Advice on committing 35mm slides to DVD

[Rick Hughes]

I saw the 6 … but forgot to count the zeros …. well spotted

I’ll try again and compare MPEG to MJPEG/MOV

I’ll also try MKV in Movie Studio … always good to know ……

[Rick Hughes]

Wayne …. Interesting results.

Recreated the MPEG2 version with settings at 60000
First off thought it had failed … my player (5k) just showed first image only and although showed as running – image never changed.
Tried VLC … exactly the same ……… however Splash Lite & MPC-HC both played it fine

For my 30 sec sample

H.264/MOV file is 24MB render time 65 sec
MJPEG/MOV file is 367MB render time 50 sec
MPEG2 file is 231MB render time 58 sec

Interestingly (and tried it twice) the files size (windows properties) shows wrong duration for MPEG2 it shows it as 3 min .. but runs the 30sec same as others, and stops .. not as if there were 2.5min of blank space.

Confirmed MKV does not work with Movie Studio …strange no support for this, but removes it from consideration.

Is there any benefit to either format for Sony Movie Studio use ………… might as well choose the most suitable.
I have seen comments that Movie Studio uses Quicktime, so not sure if that means MJPEG/MOV is a better option ? On flip side also see stated that MJPEG is not a standard while MPEG-2 is a standard, and the resultant quality of MJPEG is still inferior compared to a similar sized MPEG.

A whole world on conundrums for me.

On your suggestion I tried loading both mov files onto Movie Studio timeline … but not sure what you mean by track mute .. assume you mean stop one from showing/playing (as in audio mute) … but unsure how to do that … if you tell me how I’ll try comparison.

[Wayne Waag]

Interestingly (and tried it twice) the files size (windows properties) shows wrong duration for MPEG2 it shows it as 3 min .. but runs the 30sec same as others, and stops .. not as if there were 2.5min of blank space.

I found the same thing when trying the new Version 7. However, Version 5 produces a file with the correct length shown in windows. Go figure.

assume you mean stop one from showing/playing (as in audio mute) … but unsure how to do that

It’s just like the audio mute button. It’s the same-shaped button on the video track.

If it’s between H264/MOV and MPEG-2, I’d stick with MPEG-2 since you probably can’t change the bit rate of H264. At least, you know you’re getting a good quality render with sufficient bit rate that a re-render inside of Vegas will not lead to a significant loss of quality in your final show.

I really do like Proshow for image animation. However, their export functions have always really been pretty terrible in my opinion. It’s been a struggle to find something that works “reliably”–hence, my sticking with V5 and use of MPEG-2.

wwaag

[Rick Hughes]

Sorry to come back on this … those nice people at Photodex, just sent me a new license key that enabled the non-licensed codecs for free.
So as well as the options of MPEG2 & MJPEG/MOV
Also now have H264/MP4 which comes with description ” video with HIGH profile for use in external video editors”

The details for the same sample file are:
H264/MP4 118MB encode time 2m 30

Does this change the option .. or is MPEG2 still the best choice.
As you rightly mentioned bit rate I also include media info files for all 3 options.

9375_mjpegmovmediainfo.txt.zip

9376_mpeg2mediainfo.txt.zip

9373_h264mp4mediainfo.txt.zip

[Wayne Waag]

Does this change the option .. or is MPEG2 still the best choice.

Good news that Photodex sent you a different license key. If all three options work equally well in Vegas, it’s pretty much up to you. Given those three, I’d still choose MPEG-2 since the renders should be quicker and the playback on the Vegas timeline should be better. Another thing–how well do each of these play back in your media players on your PC fullscreen? It’s often good to simply play back your files to evaluate your show before re-rendering them in Vegas. If there are problems, you can then make changes in Proshow and easily re-render. In any case, it sounds as if you’re well on your way.

wwaag

[Rick Hughes]

The only issue I can see is that MPEG2 is not playable on several players … (as per previous post)

I have tried them on PC HiRes monitor and on widescreen HDTV … all 3 look the same (to my eyes)

N.B. I was able to use ‘mute’ and see difference in the 2 Quicktime variants.

[Wayne Waag]

Just go with what works best for you and have fun. I’m sure your family will enjoy what you’ve produced.

wwaag

[Rick Hughes]

Your help is most appreciated.

[Wayne Waag]

Glad I could be of help.

wwaag

[Rick Hughes]

Just to close on this …….. as a couple of points may help another ‘beginner’ like myself.

There was a lot of discussion that I could not create a DVD disc from a Blu_Ray due to different aspect ratios .. and that I would need to reset pan/crop and re-render.
In practise I did not have to do any of that.

After the Blu_Ray project was sent to DVDA … and BRD disc created (1920 x 1080)
All I did was go into the DVDA options and go into File>Properties and change disc type to DVD
Then just run make disk wizard again … and it all worked fine.
No issues at all with Aspect Ration ……. it plays perfectly, no letter boxing or cropping.

Must assume that DVDA is taking care of all that needs to be taken care of … certainly no need to go back into Vegas and make changes to timeline.

(I did did split the project in DVA as it was too big to fit on a single 8.5GB DVD)

The final sequence used was:
My original scanned stills were adjusted & tweaked in Lightoom and exported at 2 x vert resolution … so typically 3192 x 2160
They were dropped into PSG and after all transitions etc. ,, created an mpg video output file of 1920×1080
This went into Vegas and once audio & video additions & adjustments gave me an M2V output file of 1920 x 1080
This went into DVDA and that ultimately created a BRD compliant set of files with M2ts video at 1920 x 1080
After creation of BRD
I then went into DVDA changed to DVD and it created VOB MPEG DVD files at 720×576

So project now completed … and it was done and presented to my parents as a Xmas presents .. they were immensely pleased with results, especially as it spanned 1958-1976 … both of my parents were able to see their parents on screen for the first time.
As you can imagine many of people in the slides have been dead for many decades – the last time the slides were ‘projected’ was in mid 70’s …….. my parents were very pleased.

Now getting lots of requests or copies from the family 🙁

Thanks to all.