[Jeremy Rasnic]

I would resize your image to no more than double the project size you are outputting to (too big of a picture file will eat up your memory).

Once done there, I would download Vasst’s photo montage tool (free trial) and use it to import your images to the timeline with pan/crop already set, aspect already set to match project and anti-flicker turned on (you can do this manually- as you can with everything else as well if you right click the media and go to properties and turn on anti-flicker).

Here is the link– check it out.

It sets up the pan and crops according to what you want and then all you have to do is go back and tweak them how you want and it will fit to length of song, etc.

Let us know if you have any questions!

j razz

[Jeremy Rasnic]

Make sure your software for viewing and DVD player are set to 16:9. It should be in the settings.

If everything else is showing correctly and only your playback software (for the VOB) and DVD player display it wrongly, I would look there.

j razz

[Jeremy Rasnic]

You could also burn the file as is to a dual layer disc without issue. The discs cost a little more, but it will save you another render and your file will not take a quality hit.

You do need to make sure your discs are good quality dual layer discs as some players have issues playing them (at least they did in the past). I don’t think it is that big of an issue now days as long as they don’t have an extremely old player. On top of that, if you are using Nero Burning Rom, you can change the book type of the DVD from +r to rom which should increase its compatibility.

j razz

[Jeremy Rasnic]

Any of them will be fine as long as they are 64 bit. I use Vista Ultimate 64. It has some perks to it like combining multiple drives into one. You may or may not need that. Look at the comparison chart between the different versions on Microsoft’s site to see what meets your needs. As for Vegas 8.1, you don’t need anything special in the way of an OS- just a 64 bit Windows platform.

j razz

[Jeremy Rasnic]

No problem Mark. Come back by anytime. 🙂

j razz

[Jeremy Rasnic]

Hi Mark. Welcome!

1. Is this just the price of the project being rendered? All settings, bitrates, etc seemed OK?

Nope. Not the price at all. It might have been that your footage was encoded once (on Adobe) and then again in DVDA to mpeg-2. It is possible it took a double hit. If that is how your footage looked when previewing it in DVDA, then it is probably your source footage (unless you were looking at it in a draft/preview setting- then it will look uncrisp)

2. …am i going to be disappointed with the resulting picture quaility? Can I edit in HD and then produce a DVD in architect? – I don’t have Blu ray access obviously. Will the picture quality be lost once again?

You shouldn’t be. You do need to find out if you are using M2T files (which are mpg HDV) or AVCHD. AVCHD is indeed harder to edit and VASST.com makes a tool with a free trial that allows you to convert them easily to M2T files with exceptional quality called AVCHD Upshift.

You can edit HD in Vegas and produce SD in DVDA. When you encode, use the DVDA template that matches your output format of choice. I would recommend going into custom and make sure the quality is set to best and bitrate is high enough to give good quality for your footage. There are bitrate calculators out there that can help you get the most quality out of your project while ensuring it will fit on your disc. You will also want to encode your audio as a separate render to ac3 but name it the same and keep it in the same folder as your video file that you encoded.

3. When I take the HDV format files from the camera, using the picture utility program provided, I can view all of these video files perfectly, sharp, clear, no jumps, etc. When I’ve briefly attempted to put these HDV files into vegas, when I was initially playing around with the software, the files were terribly slow and jumpy and it was evident that there was no way i could edit anything like this. Why the change?

There should be no need for a converting utility if you are using HDV files (it sounds like you are using AVCHD files). Your results in Vegas will vary depending on your PC processor speed and ram. The faster the cpu the better. The more ram, the better. So, if your preview is sluggish, first check to see if you are using AVCHD files (if so, convert them to M2T using the program I mentioned in 2). If you are not, make sure your preview window is set to Preview Auto and see if that helps with timeline performance. If it is and it is still sluggish, what spec’s make up your computer? It may be time for a faster machine.

I hope that helps. Feel free to ask any questions you have. We are here to help.

j razz

[Jeremy Rasnic]

I looked again at your specs and it would be hard to max out ram with Vista 64 and 8 gigs. I am leaning towards it being one of your filters/fx.

I installed a plugin pack (I don’t remember which one) several years ago and used the black and white plugin from it. That plugin caused it to crash. Luckily it was at the beginning of my project so troubleshooting wasn’t too time consuming. I removed it and replaced it with a standard b/w plugin and no problems. You might want to take a look there.

j razz

[Jeremy Rasnic]

If you are using high quality picture files, that may be part of your problem coupled with fx and filters. All of these things together can cause your page file usage to climb and eventually tap out ending in error.

If you have high quality pictures, try reducing the size to just a little over your project settings (as far as you are zooming in on pan/crop).

Have you tried encoding to Cineform Avi first before going to M2T files? I would try that. I also would try replacing all the m2t files in the project media with cineform avi intermediates (you can do this easily with Vasst Ultimate S pro- free trial and I think you can do it with Excalibur by jetdv). These should be less intensive especially if you resize your pictures (if you have any). Also, png files are what I would recommend over other formats.

j razz

[Jeremy Rasnic]

Are you able to send me a link to a place where I can download the rendered clip you made? I would like to burn it to disc and see what becomes of it on the screen.

Also, if you can make a veg file that has just that event with the fx on it and zip it up with the source media, I would like to download that too to see if I can reproduce what you are seeing.

Thanks.

j razz

[Jeremy Rasnic]

I’m not sure then what the culprit is. However, I would try rendering out the portion that has the flare as an effect to an uncompressed avi file (if it is short). Once you do this, replace the footage with the rendered avi and attempt another burn if it shows up correct.

By the way, is it just showing up this way on the burned disc or on the rendered file that you are putting on the disc?

Are you allowing DVDA to render or Vegas? If DVDA, I would let Vegas encode the file.

j razz