I believe you meant to post this is the Vegas forum not the Vegas Script form as this has nothing to do with scripting.

> i can render 1920x1080 HD (avchd ntsc 1920x1080) in 8.0c but its not available in pro 8.1 all i get is (1440x1080 avchd) which is a superior version. whats wrong

Nothing is wrong. The problem is that Vegas Pro 8.1 is based on 8.0b not 8.0c so unfortunately the new functionality and rendering templates in 8.0c are not in 8.1.

~jr

> what would be the difference between what you noted (AVCHD NTSC 1920x1080) and rendering to MPEG-2 using the Blu-ray 1920x1080-60i template, at either 8 or 25Mbps?

They use different codecs and bitrates. One is AVC at 16Mbps and the other is MPEG2 at 25Mbps. If your camera shoots footage in AVCHD you should use the AVC template, if your camera shoots HDV you should use the MPEG2 template. There is no advantage to rendering 16Mbps AVCHD footage at the 25Mbps HDV rate. You're just wasting disc space as you will gain no quality.

> I don't think I have a good handle yet on the differences between the "Save as type" and "Template" settings in the 'Render As' parameters? I thought I understood, but now I am not so sure.

"Save as type" is the container to put the video into. You can almost equate it with a file type (i.e., avi, mov, etc). You'll notce choices like Video for Windows and Quicktime. It specifies the file format so that other applications that support these formats will know how to open the file and read it.

"Template" is the contents that you put into the container/file including the resolution and codec that will be used. For example, an avi file can hold DV, MPEG4, MJPEG, etc. in the Video for Windows format. Likewise mov files can contain DV, MPEG4, MJPEG, etc. in the Quicktime format. Each file type can hold several different types of media.

One is the wrapper and the other is what's inside the wrapper.

> I guess I thought that when you said "NTSC" that pretty much meant 720x480 as a standard.

NTSC is a number of video formats that conform to the the NTSC standard. Only DV is 720x480, NTSC D1 is 720x486, NTSC D1 Square Pixels is 720x540, NTSC HD is either 1280x720 or 1920x1080. So there are a number of NTSC standards. What they all have in common is that they are all 29.97 frames per second.

> I have watched the tutorial movie and even checked out Gary Kleiner's DVD on rendering, but still don't think I have a firm grasp on this concept.

Maybe you should take a look at the VASST Absolute Training for Vegas+DVD series. We try and explain things as simple as possible.

~jr