-
Newbie needs help with quality settings
Hi!
First I want to apologize if there is some bad english in this post. My english isnt so good.
I’m pretty new in video editing. I receieved my first video camera this week, a Canon HF10. And now I need a program for editing my movies. I hva tried Vegas a bit and think its a great program. But I got some problems when I was finished editing the movie and wanted to save it on my PC. The quality was very bad in other words.
First i wonder if my Project Properties is correctly. What is the correct values in this window?
https://img300.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spillinnab4.jpg
And when the video is finished. I’m goint to save it. Then I chose “File” – “Render As…”, is this correct? And in the window that appears after I chosed “Render As…”. What should I chose there?
https://img300.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spillinn2df4.jpg
At last I can add that I record in SP modus. That gives me movies with this specifications: 1440 x 1080 and 7 Mbps
-
11 Replies
-
Hi Øyvind
Welcome to the forum. Your settings look okay to me. You can just use the defaults.I would like to make a suggestion though that you change your prerendered files folder. Do you have at least 2 hard drives? You shouldn’t store ytour captured files nor should you have your prerendered files folder on your C drive. You’re possibly asking for problems down the road if you do.
Actually your English is pretty good so don’t worry.
Now you have many choices for rendering. The best quality video to keep on your hard drive would be an AVI file, but those are rather big files so unless you have a lot of hard drive space (AVI is 13gB per hour of video) I’d choose maybe WMV files. But you’re stuck with computer only to watch your videos.
However what if you want to burn your videos on DVD’s? Then you’d need to render to MPEG-2. If you bought Vegas 8 Pro it came also with DVD Architect for authoring DVD’s. Then you want to choose the Main Concept MPEG-2 and in the template choose DVDA Mpeg stream. Render your video only to that, then render your audio to AC3. Make sure you have both files in the same folder and with the same name.
I hope this helps get you started.
Regards
AllenASX Media Group, Inc.
https://www.asxvideo.com -
Thanks for the help!
Got some more questions though. I also need to chose template. What should I chose there? Because when I chose .avi and press Save, I cant manage to play the file. I tried several programs but none will work.
-
I forgot to say something in my last post. I tried to save the file as Windows Media Video V9 (.wmv) and with this template: 8 Mbps HD 1080-30p Video. And that worked very well. The video worked in VLC with no problems. If something of this is wrong please notice me. Maybe I can chose some other template, and still get good quality?
But later on I followed your guide for burning a DVD, but it stoped alleready when I was going to render the movie. I didnt godt any option on the template as you described. I only got theese options:
https://img254.imageshack.us/my.php?image=spillinnub3.jpg
This was after I chosed MainConcept MPEG-2 on filetype.I also installed DVD Architect Pro program, but I wonder if I got the newest version. I got the 4.5 version. But this is probably not so important i guess.
-
You have the correct one highlighted or the one below (widescreen).
However I am not working with HD/HDV so someone else here will have to help you on that. As of now I’m only working with SD.
I believe DVDA4.5 is the latest version. Maybe an (a) or (b) is out but you can check that yourself.
As to why the AVI didn’t play I don’t know. When you double click the AVI / WMV file it should have played in Windows Media Player.
Hopefully another forum member will jump into this thread and offer some help as well.
What about your hard drives on your computer? How many do you have? You should have at least 2 internal, the 2nd one for your video files.
AllenASX Media Group, Inc.
https://www.asxvideo.com -
I only got one harddrive on my PC. The other partition is for the HP Recovery files. But I got an external harddrive that I’m going to use for storaging the video files.
It was very wierd with the .avi file yes. But as I said, the .wmv file played good so there is no big problem. I guess that the quality is quite the same on those two formats?
And one more thing. When I render the movie with the MPEG-2 settings. Vegas also creates a file called “Test film.mpg.sfl”, is this file of any importance? It also created this file when I rendered the audio, but then it was “Test film.ac3.sfl”.
I didn’t get any sound when I played the MPEG-2 file in Media Player or VLC. But does the sound come when I burn the DVD?
-
After rendering to MPEG-2 then you have to go back and render again, this time using the AC3 audio. There is NO audio in that MPEG stream.
Make sure both files have the same name, ie: test.mpg / test.ac3. Keep them in the same folder. When you drag the MPG file into DVDA, the AC3 file will automatically follow and give you the audio portion.
Those sfl and sfx files are for vegas to remember your settings. I wouldn’t delete them until you’re all finished with the project. They’re small files anyway and won’t affect you but if you delete them and than have to open Vegas to do more work on your project, some of your settings will be gone.
I’m still at a loss as to why the AVI didn’t play.
AllenASX Media Group, Inc.
https://www.asxvideo.com -
Thats ok. But I thought of playing the MPEG-2 file in Windows Media Player for example. Can I get audio then?
I think the problem with the .avi file is that I maybe chose wrong template when I rendered it. Maybe the file was damaged or so then.
Once again I have to thank you for all the answers. I was about to go mad a while when it didn’t work. And when it also was my first camera I almost started to think it was wrong to buy it. But now its all fine, thanks to you. 🙂
-
Nope, the MPG won’t play as seperate audio/video streams in WMP. You’ll get the video without the audio or vice versa. If you went with a different template where the audio/video is together, then it possibly would play. Or go MPEG-1 VCD.
You can, however play DVD’s in WMP. So my suggestion is render a WMV file to immediately be able to see your video, then also make a DVD and watch it on your TV.
Glad I could help.
AllenASX Media Group, Inc.
https://www.asxvideo.com -
Hi Øyvind Lilleberg. What are you wanting to watch the final video on? DVD architect is a standard definition authorizing program. 720 x 480 resolution. If your recording in high def which your camera does, you will lose quality by putting it on a regular DVD. If it has to be on a disk, you will need a blu ray authorizing program which DVDA does not do yet if I’m not mistaken. I work with HDV alot and I don’t have a blu-ray player, burner or auth, software yet. I render my vids to WMV 1440 x 1080 8mbs and use a computer to watch them. Almost every HDTV has a VGA input to connect a computer to as a secondary or even primary display. For the cost of a blu-ray burner and player, you could buy another fast computer, add a second video card for the HDTV and have money to spare. It takes a fast computer to play back high bitrate WMV files. Windows media player will play the WMVHD files fine. I only use VLC to play m2t files, (Sony’s and Panasonic tape based HDV camcorders native format) Windows media player wont play these files as of yet. Also AC3 files for audio are usualy only needed if your doing surround sound. If your audio is stero, you can use the Main concept ntsc DVD template with audio and still use DVDA to make a standard def DVD. If the video can be watched on a fast computer, WMVHD is the way to go I think. Hope this helps. Danny Hays
-
If your external drive is a 7200 rpm drive firewire or usb2, you should be able to put your media on it and use it with Vegas. I have four Lacie ext. drives and have had no problems editing from them for several years. Danny Hays
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up