I have had VMSP 8 for more than 3 years and only now finding an occasion to use it. I am finding that rendering to a new track, or rendering to create a preview has some real quirks. Or maybe it's just "Operator Error".

I've found some info in the forum that is extremely helpful.
Is there a rendering standard or chart that can help with this? At one point the renders came out shorted on the horizontal so that the people look stretched. Then after many tries and not getting that right I tried changing the parameters of the audio and found that there is no way to have really good audio unless you want rendering to take 40 hrs (exaggeration) it was more like 20 hrs for a 50 min vid with converted ppt overlays. So I had to bring the audio down to mp3 @ something rediculous like 22,000hz. With the amount of editing that I am currently doing I need much faster rendering. I also keep getting an error when I try to "Render to Harddrive". It say's something like "Error, the size has exceeded the limit for this format". What does this mean? There is plenty of room on the drive. Is there a limit to the size that a .avi file can be rendered?

Thank you in advance for putting up with my ranting:)
And thank you for your prompt answers.