Problems with Video Quality

[Stephen Mann]

Most of us get along just fine with 512Mb or 1Gb or memory, but 120Gb of memory, that thing must scream. RAM is memory, the 120Gb is your disc storage.

Your system specs are mostly fine, but I would add more RAM. 256K is the very minimum you need to run Windows and one application. RAM is cheap, so get a Gigabye.

You are probably seeing compression artifacts from encoding the MPEG at too high a bit rate.

[Gary Kleiner]

20 Gigs of AVI is about 90 minutes.
I would guess a bit rate of about 6.8 MBps would be about right (depending on the content).

Gary Kleiner

Learn Vegas and DVD Architect

http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com

[Edward Troxel]

[Ivan] ” many sections of the video look distorted as if there were some horizontal waves or jittering throughout (it is NOT from the original quality of the video). It is especially bad when the camera moves or when people are moving (i.e people walking).”

What preset are you using? If you’re using the “Default” preset, it’s BAD! Make sure you use any of the other presets and adjust the bitrate as needed for length. There’s a full writeup of this process in Vol 1 #7 of my newsletters (link below my name).

Edward Troxel

[Birosz]

hey,
i usually render everything to PAL DV, and then convert it with discreet’s cleaner xl to mpeg2 or whatever. I found that program really usefull and the quality of the result is really cool.
szabolcs

[Donatello]

“some horizontal waves or jittering throughout ”

what is the size of the rendered mpeg file ?
i believe DVDA 1 has a max size of ?? 3.7gigs ??
if it is larger then 3.7 then DVDa1 might be re-rendering the mpeg ?
40 min project should just make it using default settings.

if rendered mpeg is under 3.7gig then
in Vegas make sure you are using the DVDa NTSC stream template .. then click on custom – video .. make sure the average bit stream is at least 6,000,000 , change the min to 4,200,000 from 192,000 …
be sure to check the size of the finished clip –
if larger then DVDa1 3.7gig size then you will have to make it smaller .. 40min project try 5,200,000 average , max 7,000,000, min 3,800,000 ..

you can leave rendering quality to GOOD … best if you did any scaling of video or panning across any video clips, or changed play back speeds …

[Ivan Hidalgo]

First of all, thanks to everybody for all of your feedback and suggestions. I was really hoping the bit rate adjustment in Vegas would do the trick…unfortunately it doesn’t seem to work. Here’s what I did:
-I noticed that indeed I was using the default Template (avg bit rate was 4,000,000). I changed the Template preset to ‘DVD Architect NTSC video stream’ and changed the bit rates to be: 6,000,000 average , max 8,000,000, min 4,200,000. I also rendered as ‘best’ quality (I have some very minor scaling). The size of my final rendered MPEG2 file ends up being 1.8 GB.

Result: When I burn the DVD, unfortunately I get the same exact result – nothing changed in terms of quality, I still get the waving/jittering.

Now here’s some more info:
-I actually noticed when I played these MPEGs with my Dell players (Power DVD + Windows Media Player), the MPEG2 looks pretty good (both before and after the bit rate was adjusted). The waves/jittering are not there, at least not to the naked eye. If the problem was with the Vegas rendering, it should be obvious when I play it on my computer players even before I burn it to DVD correct? If so, then I’m lead to believe the problem is with DVDA1. The bad news is that I tested burning files on DVD with Sonic Foundry + DVDA1 but I get the same result with both. It’s as if both programs are re-rendering the MPEG2, could it be that I’m losing the quality there?
-I did another test by splitting it in half (final MPEG2 ~600MB) and still have the same problem.
-This is my 2nd chapter. The first chapter I did last week

[Edward Troxel]

Changing from the “default” preset to the DVDA preset should have given you a substantial increase in quality.

Edward Troxel

[Ivan Hidalgo]

I honestly don

[Edward Troxel]

Could it be a field order issue?

Edward Troxel

[Ivan Hidalgo]

I don’t believe this is a field order issue. I have set source media field order from lower field first – consistent with the
target.

Ivan