'Cancel Render' button
 

So which genius decided to put the 'Cancel' button right in the same spot where the Windows Start button goes?

There's me doing fifteen things at once, while I'm half way through a four hour render, decided I needed to check something in a browser, went to click the Start button, didn't notice that the task bar hadn't popped up and clicked Cancel instead.

Sigh . . .

PLEASE someone tell me I'm not the first person to do that and that the Cancel button is in a dumb location?! Also, how about a second chance with an "Are you sure?" message? They appear everywhere else, why not here?!

And one thing I miss from earlier versions . . . if you cancelled half way through a render it would still leave a file containing the portion rendered thus far - great for checking the quality of the render, even if it was then discarded. I personally found that really useful and on this occasion it would have meant I could simply have rendered the second half of the project and 'stitched' the two halves together.

Rant over. Still love Vegas.

No Ian, you're not alone !

I've done it quite a few times.... a particular speciality of mine is to catch the keyboard with something, quickly followed by a lot of swearing.

If there's anywhere an 'Are you sure?' is required...it's definately here!

It will still leave a partial file depending on what format you rendered as.

As far as I know, the types of formats to which this applies has stayed consistent throughout every version of Vegas -- though I haven't had cause to test it lately.

Been asked for B4 now.

As to your ranting - huh! That was nufink!! In any event it is because you are so passionate about improvements that it is obvious you love it.

We discuss improvements, not hanging or crashing or not being able to MIX formats within the same project NOR the speed with which you can get AT a story through editing within Vegas.

Other NLE have quite a bit angst with crashes and complex GUIs. So I hear . . but not us - eh?

Vegas ROX! We talk about tweaking and fun stuff.

Well said Grazie! I wasn't cross, I was charged with a passion for betterment.

And David, you are qute right. At least avi leaves a partial file (the format I was using yesterday when my woes began). I'm sure there's some logic behind which formats do and which don't leave a file. I'm convinced that there are more occasions now when no file is retained, but I may be imagining that.

Carl, we can feel sheepish together!

Cheers.

Ian . . .

Vegas DOESN'T leave any partial except .WMV!!! All other format files (.avi, .mpg, .mov, etc.) disappear totally if you cancel Vegas rendering. That's really stupid because how can I see what is the result of my film? So, iI need to wait 10-20 hours to complete rendering, and then to see that I need to process something more or less on my footage, so I need to start again all the rendering?!? Really stupid! For example, in AE you can PAUSE rendering, or even if you stop it, then you can watch the video file normally up to the frame you stopped rendering.

Yes, quite . . .however . .

I DON'T render straight to an MPEG. Nearly 99.9% of my output goes to an AVI first. This does 2 things:

#1 - I have a check-off pre-final. This is real good for ensuring I've got Colour Correction, Audio is in narrative sensibility with the moving pictures and I can generally do any final tweaks and corrections that I've missed. Obviously this isn't pertinent to those who produce perfectly good finals from the Timeline.

#2 - Rendering to MPEG from an AVI for me is something a shade faster than real time, if not real time.

So, pre-MPEG render to AVI, that's me. And until we have our wishes granted by the pixies at Madison, for a pause button on the rendering window, this is how I will continue. And guess what? I will most likely continue to be going the completed AVI even then. I need to see the finished article, before MPEG-ing.

Plamen,

There must be circumstances under which a partial file is left when rendering to OTHER than wmv, eg avi. I know this to be the case because I recovered from my big screw-up the other day by using a partial file that was left (albeit unknown to me at first) when rendering a long avi.

Do any of the gurus here know the 'rules' for when a partial files is or isn't left?

Also, Plamen, could you maybe just render short portions of your project for checking purposes, eg from different parts of the timeline where there are significantly different colours, effects etc?

Like Grazie, I always render uncompressed first, and I make a number of test renders from various parts of the project to make sure all is as I want it to be. These are usually five to ten seconds in length and I will cover things like transitions (eg to check length of crossfade etc), colour consistency from one shot to another, specific areas of audio (eg where I am concerned about peaking) and so on. A partial file would only help me look at areas up to the point where the file stopped rendering.

I can't check at the moment because I am, in fact, rendering something, but am I right in understanding that you can pause AE in mid-render and then go outside of AE (ie to Explorer) and watch the file up to that point? Didn't know that - that might be useful.

Ian . . .

Hmmm . . . sorry to question you again Plamen, but I just tried rendering a wmv file, interrupted it after about 20% (approx 20 minutes) and guess what - it did NOT leave a partial file!

I wonder if the rules are related to the %age completed rather than just to format?

