Is Vegas the only NLE that can do network rendering right now?

Why?

I am looking to speed up rendering time as much as possible since we are rendering a lot of mpeg2.

We are currently using Vegas 4, but also looking at maybe moving to Avid.

Have you asked AVID then?

No, I asked here.

I don't want to hear from a sales person at Avid at this point.

I am looking for comments from forum members.

Oh, I read your post wanting to know if AVID does Network rendering, as you are "contemplating" AVID I guess getting a straight answer from AVID was where I'd go. But I guess you know something I don't. Is there an AVID Forum?

Regards,

Grazie

I gather that by "network rendering" you mean MPG2 encoding, which is really guite a separate issue from editing. For instance, my Media Studio Pro 6 (editor) uses MPG encoders from Ligos when you ask it to render MPG.

There's quite a difference in encoders too! I discovered that the Ligos encoders included with MSP6 were pretty bad. Ligos makes a good encoder, but it's expensive. I now use an encoder from TMPGEnc, which is is high quality and inexpensive. But it's not the fastest encoder either. Even the fastest MPG encoders take a long time.

A fast processor helps a lot. My P3-900MHz took more than ten times running time for DVD compliant MPG2s. My P4-3GHz does it in less than three times. If you do a LOT of rendering, a separate computer for that purpose might be useful. Use firewire drives to make files available to both computers.

Something else to think about. Windows Media 9 is MUCH more efficient than MPG. That is, it can make a much smaller file, while maintaining quality. Of course, your recipients must be able to play it. I'm more into high definition (HDV), and have made a very high quality 720p (1280x720) WMV (Windows Media) file one hour and twenty minutes long that is 1.6GBt. WM9 runs the gamut from HD to low res streaming video - as well as audio.

The good news is that thw WM9 encoder is FREE at Microsoft web site. The bad news - it's slow too!

David,

Yes he is referring to a feature in the recent Vegas Video 5.0 release which permits you to render using multiple computers. Dividing up the work across several processors to speed the render.

There are also several nice Batch Render scripts that let you edit all day and then Batch Render all night.

I'm uncertain if other NLEs can network render, but I suspect if they can't, they will soon. Generally, a feature that can be implemented at a given NLE price point, will be implemented on competing NLEs at the same price point on their subsequent releases.

Network rendering doesn't help MPEG2 encodes does it?

2- For MPEG2, getting dual processors (Xeons) does help the Main Concept Encoder and probably other encoders.

You might also look for faster/better encoders like the ones by cinemacraft.

3- Edition has background rendering, which I hear is pretty insane. It renders away in the background which means everything will probably be rendered by the time you are done.

4- The very expensive Avid systems ($20k+) have more real-time than the lower end stuff Mojo.

5- If you have the money, a dual Xeon setup or a quad Opteron would be a nice setup for Vegas (not sure if you can get a quad Xeon setup, which would be nice too). AMD64 processors (i.e. AMD64, Opteron lines) and Pentiums run neck to neck in the vegas rendertests. The results do not apply to Xeons vs Opterons though.

<<<-- Originally posted by Graham Bernard : Oh, I read your post wanting to know if AVID does Network rendering, as you are "contemplating" AVID I guess getting a straight answer from AVID was where I'd go. But I guess you know something I don't. Is there an AVID Forum?

Regards,

Grazie -->>>

Gotcha...I really don't know a lot about AVID. I do know that Vegas 5 does it (we use Vegas4). I am just looking at the other NLEs out there and their possibilities. However, network rendering is a must for me on any upgrade from what we have currently...or at least some method to get a rendering farm to take the load.

Patrick,

Were you referring to batch scripts for Vegas?

Glenn,

Yeah I am partly questioning Vegas is the NLE we should be using as a mainstay too.

With that question Avid came into the mix. I don't have the revenue for real high end Avid systems right now, however, I may be able to move to Avid Express Pro or something.

I think I am just looking for the best bang for the buck with the features I would like to have.

I would guess that a 64bit version of any software to go along with an AMD64 may speed things up a hair too. However, a rendering farm will be important if we have a lot of jobs going on.

