Optimizing storage for rendering

megabit wrote on 8/25/2010, 6:45 AM

I have equipped my editing PC with a lot more internal and external storage, because - after a lot of experimenting with different workflows - I concluded the best way to handle my nanoFlash files is to run Neat Video on them first, and rendering out to the Sony 10 bit YUV before any other editing. This of course requires a lot of disk space, so currently - apart from a single OS/apps drive which I regularly make image of with Acronis TrueImage - I have two internal RAID 0's, each ca. 2TB big.

I'm still experimenting in arranging the Vegas working directories (temp, renders, source videos, etc.) so that the storage is used in the most optimal fashion (I'd like to ensure, among other things, that the 10bit YUV avis play back in full quality/fps inside Vegas).

And here is where my question goes:

- does anyone know where the "render to new track" is written to, before it's copied to the final destination that I indicated when setting up the render, and after the render is complete?

All the time during the rendering, the final destination file is created, but zero in size - so I assume some temporary files is written to, and then copied over on completion. But where? I cannot find a clue (it's not in the system's tmp, nor Vegas temp, not the user's own tmp directory...). Where can it be written?

Thanks for suggestions

Piotr

Edit Anyone, please? I have just rendered out a 50 GB file, but didn't see its size growing until it was ready. Could it be Vegas IS actually writing to the final destination file as defined, but for some reason, the OS doesn't update the file size while it's being written to? This would be strange, so I'm still wondering where a temporary file is actually written during render, only to be copied over to the destination when ready...

Oh, and one more thing: the quality I'm getting is astounding, truly marvellous! What I do is:

- set all detail enhancement OFF on my EX1
- record at 100 Mbps for Long-GOP, or 220 Mbps for I-Frame Only, on the nanoFlash
- use NeatVideo to de-noise and sharpen at one go, with 32bit floating point project settings.

I've never seen that high quality video in my life! Thanks to the increased bit depth / precision, the color banding that tends to appear on really featureless areas after noise removal is not a problem any more (thanks, Bob!), and even my low-light clips are absolutely clean and sharp.

Of course, I'm not going to do it for each and every clip - it's far too time consuming (some 2 fps rendering) - but for those low-light stage shoots that are a part of major project where the highest quality is a must, I highly recommend this workflow!

Comments

megabit wrote on 8/26/2010, 4:03 AM

Doesn't anyone know which directory Vegas uses for building temporary render results, before copying them over to the file placeholder specified?!

rs170a wrote on 8/26/2010, 4:27 AM

Piotr, I did a search of all my hard drives after trying this and didn't find anything anywhere.
My guess is that whatever temp directory is used gets cleaned immediately after the file is rendered.

Mike

megabit wrote on 8/26/2010, 4:36 AM

Mike, I'd think the same - except that while the rendering lasts (and it's a long process), I should be able to find some temporary directory/file growing in size. And I cannot!

Piotr

farss wrote on 8/26/2010, 4:49 AM

Have you considered the possibility that Vegas is not writing a ghost temp file at all. Maybe it's simply that Windows cannot report the file size as it simply cannot determine the size of the file until it is closed?
To look at it another way, what purpose would be served by first writing a ghost file and then copying it somewhere.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 8/26/2010, 4:56 AM

"To look at it another way, what purpose would be served by first writing a ghost file and then copying it somewhere"

Well, it's often done by applications, including Vegas (one example being the image of BD when burning BD from timeline)...

But of course - as I mentioned before - this might have changed, and the "real" file's initial size of zero is never reported growing, until it's closed.

Piotr

farss wrote on 8/26/2010, 6:09 AM

"Well, it's often done by applications, including Vegas (one example being the image of BD when burning BD from timeline)..."

There's fairly obvious reasons for creating a temp file on a HDD before burning optical media. I still cannot imagine any reason for creating a temp file on HDD "A" and then copying it to HDD "B" when the intent is to simply endup with the file on "B".

One way you might be able to check if Vegas is really doing what you think it is would be to look under Task Manager at the amount of data Vegas is writing.

Bob.

ritsmer wrote on 8/26/2010, 6:38 AM

Under Windows 7 I opened the Task Manager plus the Resource Monitor and rendered to a new track.
During the rendering Vegas writes the new track file directly to the place where you wanted to store it.
It seems that no intermediate file is used.