote this text in internet! You can’t imagine how much you helped to me!!!!

  3. I appreciate your help. I couldn’t figure out why my videos kept coming out black and you can only hear sounds.

    Thank you so much !!

  4. Hmmm, All my video footage is black when i render, but my text and still images are fine… and the audio is fine …
    I’ve tried a billion ways to render it, all different codecs, wmv and avi etc, just wont work… please help me!

  5. @Anthony: Dude… can you read? “Choose all your video files (you know, click on one and then SHIFT and go to the last one. And don’t forget the videos on other tracks either!) and then right-click on them and choose SWITCHES and then DISABLE RESAMPLE.”

  6. This was driving me nuts! Vegas is so good in some things but in other things it behaves like a cheap freeware video editing app. The developers need to get it together.

    Thanks, you’re one of the great ones.

  7. Damn I have another problem, i’ve just started working with sony vegas, and yesturday i was making a video adding slow motion, zoom in/out, music and so on, and sudenlly then i wanted to check my video on a preview window it shows me black screen only, music is playing but screen is black :/
    Any ideas… ?

  8. Thank you very much! I spent over an hour rendering my video in different formats but nothing worked! Disabling resample did the trick :D

  9. did not help me, still no video or audio on any format, tryed reinstalling and restoring all settings, still no good. i have use this editing software for almost 2 years with out a hitch and now i cant get it to do any thing. the thing it gets me is windows movie maker still works (this is making me think it has something to do with Vegas because i have set Vegas to use the exact same render settings as movie maker and it still will not work). its making me really anger because finished a movie the took a long time to edit and i cant render it.

    you guys have any ideas?

    1. dude ive got the same problem, ive worked on this vid for hours, its part of my gcse’s and its just cacked up, and i dant do anything about it

  10. ok after try to get this to work for about 3 hours and trying all sorts of crap and post this form i was about to give up and i tried it one more time and it worked. no settings change from the last test(WMM render settings).

  11. DUDE!!! YOU ARE THE BEST. IM GAY FOR YOU! i couldn’t figure this out for 2 hours, then i watched some George Lopez, and started looking again, and i found your post! You are awesome! Thanks again!

  12. Hello. I was having this problem too, and found your writings. Too bad for me, it doesn’t work. Anymore ideas?

  13. @JMshaman:
    Have you selected the videos? Or have you only selected the sound? No idea what you’re doing wrong.

    @Anonymous,
    If this doesn’t work, I don’t have any more ideas. I can only suggest you make sure that you have ALL videos selected before disable the resample option. You can try and take a video that you haven’t changed and render this – if you can see it, the resample should be the source. If it doesn’t work either, the problem lies elsewhere. Try with different codecs maybe.
    Sorry if that doesn’t help, but if you DO manage to fix it, it would be great if you could post a comment with your solution!

  14. Sorry your fix didn’t work for me BUT what did work was when you go ‘Render As…’ you need to untick the box ‘Save project markers in video file’

    Hope this helps others.

  15. This didn’t work for me at first, and I was so deppressed, but then I discovered that shift-clicking all of them and highlighting all of them at once only set one of the clips to that option.

    So I individually (yes, for every single clip) put that option and it worked fine.
    Thank you so much.

  16. THANK YOU!!! this is the stupidest problem and nobody seemed to have the answer! i just had to sift through some of the most abysmally stupid responses and tutorials and finally found this! this is a beacon of light in the dullest fog of night. thanks!!

  17. DUUUUUUUUUUUUDE! I’ve had this problem for weeks now. I kinda had given up and decided to start googling again today. THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS THANKS! My IQ is 140 but this damn problem was making me feel very stupid. Thanks again =)

  18. I QUITE LOVE YOU.

    Yes, take every comment of thanks up there and multiply it many, many times. You have just saved my life, and I thank you so much for that.

  19. I just have to thank you for this!!
    Was driving me crazy! Thank you thank you and thank you again!!

  20. Wow, I have started projects just to be frustrated and walk away for months because of this issue. I have scoured the web for a solution and you my dear, are the only one with the correct solution. THANK YOU!

  21. Hi well i followed your instructions all the way through but it still doesn’t work i may have an idea why though because i have recorded on a dazzle i have used the pinnacle editing programme to create my video then i imported the whole video which was already edited onto sony vegas onto the text which i had created – the text plays and the music plays just like your problem and i still get a blank screen please help me with this problem i will be truly grateful.

