Digital Video Rendering/Export Strategies

DV Fanatics

Although most digital video editing systems allow for multiple layers of realtime video, it is necessary to render that video at some point in your workflow. It's important to understand the best video render strategy for your needs.

Whether you edit on Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer, your video needs to be rendered, when it comes time to archive your video. Rendering allows you to contain all of the video layers in a single video stream.

Since most of what I do has to get out of the system as a file at some point, I prefer to render my topmost track. Not only does this prepare for an export, but rendering the topmost track, means the video is re-compressed only once. If I render a lower track first and then the track above it, the system has to compress the composite twice.

On the Avid Media Composer there are many choices for exporting your video out for archive. Your program can be saved in many different codecs and wrappers of digital video. You also have the choice to save your video in the same format as the original source, allowing you to have a saved file without any additional encoding. Whenever I need to archive a finished video program, I always export the video as a "Same As Source" Quicktime movie. If my tracks aren't already rendered, the system has to render them to the Quicktime as it goes. read more...