If I selectively pre-render a range of video, and then make subsequent changes within a smaller range of that one.. it seems to kill the entire pre-render.. yet if you do the same using dynamic ram preview, it knows enough to hang onto the frames that haven't changed. why is this?
I don't know, but I would love to see an intelligent selective prerender in VV 4.0. Something, like you suggest, that would use portions of pre-rendered files that are not affected by subsequent edits. A step towards this, though not ideal, would be for the pre-rendered files to cease rendering at points in the timeline where there are splices or cuts across all video tracks.
The manual states that it pre-renders many separate files, which seems to be the case if you look at the blue bars up top. This way any subsequent change only disables a single pre-rendered file. But some questions to put out there:
1) Can you change the number/duration of pre-rendered files?
2) Where on the hard drive do these files get stored and in what format?
3) Can I change the location of where it putst these files?
> 1) Can you change the number/duration of pre-rendered files?
Looks like it -- if you go into the Internal settings (hold shift when clicking options -> preferences) and search for "pre-render" you'll find a setting that defaults to 300. I'm sure SF won't support any changes made here, but give it a shot.
> 2) Where on the hard drive do these files get stored and in what format?
In the folder where Vegas is installed.
> 3) Can I change the location of where it putst these files?