rendering time and file size questions from the new guy - humor me

arbutis24 wrote on 2/19/2003, 11:36 PM
Using VV3 I am planning a project/mini-movie that may be about 30 minutes long. I am new to all of this and I am curious about a few things. I can capture from my DV camcorder fine and place and edit the events on the timeline. My goal is to:
1) be able to watch the finished project on my television and
2)Make video CD's to distribute to friends and family.
(Both without losing much in the way of quality)

So my questions...
1)Why does it take so INCREDIBLY long (like 5 minutes)to render like a 10 second segment of my edited clips? I am only imagining how long it will take to render the whole 30 minute project when I am finished editing!!! (OK- tell me... how long is it going to take???) Is this because I am keeping the quality so high?
2)Is there a way to render individual 'scenes' of my movie seperately and then stitch them all together at the end? Or will the FINAL rendering take a million years no matter what I do along the way?
and Lastly...(what's with the HUGE file sizes?)
3)I watched a movie trailer that I downloaded (12MB) it was a DivX format .avi and it looked incredible on my computer screen. It was about 5 minutes long with transitions and music and titles, etc. I capture 10 seconds from my camcorder and I have a 35MB file! I obviously need to learn a bit about compression and quality - can someone please direct me where to go for this research. I would like to get the quality I saw in that 5 minute trailer and keep the file sizes to a minimum - this would allow me to make some pretty nice (and long) video CD's without having to get a DVD burner ($$$)

Comments

efiebke wrote on 2/19/2003, 11:55 PM
About 3 1/2 months ago, I was in the same shoes you're in now. I'm still a beginner. There's just so much to learn! However, I've learned a lot over the past few months . . . simply by lurking. I spend a lot of time reading the posts, utilizing the search functions of many of the video bulletin boards and, like you, posting questions.

Here's what I've learned so far in regards to your questions:

1) I does take quite some time to render your dv projects. A lot is dependent on your processor speed. It seems that the higher your processor speed, the faster the rendering. I'm used to dealing mainly with audio information (.wav files). Video information requires a huge amount of memory and therefore processing power. I have a Pentium III 733 mhz based computer with 1 gb ram. It took slightly under an hour to render an edited DV project (sound levels/effects & video effects, transitions and titles) that was a little more than an hour long.

2) Part of the 1 hour project was about 3 shorter scenes. For me, the "rendering process" was the "stitching together" of the 3 shorter scenes with both sound and video effects applied.

3) That little more than an hour file was rendered in an ".avi" file. The size of this file was a little over 13 GB!!! I recently purchased a 120 GB (7200 rpm) hard drive. I am soooooooo glad I did! I'm still learning the in's and out's of the different compression video files: "avi" verses "mpeg1" verses "mpeg2".

This forum is chuck full of knowledgable (sp?) people. I've read (lurked) many a post here . . . . always walking away with a little bit more know-how with regards to the video shooting/editing world.

Other great sources of information:

www.dvinfo.net
www.creativecow.net
www.dv.com

There are also a couple of really good web sites that deal with VCD and DVD authoring. Don't remember them off hand. Here's an excellent web-site dedicated to assisting those interested in DVD authoring:

www.dvdrhelp.com/author

Good luck and have fun! For me, the learning process is half the enjoyment! :)

Ted Fiebke, RN
TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/20/2003, 12:25 AM
What are the specs on your computer? At work, we have an AMD 1ghz with 256 MB ram, and it takes (on average) 4x the length of your project to render. So if I render a 30 second clip, it takes about 2 minutes. Also, you don't have an antivirus running in the background, do you? It may be reading the hard drive as you're rendering.
The number of effects makes rendering times change too. Les effects = less rendering time. Project size and rendering size make a difference too. Remember, the computer has to re-size all your frames.
What's your bit-rate? If you doing SVCD's (i do too), you want a bitrate around 2300. That's the max SVCD's can be I belive.
As to why your computer makes a 10s file 35mb, your compression is probley low. Downside is higher compression = smaller file = worse picture.
What I normally do is render my video's to Divx AVI, then use Nero Vision Express with the DVD/SVCD encoder plugin to convert my AVI's to mpeg-2 and burn them to CD. That encoder encodes slower then most, but it's quality is really high, and I can just drop and drag my AVI's in and walk away since it burns to CD when it's done. Now, you can use different mpeg's for different chapters/tracks on (S)VCD's, but there is a slight pause between them, so it's best to have one who track be a complete scene.
Also, VCD's hold about 60 minutes of audio/video, and SVCDs hold about 30 minutes. SVCD is a higher quality though.
slacy wrote on 2/20/2003, 5:00 AM
I have a P4 1.9Ghz machine with 1GB of RAM, but my renders are pretty slow. I have a one-minute project that utilizes a fair amount of effects, but it takes 35 minutes to render! That seems awful slow for a one-minute timeline.

