If it were me, i'd render the whole thing directly to MPEG-2 for DVD Architect. Unless you're planning on printing the finished project back to MiniDV, there isn't much need for doing an AVI render first.

depending on the complexity of the project, project to AVI to mpeg could be a lot faster render. Plus then if you wanted to re-render it to another format (another mpeg @ different settings, wmv, etc.) it's faster.

Just curious, but has anyone ever timed:

a) project -> AVI -> MPEG2

vs.

b) project -> MPEG2

to see if a) is faster than b)? I've done this way more than a few times and b) has always been faster than a) by a substantial margin. True, the first part of a) (project -> AVI) is faster than b) just a tiny bit, but then the second part (AVI -> MPEG2) has to be done and this far more than makes up the difference.

So, just curious, but has anyone ever actually timed a) to be faster than b)?

Stephen does make a valid point though that if you're going to be rendering to multiple output formats then an initial AVI render and doing subsequent renders from that AVI file can be faster than rendering from the project each time.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I ended up rendering the project using AVI template. The 18 minute, mostly picture slideshow, took approximately 45 minutes to render. I didn't try the mpeg template because it said that I would have to render the audio separately. Since I'm still learning this software, I didn't know how to do that. Seems like that would just be more work though.

Mark

There is yet another reason for doing an interim AVI - mistakes!

#1 - Spilling mistakes. Doesn't happen often, but I'd rather correct in the AVI.

#2 - Colour Correction. Yes sometimes I DON'T see the CC needed until . .

#3 - Sequencing and transition flow. Sometimes I don't "see" my clumsy, awkward and downright "naff" results UNTIL I see a/the pre-finished product. And that is even AFTER countless RAM build and so on. Selective pre-rendering is the next best thing .. however . . this IS another case for pre-rendering file retention and management.

#4 - Something finished and in the back pocket! Insurance for that one time WHEN the mpeg render goes tits-up.

Grazie

As myself and others have pointed out in other posts, from a quality standpoint, it is better to go directly from the timeline to MPEG2 rather that render to AVI and then MPEG2. This is particularly true in this instance where most of the material is stills. Stills are essentially a 4:4:4 colorspace, DV is 4:1:1 and DVD MPEG2 is 4:2:0.

If you go directly to MPEG2 from the timeline, you will end up with 4:2:0 on the DVD and keep as much color information as possible. If you render to 4:1:1 DV AVI first, then encode to 4:2:0 MPEG2, you will actually end up with a 4:1:0 on the DVD. This means that only 12.5% of the color information in the original stills will end up on the DVD.

John

I'll use your advice John. I'll treat the pre-draft AVI as just that and then render to an MPG.

Where does that leave those amongst us that render to new track and carrying on using that "Render to New Track" file as part of the finished project?

Any thoughts John? It would appear that that file would also take a similar quality hit? Yes? No? I'm goning to need to re-think the value and function of Vegas "Render To New Track" now. Also where does that leave the all important pre-render? Yikes! Does that do it too? Or are all of these uncompressed? Or they can be?

Interested to hear your thoughts on that too.

Grazie

I never really saw much benefit to rendering to a new track. RAM previews handle everything i'd ever want in that function, and do so without the quality hit. I just do one final render at the end.