HD and De-interlacing

[John Rofrano]

> 1) If I create an HD project in Vegas, but burn it to a normal DVD-R, will it play? Since DV is a lower resolution, perhaps this just means that I render the final project to a DVD-R compatible MPEG, yes?

Yes, you have to render your HD footage to a DVD compliant MPEG2 file.

> 2) The HD will be 1.77 aspect ratio, 1280×720 pixels. If I create my Vegas project with this setting, will this automatically create a non-letterboxed true-widescreen video format for both HD and DVD-R, no matter the level of render resolution for each output format?

Yes it will create true widescreen 16:9 non-letterboxed output. One thing to be aware of is that DV/DVD Widescreen and HD Widescreen have slightly different aspect ratios that are both called 16:9. HD media will show slight black pillarbox bars in a DVD widescreen render unless you crop or stretch the video. Personally, I use the stretch option when I render and it looks fine.

> This paragraph confuses me quite a lot. How does one deinterlace before you even being editing? What does that mean?

They are just saying that if your output is progressive you might ant to deinterlace any interlaced footage before you start editing and work entirely in progressive mode. That requires you to re-render your source. I don’t believe this is necessary (at least not for Vegas users). Vegas handles mixing interlaced and non-interlaced footage quite nicely. Some other NLE’s do not.

> Considering that I am interested in 2 different output renders (HD and DVD-R), how should I approach this deinterlace issue?

Since you said that your project is comprised entirely of photographic stills and these stills by their very nature are not interlaced, I would work in progressive mode (progressive project settings and progressive render settings). Both of your output formats support progressive 24p rendering so there is no need to interlace at all.

~jr

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

[Jaxon Bridge]

OK, thanks. So if I create a New Project with the HDV 720 template (but set the fps to 24, since I have no need for 30 as I’m not using actual video source footage), then I should be good to go. Then, later I can render using the H.264 codec for the Vimeo HD upload, and another appropriate setting for the DVD, is this right?

Question, how is 24 fps rendered since all “video” that plays in DVD players or on the internet is of course not actually 24 fps, right? When rendering out to video, does it really matter then what you use as the project settings, since in the end isn’t all video around 30 fps?

Sorry for the basic questions, but it will be good to get off on the right foot.

Jaxon

[John Rofrano]

> So if I create a New Project with the HDV 720 template (but set the fps to 24, since I have no need for 30 as I’m not using actual video source footage), then I should be good to go.

Yes, if you want to work in 720p then set your project to the HDV 720-24p (1280×720, 23.976 fps) setting. There is nothing to change after that.

> Then, later I can render using the H.264 codec for the Vimeo HD upload, and another appropriate setting for the DVD, is this right?

Yes, for Vimeo, Vegas Pro 9.0 has an Internet 16:9 HD 30p template under Sony AVC that is perfect (1280×720).

For DVD use the DVD Architect 24p NTSC Widescreen video stream under MainConcept MPEG-2 and render the audio separate as Dolby Digital AC-3

> Question, how is 24 fps rendered since all “video” that plays in DVD players or on the internet is of course not actually 24 fps, right?

Right. If the device is capable of what we loosely call “24p” it plays at 23.976fps. If not, 2:3 pulldown is added (known as telecine) to bring the 24p footage up to 29.970.

The internet can actually play 30fps or any fps you’d like for that matter so it is possible to render at any fps and play it back on your own web site. It’s just that sites like Vimeo and YouTube re-encode your video to their format so it’s best to stick within their recommended guidelines.

> When rendering out to video, does it really matter then what you use as the project settings, since in the end isn’t all video around 30 fps?

The project setting matter to the extent that you don’t get surprised by the render if it doesn’t match. If you are editing in 30 fps and you make a crossfade that is 12 frames and then you render as 24 fps, those 12 frames are now 9.6 frames because you lost 6 fps. Since you can’t have 0.6 of a frame you may see some strange ghosting as Vegas tries to figure out what to do about it. So it’s always better to keep your project settings the same as your render settings but when you are re-purposing video for several formats this is not always possible.

> Sorry for the basic questions, but it will be good to get off on the right foot.

These are actually very good questions that people don’t think of asking until they are well into editing or in trouble with their render. You keep asking… that’s how we learn 😉

~jr

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

[Jaxon Bridge]

if you want to work in 720p then set your project to the HDV 720-24p (1280×720, 23.976 fps) setting. There is nothing to change after that.

Since I’m using Vegas 7, I gather that to replicate this setting, I’d just have to change the fps setting on one of the HDV 720 templates. Though now that I think about it I see no real reason why I shouldn’t just use the 30 fps default setting for my project… maybe if I was using a video transfer from motion picture film, I should use 24 fps video setting, but in my case I suspect it shouldn’t make any difference, I’d think.

Another question I just thought about.. since I’m using stills, I guess that technically a still photo that is higher resolution than 1280×720 (which is quite low resolution for photography) would not be any benefit for inclusion in a video render. The exception being, that if you wish to zoom in using a track control or video effect (which I do plan on doing), in which case, the larger resolution image will show the zoom-in with greater detail than a still made at the same resolution as the render, is this correct? I just want to make sure that when photos are taken for inclusion in a video project, that they are also shot accordingly for adequate use.

In other words, if I create a video project at 1280×720, then Vegas will not lessen the quality of a higher resolution photo when it is put up on the timeline, is this right?

Thank you again for your help.

[John Rofrano]

If you want to use higher resolution images to zoom in you can do that providing that you use Pan/Crop to do the zooming. Pan/Crop will use all of the resolution of the original photo. Track Motion will not! Track Motion will downrez to the project resolution first and then add the movement so never use Track Motion to zoom in (only out).

As for 24p vs 30p the only difference is rendering time. Remember, Vegas has to make video out of the images so by using 24 instead of 30 you render 6 less frames every second. that’s a lot of extra frames to wait for at the end of the day. This is why most animation is done in 24p as well. It’s just less work to render. I do all of my photo montages at 24p (‘cuz i don’t like waiting). 😉

~jr

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

[Jaxon Bridge]

That’s incredibly useful info about Track Motion, and I’m quite glad I asked what I thought was a silly question! Thanks for your help.

Jaxon