Does that seem right? Is there something I'm missing?
arbutis24 wrote on 2/20/2003, 5:16 AM
Thanks for the feedback - this forum is a very good source of information. I fear that my [P3 450mHz processor with 60GB hard drive and 256 SDR RAM] is going to be the death of me - I am so jealous of those $1500 MEGA power computers that I see everywhere I go with 3gHz processor speeds and DDR Ram up the wazoo! I paid 2x that for my system 3 years ago and it feels like a dinosaur now. I may have to bit the bullet $$$ if I am going to have the speed of rendering that is possible.
Thank you for clearing a few of these things up for me.
I don't see where VV3 gives me the option to render to DivX avi? Am I missing something? And what's the difference b/t SVCD and VCD? and where should I look for the bitrate? (I feel so stupid - like I'm asking the most baby-like questions. But if I don't ask, I'll never know)
If I am doing a project that I would like to see on the TV some day - isn't it smart to 'capture' at the highest quality? even if my 10 second segments are 35MB? Are others out there capturing at this same quality level regularly?
Also, if someone could explain the mpeg-1 mpeg-2 DivX encoder decoder mystery to me that would be helpful.
arbutis24 wrote on 2/20/2003, 5:20 AM
WOW - one minue taking 35 minutes to render??? With the computer you described, I would think that it would be ultrafast! What the heck is a 30 minute film going to take to render? Is this common - or are there some settings that can be tweaked a bit to still produce a very acceptable final result in quality but a much shorter render time and smaller file size?
Chienworks wrote on 2/20/2003, 6:36 AM
One thing i haven't seen mentioned here is the fact that while straight DV -> DV renders can be extremely fast, any editing more than simple cuts always adds greatly to the rendering time. None of you are mentioning what sort of editing you may be doing. Any time that Vegas has to alter the frame rather than just copy slows it down. This includes such things as crossfade, crop, pan, track motion, transitions, effects, titles, compositing, etc. Whenever ANY alteration of the video is done, rendering can slow down drastically. I can render 1 minute of DV -> DV with no alterations in about 25 seconds on my 866MHz P3. If i do nothing more than crop it, the same render can take over 5 minutes.

On top of all that, if you are rendering to any format other than DV -> DV or uncompressed AVI -> uncompressed AVI, then Vegas must compress as well and this can take a great deal of time. Rendering a 1 minute DV file to MPEG-2 can take over 3 minutes on my computer. Add cropping or other effects and the time can shoot up to 10 minutes or more. Any adjustment to hue or saturation can double or triple rendering time.
Slim450 wrote on 2/20/2003, 8:08 AM
That all sounds true... but what he (and I) would like to know is - What can be done to make this whole process go faster and smoother when you do have a lot of wipes and transitions and fades and things that make a movie a movie???
I know what slows it down - but what can speed it up? But keep the quality the same?
jetdv wrote on 2/20/2003, 10:00 AM
Here is the FASTEST way you can render:

1. Capture as standard DV files and use ONLY those on the timeline. When going from DV to DV, only sections that are MODIFIED are actually rendered. If you pull in ANY other format, you will have to rerender every frame.

2. Keep the modifications to a minimum. For example, don't do ANYTHING at the track or project level or EVERY FRAME will have to be rerendered and make sure the "level" on the track stays at 100%.

3. Instead of Render-As (which will create an entire full copy of the project by rendering sections as required and copying the other section) do a Print To Tape which will only create new files for the modified sections.

riredale wrote on 2/20/2003, 11:33 AM
I am wondering whether you changed the settings on VV for "best quality" compared to the default settings. This might account for very long rendering times. One thing you might try, before tearing your hair out over the speed of your current system, is to reinstall VV and try doing another render, but this time leaving all "quality" settings at default. There is a "Default all" button under Options/Preferences, but I don't know if it returns the entire program to fresh-install settings.

Another point I wanted to mention is to gently suggest that you take a serious look at producing a DVD of your work, not a VCD. The difference in quality is very significant, and if your work is something you want to view in 10 or 20 years, I think it's likely that only the DVD format will be easily readable on the players that people will be able to buy then. Also, I personally think VCD looks worse than VHS due to the blocky artifacts, but that's an individual call.

DVD players can be purchased for $50. I have three Apex 1500's that I bought for about that price (one was $39!), and they work great.
JackHughs wrote on 2/20/2003, 11:58 AM
I don't believe that I can answer all your questions but some of this may help. I too have a 450mhz P3 with 256 mB ram running Windows 98se. Rendering a 4 minute 24 second video with titles, transitions, fx, and color correction takes 4 hours for mpeg1 or mpeg2 and 3 hours, 45 minutes for .avi - all at the highest quality.

VCD requires a mpeg1 file. SVCD requires a mpeg2 file. I believe that DivX is mpeg4. If you don't want to spend the bucks for a DVD burner, your best hope for the highest quality, the easiest to use, and the most universally accepted TV output is to render to open dml .avi, print to tape, and make VHS copies. This is not whiz-bang stuff but your friends and family will be able to see your work without the grief and frustration attendant to non-compatible formats, players, and media. That's right, some blank CD-R's will make useable VCD's and SVCD's and some won't.

The fact that you have only one 60 gig hard drive is going to cause you pain - especially when you print to tape. The pro's on this board consistently offer one piece of really good advice for those in this situation. The best, least-cost upgrade you could make to your system is to buy a PCI IDE board and another hard drive. The extra IDE channels allow you have a dedicated drive for capture, rendering, and print to tape that is independent of your system drive. This won't speed up rendering appreciably, if at all, but it will eliminate the most common print to tape problems.

JackHughs