Understanding rendering

Rendering is the process of exporting your project into a new, finalized media file. Rendering only creates a new “rendered” video file, and does not affect the project itself; you can still make edits to your project and render again as many times as needed.

  1. Click Headerbar ▸ Render.

  2. Choose the location and name of the exported file.

  3. Optionally choose a preset.

  4. Choose a container. See the codecs and containers page for details.

  5. Adjust the various encoding settings.

  6. Click the Render button.

While rendering, you can pause the process by clicking the Pause button and unpause it by clicking it again. You can also stop rendering either by clicking the Cancel button or by pressing Esc. If you stop the rendering process, the already rendered part of the project will be saved at the specified location. You might be able to use a partially rendered file, depending on the specified container format. A new render operation cannot resume from a partially rendered file.

If your computer is set to suspend or hibernate automatically, Pitivi will automatically inhibit the power saving features during the render process.

Project settings and the rendering dialog

The Project Settings are a base on which the Rendering dialog settings are applied when performing a render. The Project Settings are kept separate because they also determine how you preview the project while editing it. The values specified in the Rendering dialog are temporary and used only at render time. Because they are so closely related, the Rendering dialog has a button which opens the Project Settings.