Vegas "Pre-renders" vs "Final Renders"? at DVinfo.net

Glen Elliott · July 10th, 2003, 11:23 AM

I read documentation from Sonic Foundry regarding how to handle 24p footage. They said when dealing with DVX100 24pA footage set your pre-renders for "2-3-3-2" pulldown and final renders at "2-3". Now, what's the difference between a pre-render and final render? If I add some clips with transitions and render the transitions is this a pre-render? If so what's a final render? If the transitions and effects are "pre-rendered" isn't that the final step?

The only instance I can think that you'd have to run another step of rendering is if your encoding- but they have a whole other setting to output to MPG2 for encoding (stating to use the DVD Architech 24p preset). *I'm a bit confused*

Glen Elliott · July 14th, 2003, 08:39 AM

No one knows?

Tor Salomonsen · July 15th, 2003, 07:50 AM

I'm in PAL-land, but as far as I can see, to get the options you mention, you must render to DV (that will be the final render). You may then encode to MPEG.
Pre-render is for previewing purposes.

Glen Elliott · July 15th, 2003, 08:00 AM

Would you have to render the "entire" timeline even if you don't have any effects on certian parts? I'm comming from a Premiere workflow and whatever areas that don't have transitions and/or effects don't have to be rendered when outputting to tape. Just render all the transitions and your done? Is vegas different?...Must you render a full DV AVI of the entire timeline to output to tape? Thus doubling the amount of HD space a project takes up?

Latly how do you pre-render, say a tansition between two clips. I know the shift+B ram render option but how do you actually do a real render for that section?

Tor Salomonsen · July 15th, 2003, 08:41 AM

You mean a real pre-render? Select your area on the timeline and press Shift-M. Vegas will then use the redered section(s) for preview. I'm not sure if it will use them for the final render.
For a final render you must render everything, but the parts with no FXs or transitions (and possibly the pre-rendered sections) will render at next to real time, probably faster. The resulting file will use disc space, though. Unless you render to tape, in which case it will use tape space.

Edward Troxel · July 15th, 2003, 09:58 AM

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Would you have to render the "entire" timeline even if you don't have any effects on certian parts? I'm comming from a Premiere workflow and whatever areas that don't have transitions and/or effects don't have to be rendered when outputting to tape. Just render all the transitions and your done? Is vegas different?... -->>>

No, Vegas is not different. If you to a PTT, it will ONLY render the sections that were changed (i.e. transitions, clips where effects were added, ...) Any unchanged sections will be used straight.

Glen Elliott · July 15th, 2003, 10:44 AM

Well is there a way to render just the transitions on the timeline before outputting to tape- that way I can watch the entire project without the frame-rate dropping when it hits a transition.

To my knowledge ram renders (shift+M) are just that....ram. So it's by no means permenant. In premiere you make a selection over the area that has transitions that need to be rendered and you simply hit enter and it renders just the frames that exist in the transition. Is there a way to do this in Vegas?

Also if I render JUST the areas that need to be renderd (ie transitions and effects) can't I encode an MPG2 from there...or do I have to render the entire project into one long DV AVI before encoding?

Tor Salomonsen · July 15th, 2003, 11:31 AM

No, Shift+M renders the selection (loop region, it's called) to disk. Shift+B does the RAM thing.

You can encode directly to mpg from timeline - with or withour pre-renders. But I suspect you have to go via DV because of the 24 thing. Can't think of any other reason.

Edward Troxel · July 15th, 2003, 01:09 PM

Actually, you can do a Print to DV Tape and then cancel before the actual printing. The pre-renders for the sections that need it will be remembered until you do something that affects that pre-render. So, pretend you are printing to tape, wait for the countdown screen (or the rendering of the W64 audio file) and cancel it.

You can render to ANY format straight from the timeline regardless of any pre-render/full render status. Rendering to DV is NOT required for rendering to any other format.

Tor Salomonsen · July 15th, 2003, 01:19 PM

Quote:

I read documentation from Sonic Foundry regarding how to handle 24p footage. They said when dealing with DVX100 24pA footage set your pre-renders for "2-3-3-2" pulldown and final renders at "2-3".

It's just that the option mentioned does not present itself unless you render to DV. What do you make of that, Ed?

