Am I getting the best possible image quality with my settings?

[Mike Kujbida]

Render it as 2 separate streams.
PCM audio (uncompressed) is fine for a 1 hr. DVD.

***Make sure to set the properties in DVDA so it knows that you’re using PCM instead of AC-3 audio (the default).

For video, choose the DVD Architect NTSC video stream template and customize it so that it’s set to 8,000,000 CBR.
If any parts of the video are of marginal quality, do a 2-pass VBR with the following custom numbers (Max, Avg, Min):
8,000,000 / 8,000,000 / 4,100,000.
Either of these settings can be saved as a template for future use.
BTW, these numbers are for a video that’s one hr. long.
Any other times will require the use of a bitrate calculator to determine optimum settings.
https://www.johncline.com/bitcalc110.zip is the one I use and have been recommending to anyone that asks for a good one.

Give both files the same surname and render them to the same folder.
That way, when you load the video file into DVDA, the audio file will automatically follow.

Sony brand blank DVDs may be OK but the recommendation is to use either Taiyo-Yuden or Verbatim (#1 & #2 respectively) as their quality and quality control is very good.

[Or Tal]

One more thing to try:

Render your video as Uncompressed Avi.
(consider applying sharpen FX on the Master track set to 0)

Let DVD Architect make the conversion to DVD format (mpeg2)

strange, but this method gives me the best results.

good luck

Or Tal

[Don Kimball]

OR Tal

If I render it as uncompressed wont the file be so huge that I wont be able to put much on a 1 hour DVD? or will DVD Architect somehow do the the compressing for me? Not clear on this one.

Thanks!

[Mike Kujbida]

DVDA will always do any necessary recompressing for you but, IMO, it’s always better to do all the prep work in Vegas and give DVDA finished MPEG-2 and AC-3 or PCM files.
Rendering as uncompressed AVI gains you nothing other than a very large file as the source material (DV-AVI) has already gone through a 5:1 compression when it was originally recorded.
The sharpening trick Or Tal mentions was discussed very recently on the Sony Vegas forum and the consensus was that it’s best used when your source footage is HDV, AVCHD or some other form of HD video that you’re down-converting to SD for a standard DVD.

[Don Kimball]

Hi Mike: If I am doing this correctly then for starters in Sony Vegas when its time to render I choose the following: Template: Custom – untitled Video rendering quality – BEST Then for first rendering uncheck the box for INCLUDE VIDEO to choose only Audio
Then for audio tab check include Audio PCM UNCOMPRESSED
Big question here… what is the audio rendered file saved as? MP3 or what so that it can share the same parent name as the video?

Thanks and as you can tell this is my first attempt to render using something other than defaults

Don

[Mike Kujbida]

Don, a picture is worth 1,000 words so hopefully these will help.

Step #1.
Choose DVD Architect NTSC video stream in the template box and then click Custom, then Video (BTW, Best mode is good to use here).

Step #2.
Click CBR and enter a value of 8,000,000
If step #3 isn’t applicable, skip to step #4.

Step #3.
If any portion of the video is of marginal quality, click VBR and enter values of 8,000,000 / 8,000,000 / 4,100,000

Step #4.
Enter and save a custom name.

Step #5.
Your new custom preset will now be available any time you ever need it.

Step #6.
PCM audio settings.

Please let me know if any of this doesn’t make sense to you.

[Don Kimball]

Mike this is very helpful. I did exactly as you said but when I came to step # 6 I found no tab to click either video or audio in vegas to allow me to change the PCM Audio settings. Either under template or after clicking custom tab. I am sure I must have missed something simple. Here is where I am at and note it shows Audio with NONE
Your says 48,000HZ etc.

[URL=https://img694.imageshack.us/i/cowrendering.jpg/][IMG]https://img694.imageshack.us/img694/7691/cowrendering.th.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

[Don Kimball]

Sorry Mike I should have been more careful. The PCM audio settings change happens in the next step when you are rendering the file as a .wav file. I went back and re-read the first post and now am making 2 files. One mp3 of the project and the .wav file. I might have been off a couple of seconds short of one hour but I am hoping the trick will work here. Rather than using DVD arc I had been using Sony Vaio’s packaged burning software Click to DVD which I was always impressed by. Great quality although always a wee bit more contrasty and pixelated on any television I have viewed the final result on. Thanks for the picture step by step instructions. Great tool and I hope I am on my way with this but still working with the files. Takes a long time to render!

Cheers and many thanks and will let you know if I have more questions!

Don

[Don Kimball]

Hi Mike:

Thanks to your instructions I rendered my project in the way described by your helpful screen shots. (excellent way to teach!) whole project took almost 12 hours to render! I hope that is normal and I hope the resulting quality is good. Now the next hurdle:

When I attempt to burn the project in DVD Architect I get this message:

The estimated size of the project is larger than the default space available on Media
Estimated project size 9,844.1 M – (210.0%) of 4.700 GB Media

I was hoping DVD Arch would some how automatically take care of this for me but I guess I need to adjust something.
Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Mike Kujbida]

Don, congratulations – I think!!

DVDA has a long history of incorrectly reporting file sizes but I ‘ve never seen it be this far off 🙁

My first question is how long was the finished project?
If it was 1 hr. or less AND you used the numbers I gave you, then it should have worked and that error message wouldn’t have come up.

My second question is how did you add the file in DVDA?
Did you create a menu page and add this as a link or did you do it some other way?