How to Speed Up Rendering Times using Sony Vegas & Movie Studio

: By: Derek Moran; In: VEGAS Movie Studio; Published: 10 May 2012; Last Updated: 02 September 2022

In this tutorial I will explain how you can speed up your Renderng Times when using Sony Vegas Pro 11 or Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11.

I think I could safely say that everyone and anyone who has ever done any Video Editing would love to see their Rendering Times be much faster than what they can currently achieve.

Rendering times are directly influenced by some of these main factors:

#1 The speed of your CPU "Central Processing Unit", GPU "Graphics Processing Unit" or "Graphics Card" and your Hard Drives and SSD if you are using one.

#2 The type of Project you are rendering. Theoretically a 360p or 480p Standard Definition Video should take a lot less time to render than a 720p or 1080p HD Video project. Also the amount of Transitions, Effects and Layers in your project is also going to influence your rendering times.

#3 The third factor can be controlled by the Power Settings inside your Windows 7 or Vista Operating System. Power Settings are accessed by opening up the Control Panel. Quite often Laptops come pre-configured with the CPU Power Settings delibrately throttled back to extend the life of a charged battery. In my video tutorial I am going to show you how to set your CPU Speed to 100%, so that you can get faster rendering times.

#4 The fourth factor can be controlled by the type of Video Codec you choose to render to. I have found that Sony AVC .mp4 or Main Concept .mp4 templates produce the fastest rendering times. Windows Media Video .wmv is probably the slowest.

Please watch my video and I will show you exactly how to change your settings in Sony Vegas Pro 11 and Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11, to get the best rendering times.

Buy the latest version of Vegas Pro here !

About Derek Moran
Derek Moran is the author of all articles on Movie Studio Zen.
You can find me on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Read more about Derek...

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Marc · 09:46 05/01/2017
Render options for low quality non HD project?
When I say low quality, it's more like medium really except that it's from a DV video camera, copied to VHS, then to DVD, then to hard drive and then converted from avi to mp4 through Handbrake.
It's been through the washer a bit, but is still surprisingly clear and the sound is incredible.
Anyway, it's 2 hours long as a project, no fancy effects, just some text added *it's a sea voyage* and the original mp4 source is 720 w x 536w and 29.9 fps. The mp4 is 4 Gb.
Clearly I can't push this up to HD, but I'd like to know the most appropriate codec to use for rendering if anyone could help me.
Thanks and cheers!
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  Derek
  
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  · 10:39 05/01/2017
  
  Hi Marc
  If you are rendering Standard Definition video for home use or upload to YouTube, I recommend rendering to Mainconcept AVC/AAC and selecting the [b]Internet 480p widescreen[/b] template. Then bump up the Bit Rate setting so you get a nice clear image. I use 12 Mbps High and 6 Mbps Average. You could use lower or higher settings - do some experiments.
  
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Ivan Popov · 16:46 29/04/2016
Hello!
I do everything like u say. In fact the options were the same like yours, before I check it! And after I click render, there is an error again! :( Can you help me please ?
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  Jordan CD · 10:37 08/05/2016
  
  For anyone to help with this problem, you have to at the very least give the error that you're getting.
  
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George · 09:22 29/03/2016
Hi Derek
Just wondering if Amd Radeon r9 series can be used for rendering under sony platinum 13 ? Your site and video channel quite useful
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  Derek
  
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  · 18:13 30/03/2016
  
  If you are buying a new graphics card, AMD Radeon R9 series is now the best match for Sony Software.
  
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Shane · 20:25 10/01/2016
PLEASE update this for 2016! And if you have...I'm sorry! I'll look for it^^
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Mike · 13:09 22/04/2015
I was having some problems with opening project (.vf) files from last week. I figured out that turning off GPU acceleration in the main options setting solved that problem.

But rendering video using only the CPU significantly lengthened the rendering time and "rendered" the PC useless for other tasks.

Thanks for the tip about turning on GPU acceleration in the Sony AVC/MVC option window.

I'm running an AMD Athlon 3.10 Ghz X3 445 processor, Win 8.1 (ugh - truly) and an NVIDIA GeForce 520 GT video card.

I say "ugh" about Windows 8.1, because it is slowly dying a month at a time, and I just don't want to reinstall all over again the OS and all of my apps and then reconfigure the machine how I like it.
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  Derek
  
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  · 14:15 22/04/2015
  
  Hi Mike
  
  If your computer is slowing down, you need to use a Registry/Computer Cleaning program. This will remove garbage files that have built up over time on your computer. There are two programs you can use. A free program is CCleaner:
  [url]https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download[/url]
  
  The program I use is System Mechanic, however this is a bought program.
  
  Something that may fix your problem with opening .vf files is to reset Movie Studio and clean the cache. This restores all settings to default values and removes any customization you may have added. Doing this often fixes problems and may get your GPU working again.
  [b]Do this:[/b]
  Turn Movie Studio Off.
  Hold down CONTROL and SHIFT keys at the same time AND ALSO AT THE SAME TIME double click program icon on Desktop to Boot program.
  Window will pop up.
  Select Delete Cache and Yes.
  
  Regards
  Derek.
  
