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HDV to SD-DVD render looks too soft
I just finished a project that I burned to Standard Def DVD and I’m not pleased with the video quality. Hope someone can offer some help here as I’m new to Vegas 10 and was expecting better DVD burns. Here’s the skinny:
I captured my video from HDV and kept my sourcefiles in HDV setting (1440X1080i). Did my edit and wanted to burn to DVD in Standard Def.
I used the Sony Architect DVD default, rendered at BEST setting (same as project) and used SONY DVD Architect to burn a DVD / Standard Def.I checked the DVD on my DVD player and everything looks really soft. In fact I can’t recall having anything quite this soft on DVD before (and I used Sony Vegas 6.0 before this so I can’t imagine what it could be.)
Is there some “primo video render setting” in Vegas Pro 10 that I should be using when rendering from HDV to MPEG2 / DVD files for burning…am I missing something here?
Thanks in advance.
Chas
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14 Replies
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First of all, HDV has 4.5 times more resolution than DV so you are losing a lot before you do anything.
The other issue is using the default encoding settings as these are not designed for maximum quality on the final DVD.
Let me know how long the finished project was and I can give you some suggestions to get it to be the best that it can be. -
Hi Mike:
Total length of program is 10:30.
Appreciate your help.Chas
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Chas, this is an easy one as I already have a custom preset for this.
First of all, you are using a widescreen template for rendering, correct?
If not, I recommend this as it better matches your source footage.
If my project is less than 70 min. long, I use a custom CBR (Custom Bit Rate) of 8,000,000.
You’ll see what this is much better than the default setting in a moment.
Anything longer and I use a custom 2-pass VBR (Variable Bit Rate) setting as determined by the bitrate calculator found at https://www.johncline.com/bitcalc110.zip.Once you click Render As and choose the DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video stream template, click the Custom button next to this.
This brings up the following screen with the default settings.
As you can see, the Average value (the critical one) is only 6,000,000.
Click the Constant bit rate button and change the value to 8,000,000 (the much higher number means better quality).
It still won’t look as good as your source footage but I guarantee it will look better than what you had.
To save this for future use, modify the Template box at the top of the screen and click the Save button next to it (looks like a floppy disc icon).
Click OK to exit this screen and render your file.
Use the default Dolby Digital AC-3 Pro template for your audio.
Give both files the same name and make sure they go into the same folder.
This way, when you load the video file into DVD Architect, the audio will automatically follow. -
Mike/Chas
Out of the box, Vegas sets the quality slider to 15. I notice Mike’s is set to 31, which I believe could be the difference when I was noticing a softening effect. My render settings are quality slider = 31, render quality never higher than good (in the project tab).
My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6
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Nigel, thanks for catching that.
It’s one of the changes I make with any new Vegas install and I completely forgot about having done it. -
Hi Nigel:
Yep, I move the slider all the way over too and render at Best project settings. Those are the only settings I adjust (for now) and I was just surprised at how soft everything still came out to look.
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Thanks for the help Mike, I’ll give this a go and see how it looks and post back with the result.
Chas
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Thank you for the screen shots and great tips. I have recently switched over to shooting HD footage. Right now I have a combination of HD and DV footage but I plan to try out your settings when I actually get to shoot all my projects in HD and then make a regular DVD for my clients. The change that I have put into place for my current mix of footage is to change Video Quality to high in DVDA. I normally shoot videos that will be about 10 minutes or so long but then I put several different projects on one DVD that will amount to about 1.5 hours of total video. Do you think I should change any other settings to give me the best quality. I am using the widescreen template in Vegas and DVDA.
Again, awesome help!!!
Grasshopper
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Good luck Chas.
I’m sure you’ll be happier with the new results. -
Chas
The following sage advice appears in a John Rofrano post:
It’s probably important to note that there is no reason to render at BEST unless you are resizing video. The difference between BEST and GOOD is that BEST uses a more complicated resizing algorithm which increases render time by about 2x. This is why GOOD is the default. You can save yourself a lot of render time by using GOOD unless you are resizing.
My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6
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