Best settings to render project out in Sony Vegas Pro 8.0?

[Dave Lozinski]

A lot of your questions depend on:
1) what you are aiming for? YouTube? DVD? Broadcast? Computer playback?

2) have you tried rendering anything to see how it looks as though your target audience/device would see it?

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https://www.davelozinski.com
https://www.davelozinski.com/DemoReel/
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[Seth Kopchu]

Two good questions, as I should have covered them in the first place without anyone having to ask. My mistake.

I’m looking to play it back on exactly those three formats: DVD, computer, and YouTube/Vimeo.

I not yet rendered it out in any format whatsoever, as I want to make sure that I’m doing it correctly so that I can get the best quality video.

[Dave Lozinski]

How big are your original videos? Eg, did you record in something like 320×200? Or an HD setting like 1080×720?

Reason I’m asking is because like working with photos, with recorded videos you generally don’t want to increase the resolution too much or you’ll start getting the pixelated effect.

If you recorded your videos in anything say like 640×480 up to 720, then you can easily output your video in any sort of 720×480 format. Whether or not you choose to stretch to fill the frame is up to you as only you can see if it looks good or not.

But really, it all comes down to rendering it and then viewing the results. There is no right or wrong answer per se.

I would start by focusing on Computer/Youtube. Either one of those will be played back on a computer, so render your video in MP4 in some various resolutions to see if you’re happy with it.

For DVD, you have to render MPEG2 unless you’re going bluray. I know with DVD Architect Pro, you can preview the entire DVD to see how it looks before creating the dvd. My digital camera captures video at 640×480, so I render DVDs at the 720×480 resolution and everything comes out fine for me.

If you have a video where mostly everything is vector graphics, then you can render it any size and it’ll scale fine.

Again, unless other people chime in, it’s trial/error and you have to view results to see what you’re happy with.

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https://www.davelozinski.com
https://www.davelozinski.com/DemoReel/
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[John Rofrano]

Your audio properties should be set to 48K not 44.1K. All audio for video is delivered at 48K/16-bit. (44.1K is for CD’s)

Since your video is 720-24p I would deliver DVD’s using the following:

Video: MainConcept MPEG2 template DVD Architect 24p NTSC Widescreen video stream
Audio: Dolby Digital AC-3 Pro template Stereo DVD

These two files should be named the same (just with different extensions). This will give you the best quality for authoring your DVD in DVD Architect.

For Internet delivery (PC, YouTube, etc.) I would render using Sony AVC starting with the Internet 1280×720-30p template and pressing the Custom button and changing the frame rate to 23.976 and then save it under the name Internet 1280×720-24p. I’m not sure if those “Internet…” templates existed back in Vegas Pro 8.0. I only have access to Vegas Pro 10.0 right now so I can’t tell.

~jr

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

[Seth Kopchu]

So far, all of your responses have been very helpful.

What about just rendering the project out as a .WMV with these specifications:

Audio: 192 Kbps, 48,000 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo, WMA9.
Video: 23.976 fps, 1440×1080,
PAR=1.3333, WMV V9 CBR Compression, Smoothness 90.
Use this setting for high-quality HD video playback on a 3.0 GHz computer or better.

I’ve always created files in .WMV in the past both for PC playback and for burning to DVD, but this current project is ultra important to me, hence why I want to retain the best quality possible. Do you guys feel that this template would do me well, not only in PC playback, but as well as Internet and burning to DVD?

Also, I don’t have DVD Architect. What free programs could you suggest? And would what you suggested for burning the project to DVD still work for any program, or would that just be limited to DVD Architect?

[John Rofrano]

DVD’s only accept MPEG2 video with AC3 audio. If you render to anything else, you will need to render it again and loose quality in the process. If you want the best quality, you need to render to the correct format the first time. So… No WMV is not a good format to use.

~jr

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

[Seth Kopchu]

Alright. I will first take Mr. Rofrano’s advice and see how I feel about the results.

Is there any particular reason why you would opt to render the project out as Sony AVC as compared to any other file format, such as .AVI and .mov? And will AVC play in Windows Media Player (although I do have VLC, I just, by habit, use WMP as my default 99% of the time)?

Also, I don’t have any of Sony’s DVD authoring programs. Taking your advice and rendering out the two file formats, the audio and the video, will any DVD burning program be able to recognize the two or is what you’re telling me to do a process reserved exclusively for DVD Architect?

EDIT:

Attached is a screen shot of the AVC settings that I’m creating:

https://i.imgur.com/IjGj8.png

What you see is how I have it set. Now, some questions:

1. Should the video format remain as AVC, or should I change it to one of the other two options, Memory Stick or AVCHD?

2. I’ll assume my video’s are in widescreen (16×9) and not letterboxed (4×3), since I’m sure that HD only shoots in 16×9. If what I just said matters or is relevant at all, should I check the “Allow source to adjust frame size”, or leave as is?

3. As for profile, it’s currently set to “Main”. The other option is “Baseline”. Change it?

4. There are two types of Entropy coding. I have it set to “CABAC” right now, whereas the other option is CAVLC. Again, change it or no?

5. What about all the settings and such listed underneath the Entropy coding?

6. Finally, when I click the “System” tab, I set it to “Video elementary stream (.avc)”. Should I keep it at this, or change it to either of the two other options, MP4 file format (.mp4) or MPEG-2 transport stream (.m2ts)?

Lastly, I have, under “Project”, have the setting set as “Best” for video rendering quality.

View post on imgur.com

[John Rofrano]

[Seth Kopchu] “Is there any particular reason why you would opt to render the project out as Sony AVC as compared to any other file format, such as .AVI and .mov?”

Because Sony AVC is AVC/H.264 which will give high quality at low bit-rates and it’s platform agnostic which means it can be played on a PC or a Mac.

[Seth Kopchu] “will any DVD burning program be able to recognize the two or is what you’re telling me to do a process reserved exclusively for DVD Architect?”

Not all DVD programs are smart enough to work with separate streams. You’ll need to find one that does. I know Sony DVD Architect does.

[Seth Kopchu] “Attached is a screen shot of the AVC settings that I’m creating:”

This is what the built-in Sony template looks like:

[Seth Kopchu] “6. Finally, when I click the “System” tab, I set it to “Video elementary stream (.avc)”. Should I keep it at this, or change it to either of the two other options, MP4 file format (.mp4) or MPEG-2 transport stream (.m2ts)?”

You want MP4 file format. Set this FIRST as it affects what’s available on the Video tab.

[Seth Kopchu] “Lastly, I have, under “Project”, have the setting set as “Best” for video rendering quality.”

Best is only needed if you are performing resizing of large images. Otherwise Good is the default.

~jr

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

[Seth Kopchu]

John,

Taking your advice, I created the MP4. I also, just to humor myself, rendered my project out as a .WMV using the specifications I listed earlier on in this thread.

The result was that the MP4 was much darker looking than the WMV – the WMV retained all the visuals that the project had before rendering. So while I believe your statement about the MP4 version being superior, what would cause it to make my whole project look darker than what it actually is?

[John Rofrano]

The MP4 version is probably expanding the Studio RGB to Computer RGB because it targeted for computer playback while the WMV encoding probably did not.

~jr

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