Xvid Mpeg-4 AVI & Vegas Pro 9 – novice

[John Rofrano]

There is no xvid 64-bit codec and Vegas doesn’t support editing xvid anyway. Try the Sony AVC codec. It produces industry standard AVC/h.264. Nothin’ proprietary about it.

~jr

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

[Pete Jefferson]

I found this link for xvid-64 in another forum:
https://forum.videohelp.com/images/guides/p2035729/xvid-i1.2.2-vaq-x64.zip

After installing it I was able to view and edt my xvid mpeg4 file. So I guess you can at least view and edit xvid files with Vegas Pro 9 64bit, so long as you provide the codecs? There is no option to render as xvid.

Either way, I’m happy to render with the Sony codecs. I shouldn’t expect any trouble rendering my xvid mp4 as the Sony AVC once the time comes, right? I guess I should do a sample before I get too far in.

For a different file, I did a Sony AVC render since my last post and I’m happy enough with the results. Thank you for the advice an solution.

[Dave Haynie]

If you’re trying to stuff a standard definition film into 800MB (about 1/2 the bitrate of an Apple iTunes download, about 1/10th the bitrate of a professionally encoded DVD), I would recommend the Main Concept AVC encoder over the Sony.

Both produce AVC, and I use the Sony encoder for Blu-ray. But the Sony encoder doesn’t support variable bit-rate encoding, which is absolutely essential to optimizing a low bit-rate render. All professionally encoded DVDs are done in VBR, for example. You’re talking about an average bit-rate of 850Kb/s or thereabouts… and that’s not even taking into account audio. So you can set up a render with video at 800,000b/s as an average, maximum of 2,500,000b/s, and audio at 48kb/s, and see how that goes.

XviD is based on the original DivX CODEC, which is in turn based on MPEG-4 Part 2, also called MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile video. This was an improvement over MPEG-2, but AVC (Advanced Video Coding) is a similar improvement over ASP. And as John pointed out, it’s a standard. In fact, AVC is THE video standard of our times: it’s on Blu-ray, on the web, it’s the primary video CODEC for portable devices, it’s the European high definition broadcast standard, it’s more recently become the most common consumer camcorder recording format, and it’s used on most satellite and even some digital cable TV systems. Microsoft added built-in support for AVC with Windows 7, even though they were never all that good with NIH (Not Invented Here) technology support.

-Dave

[Pete Jefferson]

AVC sounds like a winner. I read your post about four times. Thanks for taking the time to explain. The MainConcept AVC might be larger than I want to deal with, but I’ll render a few different versions and see how it looks.

Thanks for your time.

[Pete Jefferson]

Hi, I’m back.

Last night I complied a 2 1/2 documentary imported directly from DVD rendering as MainConcept AVC with a 640×480 template. It came in at 1.54 GB. The file size and quality are good for my purposes but there’s a fatal flaw. I can’t skip around within the video. I can’t slide the timeline, jump ahead, or go back. If I do it just freezes. My CPU is a 2.4Ghz dual core and I have 6 GBs of system memory, but I know this isn’t the problem because other large videos using different codecs allow me to navigate freely.

As I recall, it took about 4 hrs to render the video so I’ll try again tonight with Sony AVC, but I’m confused about what template to use. This isn’t HD material. The default choice is “Memory Stick SD NTSC – 2128 Kpbs” but I can go as high as 6256 Kbps. It’s all greek to me. I know this is information I could probably harvest from older posts, but I already had this thread going and I won’t have much time to mess with this before starting another 4 hour rendering session at bedtime so any help or advice is appreciated.

Thanks

[Pete Jefferson]

Hi, me again.

Well, I just rendered the same documentary in Sony AVC (Memory Stick SD NTSC – 2128 Kpbs). It came in at 2.23 GB and I can scroll forward and back just fine. However, the picture quality isn’t so hot. I don’t know the technical term but the Sony AVC has an “interlaced” look with the horizontal lines running across. Remember when stand alone DVD players first came out and the newer models had progressive scan? Well, the MainConcept AVC looks like progressive to me and the Sony AVC looks interlaced. But with the Sony AVC I can at least skip around without the video freezing up. Take away the “interlaced” look and I’d say the picture quality is about equal.

I’ve used slysofts Clone DVD Moblie and they have a setting called Generic AVC. I haven’t tried with a video file as long as 2 1/2 hours, but from what I’ve seen of that it looked good and I was able to skip around. Anyone know what THAT AVC codecs is?

Well, I’ve spent about 10x longer on this project than I expected to and I’m still not satisfied. Any help, corrections, or suggestions are truly appreciated.

One correction is that my rendering times have been 2 to 2/12 hours, not 4.

Thanks.

[John Rofrano]

[Pete Jefferson] “Well, I just rendered the same documentary in Sony AVC (Memory Stick SD NTSC – 2128 Kpbs). It came in at 2.23 GB and I can scroll forward and back just fine. However, the picture quality isn’t so hot. I don’t know the technical term but the Sony AVC has an “interlaced” look with the horizontal lines running across”

You rendered to NTSC and NTSC requires interlacing for display on a TV. I would not use that template unless your target device is an NTSC TV or similar interlaced device.

In the memory stick template that you are using, change the Video format from “Memory Stick” to AVC. Then change the Field Order from “Upper Field First” to None (Progressive). That will remove the interlacing lines.

~jr

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

[Pete Jefferson]

hmmm… the only template choices I see that refer to AVC are AVCHD..

AVCHD 1440 x 1080-60i
AVCHD 1440 x 1080-50i
AVCHD 1920 x 1080-60i
AVCHD 1920 x 1080-50i

I’m guessing the HD and those high resolutions suggest high definition and maybe the “i” is for interlaced? I’ll try one but it’s the only thing that has AVC in the choice for Vegas Pro 9. Perhaps I need alternative codecs or I’m just missing something obvious.

As for Field Order, I seem to be missing that too. I even played around with the custom settings but don’t see what you’re referring to. Maybe this is because I’m using 64 bit?

I appreciate your patience. I’m sure most of this is pretty fundamental. I’ll try the first AVCHD template just for fun and report back later…

[John Rofrano]

[Pete Jefferson] “hmmm… the only template choices I see that refer to AVC are AVCHD..”

I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. I was talking about the template that you are already using, not selecting a new template. Here is what you should do:

1. Select Sony AVC as the render type
2. Select Memory Stick SD NTSC – 2128 Kpbs as the template
3. Press the Customize… button
4. Change the Video format from “Memory Stick” to AVC
5. Change the Field Order from “Upper Field First” to None (Progressive)

That will remove the interlacing lines.

Here is what the end result should look like:

Hope that helps,

~jr

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

[Pete Jefferson]

ha ha. You’re a patient man John. Can’t believe I missed that but you’re last post made it impossible to misunderstand. You know it’s you’re old posts on this forum that drew me here in the first place.

Well, I rendered it as you said and everything is well. Sound, video, file size, and I can scroll to and fro as I please. Thanks John. This is exactly what I wanted to do and now I’ll have a method for future projects. I was working with SD this time but I’ll test out some HD stuff later and see how it converts. Much appreciated!

Pete

PS: Let me know if there are any Vegas Pro tutorials you’d recommend.