cardinal54

[Mike Kujbida]

What quality percentage (on the slider) and bit rate do you suggest?

Any projects I do that are under 70 min. long get rendered at a CBR of 8,000,000.
Anything longer gets rendered in VBR mode using the values determined by the bitrate calculator found at https://www.johncline.com/bitcalc110.zip.

For a two hour video, I get 8,200,000 / 4,688,000 / 2,808,000.
I generally limit the Max value to 8,000,000 to ensure compatibility with all brands of DVD players.

Due to the length of the project, I would do this as a two-pass render.
It will take longer but, IMO, the results are worth it.

I always have my slider set to 31 (maximum).

” I used to render at 4700 or so bit rate, but that’s not an option in Vegas 9.”

It’s still there.
Did you click on the Custom tab next to the Template box after selecting MPEG-2?

[Don Hutcheson]

Yes, I clicked the Custom tab next to the Template and my dialogue box looks totally different (the screen shot you had looks like an older version, and yours is showing 720x480with a 4:3 display). I’m HDV 1080-60i and my bit-rate options are much larger: 192,000/15,000.000/60,000,000.
I just rendered the first hour and it is a 10g file. Can DVD Architec compress two 10g files to one dual-layer DVD? Also, I’m new to dual-layer. Can most newer (one year old) DVD drives burn dual layer? BTW, when I previewed my reply, your screen shot kept coming up. I hope mine comes through, too. Not sure what’s shakin’ on that.

Thanks Mike,

Don

Hutch

[Don Hutcheson]

Your screen shot looks like an older version, and I see 720X480 and a 4:3 display. I’m doing 1080i and the first hour of the rendered video was 10G. Way too big. And, yes, I selected the custom option, but my available bitrates are 60,000,000/15,000,000/192,000/ Can I get away with a variation of 720 rather than 1080 and reduce the file size? 720 looks about as good as 1080 on most TVS when the content is someone behind a podium…

Thanks Mike,

Don

Hutch

[Don Hutcheson]

Your screen shot looks like an older version, and I see 720X480 and a 4:3 display. I’m doing 1080i and the first hour of the rendered video was 10G. Way too big. And, yes, I selected the custom option, but my available bitrates are 60,000,000/15,000,000/192,000/ Can I get away with a variation of 720 rather than 1080 and reduce the file size? 720 looks about as good as 1080 on most TVS when the content is someone behind a podium…

Thanks Mike,

Don

Hutch

[Don Hutcheson]

Your screen shot looks like an older version, and I see 720X480 and a 4:3 display. I’m doing 1080i and the first hour of the rendered video was 10G. Way too big. And, yes, I selected the custom option, but my available bitrates are 60,000,000/15,000,000/192,000/ Can I get away with a variation of 720 rather than 1080 and reduce the file size? 720 looks about as good as 1080 on most TVS when the content is someone behind a podium…

Thanks Mike,

Don
>

Hutch

[Mike Kujbida]

Don, my apologies as I completely skipped over the part where you said you wanted to burn HDV to disc.
I still shoot SD so consequently have not had any experience working with HD material nor have I burned a dual layer disc.

I should add that if you’re burning this to a regular DVD (i.e. not Blu-ray), you will need to down-res to SD resolution as a regular DVD does not support a high def signal.

If you’re willing to do this (and take the quality hit), the bitrate calculator gives me VBR numbers of 9,352,000 / 8,496,000 / 4,248,000.
Once gain, I would hold the Avg. and Max values to 8,000,000 to ensure compatibility.

BTW, the numbers you’re seeing are the default settings and can be easily changed by typing in whatever numbers you want.
Once this is done, you can save it as a preset for future use.

[Don Hutcheson]

Thank you, Mike. It worked. As an audio guy (30 years of voiceovers)who migrated to video, it bugs me when I sometimes hear a buzz when (on DVD playback) one video source switches to another (particularly when captions appear). Does this mean the master volume is too low and electronic noise it audible?

Thank ou,

Don

Hutch

[Mike Kujbida]

Don, are you watching this on a very old CRT TV?
This used to be an issue if the whites were too bright.
That’s why the recommendation is to limit the luminance of white text to a value of 235 instead of the maximum of 255.
The same applies to over-exposed video and still images too.

[Don Hutcheson]

The TV is an older 47″ widescreen SD. I try to use older, baseline equipment for quality checks. Before I send DVDs to clients, I make sure they play on a $39 CD/DVD set as well as the good stuff.
Thanks for the reminder about graphics. I’ll make sure the colors are “legal” before sending if the client might have older CRT sets.

Thanks,

Don

Hutch