Render As – question

[John Rofrano]

[Rick Hughes] “what should I ‘Render as’, with the final output to be on a DVD for family members.”

You should press the Make Movie button and follow the prompts for DVD. It will do the right thing. That’s the whole point of using Movie Studio so you don’t have to worry about what render formats to use.

In case you must know, it will use MainConcept MPEG-2| DVD Architect PAL video stream for the video and Dolby Digital AC-3 Studio | Stereo DVD for audio. I assume your VHS tapes are not widescreen so you don’t want to use a widescreen template even if you are going to watch them on a widescreen TV.

~jr

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

[Rick Hughes]

If I use ‘Make DVD’ it still opens the screen where I choose the Render Template ?

Did you mean … I should choose one of templates with “=” alongside it which Vegas has decided is most suitable ?

Related to this ……. are there any ‘better’ and by which I mean increased quality Render add-ins ? … or are MainConcept ones as good as it gets ?

Spent an awful long time restoring VHStapes with AviSynth/Virtual Dub, just want to make sure I use the most optimum render step.

[John Rofrano]

[Rick Hughes] “Did you mean … I should choose one of templates with “=” alongside it which Vegas has decided is most suitable ?”

Yes, use the one’s with the “=” sign. They will match your project settings.

[Rick Hughes] “are there any ‘better’ and by which I mean increased quality Render add-ins ? … or are MainConcept ones as good as it gets ?”

Vegas only has MainConcept MPEG-2 for DVD. Considering that DVD is much higher quality than VHS, I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. You can render manually and use the Two-Pass option if you want to squeeze every ounce of quality out of it. You’ll need to modify the template, turn on Two-Pass, and save it under a new name. Then use that.

~jr

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

[Rick Hughes]

Thanks … and yep was going to use 2-pass.

[Rick Hughes]

I did what you said …the video file is 1Hr 21m in length.
PAL SD stereo

When I render it, the render file is 4.1GB, larger than I thought for that run time (non HD), assume I used the ‘wizards’ that is right.
When I then load this into DVD architect, and choose single DVD no menus, it tells me it won’t fit on a disc and it will compress it …
Does it really lose 0.6GB (4.7GB DVD) in disc overhead ?

[John Rofrano]

The max time on a DVD at the normal 6Mbps bit-rate is about 1 hr 20 minutes so you are right around the threshold. Usually DVD Architect isn’t very accurate and if you tell it to burn anyway it will fit but if it’s telling you that it’s going to recompress your main video, then you may have to decrease your bit rate slightly to fit without recompression.

~jr

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

[Rick Hughes]

Which gives best quality lowering bit rate … or leaving it as ‘wizard’ chooses, and letting it re-compress?
Juyst made some changes and it now only says:
“The Audio will be compressed”

I used the wizard as you advised so is using AC3

[John Rofrano]

[Rick Hughes] “Which gives best quality lowering bit rate … or leaving it as ‘wizard’ chooses, and letting it re-compress?”

Lowering the bit rate will produce better quality because it is only being compressed once. Re-compressing will loose more quality because it is being compressed twice.

[Rick Hughes] “Juyst made some changes and it now only says: “The Audio will be compressed” I used the wizard as you advised so is using AC3″

Yea, I forgot the AC-3 encoder that comes with Studio isn’t any good for DVD’s. You should encode the video as WAV to get the best audio with the Studio version.

~jr

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

[Rick Hughes]

Is this achieved via ‘make DVD’ wizard, and customize template to use wav.
I thought AC3 was better format than wav?
As this is to produce DVD for domestic DVD players, can they play wav files OK?

[Rick Hughes]

OK … still not following this …

Have used BitRatecalc … and reduced VBR form 9,500 to 9,00 now well within size of 4.7Gb DVD
I load file into DVD architect, elect single video DVD …
I still get message it will recompress audio, why ? …. there is no need for this, file is under 4.7Gb audio & video already compressed, recompression will lose me quality.

In Movie Studio I chose one of default templates (PAL DVD stream) only change was to set to 2 pass VBR and reduce VBR peak to 9,000

Why is DVD Architect wanting to re-compress audio … and more to point how can I stop it.