Rendering in Print To Tape

Widetrack wrote on 7/29/2005, 8:13 PM
Ok, I just spent about a WEEK meticulously rendering my Stills-intensive 1-hour program in lots of little bits so they’d be tiny enough Vegas wouldn’t gag on it and crash my computer. Did it in Best quality, etc, etc chewing up gobs of my hard drive. I brought all the rendered AVIs onto the timeline of a brand new project so I could print to tape.

So I go to print and Vegas says It has to render over 80% of the program before it can Print to tape???!!???

And then it starts chugging away at its merry little render and I don’t even get to tell it what quality to render at?

Someone, please tell me if I just wasted the whole week rendering this material since the program is going to render it AGAIN—in a quality I don’t seem to have a choice about.

Can I somehow print these AVIs without going throught this ridiculous rigamarole??

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 7/29/2005, 8:33 PM
I brought all the rendered AVIs onto the timeline of a brand new project so I could print to tape.

What format did you use to render the AVIs? If you used "uncompressed," then Vegas will need to convert that to DV (or HDV, if you are using that) in order to print to tape. The only format you should use for your intermediate renders is the identical format you are going to use when printing to tape.
jetdv wrote on 7/29/2005, 8:34 PM
When I get the "over 80%" message, it usually means I've accidentally changed the opacity of a track below 100%.
Liam_Vegas wrote on 7/29/2005, 8:48 PM
Also... as your last posts were about 4:3 vs widescreen issues... perhaps the project properties in your "final" veg do not match the rendered format of those AVIs? MNake sure they match.

In other words... if you rendered in widescreen... make sure the new project into which you have brought them is the same format (and don't forget that you may STILL need to change the media properties to be widescreen as weel).

The rule in Vegas is... if your project properties are identical to the media properties - then when you render it will do a bit-for-bit copy. The fact that you are getting this "80%" message to me is indicating something is out of whack with that part of the "equation".
johnmeyer wrote on 7/29/2005, 9:19 PM
To troubleshoot, you can select just a portion of the timeline to print and then see if Vegas starts to render. This might help you "zero in" on what is causing the problem.
Widetrack wrote on 7/29/2005, 9:46 PM
I rendered each segment using my own custom template based on the DV widescreen template and modified only to use the Best video quality and 48K audio. The project into which I dragged the segments is also widescreen DV, best qual. 48K. These are the same specc which I'm using to print.

Checked each segment in the Media pool and got the same specs.

Selected a short (couple seconds) portion of one segment which definitely has no crossfades or any other element that could need rendering and got the same "80%" message.

My breighn hertz.

Widetrack wrote on 7/29/2005, 10:01 PM
Will trimming a rendered segment create this situation?

I'm sure crossfading or fade-in/outs will, but how much?

Widetrack wrote on 7/29/2005, 10:21 PM
And BTW, what would happen if Vegas just did that bit-for-bit thing?

I'm experimenting with soem of my rendered segments in fresh projects and still get 2 or 3 little thermometer dialog boxes that indicate SOME processing or rendering or something is going on.

What happens in an optimal situation? Is there ever NO rendering before PTT?

Liam_Vegas wrote on 7/30/2005, 3:03 AM
What happens in an optimal situation? Is there ever NO rendering before PTT?

If the input=output (as long as it is DV AVI I guess) then no rendering is done. Just a bit-for-bit copy. I regularly do this sort of thing... and I get bit-for-bit copies. The "rendering" in this case happens much fatsr than real-time (1 hour timeline might be "rendered" in 10 minutes or even less).

In your case there must be something else at play. I think John Meyer suggested you verify if you had actually rendered to UNCOMPRESSED rather than straight DV AVI. That would definitely cause this sort of behaviour.

Trimming of clips would not cause a re-render. Yes... doing a cross-fade... or adding ANY other FX onto the media/timeline will require re-rendering.
Widetrack wrote on 7/30/2005, 9:44 AM
LiamV:

thanx for the help. I'm back on track, but need to re-render several segments to ensure I use no trims, crossfades etc in the final project from which I'll PTT.

I've done a few test projects where it seems not to render, but goes quickly to Printing. Hopes this is the case when i go live.

Thanks to everyone for the analyses and suggestions.

WT
johnmeyer wrote on 7/30/2005, 10:11 AM
When you print to tape, you ALWAYS have to wait for Vegas to create an audio file, but this doesn't take long.

When Vegas actually creates new video, you should see the preview window show the updated video as the render progresses. By contrast, when no new video is being created (i.e., the video bits are just being copied), the preview window will not change at all.
Widetrack wrote on 7/30/2005, 10:23 AM
So I guess I'd better change my settings so renders are visible in the preview window (Doh!)

I'd thought to turn off preview so as to free up maximum resources for the render. Does it matter?