Hi Doug, I'm working on figuring-out something similar.

Just wondering:

Under Options>Preferences>Video tab:

What are your settings for in Version 12:

1.) Dynamic RAM Preview max (MB)
2.) Maximum number of rendering threads
3.) GPU acceleration of video processing

AND

If you're rendering the file to an external hard-disk - is your cable connection USB 2 or 3, FIREWIRE?

Were both files rendered to the same drive set-up?

I hate to answer a question with more questions - but I'd like to cover all bases.

I've been playing around with the settings in Movie Studio 12 and nothing seems to make much difference. Right now, Dynamic RAM preview is set at 10,000 MB, Maximum number of rendering threads 12 and GPU acceleration of video processing is Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.

In Movie Studio 11, Dynamic RAM preview is 1024 MB and Maximum Number of Rendering threads is 4.

Template for both versions is HDV 720-30P (1280x720, 29.970 fps); Field Order: None (progressive scan); Full Resolution Rendering Quality: Best; Deinterlace Method: Blend Fields

This time around, I tried rendering a 30 second clip. Again, I adjusted the contrast and exposure using Color Curves (default setting in 12, reset to none in 11) and added a light Sharpness setting. Movie Studio 11 made a 1280x720 .mp4 in 1 minute, 10 seconds. Movie Studio 12 took 1 minute 41 seconds to do the same size file with GPU acceleration enabled. Both files were output to the same internal SATA drive.

Thanks for taking the time to list those specs for both 11 and 12. I can't add anything that will help you at this time, but it helps me eliminate some possibilities for the lack of improved rendering times. I'll keep following this thread.

How are the render times without any effects...Perhaps you can narrow it down to an FX?

Doug,

I'm not an expert by any means, but I do review the threads of interest on the forum. There was a thread by Smile Please titled Render Times and Settings V.12. In it were rendering times under various settings, and one pattern I noticed was that the higher the Dynamic Ram preview was set, the slower the render time was. This may indicate that the RAM allotted by the preview function is unavailable for the rendering function. Since I saw you had Dynamic Ram set to 10000 MB, you may want to try a low setting, such as 512 MB, and see if that helps.

Turning off the effects didn't improve things much. In Movie Studio 12, the 30 second clip took 1:37 to render. In Movie Studio 11, it took 49 seconds to render the same clip without effects.

I tried turning the Dynamic RAM down to 200 MB and got rendering time down to 1:02 without effects.

Which render template are you using for mp4 - Sony AVC or MainConcept? Have you tried rendering to something else?

This doesn't help you I'm afraid, but these are just my observations so far:

I upgraded from v11 to v12 last night and before I did, I timed the rendering of a moderately heavy project in v11 to see if the upgrade to v12 would shave any time off.

The source was AVCHD from a Sony camcorder, rendered to .mt2s, ready for uploading to Youtube. There were 5 video tracks and 5 audio tracks.

Having timed the v11 render I then uninstalled it and installed v12. I then retried the rendering using the same project. The time differences were dramatic:

v11: 35m 20s
v12: 6m 40s

So, I'm very happy so far. I haven't tried any other output format yet. Time will tell.
I hope you find the root cause of your problem.
Andy.

I was using the Main Concept AVC/ACC template out of force of habit with Movie Studio 11. After seeing Andy C's response, I gave Main Concept MPEG-2 HDV 720-30 a try and made an .mt2 file. Results were dramatically different: A 5:30 file with sharpness and contrast adjusted rendered in 3:25. Movie Studio 11 rendered the same project in 8:18. I'll play around a bit more with the settings.

Doug,

At least in V11, the Sony AVC profiles was optimized to use GPU acceleration. You may want to try that template for your mp4.

Problem solved! I was playing around with the settings and clicked on the "customize template" button in the render templates box. At the bottom is a dropdown menu with the following choices: "Render using CPU only", "Render using OpenCL if available" and "Render using CUDA if available". Since I have an AMD/ATI Radeon video card, I picked the OpenCL option. Guess what? An 18 minute 1280x720 MP4 from a full HD video with Color Curves and light Sharpening rendered in five minutes!

Movie Studio Platinum is the "poor man's Vegas Pro"!

Thanks for that update Doug. Great tip for others,

Doug....where did you find the "render templates" > "customize templates" settings?

eric,
like Doug says, you should find the 'Customize Template...' option in the Output Format box of the Project > Render As... window.
From online Help:
Double-click a heading or click the arrow button to expand the list of the available templates. Click a template to select it and use that format for rendering, or select a template and click the Customize Template button to modify the template's settings.
You may have to scroll down a bit.

My system is Intel i7-920 with nVidia 9600GT video. I tried rendering 10 seconds of AVCHD video with stereo sound using a slightly modified version of the default Sony AVC/MVC AVCHD 1929x1080 template. The modifications I made were to use the Automatic, GPU only, and CPU only options for Encode mode. Here are my render times:

Auto: 18 sec.
GPU: 18 sec.
CPU: 20 sec.

So it's pretty clear that using a GPU (whether it's Nvidia CUDA or ATI OpenCL) gives roughly a 20% improvement in render times. My guess is the improvement would be even better when the system CPU isn't as capable as an 8-thread i7.

under XP, whenever I plug-in a USB stick the computer stops doing the current task and tells me this (port) can be worked faster" - but it can't...it is already using the best settings I can find and if I click through it ends up the same as it was.
Software writers are wasting my PC's time while this circles go on.

Similarly, you'd thnk that some basic "improvements" should be obvious if the program hasn't already checked - then guide us to the necessary changes (or- better still put them in to start with.

Ah but folk use all kind of Media - well so they do, but mostly they will stick with whatever their camcorder produces . . . .and Movie Studio is likely to be used with fewer cameras, than say Pro-version.

Once Vegas has sorted out the options this should be given an Options Name starting A, B, C, etc as more Media variable are input.
So, my single Sony camera would be associated with "Acorn-Settings" with a drop-down providing the necessary data for when I've forgotten. Each time Vegas Studio starts up it can add "Settings Acorn" - in the same way it lists the most-recent Projects (although annoyingly it even lists the ones I deleted, so I'd like that list to go deeper, and maybe with a Date too.

That's all.
BTW my Architect Studio is working today.

Here is a little video I did showing the settings I used. Keep in mind that the render is slowed down a bit by the PC also capturing a high res MPEG2 file at the same time. Still, the render is faster than the length of the video:



Switch to large player or full screen mode in order the read the menus.