A question that's been asked in many forms before: Best render option for...

[Toploader]

Google and even this site search will throw up many threads for people best opinion on rendering practices, but most are very specific to what the OP is trying to do, so I wanted some fresh advice for my situation.

In short, I wanna render at the highest possible quality to make the format I'm coming from, file size be damned (reason being, I got a ton of long clips that I won't be keeping, so just kinda wanna make one edit of what I wanna keep and disregard the rest, and might use the long edit in future for other projects ect).

I'm using Sony Vegas 10, I have Sony HandyCam that I record in HDFX that gives me a .MTS (AVCHD) file @ 1920X1080. I think my best option is

Type: XDCAM EX (*.MP4)
Tempate: HQ 1920x 1080-24P 35 MBP VBR (*)

Or would HQ 1920x 1080-60i 35 MBP VBR (*)

But I'd like some thoughts from those that might know more. It's worth noting that the video I'm currently doing has a lot of fast panning shots.

Thanks for your time.

[Midnight Blue]

I would use the template that matches most closely to you original footage. ie if it was shot at 60i keep it 60i, keep the resolution and the bitrate the same as it was shot etc. Do not do any colour correction or alter the clips in any way except for cutting them. Do not add any transitions. Make sure in the preferences, on the general tab, it has "Enable no-recompress long GOP rendering" box ticked. This should tell Vegas not to re-render unaltered clips. That way you should keep the current quality of your video the same as it was originally.