Edward Troxel · July 15th, 2003, 02:12 PM

I've never done any 24p stuff and, very seldom, do any pre-renders of any sort. I do know the PTT will pre-render all required sections and only those sections. You can also "Render to a new track" which will do a full render for the selected section. You can also File - Render As which also will do a full render. So, I'm not sure how "pre-render" vs "render" is being used in this context.

Tor Salomonsen · July 15th, 2003, 02:51 PM

Glen, I've been looking around for that documentation you talked about. No luck. Seems you have to do a few short tests, like render a sequence to mpg from the timeline and render the same to DV and THEN to mpg. If there's no difference, there's no difference.
And you can return to that thing you were reading and see if you can squeeze more blood out of it.
It is a fact, like Ed says, you can render to any format from the timeline. But the info you referred in your first post seems to dwindle a little off from there. That may not mean there's something wrong. Vegas' developers have proved from time to time that they are better at creating Vegas than they are at explaining how they did it.
Anyway, I think we've sorted the pre-render vs final render bit, and we're left with the via DV or not via DV question.

Dennis Adams · July 15th, 2003, 04:10 PM

Prerender = Shift+M
Render = File > Render As

2-3-3-2 pulldown is more efficient for prerenders.

2-3 pulldown looks better for final renders.

///d@

Tor Salomonsen · July 15th, 2003, 04:26 PM

Dennis, thanks, but please straighten out this: You say 2-3 pulldown looks better. OK. But in order to get the option to choose 2-3 pulldown Glen must render to DV, correct? And THEN encode to mpg. Or ...?

Dennis Adams · July 16th, 2003, 06:57 AM

If you want to render a 24p project to MPEG, there is no need to render to DV first. There is a preset in the MPEG-2 format specifically for rendering 24p MPEG-2 for DVD. This file can be brought into DVD Architect (or other 24p compatible authoring applications) and burned to DVD-R[W]. There is no choice between 2-3 and 2-3-3-2 pulldown -- it's always 2-3 because there is no need to put 2-3-3-2 in MPEG (there's nothing that uses it).

If your source files are DV, it still makes sense to use DV format for PRE-renders of transitions, FX, etc., during editing and previews, but the MPEG render will not use them because it's a different format.

///d@

July 10th, 2003, 11:23 AM	#1
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Vegas "Pre-renders" vs "Final Renders"? I read documentation from Sonic Foundry regarding how to handle 24p footage. They said when dealing with DVX100 24pA footage set your pre-renders for "2-3-3-2" pulldown and final renders at "2-3". Now, what's the difference between a pre-render and final render? If I add some clips with transitions and render the transitions is this a pre-render? If so what's a final render? If the transitions and effects are "pre-rendered" isn't that the final step? The only instance I can think that you'd have to run another step of rendering is if your encoding- but they have a whole other setting to output to MPG2 for encoding (stating to use the DVD Architech 24p preset). I'm a bit confused

July 14th, 2003, 08:39 AM	#2
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	No one knows?

July 15th, 2003, 07:50 AM	#3
Tor Salomonsen Major Player Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Stavanger, Norway Posts: 265	I'm in PAL-land, but as far as I can see, to get the options you mention, you must render to DV (that will be the final render). You may then encode to MPEG. Pre-render is for previewing purposes.

July 15th, 2003, 08:00 AM	#4
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Would you have to render the "entire" timeline even if you don't have any effects on certian parts? I'm comming from a Premiere workflow and whatever areas that don't have transitions and/or effects don't have to be rendered when outputting to tape. Just render all the transitions and your done? Is vegas different?...Must you render a full DV AVI of the entire timeline to output to tape? Thus doubling the amount of HD space a project takes up? Latly how do you pre-render, say a tansition between two clips. I know the shift+B ram render option but how do you actually do a real render for that section?

July 15th, 2003, 08:41 AM	#5
Tor Salomonsen Major Player Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Stavanger, Norway Posts: 265	You mean a real pre-render? Select your area on the timeline and press Shift-M. Vegas will then use the redered section(s) for preview. I'm not sure if it will use them for the final render. For a final render you must render everything, but the parts with no FXs or transitions (and possibly the pre-rendered sections) will render at next to real time, probably faster. The resulting file will use disc space, though. Unless you render to tape, in which case it will use tape space.

