Best render settings for Vegas

[John Rofrano]

> I notice a big difference when playing the same DVD on a HDTV verses ‘an old style TV’.

That’s because a standard TV is playing back your 720×480 video at 720×480 while the HDTV is resizing it to 1920×1080 almost 5x the original size!

> 1. What is the best settings for DVD movies?

If you are working with NTSC Widescreen I would stick with the DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video stream MPEG-2 template for video and the appropriate Digital Dolby AC3 template for audio.

> 2. What is the best settings for Bluray movies?

For NTSC HDV use the MPEG-2 Blu-ray 1440×1080-60i, 25 Mbps video stream or Blu-ray 1920×1080-60i, 25 Mbps video stream template depending on your source format.

For AVCHD use the Sony AVC Blu-ray 1920×1080-60i, 16 Mbps video stream template.

> 3. Does it make any difference to the quality if I select PAL or NTSC?

PAL and NTSC are not quality settings, they are video formats for specific regions of the world. NTSC is US and Japan and PAL is Europe, Australia, and almost everywhere else (except France which is SECAM). Use the format for the country you are delivering in.

> 4. Does the field order matter? What should it be?

If you don’t know… you shouldn’t be messing with it. Field order has no affect on quality unless it’s set incorrectly. Let Vegas handle it.

> 5. What should the pixel aspect ratio be?

For NTSC Widescreen DVD it’s 1.2121.

> I typically use the HDV 1080-60i setting in Vegas for DVDs. Should I just be using NTSC DV Widescreen?

Yes.

> I also read a post regarding the fact that DVDA ‘re-renders’ when Making a DVD. How can I prevent this as I believe this is costing me quality?

Render DVD video using the MPEG-2 DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video stream template.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Matt Paul]

John…as always you have been a big help. Thanks.

[Norman Willis]

Hi John.

>>For AVCHD use the Sony AVC Blu-ray 1920×1080-60i, 16 Mbps video stream template.

The Canon HF S10 has a 24Mbps video stream. Would I still use the 16Mbps? Or the 25 Mbps? Thanks.

[John Rofrano]

Always use the one that’s closest to your source. If there is a 25Mbps then use that. I didn’t think that Sony AVC went above 16 Mbps though.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Norman Willis]

My understanding is that the different manufacturers all use different bitrates for their camcorders, and some manufacturers even have different bitrates within their camcorder line. I do not know about Sony, but Canon puts a few different bitrates on the HF S10 (that are selected in a submenu).

The thing that kills me is that they did their bitrate calculations off of a Class 4 SDHC card, when Class 6 cards were already out. So if they had done the calculations for Class 6 cards (or other cards soon to be out with a rating that is even higher) we could have hypothetically had much higher bitrates!

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Ben Longden]

John,
When I first used Vegas and DVDA, I followed the ‘render as separate vision & audio files in DVDA’ path and got a lot of coasters, so I looked at the alphabet soup deep in the ‘advanced’ settings and noted they were identical to that of rendering directly to an MPEG2 file.

Until the other day. I accidentally sent an .avi file out of vegas into DVDA, and the result was spectacular and sharp.

I then experimented and did a render using the DVDA template in Vegas (with audio stream attached and two pass render, and it was also razor sharp.
Doing the render with identical bitrates as a standard MPEG2 was laden with mosquito noise and motion artifacts.

The frustrated techie in me wants to know why.. can you help?

Cheers,
Ben

[John Rofrano]

> I then experimented and did a render using the DVDA template in Vegas (with audio stream attached and two pass render, and it was also razor sharp.

That is the recommended way. It’s what I do.

> The frustrated techie in me wants to know why.. can you help?

I don’t know why the DVD Architect templates in Vegas work the way that they do so I can’t help explain it. I only know that they work… and that’s good enough for me.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Martin Phillips]

John,
I wonder if you help with this. I am renering my first 720p 50fps footage to bluray. My first attempt worked well – the origional files are mxf, so rendered out using the Sony mxf templte, dvda then re rendered to mpeg2 (I guess) the result was good. I just wanted to experement a bit, so I have tried to render out the footage using a templte 720p 50fps and outputing as mpeg 2 – as soon as I hit render, Vegas crashes. I have gone back in and rendered out as HDV and all seams well at the moment (3 hours to go, and I’ve gone to bed!!). Any idea what went wrong, and am I on the right track with my render settings. Regards Martin.

[John Rofrano]

> I have tried to render out the footage using a templte 720p 50fps and outputing as mpeg 2 – as soon as I hit render, Vegas crashes… Any idea what went wrong, and am I on the right track with my render settings.

Yea, 50fps is not a valid delivery format. The only valid Blu-ray HD frame rates are 29.970 (NTSC), 25.000 (PAL) and 23.976 (Film/24p). Regardless of what your camera shoots, these are the frame rates for HD delivery. I would not shoot 50fps unless I was doing some special FX slow motion work. And even then, after slo-mo I would have 25fps. Otherwise I would shoot using standard frame rates.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Aundre Oldacre]

Hey John-
It’s been a while. Hope all is well. What is the best render setting for broadcast TV full HD? I’m looking for the best combination of best quality and compression. Or should I not worry about compression for full HD and use fully uncompressed. The problem is those files for an hour show is ridiculously big.

Thanks,
Aundre