Rendering mpeg2 video to a PAR of .9 possible?

[John Rofrano]

[Angelo Mike] “I have a video that I’m editing with an aspect ratio of .9841. How could I render this to a video with a PAR of .9?”

The 4:3 Display option in the MainConcept MPEG2 encoder will give you an aspect ratio of 0.9091 which is as close to .9 as you can get. You want to be sure and render to a PAR that broadcast devices can accept. That would be 0.9091 for Standard Definition in NTSC.

~jr

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

[Angelo Mike]

Here’s the thing, though. Because the resolution is 720×512, the render settings automatically changes the PAR to .9841. Yet the broadcast specs sheet says that the PAR needs to be 9:10.

http://www.scenethroughglass.com

[John Rofrano]

[Angelo Mike] “Here’s the thing, though. Because the resolution is 720×512, the render settings automatically changes the PAR to .9841.”

I assumed (perhaps wrongly) that you would want to use a legal broadcast resolution like 720×480 or 720×486 for NTSC. 720×512 is a proprietary digital delivery format for TV that I’m not sure Vegas supports.

~jr

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

[Angelo Mike]

I thought I wanted 720×486 as well, but the broadcaster only supports that as a Pro Res video, which won’t work on this because it will create pillar boxing.

Thanks again for all the help. Everything now seems to be in the safe area, regardless. But the broadcaster said that the picture quality is a little low, and I don’t know how much I can do since I’m rendering at 20 mbps, leaving it interlaced per the spec sheet (though I’ll show him a progressive scan version if that works better), and otherwise I’m trying to render as closely to the original video’s specs as possible.

One more thing-how do I get Computer RGB to Studio RGB in Vegas 11? It’s no longer under the color corrector. I tried it on broadcast colors, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.

http://www.scenethroughglass.com

[John Rofrano]

[Angelo Mike] “I thought I wanted 720×486 as well, but the broadcaster only supports that as a Pro Res video, which won’t work on this because it will create pillar boxing.”

I was able to render 720×512 4:2:2 MPEG2 with Vegas Pro 11.0. Here is the template I created:

[Angelo Mike] “One more thing-how do I get Computer RGB to Studio RGB in Vegas 11? It’s no longer under the color corrector. I tried it on broadcast colors, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.”

It’s a preset under Sony Levels.

~jr

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

[Angelo Mike]

Weird. I can’t find Program Stream NTSC anywhere under mpeg2 render settings on Vegas 10 or 11. Thanks very much for trying to figure it out, though.

What I ended up being able to do is render to uncompressed mov (since Avid DNxHD will apparently not be able to render the video out in 720×486 for someone on FCP to pro res) and an FCP editor will Pro Res it from there. There’s slight pillar boxing on the video now, but it’s well out of the safe area so shouldn’t be a problem.

At least, that’s the plan, until I find out tomorrow whether the broadcaster can use that version…

Edit: Oh, I found it in Vegas 11. Thanks! I’m going to try this since it lets me render in the (bizarre) native resolution.

One last thing-under the project tab on the right for render settings, should I set Video Rendering quality to “Best”, or just leave it at “Use Project Settings”?

http://www.scenethroughglass.com

[Angelo Mike]

Woops, I spoke too soon. The video won’t play in WMV, and I can’t seem to open it in VLC in the first place. Now I don’t know if this will work.

Edit: It works fine on VLC. I may as well upload it to the broadcaster. Thanks again, John. I was stressing about this all week.

http://www.scenethroughglass.com

[John Rofrano]

[Angelo Mike] “Edit: It works fine on VLC. I may as well upload it to the broadcaster. Thanks again, John. I was stressing about this all week.”

Let us know if the broadcaster accepts it. Good Luck.

~jr

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

[Angelo Mike]

It worked fine, thanks to Vegas. On Final Cut it wouldn’t have worked, because it would have required resizing the video for 720×480, which would have created pillarboxing.

However, now one of the videos has a DRM type code in it called veiled encoding (I posted about it in a new thread), so the broadcaster can’t use that despite the video itself being broadcast safe. And the original company that made the videos no longer has any of the files or projects to render it out in more suitable settings, so I’m going to have to see with my client what a work around will be.

http://www.scenethroughglass.com