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*

No one knows?

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.

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?

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.

<<<-- 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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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@

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 ...?

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@

Is this the same Dennis from the SoFo forums- "SonicDennis"?!

Ok, let me see if I have this all straight:

1. First off- if I want a progressive scan DVD I first make sure I shoot my footage in 24pA to get the 2-3-3-2 pull-down which is much more efficient because it eliminates the stutter (or half-frame) cause from shooting in normal 24p mode with 2-3 pull-down.

2. When I begin a project I should set a template that will support this 2-3-3-2 pulldown while capturing, etc.

3. All pre-renders should be in 2-3-3-2 pulldown (where/how do I set this) but the final output should be set to 2-3 pull-down (set in the mainconcept encoder?)

4. Once output, authored, and burned through DVD Architect, flags will be added to the footage so that a progressive scan DVD player can retrieve the original progressive frames. A. At what point are these flags added?...in the encoding phase, or in DvdA during authoring?
B. Once this is done correctly and I'm using a progressive scan dvd player, what is the actual frame rate of the progressive footage?...24p or 60p?

Glen:

Yes, it's SonicDennis (aka Dithermaster), just helping out here and there when I can.

Have you read the Vegas 24p whitepaper (http://www.sonicfoundry.com/support/productinfo/24p.pdf)? All of these questions are answered there.

1. Right

2. Capture knows nothing about 24p and doesn't need to, just capture. In fact, VidCap will show 29.97 or something, just ignore it. The 24p extraction is done when the file is read by Vegas, not during capture.

3. Correct. The 2-3-3-2 template will be available when you do the prerender.

4. A. The MPEG-2 pulldown flags are added during the render when you choose the 24p template. The method used to encode 24p for DVD is identical to the DVDs that come out of Hollywood.

4. B. It's up to your player and the video interface to your television (component analog or DVI or ?). I'm not entirely sure what the gamut of choices are, but I think they are 60p instead of 24p (unless DVI has a 24p option for non-raster-scanned devices like DLP/LCD/Plasma). However, because the player is able to access true progressive frames, the 60p will better than 60i that's been deinterlaced. Note that many players ignore the flags and do inverse telecine based on detection of the judder frames. This will still work with this encoding method as well. Finally, these discs will play on "standard" 60i TVs with no problems.

///d@

Thanks for your help Dennis- great job guys with such an incredible program as Vegas. I just wish I had awoken from my Premiere slumber earlier- I felt like Neo comming out of the Matrix for the first time when I started using Vegas. It truly opened my eyes.

My only concern is this whole Sony thing- I don't trust what they are going to do with this program! To Sony: if it ain't broken, don't fix it! ....OH, and keep all the original programers and engineers!

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : To Sony: if it ain't broken, don't fix it! ....OH, and keep all the original programers and engineers! -->>>

So far, that's the plan :) We're got some exciting things in the works for Vegas 5.

///d@

WOW!

Hmm would you care to divulge any hints? *Pretty Please*

I wish I could, but policy dictates that we don't talk about details of future releases. What if a feature got pulled before release -- you'd have my hide! In fact, they removed one of my fingernails just for mentioning the digit 5 after the name "Vegas". Forget I said that, OK? :-)
///d@

Well I'm at least glad to know it's pressing forward. I have to admit to being a little worried about it's future after the whole Sony thing- speaking of which did that whole thing take place already? Is it official?

It's awaiting approval at the annual shareholder's meeting which is in about a week.
///d@