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Tips on Render Settings for Vegas 11, Mixed Media Project
I’ve recently upgraded to Sony Vegas Pro 11. I’m still trying to get used to the new rendering templates. My first project I will attempt will be a mixed media presentation — music added to a video timeline of both still photos and some AVCHD (60p, 1920×1080) footage that I took with my Sony video camcorder.
In the past (before I got the new camcorder) I typically rendered mixed media projects like this to Mainconcept MPEG-2 and put them on a DVD. This time, I would like to preserve the 60p of the video and just make a project file that I can play from my laptop, either on the laptop screen or projected to a connected flat screen or monitor. The video quality, with 60p, is excellent.
Can anyone, based upon the above parameters, suggest a template or two that I might try to achieve my goal? I’ve been rendering into MP4 format with good results. That template is: HQ 1280×720 60p, 35 mbps VBR.
1. Is this MP4 template sound good for what I want to achieve? The only other template that is 60p is:
AVI, HD 1280×720, YUV 60p. (The YUV codec for this one is Sony, same as my camcorder.)2. Which would be better: the MP4 or the AVI?
3. There are other templates, but none of them have 60p. The other choices are:
WMV, 8 Mbps HD 1440×1080, 30p
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MainConcept AVC/AAC, Internet HD, 1920×1080, 30p, YUV, 12 Mbps
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MPEG-2, HDV, 1280×720, 30p, 18.3 Mbps3. Which of these templates, MP4, AVI, WMV, AVC/AAC, or MPEG-2, would be the “best” quality versus size, or what are some common pros/cons for each? Which ones would be more universally playable on VLC, or other computer-based video players?
4.One issue that might be muddying the waters for me is: when your footage is 1920×1080 60p, is it better to have a template that keeps the the 60p but is only 1280×720, or is it better to have only a 30p frame rate, but keep the 1920×1080 frame size?
Thanks in advance!
Casey
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5 Replies
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A most EXCELLENT question indeed! I wish I had asked it. Or rather had had the courage to ask.
I’m listening.
Grazie
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I may have answered part of my own question in the last hour…
…the quality of my test clip (video and still photos) is much better if I use 1920×1080 30p instead of 1280×720 60p for the MP4 (XDCAM EX) template. I simply “disabled resampling” on the video before rendering, as suggested by John R. last year in a similar answer…By the way, the resulting file will only play on VLC, and not Windows Media Player. (I have both players installed on my Windows 7, 32 bit system.)
(The quality of WMV 1920×1080 60 p was also very, very good, especially if I increased the bit rate to 40 M. However, the resulting file (which will only play on Windows Media Player) was severely letterboxed, not filling up the whole screen.)
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Create yr own sony avc template as per the attached picture
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Thanks, Guillaume!
Just for future reference, what would be the advantage of using the Sony AVC template to create the MP4 instead of the XDCAM EX MP4 template? All of these codecs, templates, and wrappers are quite confusing to me…
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Casey,
– Xdcam ex is using Mpeg2 codec.
– Sony AVC is using AVC/h264 codec.
But both use mp4 container.
You will have a bigger file with Xdcam as mpeg2 is less compressed. The quality should be similar.
Anyway, if you need to render to 1080-60p, you don’t have a lot of choices with Vegas: either uncompressed (but huge size) or Sony AVC.Guillaume
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