JSON2VIDEO Documentation Rendering
The preview in the Editor runs in your browser. The video file is produced on the server, from the Render button in the topbar.
Rendering is not in the Template menu on purpose: the menu is about the document, and producing a video is not a document operation.
Preview is not the final render
The canvas is a fast approximation, good enough to design against. The server render is the authoritative result. They differ in a few places worth knowing:
- Text-to-speech timing, and anything whose duration depends on it.
- HTML elements and some complex motion.
- Font rendering, where the browser and the render server do not have exactly the same fonts available.
When the exact frame matters, render it.
The pre-flight dialog
Render does not submit anything. It opens a dialog with three blocks:
What will be rendered — the output settings the movie already carries:
resolution, quality, frame rate, duration, whether cached renders are in use, and
a summary of the content. These are read-only here because they are document
properties; Open output settings takes you to Properties → Output on the
Movie node, where they are edited.
Cost — an estimate of the credits the render will consume, itemised, next to the balance it will come out of. If the balance is below what the render needs, the dialog says so before you spend anything.
Quality and resolution change how long a render takes, not what it costs. The estimate follows the preview's duration, so it is only as accurate as the preview.
Before you render — the pre-flight checks. Anything already wrong with the movie is listed here; a clean movie reports Nothing to flag.
Copy API request
The dialog also carries a Copy API request disclosure: the same render, as a ready-to-run request, in curl, JavaScript or Python.
This is what turns a visual design into an automated one. Design the movie in the Editor, copy the request, and drop it into your codebase — the JSON in the snippet is the same JSON the Editor is holding.
For the full endpoint documentation see Create movie.
While a render is running
A submitted render does not lock the Editor. You can keep editing while it runs — the render already has its copy of the movie.
The Render button becomes a clock, showing elapsed time and the stage the pipeline reports. Starting another render while one is in flight is allowed; the button then counts them. The Renders panel lists what this session has submitted, with status and the finished file.
Renders started from the Editor are ordinary renders: they appear under Render logs in the dashboard and follow the usual file retention rules.