I'm working on a project that will be a series of guitar lessons. I want to create an intro and outro section that will be re used in every episode. What is the best way. or what settings should be used to render such sections so they wont re-render, or at least wont degrade in any way?
You'd need to render to a format that supports no re-rendering such as DV or certain Mpeg-2 codecs. There could be others but not sure. You could render it out for a format that lower compression (like Quicktime PNG sequence, some AVI codec's, etc) so you loose less when you re-render.
Another option is to save the intro and outro sections as separate .veg project files and then use nesting in your other lesson projects.
If I remember, Sony MXF or XAVC-L also can do, but you can try experiment make short render, then try put that previous render to new timeline, and test rerender again.
If your preview screen shows 'No Recompression Required' - then you have found it.
Marco, I'm not understanding exactly what you mean by nesting. Is this a way to join projects together?
Set, I'll look into that, ty.
Nesting is the process of using a saved .veg project file just like a regular video clip inside another Vegas Pro project.
Another way to achieve this, without the use of nesting, is by making a template.veg with the intro and outro already inside. Just insert your guitar lessons footage to this template.veg and save it with the appropriate lesson name.
Yes! The Nesting thing works. Question... so it appears that the clip created is referencing the original veg project for rendering... If I were to later modify the original veg, would the nested clip in the new project automatically reflect those mods?
3POINT, I had considered that and it may be a good choice as long as I keep my lessons simple enough... which is likely.
"If I were to later modify the original veg, would the nested clip in the new project automatically reflect those mods?"
Yes, that's the way nesting works.
Sweet! I'm marking this solved as there clearly is more than one way to handle this. Feel free to add to it though!
If I were to later modify the original veg, would the nested clip in the new project automatically reflect those mods?
Yes and NO, be careful that when making changes in the duration of the nesting veg that these changes are not automatically adapted in the nested clip.
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. Kind of makes sense when I think about it, which of course I hadn't yet.
You'd need to render to a format that supports no re-rendering such as DV or certain Mpeg-2 codecs. There could be others but not sure.
From the VP14.211 help:
Smart Rendering
When you render video to any of the following formats, unedited video frames are passed through without recompression (smart rendering):
In order to perform smart rendering, the width, height, frame rate, field order, profile, level, and bit rate of the source media, project settings, and rendering template must match. Frames that have effects, compositing, or transitions applied will be rendered.
You can clear the Enable no-recompress rendering check box on the General tab of the Preferences dialog to turn the feature off.....
Personally, I render intros and outros to MagicYUV AVI, which is lossless. There's nothing wrong with the other methods though.
I've always found nesting veg's to take a lot longer to render then using pre-rendered projects. Could be different in V14 though.
I've always found nesting veg's to take a lot longer to render then using pre-rendered projects. Could be different in V14 though.
That's true and isn't different in V14, but a nested veg takes far less space on your harddrive than a prerendered intro and outro. On the other hand, a complex intro and outro as nested veg is always time consuming when rendering.
Also rendering to a format which supports smart rendering, like the format's Nick listed above, makes no or only sense if that format is your delivery format (only DVD). Else you have to rerender the smart rendered output to your delivery format.
That Vegas doesn't smart render m2ts or mp4 (which are usable delivery formats) doesn't mean that smart rendering of those formats is not possible. CyberLink PowerDirector can.
I don't know what delivery format Wayne needs, but when it's mp4 for YouTube, there is a free tool which seamless smart renders mp4, MP4JOINER. In that case you render your intro, outro and guitar lesson as separate mp4 files and join them together in the right order with MP4JOINER, a process of a few seconds.
If the intro and outro are complex, and won't be changed for some times, I think it's not hurt to render it to selected intermediate format, also, intro and outro duration are short - so it should be small size (compared to main video etc).
I only use nesting if I have no other alternative or the graphic motion are too complex and you need to perform a 'zoom' on these graphic motion (since zooming via track motion will blur it).
Just a side note.
For sure rendering nested projects most of the time would take longer as rendering pre-rendered files/projects as all the fx calculations are already done when having pre-rendered.
But rendering a nested project doesn't take longer as rendering the referenced original project, assumed project properties do match. At least in my current projects which contain GH2 720p50 footage rendered to 720p50 XDCAM EX there is no difference in render times, even if there are Levels, Color Corrector, Secondary Color Corrector FX and Titels, or Ignite FX or ColorFast applied.
Marco, it has always been my experience that nested vegs are rendered with just one thread, so rendering is slow compared to the rest of the project. VPro 11 - 13.
I did several tests today, all in common it's been 720p50 GH2 footage with straight cuts, a timeline of exactly 1 minute length, always rendered to XDCAM EX 720p50. Vegas Pro 14 build 211, GPU turned on under Options/Preferences/Video (Intel HD Graphics 520).
I always rendered original project first. Then saved and closed this project, opened a new, nested the original project, rendered again.
When there are Levels FX and Color Correction FX applied, render time is:
Original project: 1:07
Nested project: 1:06
When there are Levels FX, Color Correction FX, Secondary Color Correction FX, Titels (spanned over full length) applied:
Original project: 1:31
Nested project: 1:31
When there is Ignite CineStyle applied:
Original project: 1:31
Nested project: 1:35
When there is NewBlueFX ColorFast applied:
Original project: 1:16
Nested project: 1:13
So here, render times are same with an aberration of about ± 5 %.
Prerendering a video (or parts of it) on the TimeLine using a codec allowing "No Recompression Required" is very usable and saves much time because only the changed parts of the TimeLine need to be rendered fully with all plug-ins etc.
Even if I always render to Full HD at the end - then prerendering to Main Concept mpg2 720p at some 10 Mbps is very, very fast for at the beginning of the editing - I mean the phase where you check simple things like if sounds, foley, music etc. fit to the video clips and vice versa.
As the editing progresses I change to Main Concept mpg2 1920p at some 30 Mbps to check the details.
Main Concept is a very fast codec for this work - and does the Smart rendering without recompression very well. You just have to render to a 'program' type stream - not to a 'transport' type stream.
You may always use any other .mp4, AVC codec or whatever for your final delivery format.
My head is expanding! My intended delivery is indeed mp4 for youtube, but I always like to maintain access to the highest quality possible for the unknown future. I've downloaded the MP4Joiner which will certainly have it's uses.
What Set said "I only use nesting if I have no other alternative or the graphic motion are too complex and you need to perform a 'zoom' on these graphic motion (since zooming via track motion will blur it)"
Is very useful knowledge I've taken note of. I am amazed at how anyone would ever discover that lol
The MagicYUV looks interesting and is cheap enough. Just need to wrap my full head around the real advantages.
Many thanks to you all expanding my head, much of it is sinking in.
Marco, excellent. Thank you.
In terms of intros and outros, this no-recompression quest may be a bit of a red herring. As soon as you put any FX, titles, compositing etc. on the video, it will recompress. And intros/outros tend to contain at least one of those.
The MagicYUV looks interesting and is cheap enough. Just need to wrap my full head around the real advantages.
It's just a lossless codec that you can use to render an intermediate file without losing quality. There are others (e.g. UT Video Codec, Lagarith, HuffYUV, Vegas' own Sony YUV), and there are near-lossless codecs like Cineform (installed via GoPro Quik), AVID DNxHR, Grassy Valley and Vegas' own XAVC-Intra. I like MagicYUV but if you want to compare, I've bolded a couple that are popular here. If you compare you should look at speed to encode, file size, how smoothly it plays back (= speed to decode), and how similar to the original it is (video scopes help with this).