No Sound from My MPEG2 After Rendering

[Mike Kujbida]

Debbie, this is a follow up to Grazie’s excellent (as usual!!) posts.

First of all, here’s a link to Mark’s Bitrate Calculator that Grazie recommended.
I make three changes to the default settings.
Both are accessed by clicking on the Settings button in the lower left corner of the main screen.
The first one is to click the 1 Kilobit = 1000 bits button.
Next, set the Audio encoding type and Bitrate dropdown menu to 192 Kb/s – Dolby 1.0. This is the default setting in Vegas and will work fine for your DVD creations.
Finally, change the Safety Margin to 5% from the default 1%.

Here’s a screenshot with your settings.

Now on to your encoding settings.
You never said if you were using Vegas Pro or Vegas Movie Studio. The following screenshots are from Vegas Pro so I hope they work for you.
Click Render As in Vegas, set the settings as shown and then click the Custom button.
On this tab, slide the Video Quality slider to its highest setting.
Click the Variable bit rate and Two-pass buttons.
Enter the values from the bitrate calculator.
You’ll notice that I set the Max value to 8,000,000 instead of the recommended 9,608,000 (FYI, the last 3 zeros are assumed by the bitrate calculator). My personal feeling is that the Max value should never exceed 8,000,000 as the quality of some blank DVDs and players leave a lot to be desired and settings that are too high can cause playback problems. Other users may disagree with me but I’ve burned thousands of DVDs using this method and its never let me down.
You can save this setting by going to the Template box at the top of the screen, entering in whatever name you want and clicking the floppy disc icon to the right to save it. I have several presets saved and use them all the time.
Finally, click on the Project tab and change Video rendering quality to Best. This will result in slightly longer renders but the final quality is worth it.

Let me add a few more comments here.
If a project is 70 min. or less, I use a custom CBR setting of 8,000,000. Anything longer and I always do a custom 2-pass VBR render with settings determined by the bitrate calculator.
Render both files to the same folder and give them the same name. That way, when you load your video file into DVD Architect, the audio file will automatically follow.
Good luck with the project and please let us know of you have any more questions.

[Graham Bernard]

Mike, AWESOME input from you – thanks! – What a Team!

Toodles

Grazie

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[Mike Kujbida]

Thanks Grazie. This forum has been very helpful to me over the years so I like to return the favour when I can.

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

In a word; wow! LOL

Thank you. Yes, you are correct. I was not able to save my project on a regular DVD without help in adjusting the bitrate. I tried using NERO which adjusted the Bitrate and also affected the quality of the project. So much so, that there were things seen that I did not recognize, like a picture frame that looked like an attachment to someone’s head; an unrecognizable microphone, etc. Very poor resolution results.

I will try what you suggested.

Thank you,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Mike:

Thank you so much. This is tremendously helpful. The screenshots are invaluable. Thank you.

I am going to download the bitrate calculator (thanks Grazie) today and start testing.

Best,

Debbie

[Graham Bernard]

Debbie, you’re welcome.

Advanced Encoding for DVD is an Art Form. Fortunately, getting some of the simplest stuff nailed-down is quite straightforward.

Grazie

Video Content Creator and Potter
PC 7 64-bit 16gb * Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core 3.40GHz * 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti
Cameras: Canon XF300 + PowerShot SX50HS Bridge

[Mike Kujbida]

You’re very welcome Debbie. As Grazie said, DVD encoding is a bit of a (black!!) art and it takes some time to get comfortable with all the various options available. Good luck on this and all your future projects.

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

You and Mike might appreciate this. I have been rendering my 24P as 29P and 16:9 as 4:3. When I switched and rendered to 24P and 16:9 widescreen, the bitrate changed significantly. Now it’s 312MB LOL. What a difference. I did see something unusual when the person moved in the frame. It appeared as if there was a double image following the movement. Has this ever happened?

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

What do you think of Sound Forge Pro 11? It has Izotope included and I believe the trial is 30 days. Izotope’s trial is only 10 days. Starting off with a huge learning curve, the 30 day trial seems more attractive.

Many thanks,

Debbie

[Debbie King]

Hi Grazie:

Thank you so much for doing the calculations. All worked out well.

Very much appreciated.

Best,

Debbie