avi?

Re: avi?

Depends what you do with it.

I don't think Vegas will let you save over an open file (you'll probably get a Windows "sharing violation" error), but if you don't do a whole lot to it and save as "uncompressed," I don't think you'll lose anything.

What specifically are you trying to do?
 
Re: avi?

Every so often i cut a video and it turns out just the way I want it.But I slice and dice it until its so chopped up that i cant add fx with ease.So I would like to render out,bring it back in and recut for fx placement.
 
Re: avi?

Avi files are large...that leads me to beleave they are uncompressed.If not,how would I save it as an uncompressed file?
 
Re: avi?

Choose "Default template (uncompressed)."

The other choices (NTSC DV, etc.), add (more) compression.
 
Re: avi?

One important thing to understand is that .avi is simply a file format.  The properties of the your rendered video (image quality, filesize, etc.) is largely dependent on the codec used to encode the video/audio.  

The uncompressed and DV codecs have already been touched upon.  But there are many more.  Divx, for instance, is a codec that can be used when rendering an AVI file.  There are even multiple DV codecs (microsoft, sony, avid, etc.).

Just because a file is large doesn't mean that it's uncompressed.  Especially since "large" is not the same for everyone.  Many people who haven't worked with DV-25 material ("normal" DV) find these sorts of files to be very large (at ~13GB/hour).  While DV-25 is a lossy (compressed) codec, an uncompressed AVI is not-- it does not toss out any of the data from the source file.  This results in a much larger filesize (~70GB/hour *I think*).

Also, depending on what you're rendering out, you have a few choices on what codec to use.  Uncompressed will always give you exactly what you put in (meaning you won't lose any quality, but you won't gain any either).  But in some cases, it's not necessary to deal with the large filesize of an uncompressed file when a lossy one will do.

Case in point: if you want to render a video from untouched source files (meaning no fx, no adjustments, etc.) and all you've done is splice video/audio from multiple points/clips, then you could use the normal DV codec and not lose any quality.  Most DV codecs are smart enough to not recompress footage that doesn't need to be.  If it's untouched footage, it will basically just stitch it together.  

On the other hand, Post-processed footage (where fx/adjustments have been added) will need to be recompressed and you theoretically will lose a generation.  However, regarding this issue in Vegas, I am not yet completely sure of the damage that would be done.  This is because I have been told by the Vegas engineers that internally, Vegas works on footage uncompressed.  They say that whenever you apply an effect, the source is upsampled, the effect is applied, and then the footage is recompressed when you render.  While I haven't done any really exhaustive tests, the Vegas engineers say that what this means is that you don't lose any quality when adding fx/adjustments and recompressing the frames.  While it sounds like an ideal end result, I'll have to look into this one more to be sure.

At any rate, it sounds like you're just wanting to render your source footage that you've cut together on the timeline before applying effects.  If this is the case, then you should be fine rendering using the normal DV codec.  :)
 
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