  22. @iain: You have to make sure you select EVERY SINGLE VIDEO snippet that has been changed in size and then right-click on them and choose SWITCHES and then DISABLE RESAMPLE. If that doesn’t solve your problem it might be a codec issue. Make sure you have the right codecs installed and maybe try rendering with a different codec. Sorry, but that’s all that comes to mind.

  23. I was looking for an answer all over the internet, and finally i found this, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!

  24. OMG you are a life saver i spent hours llooking through forums until i came accross this thanks you soo much

  25. OMG you superhero!
    I was going crazy when I thought I had to redo ALL of my cuttings etc because other sites only offered solutions that would let me reload all the files

    When i think of it’s … it’s actually so simple :P anyway thanks a LOT man you saved my day

  26. This may help a lot of people as well. I had the same issue and I must say, the fix was due to my own misunderstanding of settings.

    You see, you must make sure your Project setting frame rate is the same frame rate as the Render frame rate. To give you an example, I wanted to use the DivX codec since it is all the rage over at youtube. So, I did.

    I used Hypercam 2 to capture my on-screen video using the DivX 6.8.5 codec. It rendered my initial avi file with a 30 frames a second setting.

    What I didn’t realize was when I imported my video into Sony Vegas, I failed to change my projects frame rate from 29.97 fps to 30 fps to reflect the avi file I was working with.

    This caused such effects as the 3D Cascading Transition to produce nothing but blackness.

    Take a bit and test a small portion of your video and you’ll see your render will not come out black at all. Then you can render your entire project.

    Even though I used a particular codec to render my video, this bit of info pertains to all projects in Sony Vegas. Just make sure your project settings are jiving with your rendered settings and voila, you have a master piece.

    If this helped anyone, please visit our websites at the following links:
    We appreciate any new sign ups at our paranormal forum as well as anyone who is looking for gift items in our web shop.

  27. Same here, all i hear is the sound, but i did what you told me to do, and it STILL doesn’t work!

  28. Oh thank God… I mean thank YOU. I felt that I need to throw my computer down from my balcony… but you saved me, my nerves and my comp. That was too easy solution. THAKS!

  29. You are the man !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

    Thank YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Problem solved !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    My daughter thinks you are a genius !!!!!!!!!

    Thanks again !!!!

  30. Good Work. . . i was making some Video Mixes and video didn’t came out. . but you were my personal jesus Christ. . .you saved me. . lol..

  31. Wow thank you so much!! This is like the only solution i found in many many many pages. :) :)

  32. You are my hero. To have already solved your own problem and post the solution because you knew it was so hard to find…really selfless. Thanks, helped me so much :)

  33. thank you sir.

    you saved me. i cant thank you enough. my whole youtube movie making hobby got saved by you.

    i wish you all the good will.

    regards,
    Dr. Arunav Sharma
    GMCH

  34. WE LOVE YOU! YOU SAVED US! WE’RE MAKING AN ANTHRO DOCUMENTARY AND CAN’T FREAKIN FIGURE THE BLACK SCREEN OUT. THANKS!=))

  35. @Aleena Chia Nash Pao Karen: Glad I could help. Good luck with your documentary! Feel free to mention me in the credits under “Special Thanks”. ;)

  36. @ben10sasuke: Choose all your video files (you know, click on one and then SHIFT and go to the last one. And don’t forget the videos on other tracks either!) and then right-click on them and choose SWITCHES and then DISABLE RESAMPLE.

    If you don’t see SWITCHES, what options do you have then? A screenshot would help.

  37. The switch disable thing still gave me a black screen. All I did was select all, grouped and dragged it to the very front of the timeline and that worked.

  38. Nice. Worked for me in Vegas 9.0. I tried absolutely everything and simply could not figure it out as I had done this before and don’t remember having to disable resampling. Anyway, it worked. Thanks!!!

  39. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU I WUZ GOING FREAKIN’ INSANE
    YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

  40. Tnnnnx man you save my live. I was going nuts i downloaded different types of codecs but it didn’t work thanks to you i can now send my vids again to youtube

  41. It didn’t work for me. When i try to render it, it renders a black screen with no sound and no lenght, just an empty file.

    1. @Shakaw: That sounds like either you have a codec set wrong or you don’t have enough space on your hard disk. At least that’s all I can think of right now. You’re not exactly giving a lot of information here, though. ;) Maybe Ghostality’s comment above is helpful?

