Ben Longden
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The current television standard is to display the 4×3 format in its entirety on the 16×9 screen, utilising the black pillars either side.
That way you will feature the shot the way it was originally intended.
If you subscribe to NEAT Video, i really can recommend it, as it does a wonderful job in cleaning and sharpening things up. But just find a Youtube tutorial first as its not intuitive.. and Im still a newbie with it after ten years of using it!
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Hi.
I have had quite a few shoots using HD and the clients wanting SD delivered on DVD.
May I share something that the DVD Architect purists may freak out about, but works perfectly well.So far the projects have been up to 90 min per DVD.
Im using a trio of Panny P2HD cameras, and so ingesting from the P2 card. Other than that, it should be the same.
Shoot in HD.
Im using 1440×1080, 50i (as our DVDs are PAL 25fps) and saving on the cards as AVC Intra 50.1. Import to a new Vegas project and
2. set Vegas to match project media… so its the same as the original specs as being imported.
3. Go into settings and change the project media to ‘Lower field first’
4 Edit and save project.Now the fiddly bit.
5. Render using the Mainconcept MPEG-2 format.6. Select the “DVD Architect PAL Widescreen Video Stream template” (Or the NTSC one if in NTSC land)
7. ensure the field order is LOWER field first, and the others are; Output type is DVD , 720 x 576, 25fps, 16×9, I-frames 12, B frames-2, profile and level are both ‘main’. Quality is prioritised.
Now for the bit rate. Reading through the experts in here 9.8 is the max, but you get problems.. so go for 8mbps as a maximum if the project is under 60 min.. Ive got mine set at 6,500,00 as the last one was 90min..
8. Go to the audio page and tick AUDIO on. THIS is the controversial bit. Many purists state to render audio and vision as separate streams.. But THIS does work. (Its basically stereo, model 2, audio layer 2, 224kbps, default emphasis at 48k.)
This does sound really strange, but this gives a far cleaner picture than I have ever seen for DVD. Even when I took an AVI project, shot on the legendary Sony DSR-570 and put it into DVDA.
Next up..
1. Open DVD Architect.
2. Import your artwork etc
3. Import video file (drag and drop)
4. Select scene selections, tidy them up then
5. check project using preview… You should have sound with clean SD video
6. Insert a blank dist in the burner
7. follow prompts to make the DVDIf the project needs recompressing, follow the “optimise” pathway.. But if its under 60 min, then anything from 6 to 8mbps will work.
What I did notice was the clarity around things.. haloes are gone…
Hope this helps.
B(Shooting news since 2003. But ventured into HD only a few months ago.)
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AVI is a very bulky file, and the processor may not have the grunt to keep up.
I dont know what you are using, but my antient Vaio (900Mhz) would barely play an AVI file, as it was spending too much time thinking about how it was going to get the job done.
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Well, Sony need to reinstate network rendering and quickly.
It would be fantastic to be able to use it to render H264 files, even with a set of quad core machines networked together.
My main client (TV News) now wants all vision encoded to H264, and network rendering would save so much time at my end.
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Versions 9d and e wont work all that well for me.. I reinstalled 9c instead.
When 9f comes out, with all the bugs fixed in these two ^&*(*^$@$%^ versions, then I will upgrade..Ben
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Hi John,
Again thanks for this info.
Using the blu ray burn option in Vegas, can you use , for example, a 4.7Gb disc as the recording media without a dedicated BluRay burner?
Thanks,
BenDo unto others…
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Also…. if you use DVDA, dont forget that it makes a hidden copy of EVERY job you have done, and this needs to be nuked from time to time.
Have a look in documents and settings/your name/my documents for DVD Architect projects. Give this folder a quick enema and that will give you back a LOT of HDD real estate.
Ben
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Sorry, I just shoot SD for news… What I really meant to say when I said render it back as a .avi first, was to render the project to the same format as the original material. Then render that one…
As its in the same format etc, then vegas will recognise the untouched files wont need recompressing, so it completes the transitions, FX and whatnot without altering the quality.
I have a huge RAM real estate, plus HDD space, and even for some jobs, if there is colour correction etc then vegas sucks up almost all memory. Dont know why…. it never used to do it… So far, I figure its a Full Moon thing.
If vegas is having to do corrections, sound processing AND then render out to a different format all in the one hit then things can get messy.
If you just ask it to do one thing at a time, like us blokes, then all will be well.
Sometimes, the PC just gives up…. so to make it a low stress workflow, I use the above method.
Ben
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Just shoot as normal if you are in NTSC land.
Do the conversion in post.Edit and cut to your hearts delight and save as a .avi file, in NTSC format. Then re-import the file onto the timeline, changing Vegas’ preferences to PAL (either 16;9 or 4×3 depending on what you shot).
When you do this change the custom control to 8Mbps variable bit rate, two pass.
Then change DVDA presets to that of Vegas (eg PAL Widescreen) and toast to disc from there.
As a general rule of thumb, if you DONT hear from the client, everything went OK.
ben
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Just have a listen to the real thing so you can write the correctly phrased script… Nothing cheeses pilots and aviation folk off more than incorrect radio calls….
As for the filter, try the phone first. Remember the radios are AM, narrow audio bandwith, and unless youre a jet jockey where the cash converters are at the back of the plane, there will be considerable background noise, even from the David Clark noice cancelling mics.
Ben
(cash converter = engine. It converts cash into thrust to propel the aircraft)
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