Vegas - Average MPG encoding times??
 

I am rendering with vegas and I would like to know if these are average encoding times.

Using Vegas 6b with NTCS avi files, total length of project is 1:54 minutes, rendering to MPEG2, default DVD NTCS settings, it takes approximately 5hrs.

Using the same settings with 1.5 hour project takes approximately 4 hours.

I am using a P4 3.2ghz with 2 gigs ram, 2 TB's of disk space on 5 SATA drives, OS on seperate drive than project and project on seperate drive and render is saved to another drive. OS is on it's own controller card and the project and render files are on a different controller card.

If this is normal render times, that is fine but it just takes entirely too long. I haven't tried network rendering yet. Anyone have good luck with network rendering?

Thanks,

Jon

The answer is "It depends". If you have a rendered AVI file and you render to MPEG2, you'll probably get close to 1:1. If you have an edited timeline with various effects added, then these must be processed as well as converting to MPEG2. This will take more time. So... depending on your timeline, 5 hours might not be unreasonable.

Network rendering won't help with MPEG2.

you don't happen to be using Movie Looks are you? Because those fx are god-awful rendering time hogs in a big way.

But yeah, rendering can be a b1tch sometimes. If you're doing a lot of it, you might want to consider a hardware solution (hardware encoder). Also, I've found that certain pro encoders go much faster than Vegas, although that is anecdotal evidence on my part. But, sometimes I render out to AVI first (BIG FILE), then encode to all of the other formats I need outside of Vegas. This lets me do one full render of all effects and mixing and whatnot ONCE. Then I can do several passes on that render when encoding to multiple formats such as MPEG2 for DVD and MOV/WMV for web delivery. Under that workflow, the effects and transitions and whatever only really get done "once", and then I just do three encodes after the initial render is done. But you'll need a big HD for that. The other advantage is that apps like Sorenson Squeeze or Procoder might encode to MPEG2 faster than Vegas does. However, what you make up there might be best spent on a 2-pass encode, which will increase your render time BIGTIME.

Anyway, just some thoughts...

No effects really, just straight cuts, I think one section, less than 20 secs was set to .25 speed.

So, should I render the project as one big avi and then render that to mpeg2?

Thanks,

Jon

Interesting.... I might have to check out the hardware mpeg2 encoders. If it does 1:1 that would be great. Depending on the time it takes to encode to avi.

Jon

Your encoding settings will also make a difference. What settings did you use to encode? For example, if you used 2-pass VBR, 2.5:1 probably isn't that bad. If you drop that to single pass VBR, it would be faster, for example. Also, make sure there wasn't one of the "gotcha" problems such as a track header bumped below 100%.

I always render to an .avi first, and then bring it back to a new project in Vegas and render out to whatever other format I need. Then I PTT and make a data DVD from the /avi for backup.

Also, here is one thing to consider. I always used to go 2-pass VBR on everything going to DVD, but this is really unnecessary if the project is short. For instance, on a 7 min short, I used CBR at 8,000,000 and it rendered in half the running time of the movie. I now only use VBR for projects pushing the limits of the DVD storage.

I agree with Edward. I have a very fast computer with lots of fast RAM, quite similar to your setup, and with 2-pass VBR encoding, I typically get 3:1 or so render times (although I find myself using color correction and curves on nearly every clip, so that certainly slows things down). Your 2.5:1 sounds pretty decent to me. When I use the Magic Bullet plug-in that came with Vegas, it takes at least 2x longer, so I don't use it except occasionally on very short projects.

BTW - Bennis, you may have saved me a lot of time. I'll try a high CBR next time to see how long that takes.

I think if the video is less than 60 minutes, you should be able to do a CBR at 8,000,000 and it will fit on a dvd. As stated above, it's fast and the quality is tip top.

Instead of rendering out to avi, I use debug frame serve and use canopus procoder which seems faster and the quality is much better (less compression artifacts).
That way you get the full uncompressed avi verison of your vegas project, without having to wait for it to render out to avi first and without needing the HDD space to hold a huge uncompressed avi.

Jon, I have a very similar system to yours and that render time sounds entirely reasonable. I just finished rendering something that was 1hr 20mins, with lots of cuts, a few simple transitions and a basic colour correction and the render time was a little less than 5hrs.
Also, as far as I know, Vegas does not support hardware renderers so that isn't an option.