hi there
I shoot HDV with the Z1 and HDV/full HD with the Ex1r and I am wondering what's the best output setting for Vegas 8?

I need to do web distribution (high def version + normal definition for lower connections) and I need to include videos in USB keys

should I use WMV, Divx, AVC?
thanks
Fed

compatibility and quality are 2 important factors here. Flash may be the best bet for compatibility. Almost anything else and you are certain have some browser, somewhere, that can't view it without a plugin, if the viewer will be bothered to download it. If you are keeping it in a pure video format, wmv is usually the best bet in my experience, with decent compatibility and good quality if encoded right.

is there an option in Vegas where I can have two versions of let's say WMV one high quality and the other normaly quality, rendered at the same time?
I need to create different versions for each clip

or how else would you do this?

No you cannot render both at same time using the normal Vegas setup.

Sure you can! Start Vegas TWICE - and set each one to rendering - one instance to each format.

duhhh......

Or do one after the other with the Batch Render script.

WMV's spec includes multibitrate within one file, very cool, and, Vegas exposed this control on the "bitrate" tab of the custom render settings for WMV.

To use it, you would check more than one of the bitrates, plug in your rates, and go to town.

There's another WMV mbr control that Vegas doesn't expose, which allows different frame sizes for multiple bitrates, you'd have to render each rate/size separately, then use the freeware Windows Media Stream Editor that comes as part of the WMV Encoder 9 or SDK to mux them into one file...