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New to Vegas/Architect!!! – Couple of questions???
Hi there.
Was hoping for some help. Purchased Sony HDR SR (not sure of exact model) 60GB HDD camera several months ago for O/S trip and recently to compliment it, purchased Sony Vegas pro 8 with Architect 4.5 – due to video captured in HDV, file format, etc, etc. Still geting my head around this!
Previous experience was with a Sony Mini DV camera, capturing in AVI using Adobe products. No issues here for several years. Edited and produced several good quality DVD’s
2 Questions:
1. Recently played around with a friends video (DV AVI format) creating a full edited AVI video in Adobe – on friends PC. Took AVI and Built DVD on my PC with new Architect – my first attempt at the program. All went well, played with menus, animated buttons, etc – quite impressed. However, play back on DVD player of final product showed a significant loss in quailty, mainly blurry images when objects were moving – difficult to watch. Investigating the problem, it also appeared like this on the preview in Architect. Is this just the price of the project being rendered? All settings, bitrates, etc seemed OK?
2. Serious stuff before I start a long project! I’ve transferred a large amount of footage off the new camera in the HDV format (mt2s2??). As I have plenty of space I’ve saved in this format and also converted all files to mpeg2 through the motion picture utility (I think its called) that came with the camera. If I edit in Vegas in this converted format, am i going to be disappointed with the resulting picture quaility? Can I edit in HD and then produce a DVD in architect? – I don’t have Blu ray access obviously. Will the picture quality be lost once again?
3. One more question! When I take the HDV format files from the camera, using the picture utility program provided, I can view all of these video files perfectly, sharp, clear, no jumps, etc. When I’ve briefly attempted to put these HDV files into vegas, when I was initially playing around with the software, the files were terribly slow and jumpy and it was evident that there was no way i could edit anything like this. Why the change? PC obviously copes when viewing in one platform but not in Vegas? I really hope this is a simple issue that I can sort out.
In closing this long winded post, I really just need help before I start this travel documentary to know the best way to go in editing, file format, etc to producing a DVD with the highest possible quality available to me. So frustrating that I can view the files on PC through the provided software and then it doesn’t go close to this in Vegas?!
Thanks in Advance.
Mark
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3 Replies
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Hi Mark. Welcome!
1. Is this just the price of the project being rendered? All settings, bitrates, etc seemed OK?
Nope. Not the price at all. It might have been that your footage was encoded once (on Adobe) and then again in DVDA to mpeg-2. It is possible it took a double hit. If that is how your footage looked when previewing it in DVDA, then it is probably your source footage (unless you were looking at it in a draft/preview setting- then it will look uncrisp)
2. …am i going to be disappointed with the resulting picture quaility? Can I edit in HD and then produce a DVD in architect? – I don’t have Blu ray access obviously. Will the picture quality be lost once again?
You shouldn’t be. You do need to find out if you are using M2T files (which are mpg HDV) or AVCHD. AVCHD is indeed harder to edit and VASST.com makes a tool with a free trial that allows you to convert them easily to M2T files with exceptional quality called AVCHD Upshift.
You can edit HD in Vegas and produce SD in DVDA. When you encode, use the DVDA template that matches your output format of choice. I would recommend going into custom and make sure the quality is set to best and bitrate is high enough to give good quality for your footage. There are bitrate calculators out there that can help you get the most quality out of your project while ensuring it will fit on your disc. You will also want to encode your audio as a separate render to ac3 but name it the same and keep it in the same folder as your video file that you encoded.
3. When I take the HDV format files from the camera, using the picture utility program provided, I can view all of these video files perfectly, sharp, clear, no jumps, etc. When I’ve briefly attempted to put these HDV files into vegas, when I was initially playing around with the software, the files were terribly slow and jumpy and it was evident that there was no way i could edit anything like this. Why the change?
There should be no need for a converting utility if you are using HDV files (it sounds like you are using AVCHD files). Your results in Vegas will vary depending on your PC processor speed and ram. The faster the cpu the better. The more ram, the better. So, if your preview is sluggish, first check to see if you are using AVCHD files (if so, convert them to M2T using the program I mentioned in 2). If you are not, make sure your preview window is set to Preview Auto and see if that helps with timeline performance. If it is and it is still sluggish, what spec’s make up your computer? It may be time for a faster machine.
I hope that helps. Feel free to ask any questions you have. We are here to help.
j razz
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Thank you!!!!!!!
Such a prompt response.
Yes AVCHD is the file type and I will attempt to convert the files and try it this way. All other questions answered and some brief testing – with all appropriate settings using converted mpeg2 – seems to look pretty good now on DVD after going through vegas and architect.
Looking forward to my project now!!
Thanks again!!
Mark
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No problem Mark. Come back by anytime. 🙂
j razz
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