some varieties of .mxf, hdv, and xavc

my favorite no longer does so though xdcam ex ;-(

".mxf, hdv, and xavc"

.MXF using xdcam ex profile smart renders. The only difference is its not using the .mp4 container.

Thanks people.
So Im using Cineform atm, are any of those suggestions of similar size and speed to initially transcode?

DV smartrenders too.

This just in!

Vegas Pro 13 opens files rendered as elementary streams for [I]Blu-ray[/I] (.m2v) and smart renders them.

Details Here.

"So Im using Cineform atm, are any of those suggestions of similar size and speed to initially transcode?"

Probably not.

Assuming that you are using HD, then that rules out DV AVI.

Lagarith is a lossless encoder that also smart renders. It is reasonably quick - two times real time to transcode AVCHD on my machine. Files would be larger than Cineform. The Lagarith encoded AVCHD file was 19 times larger.

Sony MXF is an acceptable codec for video stream to import into DVDAPro. It compares with Cineform in mid-level handling. Cineform is not an acceptable video file codec for DVDAPro.

VideoITguy, can you be more explicit?

MXF is a container, not a codec, but leaving that to one side, what settings should I use to make an MXF file acceptable to DVDA?

Using Sony MXF with the HD EX template, the MXF file generated will smart render in Vegas, but DVDA insists on re-rendering it. The MXF file is 35 Mbps MPEG2 and gets converted to 18 Mbps MPEG4 AVC.

The Sony MXF HD CAM SR templates produce very high bit rates (375 or 188 Mbps) and don't smart render.

Sony MXF container for Mpeg2 - this is a codec option in VegasPro 9.0e in-built - not a camera capture.... render to Mpeg2 type in DVDAPro - not AVC - otherwise you are just forcing recompression

Yes, I had it set to AVC. However setting it to MPEG2 is no help either, because the max megabit rate DVDA will accept is 27 (not 28 as it says) whereas the video file is 35 and there is no other option in Vegas. So once again DVDA re-renders.

However, the DVDA project setting is irrelevant to my point really, because if the MPEG2 file were compatible, it would have been processed without re-compression regardless of the setting. I would have got an AVC menu and an MPEG2 video in my Blu-ray

Canopus HQ smart-render "beautifully" ;)

Some may recall this thread on Canopus HQ. I know not whether its concerns are still relevant

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=818496&keycode=9500-9500

Well this is all interesting information. Thanks again for chiming in.
I own Cineform and it would be perfect, but Im still getting some strange things happening with it.

Eg. I convert all my footage to Cineform in Vegas. I know they recommend to use their tools, but it just suits my workflow to do it in Vegas. Long event, one cam with many spanned files becomes one Cineform event.

I cut up my project and render to create a Cineform intermediate. All good so far.

Now, if I render in Vegas to m2v etc for DVD or Bluray I get random black frames, or sometimes minutes of black footage.
I dont have time to watch every min of every project. Once while editing and CCing is enough.

But, If I take my Cineform renders into Tmpgenc, AFX, or any other program, they are just fine.

So, I conclude that the problem is with Vegas, but it doesnt matter, if I could find another intermediate that could match Cineform in, encoding speed, playback ability, and file size (very important, 15TB is enough to have on the shelf.) I would change.
I would miss the meta data of the Cineform files though....

Some may recall this thread on Canopus HQ.

I recently tested the Grass Valley (formerly Canopus) Lossless and HQX SuperFine codecs against other lossless codecs including MagicYUV. My results are in my post of 12/4/2014 7:19:35 PM on this thread. I was expecting to like it but I was disappointed in the playback smoothness and file size, to the extent that I decided to just stick with MagicYUV. Maybe the Grass Valley HQ codec is better.

I get random black frames, or sometimes minutes of black footage.

Yes, black frames or events are still a problem, especially with 3rd party AVI codecs. One important thing in avoiding that is to restart Vegas and do as little as possible in it before you render. And turn off GPU acceleration in the video preferences. A reboot wouldn't be a bad idea either.

More on the Grass Valley codecs.

Grass Valley HQ (AVI) does indeed smart render. I was surprised by that. But it only goes up to HD. Good as a free, near-lossless , 8-bit codec to compare Cineform to though.

Grass Valley HQX goes up to 4k, but it won't smart render.

I just used Grass Vally HQX for HD encoding. This way it does smart render.

Will test with 4k media now …

@Nick Hope

Canopus HQ is way faster then HQX. and HQX does smart render. i just tested the last version available and it did smart render in HD and 4K presets.

It did another tests using Grass Valley HQX for 4k encoding (4096x2160).

Encoder setting first test: Custom 6/60.
Encoder setting second test: Online (Superfine).

In both cases smart rendering worked fine.

Just did a playback test now on my netbook (Intel Core i3, 2x 1,5 GHz, 4 GB RAM, no GPU playback support). Used 1080p25 source footage shot by Sony AS100. Internal Preview set to "Best (Full)".

FPS rate of source footage: Less than 2 fps.
FPS rate of Grass Valley HQ encoded file (setting 10/50): 25 fps.
FPS rate of Grass Valley HQX encoded file (setting 10/50): 25 fps.

I think the playback performance of HQX files deeply depends on the encoder settings and the resulting data rate, though I can't see a difference between HQ and HQX after this one test. The difference I see is in the file size. Same encoder settings, and HQX results in a data rate 75 % of HQ. This may vary using different encoder settings.

Edit:
Just did a few additional render tests. Whenever I used same encoding settings (for the HQ/HQX encoder), resulting files both of HQ and HQX had same playback performance.

HQX does smart render

Sorry, you're right. I just tested it at UHD 4k resolution and Online(Superfine) setting and it does smart render. Apologies for the misinformation. I must have had some mismatched setting earlier.

When I did those tests I used used the superfine quality setting because I was putting it up against lossless codecs. So my conclusion that it's disappointing was probably unfair. It probably excels at a slightly more lossy setting, with smaller files and faster decoding.

HQX results in a data rate 75 % of HQ... ...resulting files both of HQ and HQX had same playback performance.

Do you see any reason to use HQ rather than HQX?

At this moment based on a few tests I would say: I can't see a reason to use HQ, use HQX instead. But I wouldn't take this for granted. It'd take more tests and another look into Grass Valley's White Paper to be sure.

I remember at least one downside of both HQ and HQX. If I'm right none of them opens in HandBrake.

"I remember at least one downside of both HQ and HQX. If I'm right none of them opens in HandBrake."

But Cineform will not open in Handbrake either. But I can render Cineform to Handbrake via the Send to Handbrake script in Vegas.
Would it be different with the Grass Valley Codecs?