Rendering with networked computers

[Clark Peters]

Are there any tricks to rendering using networked computers? I can't find any documentation in the Vegas manual. Somehow, I doubt that it's as easy as checking the box in the rendering dialog.
Thanks.
Pete

[Alastair Brown]

Your right, it's not that easy. Been put off trying it as you hear that all the pc's have to match i.e. all have to have the same fonts loaded and other stuff like that. Just set yout current rig off rendering and go to bed!

[Jeff Harper]

do a forum search for "network rendering". Most of the information you need can be found in old threads. Network rendering is of very limted use to most users.

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

do a forum search for "network rendering". Most of the information you need can be found in old threads. Network rendering is of very limted use to most users.

I finally got this to work this past weekend with Vegas8. I NEVER got it to work with 6.

• If you are using anything But Win2K / XP give up :-)
• Share the drive containing your media. I keep everything under D:\video (including all vegas project files and project content).
• Use static IPs on a wired network (preferably gigabit)
• Make sure all computers use the same user names & passwords
• Install Vegas the same way on both systems
• All fonts needed will need to be installed on both computers (found out the hard way on that.... WTF is this text doing in Ariel when I wanted Comic Sans?)
• start render service on both systems
• Use the render service's "map drives" feature
• on master system, register the "slave's" IP address.
• Start vegas; select render; choose render file type and select the use network render
• when the "network render" dialog pops up, do not selest "distributed render" instead just try the simple way by selecting the OTHER computer as the render host.
• make sure the temp file location is a shard location. I kept it in my "d:\video" directory but you MUST map it using the network share \\my_pc\video\xyz" and not the drive letter share.
• hit go!

let me know if that was helpful.

jason

[Jeff Harper]

Jason, what benefit do you get from networked rendering?

[Jason Robinson]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

Jason, what benefit do you get from networked rendering?

IF you project realy is short (can be rendered in under 5 minutes) then it might not be a benefit. But even then, for example I just ripped through 7 different render types (WMV in 4 quality settings & Quicktime in 3) and I shoved all those render tasks to the network system while I continued to work on my main system. The longest render took about 8 minutes I think, but I didn't have to stop and interrupt my work to kick off a different render when one was finished. I just queued up everything and let it run.

[Clark Peters]

Thanks Jason. I'll use your method and see what happens.
Pete

[Jeff Harper]

Yes, I see. When I need to do batch rendering of many different file types it will come in handy I suppose. Because of the ridiculous amount of extra boot time and resources demanded by my ethernet connection I just drop kicked my network connection to the curb. I found the whole network experience highly underwhelming even when performing well. At first it was a novelty but it wore off for me pretty quickly.