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MPEG-2, HD DVD’s, and a weird aspect ratio on Track 3?
I am basically brand new to Vegas, and am experiencing some issues with MPEG-2 rendering.
My source footage is AVCHD, 1920 x 1080, 30p. Eventually I want to burn Blu-Ray, but for starters I am rendering to DVD. I brought my project up on the timeline, salvaged my Generated Text Media (by copying from another project), set my markers, and chose ‘Render As.’ I selected Main Concept MPEG-2, and then guessed I should use the NTSC DV template (720 x 480). Then under “Custom” I saw that the project was 720 by 480, and I selected Aspect Ratio of 16:9 Display (away from 4:3). Then I set the Video Quality to High (31), and set Variable Bit Rate to the specifications Mike Kujbida suggested earlier, in another thread:
8,000,000
4,688,000
2,808,000Then just for fun I checked “Two-pass”, even though I am not really sure what that means. But it made me smile.
I am rendering, so I cannot check the Project Properties right now, but if I recall correctly, the Project Properties are 1920 x 1080, 30p, AVCHD. However, I have chosen the NTSC DVD template, because I am preparing a file to burn to DVD. I am guessing that this is part of the problem, but I have no idea why Render properties can be set differently than Project Properties to begin with. It is a little bit hard for me to wrap my mind around at this point.
Here are my symptoms:
Tracks One and Two in this project are Generated Media. Track Three is a mix (of mainly .png’s, but some other stuff as well). Track Four is my main video track (baseline presentation (and then Track Five is audio).
So far the project is at 81%, and is rendering smoothly. When the baseline presentation in Track Four is not eclipsed by the media in Track Tree everything seems fine, just like it did when I rendered to Sony AVC and the Internet 16:9 HD 30p preset. However, when the media on Track Three eclipses the media on Track Four in the Preview window, very thin ‘pillars’ of the brown backdrop material from Track Four show through on either side of the media from Track Three. It is much thinner than standard pillars: only about maybe 2-3% of the screen width on either side, but these ‘pillars’ did not exist when I was rendering to Sony AVC, Internet 16:9 HD 30p preset.
When I divide 16/9, I get a ration of 1.7777 to 1. However, when I divide 720/480, I get a ratio of 1.5 to 1, so I can understand that some kind of change has happened when I selected the NTSC DVD preset. Was I supposed to have changed my Project Properties to NTSC DVD 720 x 480 as well? And if so, how can I change Project Properties away from the properties of the footage that was originally shot?
I am sure this is probably something very simple, but I thought I should include as much information as possible, because I don’t get the whole Project Properties/Render Properties thing.
Does anyone know what I am doing wrong, and how I might be able to get the media in Track Three to fill the whole preview screen?
Thank you.
Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org
se*****@************el.org -
8 Replies
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> I have chosen the NTSC DVD template, because I am preparing a file to burn to DVD. I am guessing that this is part of the problem…
The NTSC DVD template is for providing 4:3 DVD video. Since you are using 16:9 widescreen HD you should use the DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video stream template. No need to use the custom button at all. Then go back and render your audio as Dolby Digital AC3 and give it the same name as you .mpg file. This will give you the best quality audio as well.
> …but I have no idea why Render properties can be set differently than Project Properties to begin with. It is a little bit hard for me to wrap my mind around at this point.
This is so you can repurpose your output for a number of different formats. If you were delivering to a medium that only supports 4:3 (like YouTube was) and wanted to maintain your 16:9 aspect, you would need to render a letterboxed version. This is why you have this flexibility.
> When I divide 16/9, I get a ration of 1.7777 to 1. However, when I divide 720/480, I get a ratio of 1.5 to 1, so I can understand that some kind of change has happened when I selected the NTSC DVD preset.
You have to include the Pixel Aspect Ratio in your calculations. NTSC DVD is 720×480 PAR 0.9091. So you multiply 720 x 0.9091 and get 654.552 but we can’t display a fractional pixel so we round up giving us 655×480. That is the true resolution pixel-for-pixel of NTSC 4:3 video.
Now let’s take a look at the PAR for NTSC DVD Widescreen. You can see it’s 720×480 PAR 1.2121 and 720 x 1.2121 = 873 (872.712 rounded up) so the resolution of DVD 16:9 is 873×480 pixels. If you do the math you’ll see that this is not 16:9 exactly and that’s where the problem lies.
> Does anyone know what I am doing wrong, and how I might be able to get the media in Track Three to fill the whole preview screen?
You are not really doing anything wrong. This is a side-effect of how Vegas interprets project properties when rendering. I assume you did some cropping and Vegas does not limit output to the project dimensions while rendering which this a problem sometimes. I would render out to HD first and make my DVD version from the HD render. This is will guarantee that what you are seeing will not happen when rendering.
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
>>I would render out to HD first and make my DVD version from the HD render. This is will guarantee that what you are seeing will not happen when rendering.
OK, cool. What settings should I use to do that? Main Concept MPEG-2, Template Blu-Ray 1920 x 1080 60i, 25Mbps video stream? Or what template/settings would you recommend?
Also, how would I then make my DVD version from the HD render?
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I am starting the render as MPEG-2, Blu-ray 1920 x 1080-60i, 25Mbps video stream. I am just moving the slider to High Quality (31), checking Two Pass, and leaving the VBR as:
30,000,000/25,000,000/20,000,000.Is this correct?
And how do I burn the audio stream?
Thanks.
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I am at 3%, and so far the media on Track Three is rendering correctly: no pillars!
When it finishes I will take a look-see about how to render the audio stream.
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It says:
“An error occurred while creating the media file (name.veg). The system is low on memory. You may be able to reduce memory usage by closing other applications.”
Dynamic RAM is set to Zero. I am not able to reboot the system in order to defrag the paging file, or else I may lose my precious Media Generator files.
AVG is stubborn, and does not want to shut all the way down, but I will shut down what I can and then try rendering the NTSC Widescreen video stream template.
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It’s got letterboxing, but it is at 10% and still rendering.
How can I get it without the letterboxing?
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Sorry I missed all of your previous posts. The only way I know of not getting the letterboxing when repurposing HD is to render to HD first like you tried. I’m not sure why you are running out of memory but it could very well be a bug in Vegas still. 🙁
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
>>I’m not sure why you are running out of memory but it could very well be a bug in Vegas still. 🙁
OK, I reported it to Sony.
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