July 15th, 2003, 09:58 AM	#6
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Would you have to render the "entire" timeline even if you don't have any effects on certian parts? I'm comming from a Premiere workflow and whatever areas that don't have transitions and/or effects don't have to be rendered when outputting to tape. Just render all the transitions and your done? Is vegas different?... -->>> No, Vegas is not different. If you to a PTT, it will ONLY render the sections that were changed (i.e. transitions, clips where effects were added, ...) Any unchanged sections will be used straight.

July 15th, 2003, 10:44 AM	#7
Glen Elliott Wrangler Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Philadelphia, PA Posts: 2,898	Well is there a way to render just the transitions on the timeline before outputting to tape- that way I can watch the entire project without the frame-rate dropping when it hits a transition. To my knowledge ram renders (shift+M) are just that....ram. So it's by no means permenant. In premiere you make a selection over the area that has transitions that need to be rendered and you simply hit enter and it renders just the frames that exist in the transition. Is there a way to do this in Vegas? Also if I render JUST the areas that need to be renderd (ie transitions and effects) can't I encode an MPG2 from there...or do I have to render the entire project into one long DV AVI before encoding?

July 15th, 2003, 11:31 AM	#8
Tor Salomonsen Major Player Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Stavanger, Norway Posts: 265	No, Shift+M renders the selection (loop region, it's called) to disk. Shift+B does the RAM thing. You can encode directly to mpg from timeline - with or withour pre-renders. But I suspect you have to go via DV because of the 24 thing. Can't think of any other reason.

July 15th, 2003, 01:09 PM	#9
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	Actually, you can do a Print to DV Tape and then cancel before the actual printing. The pre-renders for the sections that need it will be remembered until you do something that affects that pre-render. So, pretend you are printing to tape, wait for the countdown screen (or the rendering of the W64 audio file) and cancel it. You can render to ANY format straight from the timeline regardless of any pre-render/full render status. Rendering to DV is NOT required for rendering to any other format.

July 15th, 2003, 02:12 PM	#11
Edward Troxel Sponsor: JET DV Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Southern Illinois Posts: 7,953	I've never done any 24p stuff and, very seldom, do any pre-renders of any sort. I do know the PTT will pre-render all required sections and only those sections. You can also "Render to a new track" which will do a full render for the selected section. You can also File - Render As which also will do a full render. So, I'm not sure how "pre-render" vs "render" is being used in this context.

July 15th, 2003, 02:51 PM	#12
Tor Salomonsen Major Player Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Stavanger, Norway Posts: 265	Glen, I've been looking around for that documentation you talked about. No luck. Seems you have to do a few short tests, like render a sequence to mpg from the timeline and render the same to DV and THEN to mpg. If there's no difference, there's no difference. And you can return to that thing you were reading and see if you can squeeze more blood out of it. It is a fact, like Ed says, you can render to any format from the timeline. But the info you referred in your first post seems to dwindle a little off from there. That may not mean there's something wrong. Vegas' developers have proved from time to time that they are better at creating Vegas than they are at explaining how they did it. Anyway, I think we've sorted the pre-render vs final render bit, and we're left with the via DV or not via DV question.

July 15th, 2003, 04:10 PM	#13
Dennis Adams Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: Madison, WI Posts: 123	Prerender = Shift+M Render = File > Render As 2-3-3-2 pulldown is more efficient for prerenders. 2-3 pulldown looks better for final renders. ///d@

July 15th, 2003, 04:26 PM	#14
Tor Salomonsen Major Player Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Stavanger, Norway Posts: 265	Dennis, thanks, but please straighten out this: You say 2-3 pulldown looks better. OK. But in order to get the option to choose 2-3 pulldown Glen must render to DV, correct? And THEN encode to mpg. Or ...?

July 16th, 2003, 06:57 AM	#15
Dennis Adams Regular Crew Join Date: May 2003 Location: Madison, WI Posts: 123	If you want to render a 24p project to MPEG, there is no need to render to DV first. There is a preset in the MPEG-2 format specifically for rendering 24p MPEG-2 for DVD. This file can be brought into DVD Architect (or other 24p compatible authoring applications) and burned to DVD-R[W]. There is no choice between 2-3 and 2-3-3-2 pulldown -- it's always 2-3 because there is no need to put 2-3-3-2 in MPEG (there's nothing that uses it). If your source files are DV, it still makes sense to use DV format for PRE-renders of transitions, FX, etc., during editing and previews, but the MPEG render will not use them because it's a different format. ///d@