Ok, clearly I'm challenged.  I thought I already found a thread around here for this topic, but I can't seem to find it.  In fact, I was pretty sure someone had posted some very detailed instructions on how to make this feature work.

I have some (tons of) AVCHD videos I shot at home.  Kids, and the like.  Stuff that's probably only important to me.  Anyway, I thought Smart Render was the perfect thing for me, as I don't typically do alot of heavy effects on these videos.  Maybe some transitions and a title at the start.  Well, I have yet to get a video to output in a timeframe measured in minutes, rather than hours.

I originally assumed (yes, I know about assuming) that _Smart_ Render would take the original video, match the qualities of that video, and output to the same qualities.  I guess that was a bit of a leap.  I think the last thing I read here was that I needed to MANUALLY set the output file to match the input.  Well, I don't think I know exactly what all the settings should be, as I don't really know how to determine all of them.  I know some of the basics... frame rate (29.97), resolution (1920x1080i or 1440x1080i or 1280x720), depending on the mode I shoot in. Of course, there are many, many more options that can be set in MEP.

For example, I am currently outputting a video as I write.  It is four clips in 1440x1080.  As a test, I did absolutely NOTHING to the clips, other than add one after the other to the timeline.  No titles, no transitions, nothing.  Simply added the clips (and the clips are a few, complete video files without cutting, or anything) and chose to output.  I can't see a simpler project, unless it only included a single file without any editing.  I chose to output to a HD camera, don't play-out, Smart Render enabled, verified the resolution and frame rates were the same as the source files.  It's now eight hours and fourty-some-odd minutes later, and it's still working. It shows about seventeen minutes and some seconds remaining.  That seems a bit excessive to me.  The entire video is under an hour long.  (I shot the entire thing in one sitting, with one battery on the camera.)  My CPU cores are pegged out at 95-100% useage, and my GPU shows 0% use.

I don't want to sound like a punk, but I can't say it takes me this long to do the same thing in Studio, with no Smart Render capability.  Somebody PLEASE set me strait!  I know it's me, but WHAAAAAAAAAT am I doing wrong?!?!?!?!  :D

Thanks for reading, and whatever help you can offer.

Jay