Rendering - Steps - Settings

Hi my esteemed listmates,

I read Chapters 158 and 159 re: the Delivery Page in the Reference Manual which shares a lot of details and options but it doesn’t really take you step-by-step through the process of rendering.

I searched this forum for rendering steps but didn’t find anything posted (maybe there’s a better search term(s)?)
I’m trying to test the process (my project isn’t quite done) to see how I convert my DR project into an .MP4 file (single file) but there are so many settings and choices it’s a little confusing.

In OpenShot you just clicked the Export button and it exported your project to .MP4 on your external (or internal) hard drive.

After others have viewed my project in .MP4 I’ll just upload that file (outside of DR) to a YouTube channel.

I’m not doing anything with Colors or Fusion or too complicated with this project. I’ve created Titles and trimmed video and audio so it doesn’t involve too complex techniques.

On the Deliver page I see H.264, H.265, Custom, YouTube and Vimeo and I’m not sure what the choose for a simple .MP4 rendering.

Would you pls share a step-by-step or at least what basic Settings I should check-mark (or leave at default)?

Thank you!!

As far as I can see, for a simple .MP4 rendering these settings should work?

Please share any thoughts about any settings or steps I’m missing to render a project into .MP4.

Thank you!

Choose YouTube 1080p
File Name: name whatever will enable you to remember it
Location: C\Video Projects\Project Name
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 HD
Frame Rate: 29.97
Format: MP4
Video Codec: H.264
Audio: AAC
Audio Codec: AAC
Data burn-in: Same as project
Leave un-checked – upload directly to YouTube
Press the button Add to Render Que

I use these settings with excellent results. (Change the Resolution, Frame Rate and Key Frames according to your timeline.)

Best Quality Encoding.jpg (81.37 KiB) Viewed 524 times

Jim,

Thank you so very much posting that graphics which I found so very helpful!

I imagine other newbies will as well.

My project rendered successfully as an MP4

I hope this isn't considered inappropriate to broach a projects question along with the rendering?

If so, my apologies.

I’m still not as clear as I’d like about Saving and Exporting DR projects.

I manually save them naming them different names each time every 20-30 minutes (or so) but when I search for that project (named .drp) I don’t find it on the desktop’s hard drive (C:\).

I wanted to first save each of those project back-ups on the desktop hard drive and then save each (or at least the final project “back-up” to the external hard drive.

To “save” or “back-up” the DR project I select File>Export Project and then export it to the external hard drive. When I’ve done that, sometime when I then re-open DR on the desktop late and choose the last iteration of the project I’ve been editing I get the red “Offline Media” for some of the media files in the Media Pool.

Should I be Exporting the project to the external hard drive to save it and if so why then might I be getting the red Offline Media?

Thank you again for your kind help.

Saving of project files happens inside of the database.
If you want a backup on a separate storage, which is recommended for sure, you use export and import instead.