[James Dubendorf]

Scott,

Thank you for your response. The zoom looks amazing- in your experience, how would it perform in picking up somewhat loud but ambient noises (for example, background noise at an amusement park or playground, wind in the leaves, etc.)?

I don’t imagine ever needing a multi-cam set up, but I would certainly appreciate options when it comes to sound.

The G10 is very impressive, and would undoubtedly put me light years ahead of where I am now. However, it appears there is no option to shoot in standard definition. My main concern about HD is the extra horsepower needed to work with it. As I mentioned, I would like to do most of my work on a laptop, and I certainly don’t want to end up with amazing footage that I can’t use efficiently. Also, since much of my work ends up on DVD, the advantages of HD really don’t come through. The HD would, however, be great for web content, files for play on computer, etc. Decisions, decisions.

Best,
James

[James Dubendorf]

Some more comments in the mix. First off, I displayed my test dvds on a better quality large screen television and dvd, and the difference in quality was significantly better than the other set up I had been using. I had no idea that the quality of dvd images could vary so much depending on the display components!

It is encouraging to realize that many of the artifacts and pixelations I was observing might have more to do with display components than the dvd itself. On the flip side, it discouraged me to think there is no reliable way to ensure your dvds look good. Can poor components pretty much screw anything up?

Also, I downloaded the trial version of Movie Studio Platinum HD 11.0. Initially, when I rendered in Vegas 11.0 and then burned in DVDA, I had the same problems with recompression. However, when I burned directly to disc from 11.0, I discovered that unlike 10.0, it provides a 24p 16:9 template! Unfortunately, it appears 11.0 has the same version of DVDA as 10.0, so I imagine I will encounter the same issues with DVDA even if I upgrade.

This leads me to a few more questions.

First, is it true that Movie Studio 11.0 can handle 24p in direct to disc mode but NOT in DVDA? This would seem to be a real draw back of the product if it is indeed true. If I’m wrong, the upgrade to 11.0 would be very attractive.

Second, do I just ditch 24p right now even though it has the advantages mentioned above by John?

Third, should I try rendering in Vegas 10.0 in 24p (my version of Vegas DOES allow this, even if it doesn’t provide a way to burn it), but burning with another program such as MuxMan?

Thanks for your thoughts.

James

[James Dubendorf]

Thanks, John. I’ve emailed Sony’s customer service and await a reply. Before I think about upgrading anything, however, I’d like to be confident that if I burn to DVD, and play on a television, all the effort will not have been for nothing. In other words, will the aesthetic advantages of 24p survive all the way to the television screen?

Gratefully,
James

[James Dubendorf]

Ah, and just one more question- if the goal is to play the DVD on a DVD device and then to a television, is it pointless to render 24p/progressive in the first place, or will there still be a 24p “look” to the project.

I’ve seen arguments going both ways, and don’t have the technical knowledge to sort through them.

James

[James Dubendorf]

John,

Thanks for the clarification. Even though I’ve figured out the custom setting that fits Vegas’ 24p widescreen render template, DVDA continues to tell it does not support 24p and must recompress my file- this appears to happen whether I set the render to include pulldown or not.

Since the very purpose of the template is to ensure compatibility with DVDA, I just can’t figure out where the problem is…any suggestions?

James

[James Dubendorf]

Matt,

Thanks for your input. I have that window as well, and Vegas tells me my project fits that template when I render to MPEG2. I should have been clearer that there are no 24p templates in the project properties window (as opposed to the window you show, which I believe is part of the render)- there is a widescreen template, but it is 29.970 fps.

I share your assumption that companion products should work together (in fact, this seems to be the explicit purpose of the render templates- to work with DVDA!), but have not yet found a solution.

James

[James Dubendorf]

Dave,

I am starting to wonder whether the problem is my version of DVDA Studio 5.0. I’ve seen nothing suggesting that it DOESN’T handle 24p encoding, and the existence of templates in Vegas suggest it does, but only DVDA Pro 5.2 actually advertises 24p DVD encoding (https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/techspecs).

Though Movie Studio HD 10.0 doesn’t offer 24p templates in project settings, it does offer 24p MPEG rendering templates (which then must be recompressed every time I feed them to DVDA).

If I do actually need a software upgrade, I would have appreciated some indication of that before losing hours and hours to trouble shooting/banging head against wall. I may have to go Pro to get this done.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

James

[James Dubendorf]

Dave,

Thanks for this response. I am slowly learning that at the end of the day, there is only so much you can ask a DVD to do. I am tailoring my images and text to take this into account- I now know that I must stay away from too much fine detail- I will make text bigger and simpler, try the anti-aliasing you mentioned, and really focus in on the parts of my images I want to emphasize, either through aggressive cropping before Vegas, or zooming in Vegas. As you say, the zoom is a great tool in these cases, and seems to work pretty well.

Unfortunately, I am having problems rendering in 24p from Vegas to DVDA,and can’t figure out where I am going wrong. Movie Studio HD Platinum HD 10.0 does not appear to have any templates in 24p- so I manually set to 23.976 frame rate, progressive scan, and 1.2121 pixel aspect ratio. When I render to MPEG2, Vegas tells me this fits the DVDA widescreen 24p video stream template. When I bring the rendered MPEG into DVDA, however, it continues to tell me it does not support 24p and must recompress. I just can’t find a fix and have tried everything.

I suspect some of my quality issues have to do with recompression. Any hint you could offer on diagnosing my problem would be appreciated. Thanks again. Also, beautiful images on the montage!

James

[James Dubendorf]

John,

Thank you for your reply. I didn’t want to respond until I had time to perform some test burns. I’ve experimented with converting files from JPEG to PNG, altering their color, resolution, and other features in GIMP before uploading to Vegas, applying various color effects in Vegas, and optimizing my project properties (Movie Studio Platinum 10.0 describes anything at 24p as custom, but it fits the standard render template you describe), render settings, etc. I’ve been testing dvd burns on my computer, as well as on a large screen television through a dvd player and my computer’s dvd player via HDMI cable.

Unfortunately, I am still having issues with image quality. Perhaps some background will help. I initially assembled these images as a Power Point presentation. On the computer, and on a large screen television via HDMI cable, they looked fabulous. My goal is to recreate and improve upon this presentation in Vegas. I realize that the dvd format has constraints on its resolution, but I’ve been truly surprised at how poor the results are so far. Certainly the quality of non-HD broadcast television seems superior, as well as commercial dvds. Either I am just being unrealistic about what to expect from Vegas and/or dvds, or something is going wrong in the process. Do you have any suggestions how I could go about diagnosing the situation?

On a related note, is it wise to stay away from images with certain features if planning to render to dvd? It seems it is hard to make straight lines (horizontal, vertical, and even diagonal) look nice. Even relatively simple text that I have rendered in GIMP looks quite pixelated. Images with bright, distinct colors and a minimum of fine detail, however, look better.

If it really isn’t possible to recreate this Power Point presentation on a dvd-appropriate format, I will have to rethink my goals here. It doesn’t seem as though I’m asking much of Vegas relative to its potential capabilities, and so I hope there is something I’m missing. Thanks again for your thoughts.

Best,
James