Hey everyone. I just saw the thread that Leif posted about problems with saving their file. I actually am having a separate problem of my own and figured it would be best to do a different thread on it. Because I'm at work and not in front of my video, which is at home, I will give you as much information as I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Please keep in mind that this area of expertise is an area I'm VERY weak at, so I need a simplistic explanation.
2. The video I have edited is 1 hour in length and rendered as an AVI file in 720 30p mode.
3. The client (who happens to be my first customer) wants to put it on their webpage.
4. I tried saving it as an "internet format" file, but it degrades the video so bad that you can't even tell what's going on.
5. The avi file I saved is now 12GB and that's far too big for their webpage.
6. They want me to upload the file to their ftp site and that will take a full 5 days to upload thanks to the internet throttling the byte transfer.

That brings me to my first question so I can get this matter resolved: Is there another file format I can save the video as, so it's not as big of a file, and it doesn't degrade the video so badly that it can't be used? This might help you answer my question: I did upload a 10 minute section to Youtube and it looked okay to the client. So, what video format is Youtube using? Maybe I can save it in that format.

What version of Vegas are you using?
What "internet format" file did you use?
I've rendered using the Sony AVC Internet 1280x720-30p template and it looks very good.

12 Gig sounds correct for a DV-AVI file 1 hour long.

There's lots of posts here concerning rendering for the internet/youtube/vimeo. Start with those posts. Your best bet is probably rendering to MP4.

Mike: I'm using Vegas Pro 10. The "internet format" I was speaking of was when you change the project properties to one of the ones that says "Internet" on it, like the one you're talking about. It made the picture VERY grainy in the preview window. Does that mean that the preview window settings are off but it will render fine once I do an actual render of it?

Edward: Thank you for that. I will look up the very threads you speak of. I wondered if mp4 was the route to go. I can certainly try that tonight when I get home from work.

you could also render the avi to flv and send that to them. That's what I do and it works quite well plus just about everyone can play flash.

Mike: I'm using Vegas Pro 10. The "internet format" I was speaking of was when you change the project properties to one of the ones that says "Internet" on it, like the one you're talking about. It made the picture VERY grainy in the preview window. Does that mean that the preview window settings are off but it will render fine once I do an actual render of it?

Project Properties should always match your source footage.
It's only at render time that you choose what you really want.
As I type this, I'm rendering a short video (shot in 1920x1080i) and the Sony AVC Internet 1280x720-30p preset looks great!!
Heck, even the Internet 640x360-30p preset looked OK.

BTW, a quick test render for one minute of video at the 1280x720-30p preset came out to 50.7 MB so your one hour video would be 3.042 GB.
Lowering the bitrate from 8,000,000 to 4,000,000 reduces the one minute size by half (1.506 GB. for an hour) and still looked OK to me.

Great, thanks Mike!! I will try that tonight.

Thanks guys!!! I used the mp4 format and it was perfect for what I needed!! That's what I love about this site, is that you can get quick answers from people who know what you're talking about!

Russ, thanks for letting us know that it worked out for you.

This video is going to be displayed directly from a website? Try the following render settings using the MainConcept AVC Encoder:

http://www.jazzythedog.com/testing/images/MC-1500bps-RenderSettings.png

If you get too much blocking in transitions, you might bump up the bitrate. Also, this may only work in Vegas 10.0 as I understand the MainConcept encoder has been improved in this version.

Next, and this is very important. In order for the video to progressively download (i.e. start playing before the entire clip gets downloaded), you must modify the moov atom in the rendered output. Get mp4faststart to modify the render: HERE: Data Go Round Lab (http://www.datagoround.com/lab/)

Good Luck!
...Jerry

PS: You also might apply the Sony Levels FX with the "Computer RGB to Studio RGB" preset to your clips.