[D. Eric franks]

Frankly, I haven’t noticed any speed difference at all. The big change for me is the extra RAM that you can allocate for dynamic RAM previews, which is an important part of my workflow.

[D. Eric franks]

Personally (and as a single, anecdotal piece of data), I never found Vegas 8 64-bit to be stable enough to rely on it. Vegas 9 64-bit (at least the first update) is very stable – not quite Vegas 8 32-bit stable (which is rocksolidnevercrash stable), but enough that it is my primary editor (probably 2 crashes a week – although I did find a clip I couldn’t open in v9-64 yesterday that did, of course, work in v8-32). I haven’t installed the newest update yet. Again, just a data point: your mileage may vary, blah blah, etc.

EDIT: OK, as per the v9b update – “* Fixed a bug that prevented some QuickTime files from reading audio properly.” – yep, that solved the file-that-wouldn’t-open problem.

[D. Eric franks]

SD will be:

* 720×480 with a 0.919 PAR
-or-
* 640×480 with a 1.0 PAR

… more or less on the 640×480 part. 720×480 w/1.0 PAR will look distinctly stretched (toss a perfect circle on the timeline and you’ll see it – weight-conscious talent will also notice).

________
“Film editing is now something almost everyone can do
at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level
requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does.”
— Walter Murch
https://videopia.org

[D. Eric franks]

You are talking about separate video files on the DVD, right? It is possible to put mixed aspect ratio clips on a single DVD and have them work correctly, but they have to be on the disc as separate files. Maybe you can pre-render to MPEG-2 so the right flag (4:3/16:9) is inserted and DVD-A doesn’t re-render them?

If the clips need to be mixed into the same video file, you have 2×2 choices, of course:

(1) Project at 4:3 and
(a) letterbox the 16:9 sections (black bars top/bottom)
-or-
(b) zoom in on the 16:9 clips, cropping the left/right

(2) Project at 16:9
(a) pillarbox the 4:3 clips (black bars left/right)
-or-
(b) zoom in on the 4:3 clips, cropping the top bottom

I guess it depends on which aspect is dominant (e.g., you’ve got 90% 16:9 footage with a little 4:3), but if it were close to 50/50, I think I’d go with the more modern 16:9 aspect project and (2b), zoom and crop the 4:3 clips. The big danger here is that the 4:3 clips will suffer a quality hit zooming in on them.

[D. Eric franks]

Just to double-check: When you burn a DVD or CD and then play it back on your computer (where you play the MP3, YouTube and Vegas), does it sound fine? It should.

That would indicate that it’s the speakers on your TV/boom box and not the actual DVD/CD that’s the issue. But, yes, you can target your output for those devices so that it will sound better on them… at the cost of changing the sound on YouTube/Vegas/YourComputer. It’s a dilemma!

I’d start with the Track EQ: grab the (1) low frequency node and drag it down just a tad and maybe create a little shelf filter. Now here’s the second dilemma: It’s going to be tricky to preview this on your destination without burning a disc, so you are like a deaf man mixing. Burning copies and trying it out is the only real test, but it is possible your TV/Boom Box have inputs, in which case you could run your computer’s out into the actual device and mix like that.

_______
A wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad.
— Samuel Goldwyn
https://videopia.org

[D. Eric franks]

I read in another forum I follow that this could be related to a new version of Internet Explorer. Either revert to the older version of IE or see if there’s a newer update?

[D. Eric franks]

Ouch. That looks like the pillars you see on classic Sony CCD imagers: What camera did you use? (Not that this is something awful about Sony video cameras – I use Sony cameras myself!)

As far as removing them, I’m afraid it’s nearly impossible. You might be able to minimize their prominence some with a little blue color correction, but even white de-emphasized pillars are going to be very noticeable once the video is in full motion. Sorry!

[D. Eric franks]

(a) My still images almost always get cropped, but that’s because I’m a crappy photographer. If you’ve spent a lot of time artistically composing your shots, then black letterboxing bars are better than ruining the composition. In a video setting, however, you can do both with a little “Ken Burns” panning. I’d crop first at the clip level (which is working with the full resolution of the photo) and then use the Track Motion tool as necessary.

(b) You project template depends almost entirely on your destination format. For Vimeo/YouTube, I’d recommend:

1280×720
24p
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0

If you are going out to HDTV/Blue-ray, then the 1920×1080@29.97 preset is fine.

_______________
What I’ve learned is that life is too short and movies are too long.
— Denis Leary
https://videopia.org

[D. Eric franks]

I don’t render any animations out of the Juicer. The QuickTime MOV source files work just fine in Vegas and definitely won’t hit the avi i/o library.

As far as renders go, you’ll probably want 1280×720 anyhow, since that’s one of the native Vimeo/YouTube formats. Of course, tomorrow they’ll probably support 1080p too… Personally, I’ve had more luck with the MainConcept AVC encoder than Sony’s, but I’m not certain what you get with the trial version anyhow (esp. since the encoders cost Sony money).

[D. Eric franks]

Definitely: cartoons have large blocks of color that are generally easier to summarize and encode to lower bit rates.

I don’t know of a tool that would do what you want, but it’s a great idea. I’m imagining a Photoshop-esque Before/After window with a sample of the compression. I do know that there isn’t an objective way to generate quality scores. Even PQA techniques that involve pixel comparisons that do give you an objective score often generate numbers that are unrelated to subjective quality analysis. For example, even if individual frames look good, it may be that the video looks like crap in full motion.

One pointer, though: cartoons with flatter colors and sharper boundaries often look better with “sharpness” turned up (at the cost of smoother motion). Not all codecs have settings for this, but if you have that option, that’s probably what you’ll want.

And one thing to watch out for: While solid blocks of color are easier to encode, they also reveal noise and, especially annoying, encoding keyframes. So if you start seeing a periodic “pulsing” in solid areas (the area will look perfect, then gradually deteriorate for a dozen frames, then snap back to perfect, and so on…), that’s the keyframes. You can add keyframes (Keyframe every 6 instead of 12, for example), but this is tricky and unfun to deal with.

Sorry I don’t have a shorter, better “Do this” answer, but I’d love to hear/see how your experiments turn out.

______________
A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end…
but not necessarily in that order.
— Jean-Luc Godard
https://videopia.org