does deleting render files free up disk space?
 

This may be a stupid question and if so I apologise and will
submit to flaming.
I want to free up some space on my media drive.
Can I delete all my render files and then just re-render
the files I need for my sequences?

Happy New Year
(ducking)

David

Yes it does

thanks Mark...

As Mark says, it does, however it's not significant. Render files are quite small compared to the original source media - especially audio render files - so if you're deleting render files because you're running out of HDD space, then it's time to either get a larger drive or, add another.

Robert,

You're right.
I'm really asking the question because I wasn't sure if I was
right in thinking you could do that.

I'm working on a 1T drive now and a third of it is used up.
Most of it is HDV source media - as you said,
with about 11 gig's of render files that could go away.

And yes, I'll probably need another drive, I was just hoping....
well, you know, money doesn't grow on trees these days and all that.

Happy New Year,

David

Audio files, sure. But video? Why would they be smaller, unless your sequence settings ask for a codec with a lower bitrate than the source media files? Unless, of course, you assume that only a small fraction of the length of a clip needs rendering in the first place, then the few rendered seconds will of course be much smaller than the entire source media.

- Martin

Render files themselves are not large; they are not duplicating the original media and making a new version of it, they are simply the added data created by the edit, which ends up being very small percentage of the original clip.

For example, if you took a clip that was say 50MB in size and did a few simple edits, such as cross-fade or added a filter and then rendered it, the actual render file itself would only be a fraction of the original media data size.

I have a project that is 190GB in size with all the "used" assets, render files only take up 550MB of that space.

If you want to find out just how big your render files are in any project, use Media Manager to make a copy of the project and in the media-bar it will break down the size of both original media and render files.

Oh, now I understand what you are saying, Robert. I guess we agree then that the render file for one second of rendered video should be the same size as one second of the original media. I misinterpreted the previous post.

- Martin

a simple wipe or couple frames here and there yes, it doesn't add much. However if you do a move on a clip, add blur, etc. etc. it creates a file just as large as the original. How can it not?

Deleting renders unless it's old renders that aren't going to be rebuilt is useless though cause it will just render them again.

Hi Bryan,

..."Deleting renders unless it's old renders that aren't going to be rebuilt "...

Yeah, thats what my interest is...the old render files.
I to alot of experimenting with my shots for this particular
documentary I'm doing...I generate a ton of render files.
In each sequence, when I find the things that work for me (after
all this experimenting), I want to delete the bulk of the render files
that no longer are relevant.

David

In final cut the render files ARE duplications. You can even watch them in quicktime as stand alone movies. I'm not sure what program you're asking about, but trashing render files saves me lots of space, and you can always re-render.