How does rendering impact video quality?

If you’ve worked with video editing software before you know that at some point in the process you’ll have to render the sequence in your timeline. But what does rendering do to the quality of the video you just spent your time working on?

Let’s start with a basic understanding of what video rendering actually means. When you render a video project, your computer is processing all the data that goes into creating images. You experience video rendering (granted at smaller scale) every time you look at your computer, the images on your screen have all been rendered to produce the website, photo or video you are looking at.

For video editors, rendering takes place in the editing software. For smooth playback of your project or creating stunning graphics and effects your computer has to render that data to produce the image. This process can be one of the most intensive on your workstation hardware.

The rendering process can be broken into two categories:

1. Real Time

2. Advanced

Real time rendering is what happens when you are browsing the internet or looking at basic graphics. Your computer can handle those quickly but there is a limit to the complexity of what can be rendered in real time.

Advanced rendering is what is used in video editing. The data that goes into producing animations and 2-D or 3-D graphics is immense and must be done ahead of time. Video editors and graphic artists render their projects in advance so that when people go to view the project in real time, their computer can handle it.

So to boil it down, rendering does not impact your video quality. The only impact rendering has on your project is making it easier for viewers to load and view the content on their computer.