Hi
Think you're mistaken. I should have been a little clearier...the computer is a Pent 4, 1 gig RAM and 2.353ghz...sorry. Hope that changes your answer a little.

Thanks again.
Mina

Look at project properties (under File) and set rendering quality to 'good' instead of best. This will have a strong impact on rendering times, while few effect on the final result.
Use a two disk setup: keep your source files on one, and render to another target disk (this can also be a usb-stick, if you have one that is big enough, or some external hard disk). For avi files, this will make a difference of 30 per cent in rendering files. (For avi (only), Vegas applies 'smart rendering')

Also, before rendering, reboot your pc, then immediately run Vegas and start rendering. (This will prevent other processes or programs to take cpu power and memory).

Be aware of the fact that some videofxs, such as Glow or newbluefx plugins, will add consideribly to rendering times (many hours). Rendering is a pretty intense process and 50 minutes is substantial movie. Oh yes, don't trust the 'expected remaining time' shown during rendering, usually it's way too optimistic...

Okay...i'll try anthing.
I decided to run an experiment to see if it's my computer or Sony Vegas...i installed the program on my laptop (Pent 4, 256 RAM, 2.2 GHz) slightly different than my computer which is Pent 4, 1g RAB and 2.5 GHz. My laptop rendered the exact same file, with the exact same render settings in under 9 hours. My computer has been rendering for 12 hours and is only 53% complete. Now I know for sure I'm missing something! The CPU on both systems were at 100% while it was rendering. Only difference is I rendered the laptop file to my computer over a wireless network (which is usually less stable when I do it wirelessly). The computer was rendering to it's own secondary drive (s drive by name)...and not on it's c drive where the source files are. My computer has 2 drives.
I think i may have to have an IT guy do some peeking in here somewhere...unless anyone has any other ideas?
Thanks again to everyone!!!

Hm, very strange. Your desktop should be faster, but clearly it is not.
1) Have you checked disk space on both disks? You should have at least 5 GB free.
2) Check and compare your anti-virus and anti-spyware software. Are they the same? Stop running them and see what the effect is on rendering times.

What type/model is your "S" drive? How is it connected to your computer? USB?

In your other "preview choppy" thread, I'm wondering if the slow render is related and points to a hard drive issue.

I suggest reading through Videoguys Top Tech Tips for troubleshooting your Digital Video Editing computer. You might find something that will help.

Thanks, I'll check out the link.
The S drive is an internal drive where i store all my media clips and files etc. All my programs etc are loaded on the c drive. I have 500gig hard drive on the desktop so it's not a matter of space...both laptop and desktop rendered to the same s drive on my desktop. I'm stumped...I do think it may be a hard drive issue too...

Well, I hope you figure it out.

Here's another link to check out:

Optimizing Video Capture Performance

Let's get the simple stuff out of the way... Have you rebooted, run chkdsk /f, defraged?

Editing and rendering mpeg2 files is indeed very problematic. I hadn't realised this was your ordeal. Try this: download and install ffdshow codecs. It's a long shot, but it could make a huge difference.
ffdshow latest build (go for the stable build)

Hi
I had to download the ffdshow well before i started the video. Seems Windows media 11 doesn't like my JVC camera. It wouldn't play any of the video clips on the camera before.
I got some improvement by downloading a spybot software...had some stuff on my system that got cleaned up. But still haven't tried to render it yet...don't have 2 days to spend watching it render. Still gonna keep on searching for an answer...THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO TRIED TO HELP!!