  42. I hope this works for me too, if it does then Sony should immediately disable it by default. I have rendered freakin’ like 8 times now and it won’t come out properly. I REALLY hope this helps.

  43. Thank you very much, I tried re-installing but didn’t work then came across this tried it once and it worked !

  44. WOW thank you!!!!!
    I’ve been dealing with this problem for a long time yet such a simple solution.
    THANKS ^^ :D :D :D :D

  45. I’m having a trouble with opening a file “String Attributes could not…”
    I can still open it, but only the audio imports, the video doesn’t.

    I can run the video in movie maker just fine though.

    Your solution doesn’t apply here because the video simply doesn’t even show up, purely an audio track.

    1. Well, I have no idea what’s wrong with it then, maybe the file is broken. If you find a solution, let us know!

  46. Thankyou so much! I was ready to give up on ever getting my video done <3 I don't know how you figured it out, but I'm so glad you did! :D

  47. HEy.
    Me is MALAYSIAN people. and me does not know english well.
    [PLEASE DONT INSULT ME]
    I have import my videos on Sony Vegas project and then IT came black background.
    Only hear sound.
    Me have press shift on the video and switches and disable resample. BUT NOTHING HAPPENDED

    1. Did you only press SHIFT or did you also select them all? Sorry, if that doesn’t work, I’m out of ideas.

      This is what Phillip suggested in the comments above:

      “Sorry your fix didn’t work for me BUT what did work was when you go ‘Render As…’ you need to untick the box ‘Save project markers in video file’”

  48. sorry if i sound dumb but could you please explainn more of what u mean by “Choose all your video files (you know, click on one and then SHIFT and go to the last one. And don’t forget the videos on other tracks either!) .. when u say choose all ur video files do you mean highlight them or pick the ones you wantt and then shift and go to the last 1 am i supposed to hold shift and go to the last 1 then right click orr :/ .. sorry to be a pain

  49. Thank you thank you thank you. Have been working with Vegas Video since v4, but was going crazy when my Flickrbuddy script no longer worked. Feared I had to right click each file. Don’t know when they introduced this, but i noticed just now, on v9e..

  50. Dude i have another problem with black screen, when i open videos to my sony vegas 9 shows up in black screen i try doing what you said but didnt work do you have any recommendations to my problem?

  51. You should do these things if you really want them to work:
    -Do as the autor of this subject says and disable resample
    -When you can choose options, UNTICK the ‘render loop region only’

    This worked for me.

  52. Thank you!! You have made my life SO much easier!! This happens to me every time I render a video, so your tip will now save me a couple of hours wasted.

    Hey I have a website that I just started and I would like to know if it’s ok to put a link to this blog post (and your blog’s name, of course) and a brief description of what you are going to accomplish with these tips.

    Again thank you so much and I hope to hear from you soon. Take care!

  53. Thanks you so much. Was driving me insane. Was considering a total re-edit just like I had to do on a previous project. Saved so much time now. Thank you!

  54. THAAAAAAAAAAAANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve had this problem with almos all my videos!! Now you’ve saved me!!! THANKS!!!!!

  55. Thank you. I tried installing codecs, using different profiles and settings but all resulted in a black screen and sound in the background.. until you saved me. Thank you very much

  56. thanks ! I’ve been trying for the past 2 hours ti figure out why my video was rendering black as it was only a video i made with my phone and just edited the color balance on it. done what you said here and now it works!

  57. 4 years later in vegas pro 11 and it still does the trick!
    I also went to options->preferences and unticked “Close media files when not the active application”. So for anyone still having black screen issues, try that out.

  58. when i was rendered a film in .mp4 format and played only the black screen is visible like before… before doing your trick also i had the black screen only but without audio and now also its the same…. plzz help…

  59. Seeing that your solution was posted in 2008, I hope it brings you some reward that five years later, your post still being available and me having sat here and cursed the darkness, found your post and quickly solved the problem I had fought with all day. Thanks.

  60. Solved my issue as well!
    Imported a 720p video from a Samsung Galaxy S4 and edited it a bit.

    It plays fine in Preview window when set to Preview, but on Good or Best it shows black and rendering does the same.

    Setting the Video to ‘Disable Resample’ solved this.
    Sony Vegas 12.

    Thanks!

  61. I know this is old, and most people won’t read this far down. But in my case, I had unticked “render only looped region” option or something oike that while rendering and that was what screwed me over. That NEEDSbe ticked unless you have all your footage at the very beginning of your timeline.

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