ready for audio, should i render video out?

[Randall_Oelerich]

I have my 5 minute short film arranged now as about 50 short clips (1920x1020 HD clips) on the Vegas timeline the way I want it, with transitions, velocity. No titles or credits yet, no color correction. I am wondering what next? Should I render out the entire film as a high def video so that then I can have a single video to work with for the next stage of editing--audio, titles, credits?

Or should I first do titles and credits, then render out as a single video to then use for audio, Foley, soundtrack?

Or should I keep my project as the collection of shots (file clips) and keep working with that for audio editing, soundtrack?

This is my first film, not sure what is the safest and most efficient route to go at this point in time. I am a bit nervous to keep working on my project as it-- any slip of the mouse or accidental key press could alter a clip, envelope, etc.-- seems to me it would make sense to render it all out as a single file to then use to go on to audio editing, soundtrack? Thoughts? Advice?

 

[Tabula Rasa Productions]

so, picture lock it. I personally fix audio with all my clip sequences open, but if you are scared of messing up your order, you can either open another vegas project and drag your timeline onto it, or export the video into one file. Render it out as one file (losless .mov using animation preset in vegas). This file will be huge, but you won't lose any quality for your video. Now, I usually do audio before color correcting, so that I can get a feel of the unpolished movie. But, if you desire, you can do color correction first, I haven't noticed a real efficiency difference between either option. Remember, however, you have to color correct BEFORE you put transitions such as fade ins, cross dissolves, etc. So, you might have to color correct before you export into one file. I do titles and credits last, as they usually are just tacked on anyway.

So in short: What I do is arrange my clips, start a new project, drag into new timeline, fix audio, export files into after effects for color correcting/special effects, titles, transitions, credits, then back into vegas (I drag the single clip into my second outline so I can move the audio clips to the single clip)for final sound touch-ups, soundtrack, etc. Audio touch ups will be necessary because you are adding transitions and audio for special effects, etc.
Hopefully that helps more than it confuses. :|

 

[David Jimerson]

There isn't necessarily one right way to do it -- but you may find it easier to edit your audio with a rendered clip which can play back in real-time as you edit. You could do something like render to a new track and then mute all of the other video tracks while you edit the audio. You can even Save As a new project for this purpose.

 

[Randall_Oelerich]

I did that, thank you for the tip! Surprisingly it rendered quite fast--I imagine because the CPU was not busy doing mathmatic algorithms for compression codecs. Now I told this my friend, we are both at beginner noob level, and he said rendering to lossless .mov animation is wrong, that it is best to render it out to the original format (in this case AVCHD)--but I think my friend is wrong and you are right. Thoughts? It just seems intuitive to me that rendering to lossless animation is basically rendering out each frame as complete pixel images, right? Whereas if I were to render out in the "original compressed format [AVCHD]" that would by nature involve compression, and thus loss of pixel data. Anybody care to comment on which is right, or wrong, and why or why not?
Randall

...Render it out as one file (lossless .mov using animation preset in vegas). This file will be huge, but you won't lose any quality for your video. ...

 

[Randall_Oelerich]

Is is pretty much normal to not be able to play back an uncompressed lossless animated .mov (DVD or HD) on a PC? I do not think my system (Quicktime video playback) can handle the bandwidth playback either through the sata drives or graphics card, etc.; pauses and jerkiness. Irrelevant if the purpose is simply to have the uncompressed file for subsequent editing in vegas or acidPro for soundtrack, Foley, etc. Just curious if this is normal?

 

[William_Robinette]

I playback 720p QT Animation all the time. I have a low end Quadcore and run the media off internal SATA drives, and it plays back full frame rate at the "preview" setting. If it is a short film and I am doing sound and picture editing, I just do it all in one project with color correction and grading coming last, so I can get full frame-rate playback happening when doing the audio.