To get back to Ians original comment, there are a few programs that I use with similar "situations". I've spent 2 hours inputing to a database and had a similar thing wipe out my progress. Last week I had my Palm erase all my emails because I left it in my pocket and random buttons got touched. I remember the old CD burners, where if you forgot you were burning a disc and did anything, like open a program or use a word processor while burning a CD (which took an hour) you would wreck a disc ($10 each at the time). Now when that stuff happens, I just laugh. I'm getting older, cursing is bad for the heart.

For the record, I'm fairly new to Vegas and serious editing. Vegas does rock.

If I remenber right - in Vegas 6 when I rendered to .avi and cancelled the render there was always a usesable file left. Especially on long renders I used this feature quite often. When I wanted to shut the PC down I just cancelled the render, but nothing was lost. In Vegas 7 nothing is left after a cancel. I miss this feature.

Greeting Richard

Residual file after 50% render to AVI and CANCEL

Vegas 6 = YES

Vegas 7 = NO

Just checked it out.

G

Grazie, 'checked it out' by doing it or 'checked it out' by asking elsewhere?

Reason for asking is that there is some question in my mind as to whether this is correct all of the time - this weekend, using Vegas 7.0c, I cancelled an avi render that was more than 50% completed and it DID leave a usable partial file.

In addition, this morning I cancelled a wmv render both less than and more than 50% complete. Both times no partial file was left. I also cancelled an avi render that was about 15% complete and it, too, did NOT leave a file.

There MUST be some reasoning to this!

I/me/personally/Grazie opened Vegas 6.0d Build 210 and Vegas 7d Build 192 and did the testing.

Curioser and curioser!

Start a TICKET with Sony Media Software at Madison.

Tell you what, and with no effort at all, Ian, I'll even hand you the website address:

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/sup...calsupport.asp

Regards,

G

I too, get a partial file when rendering to avi.
That said...
Grazie, are you rendering to DV first, and then using that DV file to render your MPEG from? I sure hope not, as you're tossing so much away it's very much worth mentioning.

Douglas Is that with V6 or V7?

I sure hope I aint missing anything too?!? How much, Douglas, could I be tossing away when I render to a "New Track" and use the template? Please spell out the actual format I SHOULD be rendering to?

You have my full attention.

TIA - g

In my experience, that simply isn't true.

What are you rendering that it takes you 20 hours to do?

I don't have ANY projects where I don't do at least one mixdown before rendering to MPG for DVD.

Now, rendering from HDV to DV before going to MPEG might not be the best move, but from DV to DV, I don't have any issues. I don't think I'd do it too many times before the DVD render, but once is certainly nothing to worry about.

Breath out . . . and relax . . .

Glad to hear I wouldn't be tossing-out much - if anything? Would NOT want to be regarded on the forums as a "tosser" of quality! . . Or any other type of . . . remover.

Still working with SD, I need all the quality I can.

Run a color chart through the system, be sure to put text on top of it. Render it to MPEG 2 from the timeline. Render it to DV from the timeline. Render the AVI master to an MPEG2.
Compare them, particularly the text or graphics.
Then come tell me you're losing nothing.

Could somebody please tell me what I should I do when I use "New Track" renders? I render up sections of stuff and chain them back up?

TIA - g

I'm just saying what my experience is. Vegas's DV codec is very robust and can handle a generation or two.

But, doing as you ask, here's a composite:

http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/4125/compee9.png

This is made up of both MPEGs -- one rendered from the timeline, the other rendered from a downmixed AVI.

There's a cookie cutter on it, and it runs through both the text and all the color.

If you want to know where the cookie cutter line should be, it's here:

http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/138/comp2fu1.png


Here it is split a couple of different ways:

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/170/compdiagzl6.png (comp image)

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/3884/split1kc9.png

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/4876/split2xm6.png

I'll try again...
Shoot a color chart. With movement, as video would move. This will affect/imact the quality of the encode. Most video subject matter doesn't stand still.
Or, shoot whatever, so long as it has identifiable areas.
Put text or other graphics over it.
Render to both as you've done.

You'll definitely see a difference in the encode. Going back nearly 5 years, this has been a standard part of the Beta process for Vegas and the Main Concept encoder. We do this with both video and stills, and push the color and boundaries of the images as standard routine. The loss has always been, and probably will always be, visible regardless of the robustness of the Sony codec, which is quite good, but math is math/color samples are color samples. No one would ever say I'm not a fanboy of the codec, and was one of those pushing for it in the very early days, but..

