I created a quick 'n dirty YouTube tutorial which shows how you can render your finished Vegas project through an AVISynth script. There are dozens of reasons you might want to do this, but this particular example shows how to take an HD project, resize it in AVISynth, and then render the result of that resizing script using the Vegas MPEG-2 DVD Architect Widescreen template.

This technique works with Windows XP 32-bit. For later versions of Windows, especially those which are 64-bit, you may need to use an emulation mode.

The advantage of the approach shown here is that you do not have to take any time or any disk space to create intermediate files. This will eliminate all the time (hours) and disk space (100s of GB) involved with the usual workflow most people use with Vegas. In this usual workflow, people first render the project to an intermediate file, then open this file in AVISynth. They then open this AVS script file in some program that can read AVS files directly (most often using VirtualDub), and then render from that program to another intermediate file. They then open this intermediate file in Vegas, and only then do they render to the final MPEG-2, MP4, or other final delivery video format.

This approach eliminates both intermediate files, along with all the time and disk space it takes to create them.

So, if you use AVISynth, and want to save hours and lots of GB, watch this very short tutorial.