[Rick Hughes] “If instead I choose to ‘Render As’ something different DVD, AVCHD etc ………. should I go back into properties and change project settings to match ? I don’t usually do that … just simply Render out what I want.”
Nope, you are doing it correctly. In general you should have your project match your source footage and then render to whatever formats you need. The only time I would suggest having the project match the render is if you are using a non-standard aspect ratio of if you plan to deliver in a different frame rate. Then it’s better to have your project match your render.
[Rick Hughes] “….. and if it doesn’t make a difference why set them in the first place ?”
It makes no difference when rendering but…
It makes a big difference when editing. All of your cropping decision are based on your projects aspect ratio. All of your timing decisions are based on your projects frame rate. Also Movie Studio will conform your footage on-the-fly based on the project settings so if your project doesn’t match your source video, Movie Studio will be doing a log of extra work converting frames and may not be able to keep up with smooth playback. No only that, but if your sources is 60p and you are going to render to 60p but you set your project up as 30p, Movie Studio will only ever show you 1/2 of the frames! So getting your project settings correct is kind of critical at times.
~jr
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