Rendering taking a long time

Clark153 wrote on 3/28/2008, 12:40 PM
I just upgraded Vegas 8 from Vegas 6. In the past I have rendered a number of 1 hour videos (all AVI clips with only a few still images) to MPEG 2 - they have usually taken about 6 hours to render.

I have a 1 hour project that has 3 video tracks (title track, video and still images on the other track, back ground JPG files on the last track) and 2 audio tracks (audio on one track, music – MPG3 and some WAV is on the other track). It is composed of mostly still images (over 400 about 40 minutes of the total length) and one AVI video clip. Almost all of the images are JPG, about 750K in size and I have used motion via key frames on them all.

The problem, Vegas is estimating that it will 36 hours to render to an MPEG 2 file (I let it run for over 2 hours and it was only about 4% complete). If I must, I can let it run but I was wondering if there is something that I can change that will make it faster.

Would it help if I broke the Vegas project into 3 or 4 smaller files, render them separately, and then combine them in DVD architect?
Is the use of key frames on each picture the reason?

Any input or help would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

rs170a wrote on 3/28/2008, 1:23 PM
36 hr. is definitely not normal render time for a 1 hr. video.
Have you applied any FX of any kind anywhere on the timeline, at the track level or on the master output?
Did you accidentally bump the opacity levels anywhere?
Did you accidentally bump the video level in the track header?

Mike
busterkeaton wrote on 3/28/2008, 6:52 PM
Are you using 32bit
Laurence wrote on 3/28/2008, 8:03 PM
I'm in the midst of doing some 32bit color correction renders and the current one is ten and a half hours so far with 3 more to go! I'm not even sure that I see a whole lot of difference between 8 and 32 bit renders. I'm just doing it because I know it is ever so slightly better. I don't know if it's four times the render time better...

Does anyone know if the 64 bit version of Vegas will do 32 bit renders quicker? It seems like that might be one of the real advantages of the extra bits.

Laurence wrote on 3/28/2008, 8:12 PM
Also, if you're using 3D alpha mode on any of your tracks it will slow Vegas renders down to an absolute crawl.
Clark153 wrote on 3/28/2008, 9:04 PM
rs170a - Only using a few FX, but only a few pictures not the whole track. I will check the opacity levels and the video level - thanks for the input

busterkeaton - I'm not sure if I am using 32 bit, how do I check. What are the other bit options and the advantages/disadvantages? thanks for helping.

laurence - no 3D alpha, but good to know what the effect on rendering is.
busterkeaton wrote on 3/29/2008, 12:18 PM
Check your project properties.

V8 added 32 bit color render. It allows more dynamic range and less banding of effects, but only in certain circumstances do you see a dramatic difference. takes longer, especially on older machines.
Clark153 wrote on 3/30/2008, 11:55 AM
I didn't see 32 bit rendering in the project properties. Would it be displayed as that or another name? Is it only in Vegas Pro (I do not have pro).

I did do some testing and just adding a simple track motion key frame slows down the rendering process a great deal. When I take the key frame off a picture, you can see the speed of the frames being rendered speed up considerably. When it gets to a picture that has a key frame it slows down again.

I am building a new quad processor machine with 4 gig of memory, and 2 SATA 750 gig HDD. Maybe I will leave the key frames in and wait until I have the new machine and then render on it.

Thanks for your input.