Batch rendering

avgeek wrote on 9/6/2002, 2:44 PM

Any way to line up a sequence of project files to batch render at night when I'm not in the office? We tape classes at the school where I work and I render everything to Mpeg2 so I can burn it to DVD. Having to call up a project and wait for it to render during the day is killing me. I looked at the batch encoding utility and it looks like it's an audio only utility?

thanks
-D

Comments

wcoxe1 wrote on 9/6/2002, 3:17 PM

Not batch rendering, but you can Print Video to DV Tape during your free time, stoping it when you need the computer, and then doing the same when you leave at night. It works just fine, but only on one project at a time.

Chienworks wrote on 9/6/2002, 3:17 PM

Open up Vegas and load the first project. Open up another Vegas session and load the second project. Open up another session ... etc. for as many projects as you need to render. Then start each render running so that they all run simultaneously. True, they'll all run slow, but the overall time is no longer than if they ran one at a time.

avgeek wrote on 9/6/2002, 4:15 PM

Thanks. Nothing like a good workaround. I'd wondered about this, but didn't know if it would bring the thing to a screeching halt.

Wonder if there's any chance the folks here at SF will add this later on???
-D

kkolbo wrote on 9/6/2002, 6:33 PM

The batch utility is a video utility as well. If you are recording classes then any edit would probably be cuts with a few disolves so the render to DV would be about 1:1. Once in the DV format you can encode it to MPEG which is the longer process by using the batch converter from SF. Click on add media and you can add video files. Under convert to format choose MPEG and then set up your type such as size etc.

K

fongaboo wrote on 9/6/2002, 8:46 PM

In my understanding, rendering multiple projects in multiple instances of Vegas simultaneously would take somewhat longer than doing them sequentially because the OS has to expend some CPU overhead on task management, but I still find it really convenient.. If three projects take a total of 8 hours to render, whereas they might take 7.5 if you did them sequentially.. they'd still be done when you got home from work, right?

salad wrote on 9/6/2002, 10:07 PM

I ran a test on two extremly complex 15 minute projects (separately and combined). The times were.......identical, give or take a few seconds?
Try it.

Chienworks wrote on 9/7/2002, 1:33 PM

The advantage of simultaneous is that you can "walk away" from the rendering process. Running sequential renders requires your attention to start each new job when you would probably rather be doing something more productive, such as sleeping ;)

If that means the renders take a few minutes longer, then it's still quite worth it!

wcoxe1 wrote on 9/7/2002, 2:27 PM

I found the same as Chien. I prefer sleep, even if it is a bit longer, who cares when you are sleeping. One thing to note, though. Running more and more eats up power fast. If your machine is marginal to start with, this can cause problems.

avgeek wrote on 9/9/2002, 5:57 PM

Thanks to all for your help on this. My main problem here is trying to get this stuff turned around as quickly and professionally as possible. Those of you in the business can attest that these two don't make happy bedfellows. If I'm moving my final product to VHS, will the quality loss I get from going from project file to AVI (in DV) then to MPeg2 be a huge issue? I'm guessing not, but thought I'd check.
thanks much!
-D

Chienworks wrote on 9/9/2002, 11:22 PM

I don't think so. The quality hit you take with MPEG vastly outweighs the minor hit you get from using DV as an intermediate. When i'm going to render a project to several formats i always render to DV first, then create all the other files from this DV version. That way all the effects, compositing, titles, transitions, etc. only have to be rendered once.

avgeek wrote on 9/10/2002, 10:02 AM

Thanks for the reply. Played around with the batch encoder this morning and it looks like I'm gonna just render to DV, then batch render everything to MPeg 2 over an evening or weekend. Now I gotta figure out the best way to get 2.5 hrs onto a standard DVD-R. I reread the MPEG encoding guide here and got some ideas I'm gonna vet in another posting.

You folks are the greatest!
-D