Have you used both Avid and Vegas? Do you have a preference? Almost 80% of our productions are output to DVD right now.

WHen Vegas does network rendering, it apparently has to take some added overhead getting the completely render chunks back from each render node and stitch them together. This takes time waiting for all the footage to be transferred over the network and to be written to the hard drive. The Sony Vegas forum would have some info on this, but network rendering would be in some cases slower than without.

I haven't checked that forum in quite some time but it's probably still that way.

You're also limited to 2 network render nodes per license of Vegas.

2- Vegas also doesn't render much faster with multi-processor and hyperthreaded setups. It splits off rendering into 2 threads, one of which handles the video rendering and the second all the audio and DV encoding. On intensive renders, the 2nd thread doesn't get a lot of work which means the second processor sits idle most of the time.

The main concept MPEG2 encoder takes advantage of dual processors well though. I'm not sure if it takes advantage of quad processors well.

3- You could also try network rendering a project to the same computer if you have a multiprocessor/hyperthreaded setup. I haven't tried this myself.

Glen,

Yeah I am just thinking if I should go the upgrade path to Vegas 5 or maybe look at Avid. The age old debate of Avid vs Vegas though I think the mainstream is Avid.

Regular rendering with Vegas 4 doesn't help at all with hyperthreading in my experience.

Hyperthreading helps a little. If the load is equally balanced on both processors, you will see about a 20% increase in performance. On simple real world renders, the load is not very equally distributed (HT makes about 9% difference on CC filter). On long intensive renders you will see the benefit from HT drop to around 3%.

MPEG2 encoding on the other hand benefits well from hyperthreading. I don't have exact numbers but I'm guessing it's in the 15-25% range.

The age old debate of Avid vs Vegas though I think the mainstream is Avid.
The age old debate is Avid versus Final Cut ;)

I haven't used Avid, I have used Final Cut. I like Final Cut better for cutting/workflow stuff, but Vegas is a lot more powerful. WIth Final Cut you can supplement it with After Effects or Boris Red and/or a 3rd party audio app.

Not that it really matters which program is the mainstream, unless you plan on doing an online edit.

2- What computer do you have now?
What MPEG2 encoder are you using?

3- How much time do you spend waiting for Vegas to render?
How much time do you spend waiting for MPEG2 encodes?

Glen,

So you prefer Vegas over FCP? I wonder why Vegas isn't a contender with Avid at least from most of the stuff I read.

I am not thouroughly convinced that Avid is better than Vegas as of yet.

Both Vegas and Final Cut are good. Vegas is more powerful, so that's useful if you want to go crazy with compositing, color correction or audio stuff (i.e. dialogue editing). Final Cut is still fairly decent at compositing and color correction. You probably aren't considering switching over to Mac/FCP so I doubt that'll matter for you.

As far as Avid versus Vegas, my guess is that there aren't many people who have used both. For your needs, my guess is that Avid wouldn't be a good idea for you. You should look at what you do and then pick the NLE that would work best for you.

Speed: No idea how fast Avid renders, but my guess is that Vegas with 2 rendernodes (pentium 3.0ghz, 10k SATA drives would probably be a good idea) would likely go faster for most filters except for the median filter (for noise reduction- use Virtualdub filters instead with Vegas; not sure if Avid has equivalent filter).

Avid doesn't come with an MPEG2 encoder, so it has no advantage at MPEG2 encoding. If you get Vegas+DVD, you get the AC3 encoder which is nice for DVD encoding. It gets you more bitrate to play with, which means you'll probably be able to tradeoff more speed over quality/bitrate.

Workflow: You already know how to use Vegas.

Features/power: I'm not sure what kind of projects you do, but if you need to wait on Vegas to render then you might be doing complicated things within it that Avid may not be able to do. Avid from what I read is not very good with simple compositing tasks and effects, which is why Final Cut has taken over in the trailer editing field/industry.

You should post what kind of things you do in Vegas, that way folks here with experience with the programs in question can give you more specific advice.