Matt -

While I love the concept of nested timelines, I have found in the "day to day" editing in my life that the re-renders that Vegas does are too time consuming, and I'm always in a fudge worrying about the "ultimate crash" which might occur.

My solution is quite simple.
I create a "PreRender" folder.
I regularly pre-render my chapters into that folder with increasing number labels, as I change the substance of each chapter (BigGame-1, BigGame-2, etc). When I create these preRenders, I click the box in the "Render to new tracks" box that saves the "backtracking" to the original edit. (I'm in a hotel w/o Vegas so you'll have to figure out which box it is - it's right under "Render Looped area only".

Then I use the PreRenders to create a finished master. I do all music mixing and titling on this Final master.

Rendering then to MPEG is a quick and easy matter, since all the effects are preRendered in each chapter. If I want to fix a preRendered chapter, I right click it in the Final Edit, and Vegas automatically re-opens the chapter in a separate window. I up the version number, preRender again and replace in the final edit.

As I move along in the editing process, I dispose of old PreRenders as they become obsolete to save disc space.

This is the way I've worked now, for years, and it's stress (and crash) free. Somehow it's very comforting to me to know that each chapter is DONE... not some figment of my computer's imagination.

v

Interesting!
Thanks for the info, Jim.

Vic,
I'll have to check out this "backtracking" thing and learn more.
My back up plan to "nesting" was going to be to have each chapter in my program as its own project, then render out a single file and use that in my master project. Then if I had any changes, just go back to that chapter and re-render with the same file name and that would update in the master.
But that right-click to re-edit the project seems one step simpler.
I'll check it out.

Thanks mucho.

I combine render to New Track and Pre-renders AND my thirst for NEW Projects. I'm a serial VEGIST!!

I render to new tracks and save as MyProject001.veg - delete redundant tracks and save as MyProject002.veg and so on. I treat veg projects as PARTS of the creative process - not the COMPLETE Creative process. It;s a bit like a "sketch-pad" of tracks - kinda "TRACK-PAD"!!

I can have a multitude of veggies that create the final assembled project AND EACH has its own rendered/fully viewable sections IN REAL time. The beauty of this is I CAN refer to a previous veg and make amends/additions and so on.

Typically I start with one VEG start "breeding" ideas > Expand vertically with tracks > render to new tracks (pre-renders are in there to assemble new ideas) > prune tracks > add tracks > prune and finally prune down to a single Master track for rendering to an AVI. And guess what? This happens in real or faster than real time!!

So, this graphic shows how a "project" grows and swells in complexity and then stabilizes and then starts to trim down and finally gets to a "slim" Master for rendering.

MyVeg1......>>>.......

MyVeg2.....>>>>>>.....

MyVeg3....>>>>>>>>....

MyVeg4...>>>>>>>>>>>..

MyVeg5...>>>>>>>>>>>..

MyVeg6..>>>>>>>>>>>>..

MyVeg7....>>>>>>>>....

MyVeg8.....>>>>>>.....

MyVeg9.......>>.......

And I may use Nesting to "dabble" and play with an "Idea" in how it "sequences within a larger lump.

Grazie

Pentium 4, 3.0 here...
I copy-paste between two instances of Vegas then close one when I'm done.
I also am a "serial Veggist" and my workflow is the exact same as Grazie's for the rest.

Matthew,
just for giggles, I just now tossed every Grafpak (over 120) on the timeline of Vegas 7, and threw another 50 on top of that for fun. Dual-dual core choking, playback averaging 17fps, but some of these are pretty intense.
I've not run into a limit, but I don't do my projects a small segment/nest at a time very often. Most full-length projects have only 5-6 nested veggies in them.