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rudy · 12:52 11/04/2015
i'm using vegas pro 12.0(64bit), how to set for the best output DVD Pal when rendering....
plz help sir...
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  Derek
  
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  · 15:30 12/04/2015
  
  Hi Rudy
  I already have two tutorials which will teach you everything you need to know about making DVDs using Vegas Pro and/or DVD Architect Pro.
  Start with these two:
  https://www.moviestudiozen.com/free-tutorials/sony-vegas-pro/531-how-to-burn-dvd-bluray-sony-vegas-pro
  https://www.moviestudiozen.com/free-tutorials/dvd-architect-studio-50/532-how-to-render-video-dvd-bluray-menus-sony-vegas-pro
  
  Regards
  Derek.
  
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Christopher Cameron · 02:37 26/12/2014
Hello Derek. I wanted to ask a question if that's not a problem. I have Vegas Pro 12 Build 770 (64-bit) and when it comes to rendering my project, it only uses 4/16gb of my RAM. That and CPU doesn't even go higher than 70%. I Have GPU assist on Using an NVIDIA GeForce 550ti with an AMD-8320 Clocked @3.2GhZ. I either render to MainConcept AVC, Sony AVC, or the usual method of framserving the footage into MeGui/x.264 since it yields better compression then Vegas Pro does. What seems to be the problem? plz help! d('u 'd) btw loved your topic on the proxy video editing/substitution for vegas since it has come to really help me in a pinch!
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  Derek
  
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  · 10:34 26/12/2014
  
  Hi Christopher
  This is a complex topic and there is no clear answer.
  If you are rendering to Mainconcept AVC or Sony AVC, are you setting the Encode Mode in Custom Video settings to "CUDA" ?
  This is the setting you should be using that best matches your Graphics Card.
  When this encode mode is used, your Graphics Card will be doing most of the work, so there is no need for the CPU to go any higher. This is perfectly normal.
  RAM usage also is a complex area. For many average projects, Vegas does not need to use all the RAM that is available - it uses only what it needs.
  Different Formats/Codecs all use different encoding algorithms, which means CPU usage will vary greatly. If you rendered to Windows Media Video .wmv, you would see almost 100% of your CPU being used, however your render times would be much slower.
  
  Bottom line is you don't have anything to worry about. This topic has been discussed over and aver again for many years on the Sony Creative Software Forums. There are plenty of old discussions you can search and read on the Sony Forums.
  
  All the best.
  Derek :smile:
  
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lyn · 06:58 10/12/2014
what graphics cards play nicely with sony vegas movie studio hd platinum 11? & ty for great tutorials
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  Derek
  
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  · 00:05 13/12/2014
  
  Hi Lyn
  
  If you would like to buy a brand new Graphics Card, the best option for Vegas is any of the newest AMD Radeon cards. Example R9-270, R9-270X, R9-280, R9-280X, R9-290 & R9-290X.
  
  None of the newest graphics cards from AMD or Nvidia are supported for Mainconcept AVC rendering/exporting any more. So when you are rendering to this format, you will have to set the [b]Encode Mode[/b] to [i]CPU only[/i]. You can however render with Sony AVC/MVC and use some GPU Acceleration.
  
  If you are simply upgrading an existing/older computer system, my very strong suggestion is that instead of wasting money for very little return on a brand new card, you instead buy a 2nd hand GTX560 or GTX460 from eBay. The older Nvidia GTX400 and GTX500 series graphics cards work exceedingly well with Vegas and rendering with Mainconcept AVC and Sony AVC.
  
  I am still using an Nvidia GTX460 in my own computer and use it all the time for rendering to Mainconcept AVC - it works very, very well and definitely renders faster than my over-clocked Intel i7-2600k.
  
  There is a wide selection on 2nd hand Nvidia graphics cards for sale on eBay.
  
  Please note that version 11 of Vegas was only a 32bit program. This limits rendering ability quite a bit. If you are on a newer 64bit computer and want to get the maximum power out of the program, you need to upgrade to Movie Studio Platinum 13 64bit edition. My guess is that version 14 will be released some time in the New Year, so maybe look out for that and then upgrade.
  
  Regards
  Derek.
  
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Jesse · 04:40 11/03/2013
I have the AMD Radeon HD 7660d graphics card. I have been trying to find an updated driver because it fails when rendering in Sony Vegas Pro 11. I can't find one. Any tips?
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  Derek
  
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  · 13:46 11/03/2013
  
  Hi Jesse
  
  Here is the AMD Graphics Driver update page.
  There are options for it to Auto-Detect your graphics card.
  Follow the instructions.
  
  If everything bombs out after you upgrade the Drivers, you can roll back to the old driver by going into Windows Control Panel - Device Manager - Display Adapters
  Right-click to go deeper into controls.
  
  Another thing to try if the above step makes no improvement is to disable the Graphics Card.
  
  Go to Options - Preferences - Video tab
  Set GPU Acceleration to OFF
  
  Finally, Vegas Pro 12 has an improved rendering engine.
  When you get to Encode Mode settings (example in Mainconcept AVC/AAC .mp4), you can now choose more options.
  
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Tom · 04:02 07/11/2012
Very useful.. thank you!
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  Derek
  
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  · 00:09 09/11/2012
  
  Your welcome :)
  Derek.
  
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How to Speed Up Rendering Times using Sony Vegas & Movie Studio

In this tutorial I will explain how you can speed up your Renderng Times when using Sony Vegas Pro 11 or Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11.

Rendering times are directly influenced by some of these main factors:

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