Too much rendering?

Melbo wrote on 6/9/2013, 6:02 PM
New to forum and new to video editing. II have Movie Studio Platinum 11. Just bit off a huge chunk of learning curve and edited a 3 camera shoot of a wedding. Trying to understand rendering. I got everything edited on the time line and used the "Make a Movie" button within Platinum 11. I figured I'd use this instead of the DVD maker software that came with Platinum 11 because the DVD maker program looked too complicated for me at this point. So here's what I did. I'd burn a DVD in Platinum 11, look at it, make some adjustments to my project and burn another DVD. After doing this about 6 times, I made the final DVD. Then I read that rendering this many times can really degrade the final DVD. Is this right? Thanks for any thoughts about this.

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 6/9/2013, 6:21 PM
Are you making changes in your project and rendering from your project?
If so, you can do this as many times as you want.

"Degradation" occurs when you take a rendered file and then render it to another file, and so on.
You want to avoid multiple generations; multiple renders from a single project are ok.

Melbo wrote on 6/9/2013, 9:16 PM
Yep. From the same project. Great! That's a relief. Now I once did a "saved as" and renamed the file as a backup and did do some editing and burned a DVD from that renamed file. Would that be considered a generation? Thanks for your help!
musicvid10 wrote on 6/9/2013, 9:36 PM
A project is not a movie file, it is a set of instructions.
You may change, save, and use those instructions over and over again to render movie files without wearing them out.

There are a really nice set of interactive tutorials on the toolbar of your program. Once you've been through them, post back with any further questions.

Best of luck.
Melbo wrote on 6/9/2013, 10:31 PM
Yeah. Been through many of them, and others on Youtube. Very helpful. But I had read something online today about rendering being a form of compression and too many times could be harmful to video quality. Went to the Platinum 11 tutorials and index and really didn't find anything on over-rendering. Thought I'd try the forum. This will be a great place for additional help. Thanks for taking the time to respond. Appreciate it much!
videoITguy wrote on 6/10/2013, 12:35 PM
Rendering is an NLE process defined as starting with some source file and outputting a different file through the use of a file type, container, and a codec with an associated level of compression. Avi and Mov are containers. You can render an uncompressed lossless avi contained file of a particular file type.

It is the codec and the associated compression you need worry about. The compression of a file type followed by a recompression in a second file type is your biggest headahce.

NLE editors use intermediates - the files that are created in post production steps- before final - with these values set to optimum.

The Cineform codec is a good example of an NLE intermediate that can be in either an .avi or .mov container at various levels of compression. Cineform can easily go to the 5th generation without visible degradation in quality.
musicvid10 wrote on 6/10/2013, 1:59 PM
Melbo, that's right. Sequential renders are bad.
Here's the whole story, written so most people can understand:
http://www.maximumcompression.com/lossless_vs_lossy.php