I have a question. When using Vegas 6(Version b) how long should rendering a 60 min dv file to mpeg2 take on a dual 3.6 Xeon PC? It takes my system about 35 minutes, which I thought seemed a little long. I know that it might vary, but I'm just looking for some opinions here. Thanks!!

No cut and dry answer. It depends on many things. Any special effects, color correction, chroma key, cookie cutters, ANYTHING you have done to the footage might require the render to MPEG to go thru frame by frame. Honestly 35 minutes for a 60 minute piece isn't really all that bad.
The other thing is the computer system. I know you said you have dual Xeon processors but is Vegas set up in preferences to utilize the power of the duals?

There are far too many variables to give you a straight answer as far as exactly how long it should take but again, 35 minutes for a 60 minute piece ain't all that bad.

Don

Drop a Magic Bullet film effect on there, and you'll realize that 35 minutes is nothing ;-). Like Brian said, some things you may do to the clips will make rendering slow down, especially when you force the computer to resample every frame (like with a Magic Bullet filter). 35 minutes does not sound bad at all for 60 minutes of video.

Thanks all, I guess it's not that long. It just doesn't seem to be any faster than the previous version of Vegas I was using, but I'll check my preferences.

Till it's done???

Try the median filter, turn circular processing on. ;)

its funny people complain about render speeds (not u, but in general) but then they go out and buy a Matrox card and realsie that 2 hours, wil in fact take 2 hours to process.. as oppsed to vegas or main concept encoder which pumps at about 40 to 65 fps

thats just a straight transcode though..

as for filters.. well it depends on what u use and the format in which ur encoding to..

Dude, I had a 1-hour piece with a Magic Bullet filter, a level correction, and a little softening and it ran for 47 hours. Count your blessings.

I've come to realize since I posted that yesterday that I don't have much to complain about. Thanks all.