I see this term tossed around a bunch on this forum, and I've been trying to understand it on my own, but I just can't get my head wrapped around what it really is or how or why I might want to use the intermediate method. As far as I know, I edit my project, render it, then boom, I'm finished. WTH is "intermediate"!!! I'm certainly not new to editing on Vegas, but I am kind of off in my own little world...
Thanks, guys!
A true digital intermediate is a visually lossless file that is a surrogate for your camera source, that may handle better on the timeline, hand off to other applications, and survive multiple generations. A compressed intermediate is sometime used for archiving.
I use "intermediate" renders for two reasons:
1. I import entire takes of camera footage, but only a portion of those contains what will be used in the edit. So, I encapsulate those portions in named Regions, and render those Regions to Intermediates named consistently with my "notes" on the first timeline.
2. AVC and especially HEVC -- the two formats I typically capture footage in -- are not as smooth in the editing process as AVI, for example. So, rendering the Intermediates to MagicYUV encoded AVI makes the timeline editing experience better. The trade-off, of course, is that those files are huge.
Thanks to both of you, I think I'm getting the hang of it, but it's not something I think I'll ever need. It is good to know it's available, though.
Last question (probably): I know specific settings have been talked about and shown on charts ad-nauseum, but I'm unclear about one thing -- in case I do ever use an intermediate. The "best" intermediate render settings are in the .avi format, right?
I feel a deja vu coming on.
"Best" for what?
Size, Quality, or Speed. Pick two. Then look at those ad nauseum charts. There is no silver bullet answer to that question, even though it is asked a billion times.
Regarding "Best" … everything is a trade-off. I have tried Magix Intermediate, Sony MXF, Cineform (I don't think I still have license info for that one), and MagicYUV. I prefer MagicYUV so far.
I feel a deja vu coming on.
"Best" for what?
Size, Quality, or Speed. Pick two. Then look at those ad nauseum charts. There is no silver bullet answer to that question, even though it is asked a billion times.
Yes, you're right. I sound like a newbie. "Best" as in the "sweet spot". I know you've had a couple on your charts that are data lossy, but not visually lossy. I can't imagine I'd ever want the size of an uncompressed file, but something that holds up to the biggest variety of uses. MagicYUV seems to stand out the most, as IAM4UK mentioned. The question I'm really asking is, in order to render a MagicYUV intermediate, I'd render it as an .avi file, correct?
Yes, Magic YUV is an AVI codec.
Thanks much! I think I understand it now.