Render failure

[Mike Kujbida]

Don, I’ve rendered 2 hr. videos without a problem so I know Vegas can do it.
What’s the source material (i.e. SD or HD footage)?
Do you have any really large digital still images in your project?
Are there a lot of FX in the project?

[Don Hutcheson]

Don,

The footage was HD from a Sony Z-1U. No sophisticated graphics or animation. The Vegas 8 crashed two times in the middle of the rendering. So I just cut the project in half and put two parts on the DVD (it was a basic beauty pageant). Worst problem: when Vegas rendered to Mpeg2, the video looked great. But after DVD Architect rendered the 90 min file on DVD, the compression was so intense that the video looked like a bad VHS copy and the red bar said it was using all 4.7G. Are there settings that can change the compression rate or increase the quality? How is it that 2 hour feature films look great on standard DVDs, but this 90 minute file was so compressed?

Hutch

[Mike Kujbida]

“How is it that 2 hour feature films look great on standard DVDs, but this 90 minute file was so compressed?”

For a start, they use dual layer discs so they can get a lot more data on there.
Compression (i.e. bit rate adjustments) is done on a shot by shot basis if necessary.
I’ve been in a post house and watched this being done and it’s pretty amazing.

…the compression was so intense that the video looked like a bad VHS copy…

My guess is that you used the default render settings which, IMO, are not a good idea.
If the video is under 70 min. I have a custom render preset to keep it at a CBR of 8,000,000.
BTW, it’s been recommended here and elsewhere to not exceed this number as some DVD players have problems if the bitrate is too high.
Anything longer than that and I use a bitrate calculator (note: link is to a zipped file) to determine optimum VBR settings.
For a 90 min. project, I get the following VBR numbers:
Min: 3,792,000
Avg: 6,320,000
Max: 8,000,000
Since this is a fashion show, I’m going to guess that there’s a lot of bright & dark scenes.
For this reason, I’d use the 2-pass option as this will help to boost the quality.
This assumes you’re uisng AC-3 audio with the default settings.

As for your crashing, the usual recommendation is to make sure your project properties match your source footage, even in your situation.
You may be rendering to SD but make sure your properties are set to HDV.
I believe you should render using Best mode but I’ll leave that to someone who uses a Z-1 to confirm that.