Reducing rendered size of project

[John Rofrano]

[Ron Androtti] “1. I would like to use 16 bit/44 kHz/2 channel (stereo) audio for music and sound effects. Will this greatly increase the size of the rendered project? Would down-sampling to 22 kHz noticably reduce file size? “

It depends on how you encode it. I wouldn’t use 22K. Stick with 44K or 48K.

[Ron Androtti] “2. Should imported sound files always be wav? If importing mp3 files what should the minimum bit rate be? Is it 128kbps?”

WAV is the highest quality since it’s uncompressed. 128kbps MP3’s should be fine. Anything lower than 96kbps will start sounding bad. Even 96kbps is pushing it but 128kbps should be fine.

[Ron Androtti] “3. Is mp4 (Sony AVC/MVC) the container of choice for reasonable rendered file size and decent quality for the Web? The default Bit Rate is 8,000,000 bps. Can this be played with?”

That is what I would recommend and yes, the 8,000,000 can be changed. 4,000,000 gives real good quality with small file size.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Ron Androtti]

Thanks John.

Reducing the Bit Rate to 4M seems like a good start.

Can I pick your brain a little further? Brief answers are A-OK, of course:

1. With voice narration, I wanted to use Sound Forge Pro to record, edit and import in to VP. I like the idea of using dedicated software for these kinds of tasks. All the plugins are there. I’ll be using a Yeti microphone. Any reason not to import a 2-channel narration file in to VP 10? How do the Pros do it with voice narration?

2. What is the critical relationship between Project Properties and Render As settings? IOW, what settings need to be in sync?

3. Anything you do just before rendering to reduce risk of a bad render (i.e. missing sound, stutter, etc.)? I thought Production Assistant had an “audit” feature. Am I on the right track?

4. Any advantage rendering as an .wmv file over an .mp4 for Web applications?

Input from other Pros is also welcome! Thanks all.

Ron.

Dell XPS 630i
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz
4 GB RAM
nVidia GeForce GTX 460 1024 MB
Creative SB X-FI Audio
Windows 7 Pro x86

[John Rofrano]

[Ron Androtti] “1. With voice narration, I wanted to use Sound Forge Pro to record, edit and import in to VP. I like the idea of using dedicated software for these kinds of tasks. All the plugins are there. I’ll be using a Yeti microphone.”

I do all of my VO work right in Vegas Pro. You just playback the timeline hit record and go. You can also punch in and out very easily and create multiple takes on the fly. I find it a lot more productive than using Sound Forge. I would only use Sound Forge if you didn’t have to see the video to do the VO (i.e., just recording someone reading a script).

[Ron Androtti] “Any reason not to import a 2-channel narration file in to VP 10? How do the Pros do it with voice narration?”

How many mouths do you have? Why would you need a 2nd channel. All VO work should be done in mono if you are using a single mic. I render everything for the web to MP4 files and they play back everywhere.

[Ron Androtti] “2. What is the critical relationship between Project Properties and Render As settings? IOW, what settings need to be in sync?”

If you want no surprises, you should keep these in sync. Then any cropping you do will match the output aspect i.e., what you see is what you will get. Otherwise editing in one aspect and rendering to another could lead to things not lining up or unwanted letterboxing / pillarboxing.

[Ron Androtti] “3. Anything you do just before rendering to reduce risk of a bad render (i.e. missing sound, stutter, etc.)? I thought Production Assistant had an “audit” feature. Am I on the right track?”

Audit features are good for finding things you may have missed like small gaps in the timeline, small events hidden under other events, accidental opacity changes, etc. They come in handy for complex edits. I wrote Production Assistant so don’t take my word for it (but it’s very useful) 😉

[Ron Androtti] “4. Any advantage rendering as an .wmv file over an .mp4 for Web applications?”

If anything WMV is a disadvantage. Vegas seems to have a lot of memory problems rendering WMV and it’s very slow to render. Also, the “Web” is multi-platform and WMV is windows only. MPEG4 can be played back on Windows, Mac, Linux, and most mobile devices. Anything that I target for the web I render to MP4 files.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Ron Androtti]

This helps, thanks a lot.

Dell XPS 630i
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz
4 GB RAM
nVidia GeForce GTX 460 1024 MB
Creative SB X-FI Audio
Windows 7 Pro x86