Ok i just did a little experiment, i have a 4 min project which i rendered from hd>sd/mpeg2,
the render took 12 mins which is ok for a 4 min project with a few light effects.
However when i open a new blank copy of vegas and drag the saved veg file, (same project,) to the timeline it renders to a single track in a few seconds, that's no problem but when i come to render this into mpeg2 it takes over 2 hours.

Also when looking at the task manager i notice that my processor is only working at about 30%, whereas when i'm render a project (not a veg) the processor is always at nearly 100%.

All this is not a problem for me as such because i don't render seperate veg files often, i just want to know why the long render time happens, it's just my thirst for knowledge.

Thanks, Paul.

First of all, dragging a VEG file to the timeline doesn't "render it to a single track". Instead, it NESTS it. It does create a separate file to help speed up preview rates.

When you then render, it has to go through the complexity of rendering the nested VEG and making sure it's properly transformed to the current timeline settings. The different CPU usage would be related to the difference between rendering the project separately and rendering it nested.

Paul...
Vegas uses a very archane terminology. When they use the term "render", they mean "export". Every other NLE I know uses the term "export" to create a new video output. Render, most commonly, means conform to the timeline. Exporting and rendering are two entirely different animals, one requires minimal CPU processing while the other is pretty processor intensive.