Yes it would work. It just has fewer features than the full version.

MPEG 2 is a delivery format for all DVDs at this point, and rendering to AVI first costs you quite a bit of color information.
I address this to an extent in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N_Tg0PT9yc

Okay, so what are good uses of videos rendered to AVI? for viewing on a computer?

AVI or AudioVidoInterleaved, is a packaging format that allows for a wide variety of compressed and uncompressed formats. It's easy to move from place to place while maintaining quality. It *generally* requires less horsepower from the CPU (depending entirely on the codec packaged in the avi, of course), while MPEG 2 is a fixed format codec that has bitrate limitations. MPEG 2 is designed as a delivery format while avi is designed as an editing/archiving/transport/sharing format.
If you're printing to tape, you must use an avi format on the pc platform. if you're printing to DVD, you must use an mpeg format.
Hope this very brief explanation helps?

Thanks DSP, I never knew rendering to AVI puts you back in the 4.1.1 world. I watched you video, you mentioned hdv has the best "error correction" of any format. What is error correction?

*All* digital mediums have errors. Those errors are detected, compared, and corrected. Error correction provides some redundancy to protect against dropouts.The data travels in small packets, and in those travels, sometimes the data can (and often is) corrupted. Error correction looks at various aspects of the data via code, that ensures a clean signal, barring any total failure of a frame.

That's interesting because HDV naysayers often condemn HDV for its propensity to artifacts and dropouts.

There are a lot of misinformed measurebators in the world. The bottom line is whether it performs well for you or not. With significantly more HDV camcorders than any other format in the HD world..., there are a lot of users that would disagree with that condemnation.
If you don't own an HDV camcorder, perhaps you should borrow/rent one if you're in the market for an HDV camcorder. Otherwise, I'd invite you to read the other forums here on DVInfo.net for more information.
Let's not turn this into an HDV discussion in the Vegas forum, please?

DSE, now you mention this for all of the HDV, what about regular DV like Im using with my GL1s and just your normal DV Cameras, do I still want MPG2 no matter what?


PS Thanks for all the info!

As Edward Troxel said earlier:
DVDs are MPEG2. You can either render to MPEG2 directly from Vegas or you can render to DV-AVI in Vegas and let DVD Architect render to MPEG2. Either way, you'll end up with MPEG2.

I personally create my MPEG-2 files from Vegas so that I have more control over the final quality but a lot of users (especially beginners) simply render to AVI and let DVD Architect do the rest of it for them.

If you're going to DVD, yes. you always want MPG2. Always.
Vegas can encode it straight to MPEG 2 which is the *best* option, or Vegas can create an avi that DVD Architect (or other tool) will turn into MPG 2, but rendering as avi and then transcoding that to MPG2 is costing you quite a bit of color and some sharpness.
You might as well just do it right from the start.