Graphics are virtually always 4:4:4 or 4:2:2, uncompressed/lightly compressed
Text/Generated media is 4:4:4 uncompressed
DV is 4:1:1 compressed 5:1 (That's NTSC, it's a slightly different 4:2:0 format in PAL-land, but a transcode still takes place when going from DV Pal to MPEG-PAL)
MPEG is 4:2:0 compressed roughly 20:1

If you don't see the difference, or differently put, if you don't feel the difference matters, then there is no reason for 95% of what exists here on DVInfo.net in terms of color correction information, compression, m2t vs DVCPro, etc.
I know you're really into color, so for giggles, convert HD from 8 bit to 10bit, push the colors hard, and tell me you don't see banding differences? It's essentially the same thing.
I see it, assume everyone else sees it.
Hollywood DVDs look so much better because they're starting with the least compressed source to the encoder. The encoder will *always* do better with the least compressed source whether it's uploading an AVI vs wmv to YouTube or feeding a high end Minerva encoder. Rendering from 4:4:4 uncompressed to 4:1:1 reasonably compressed and transcoding from that 4:1:1 "Master" to 4:2:0 is reducing your chroma values by huge percentages once you add it all up.
Why, if pristine video is the goal, would you convert 4:4:4 to 4:1:1, to lose yet another 50% in going to 4:2:0? You're compressing those graphics twice and neither compression is a very good one.
Put differently, if it doesn't matter, why do most folks doing vid for a living, capture at the highest color sample they can, such as capturing even HDV over a 4:2:2 system vs importing the original m2t?

All of that said, if you can't see the difference, then it likely doesn't matter to you. Both my high end and low end monitoring systems allow me to see the diff, as do scopes.
To close, if you're not working for broadcast where you're working with 4:2:2 masters vs delivering on MPEG for DVDs handed out to friends, none of what I wrote above is worth a cold cup of coffee.

So do a mixdown of everything BUT the text and render to MPEG with pristine text, if you find the text unsatisfactory. For me, this wasn't about the text, anyway.

All I'm saying is that a single DV to DV mixdown doesn't lose you much of anything. And if you're doing the text afterwards, it sure is going to be a lot quicker to rerender the project if you find you made a mistake in the text than it would be if you were to rerender the whole timeline, with color correction, transitions, cropping/panning, whatever.

maybe this explanation is better/has clarity?
Color correction, chromakey, masking, and other processing is done in the 4:4:4 color sample range. Same with graphics, text, and *anything* that isn't DV source.
Even DV source is processed at 4:4:4 when processed, but left alone as 4:1:1 when nothing is done to the footage.
I suppose you could:
~render out any unprocessed footage that contains no transitions, color correction, or any other modification;
~Keep those segments separate from the color corrected/transitioned/masked segments of media;
~render new track for text/graphics only as a 4:4:4 stream, laid over top of your 4:1:1 unprocessed stream, and over the segments of the processed streams;
~render all of that to an MPEG file from the timeline.
And/or:
Render the entire segment to 4:2:2 YUV for the least amount of loss anywhere, and keep it as intact as a master as you can, using the 4:2:2 master for web submaster, MPEG submaster, DV submaster, and any other outputs you might want to use.

Or:
~You can render from the Vegas timeline to MPEG for MPEG delivery and render from the timeline to DV for archiving, and be done with it.

Doing text "afterwards" generally isn't an efficient option in corporate, training, infomercial work, because there are so many graphics, text events, etc. For templated work, this wouldn't work at all, IMO.

I'm sure that the standard workflow for most post/broadcast houses isn't fitting for everyone, but the workflow I've described is pretty standard, or seems to be in the post houses in which we've trained editors.
Sony, Apple, Sorenson, MainConcept, and other encoder developers recommend the same workflow.

This is part of the reason that you're always recommended to let Vegas downconvert HDV to MPEG 2 for DVD rather than capturing it as SD. There are at least 6 streams on the web I'm aware of (2 from us) that demonstrate the superiority of allowing the file to stay native all the way through, or by using an HDI, preserving the data for as long as possible. Recompression, particularly when dealing with already highly-compressed media, is a bad thing.

Whatever works, works. And at the end of the day, that's all that matters.

As I said before...if you can't see it, then it's likely a moot point. But recompression and transcoding combined, virtually always results in a softer picture. You'll also find the MainConcept encoder does much better from the raw timeline than from an AVI with high latitude or high motion, which is why MainConcept recommends encoding from the timeline. If you're working with 10 bit source, or 10 bit HDI's, would you also render those to 4:1:1 before MPEG? I sure hope not!
Graeme Nattress addresses part of this exceptionally well in his comparisons of DV vs uncompressed vs DVCPro. You can clearly see the problems with 4:1:1, and then halve that problem again by transcoding compromised media to 4:2:0.
Most of us try to preserve the source as best we can; that's why all the hubbub surrounding the Intensity, HD SDI capture, Convergent Designs converters, etc. People *want* to preserve the quality of their source. By rendering to 4:1:1 as a "master" you've tossed all that preservation out the window.

And to say it once again...if you're not delivering for broadcast, cable distribution, or other QC/vetted source, none of what I've written has any bearing on you.