Create your new media

1. Once again in the main Program window, click on the File pulldown and highlight/click the Render option which is about the 9^th option down from the top of the list. A CINELERRA-GG Render menu will appear.
2. First key in the first textbox the file to render to under Select a file to render to.
3. For the File Format, click on the down arrow and select FFMPEG (because this is the most commonly used format; later you may want to experiment with others). To the right of that box, click on the down arrow and highlight mp4 – again because this is common. When you click on mp4, notice that if there is an extension to your filename in the file to render to above, it may change it to mp4 and if there is none, it will add .mp4 because that is what is expected.
4. Make sure there is a red colored checkmark next to the words Audio and Video right below if you have/want both audio and video. To the left of that checkmark box, is a symbol that looks like a wrench. Click on this for Audio just to see the default Preset options which are just fine so dismiss the menu. Then click on the wrench for Video and check Pixels by using the down arrow to the right to be yuv420p – this is most commonly usable option. And click on the green checkmark.
5. Check the Insertion Strategy in the Render Menu window. You might want to change that to a different strategy than the default of Append in new tracks. If not, then when the Render is done, your new video will automatically be loaded in another set of tracks below your work tracks. Click on the green checkmark in the lower left corner to start the render.
6. As the render is running, you will see the video play by in the Compositor. Rendering is usually slow, especially with plugins added.