Problems Rendering Project as One File in Vegas 6.0

[Tristan Howard]

Hi everybody,

I'm currently working with a DV project in Vegas 6.0 that is about and hour long and full of high quality sound layers. Anyway, whenever I render it on the highest quality settings, it always gets separated into four files that can seamlessly interlock into one file. But, I don't know how to get these files together so they could play all at once from a single button action. I want to at least be able to combine them in DVD Architect 3.0. I tried combining the rendered files in a new Vegas project and then re-rendered them but they still got separated into four files. I know lowering the quality may help but I don't want to do that since I have loads of space on the external hard drive I use for rendering. Is there a way I can render my project into one file or maybe combine my multiple files in a practical way for DVD authoring? Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tristan

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Put all four files into your DVD A project window.
Put the first one as a button on your workspace/menu.
Use end actions to move from one file to the next.
Why are you creating four files from one timeline? Is your external FAT 32 (most are, for easy Mac compatibility)?
If so, you may want to reformat it prior to next project.

[Edward Troxel]

If the files are all 4Gig each, I'm in agreement with Spot - the hard drive must be formatted as FAT32. FAT32 doesn't allow files over 4Gig in size so they must be split. If you render to an NTFS drive instead, it can be a single larger file.

[Jarrod Whaley]

I agree with both Spot and Edward--sounds like a FAT32 file system limitation issue to me.

Spot suggests that you reformat the drive using an NTFS file system, and while this would definitely resolve the issue (if we're diagnosing it properly in the first place of course), you don't necessarily have to do a complete reformat if you want to keep the existing data on that drive.

You can switch a drive's file system from FAT32 to NTFS with a simple DOS command and avoid a complete reformat. Note that this is a one-way process, i.e. you can easily switch from FAT32 to NTFS, but to switch in the other direction, a reformat is necessary.

EDIT: OK, I did a little googling and here's how the conversion is done (you might want to google this yourself and get a second opinion--just a word of warning):

Originally Posted by a page i found via google

The conversion should not cause you to lose any data; however, I certainly would backup before large scale conversions like this.

1. Click Start
2. Select Run from the Start menu
3. Type cmd in the textbox and click OK
4. In the command window that opens type the following:

convert c: /fs:ntfs


(If you want to convert any other drive, change the c: to the drive of choice.)

[Tristan Howard]

Hi everybody,

Thanks for the info. I'll have to look into reformatting my drive. I didn't know it was a drive format limitation. I'm pretty sure my drive is formatted as FAT32 so that's probably the problem. I think I may try rendering my file in my computer's main C drive and then if that's a single file, put that into my external hard drive so I can access my project on other computers.

-Tristan

[Edward Troxel]

Originally Posted by Tristan Howard

I think I may try rendering my file in my computer's main C drive and then if that's a single file, put that into my external hard drive so I can access my project on other computers.

If the external is still FAT32, that won't work as you can't copy a file larger than 4Gig onto a FAT32 drive (FAT32 *STILL* has the 4Gig file size limitation - no matter what).

[Tristan Howard]

Yep, I tried copying a single rendered file today and it didn't work. I'll have to reformat my drive or learn how to make a single scene selection menu with four files on DVD Architect 3.0.

[Tristan Howard]

Hey Jarrod and everybody else,

Thank you so much. I was able to get my drive formatted from FAT 32 to NTFS was able to copy my full project into the drive as one file. I ended up using the instructions on this website: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...d67289a48.aspx. They're about about the same as what is posted on this thread. The main thing I had trouble with was not knowing the name of the drive volume but after trying several names, I just checked the properties of my drive and used what the title with a cursor next to it was under the "General" heading, which for me happened to be "SEA_DISC."

-Tristan