When there are frames or sections of video that you have not edited or changed, they will simply be copied as opposed to re-written (or rendered). Less quality loss this way.

what would your deliverable need to be to avoid recompression- Sony AVC?

The trimmer and AC3 (5.1 surround) has also now been fixed! You still only see 2 channels in the trimmer but once you move your slice to the time line all six trimmed channels show.

Complication with the no-recompress rendering... We now seem to be stuck in the same dvda quagmire as with HDV.

You can do a no-recompress render to M2TS... but then DVDa won't take a M2TS without re-compressing. To the other extreme you CAN'T do a no recompress to avc/ac3... which is what dvda wants in order to avoid recompressing.

AVCHD doesn't need to be recompressed in DVDA - I just moved a 1920x1080 file over to DVDA that is AVCHD and it shows that it doesn't need recompressed after I removed the menu button from the video. Go to optimization and click on the recompress for the video and see what the reason is for needing recompression. If it's a menu button - delete it and see what happens. It should only need to recompress if you have graphics or text etc in the project after it was rendered in Vegas. Set your bit rate to 18mbps

The no recompress should speed things up quite a bit - is this from your SR11? What resolution did you use and what color depth - 8bit or 32 bit?

"The no recompress should speed things up quite a bit - is this from your SR11?"

Yes... which has 5.1 surround sound.

When you render to M2TS (which is where the no-recompress works) Vegas uses the studio ac3 encoder not the pro encoder. Meanwhile dvda will not accept anything from the studio encoder with out re compressing it. You must use the pro encoder to avoid audio re compressing. That leaves me with no option to render as avc/ac3.... but then rendering a MTS (native format of the sr11) to AVC knocks out the no-recompress rendering.

So I guess I'm left with a choice of either recompressing the video in Vegas... or recompressing the audio in dvda. Pick the least of 2 evils!

I just tried both an AVCHD from Vegas in 1920x1080 and raw footage from my SR11 in DVDA and neither required video to be rerendered - only the audio - the audio doesn't take much time to rerender, its the video that's painfully slow. Time to prepare an image for burning from a 60second clip of raw SR11 footage 1920x1080 with 5.1 was only 20 seconds to complete, 0r 1/3 the time - much better than the render time in 8.1 which is about 3x realtime or more when using 32 bit color.

Are you seeing that only the audio needs to be recompressed or the video too?

Only the audio... but never mind... I have it figured out. DON'T use the studio encoder. It really screws up your audio.

Render a M2TS without the audio, then render out a separate AC3 file with the PRO encoder. Bring those into dvda and there will be no recompressing of anything.

That makes sense and was what I was starting to think as I read through the posts. I've only made DVDs but I thought the drill was to render separate audio and video files.

Rob Mack

The drill with dvda IS as you say to render separate audio/video files but that's what the .AVC is for. It's an elementary video stream with no audio. But then when you try and render with it... it recompresses. On the other side of the coin is M2TS.... not really an elementary video stream, but a container that is SUPPOSED to contain video AND audio.

It does seem to work fine though if you omit the audio during render and work it in dvda with a separate audio file.

New work-flows to be learned I guess!

Interesting - the AVCHD M2TS file I tried that was renedered with 5.1 audio (not separately rendered audio) from Vegas 8.0c still let's me skip recompress on DVDA and I don't have the pro audio, only studio - the audio is recompressed but not the video.

Video SHOULDN'T recompress with M2TS (it did in V8)... but the audio will every time with the studio encoder. The studio encoder is pretty much useless though. It'll do you in a pinch but it mucks up the sound. There is no recompressing with the pro encoder... much better sound too.

Just a wild guess... but the studio encoder is not certified (I don't even think officially licensed) and therefore doesn't meet the Dolby standard. That's probably why it gets recompressed in the first place.

When you render M2TS with surround audio, it doesn't give you a choice on which encoder gets used. It automatically takes the studio encoder (with no way of changing that). I guess that speaks volumes on how Sony views avchd (as strictly a consumer level format).

Blink, nice detective work. You're on a good roll!

As one of my Texas Red-neck Uncles would say.... YEE HAW!

Studio encoder won't recompress in DVDA if you render separately and choose the 5.1 surround DVD template instead of the default - like you said not an option when rendering AVCHD with 5.1 included.

I can't compare it to the Pro because I haven't purchased the license - figured Pro quality vs Studio considering the source (SR11 onboard microphone) wouldn't be noticable - you are noticing a big difference?

Personally, I can’t get Smart Rendering if I edit the In/Out point of a clip.
I’m working with Panasonic AVCHD files.

"Studio encoder won't recompress in DVDA if you render separately and choose the 5.1 surround DVD template instead of the default"

Really?
I don't find that to be true. Just tried a separate 'studio' surround file rendered as '5.1 surround dvd' instead of 'default' and dvda STILL wants to re-compress it, siting "not compliant" for a reason.

Doesn't require recompress making a DVD - it does under Bluray - my mistake - I didn't check the settings closely enough. However, the audio recompression doesn't take nearly as much time as AVCHD for a 25GB Bluray nearly full - that took me about 20 hours to complete the first time.

So is there an audible difference between Pro and Studio when using source material from your SR11?

"So is there an audible difference between Pro and Studio when using source material from your SR11?"

To my ears ... yes. But then the pro encoder allows you to go into quite a bit of detail with adjustments and such and that may be the difference.

Hmmm - I just tried and it let me render an audtio file to AC3 Pro and put it in DVDA - not sure what's up with that - I didn't purchase the license? It didn't work before when I tried. Oh well - it works so I'll start using that instead.

If you have both Vegas Pro and DVDA you get the AC3 Pro encoder by default, at least that's the way it has always been since Vegas 4... they haven't changed that in Vegas 9 have they?

Not that I know of... Of course I'm still using the dvda from V8pro.... didn't bother upgrading because there is no sense. It's dvdab in vegas 8 and dvdab in 9 as well.