[John Bean]

Jim,

After you clarified your issue, I believe the answer has to do with the conversion from the Vegas timecode to DVD Architect’s timecode.

The default Vegas timecode is “Time and Frames”. DVDa uses “Non-drop Timecode”.

So during the creation of the VOBs, DVDa does a timecode conversion.

Non-drop timecode make no adjustment to the timecode to maintain real time syncronization for NTSC video. Video frames are just playback as is. Since only whole frames can be displayed, for NTSC non-drop timecode, the actual frame rate is just a constant 30 fps instead of the NTSC standard of 29.97 fps.

This of course results in the NTSC video stream being actually played faster than it should. Thus, your video has a shorter total time and will be out-of-sync with your audio.

In comparsion, NTSC “drop timecode” does make adjustments to the timecode to maintain real time syncronization. Drop timecode causes 2 frames to be dropped from the timecode every minute except when minutes modulo 10 equals 0 (ie. 0, 10, 20, 30, …).

No actual frames are removed from the video stream in “drop timecode”. It is just timecode manipulation that results in certain frames being *skipped* (“dropped”) during playback. Those *skipped* frames are still in the video stream.

Now it appears that to maintain real time synchronization for NTSC “non-drop” timecode, DVDa actually drops frames from your video stream so that it is effectively “drop-frame” timecode.

In other words, the frames that would have been *skipped* in a NTSC “drop-frame” timecode are actually *removed* (deleted/dropped) from your video stream by DVDa.

If this explanation is correct, then this would explain why your VOB video stream is smaller in size then the original video stream you got in your MPEG coming out of Vegas.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

Dave,

For the same reason why you need an UPSCALING FACTOR, in order to compare videos of different frame rates, you also need a FRAME-RATE SCALING factor. Otherwise, it is like comparing apples and oranges.

Consider a 1080-60p and 1080-30p video both at 15 Mbs.

It is clear here that the video 1080-30p will be less compressed than the 1080-60p at the same bitrate. But if I wanted to compare these two videos, then I would need to adjust the frame rates for one of the videos.

So if I adjust the 1080-60p to 30p, that will result in a 60/30=2 times increase in the BITRATE. The way to understand it is this: I need to compare 2 frames from the 60p video to 1 frame from the 30p video. So that is 2 times the bit-rate for a 60p video in comparison to a 30p video.

So the 1080-60p adjusted to 30p will be equivalent if we adjust the BITRATE to 2*15Mbs=30Mbs.

Define FF=frame-rate scaling factor

FF = (TARGET FRAME-RATE) / (INITIAL FRAME-RATE)

ABRF = adjusted bitrate for frame rate conversion = BR * FF

As well, I also will assume we can go convert from 60i to 30p with no affects to Q. This is a valid assumption when the UPPER and LOWER fields are taken from the same PROGRESSIVE source frame in time.

So lets use simple math again!

480-60i 8 Mbs:
CF = (720p*480p) * 24 bpp * 30 fps / 8 Mbs
CF = 31.104

UF = (1920*1080) / (720*480)
UF = 5.54846

CF*UF = 31.104 * 5.54846 = 172.5792

Q <~ 1 / (CF * UF)
Q <~ 1 / 173

1080-60i 15 Mbs:
CF = (1920p*1080p) * 24 bpp * 30 fps / 15 Mbs
CF = 99.532

Q <~ 1 / 100

720-60p 15 Mbs:

FF = 60 / 30 = 2
ABRF = 15 Mbs * 2 = 30 Mbs

CF = (1280p*720p) * 24 bpp * 60 fps / 30 Mbs
CF = 44.2368

UF = (1920*1080) / (1280*720)
UF = 2.25

CF*UF = 44.2368 * 2.25 = 99.53

Q <~ 1 / (CF * UF)
Q <~ 1 / 100

=>1 / 173 vs 1/100 vs 1 / 100

So clearly, using simple math again, we see that in terms of these Q factors:

1080-60i-15Mbs == 720-60p-15Mbs >> 480-60i-8Mbs

Math is so much fun!!!

Cheers!

[John Bean]

Dave

Let’s see how the simple mathematical model for estimating the Q factor in your suggested scenario.

1080p AVC video at 15 Mb/s:

CF = (1920p*1080p) * 24 bpp * 24 fps / 15 Mbs
= 79.626

Q <~ 1 / CF
Q <~ 1 / 80

480p-MPEG2 at 8 Mb/s:
CF = (( (720p*480p) * 24 bpp * 24 fps) / 8 Mbs) * ( 5 / 3)
= 41.472

UF = (1920*1080) / (720*480)
= 5.53846

CF*UF = 230.1

Q <~ 1 / (CF * UF)
Q <~ 1 / 230

=>1/80 vs 1/230

Clearly, using simple mathematics we see that a 1080p-AVC video at 15 Mb/s is going to be far superior than its 480p-MPEG2 upscaled counterpart.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

[Alan] (1) If I am using only the Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11, does the YUV to RGB, and 32-bit mode precision that you described in Vegas pro11 does still apply here?

Using this comparison chart: https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiope/compare

It doesn’t look like Movie Studio HD has 32-bit floating point precision. So with Movie Studio there’s going to be a YUV to RGB 8-bit [integer only] color conversion precision.

[Alan] (2) What “category” exactly is the .m2ts file under? I thought .m2ts means “mpeg2 transport stream”, that’s why I first assume that I read somewhere that smart rendering works with mpeg2, so it will work with .m2ts… guess not..

M2TS is just media *container* format currently used for storing HD content. Most notably, it is used for Blu-ray media streams and AVCHD streams found in many cameras.

Remember that HD content can also be encoded in MPEG-2. A lot of Blu-rays still use the older MPEG-2 codec. M2TS is just an upgrade version of the older MPEG Transport stream (TS). That is where the “MPEG-2 Transport Stream (M2TS)” name comes frome.

Inside this M2TS *container*, it can contain video, audio, text, and menu streams. In the case of M2TS from a camera, it will have video and audio streams. So to a program like Vegas, it extracts the video and audio streams from this container to work with it. And the video stream codec is AVCHD (H264). Which Vegas cannot do *SMART RENDERING* on.

[Alan] (3)I guess I could live with just the Visually Lossless rendering. So you are saying, after I convert my .m2ts files into the Visually Lossless format with let’s say the Cineform (since I hear it all the time), what extension will it become? It’s that I am a bit confused about this Cineform… many places that mentioned it (even in Vegas) they keep refering to 3D video, but I just want to do simple 2D cutting eidit on my home video. So where do I get this Cineform converter? or is it already one of the format in Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11 that I could just simplely open a .mt2s file and select the Cinform to convert it?

A typical media file will contain a *video* and *audio* stream. That is why you need a *container*. This container encapsulates both these *video* and *audio* streams to make a single file. Each type of media container is different in the way they encapsulate their streams.

So Cineform is just a codec for encoding *video streams* only. It is not a media container like M2TS. It can be used to encode (compress) your project’s *video streams* regardless if its 2D or 3D.

So when you render out your project, you need to select a media container format that supports the Cineform video codec. AVI supports the Cineform video codec.

So if you wanted Cineform as your video codec, you would select the [Microsoft] AVI option as your media container, and then select Cineform as your video codec [format]. You then also have the option to select what codec you want for your audio stream as well. The default for AVI is UNCOMPRESSED PCM 16-bit.

You will need to check to see if Movie Studio HD Platinum 11 already comes with the Cineform codec. I know that Vegas Pro 11 comes with Cineform. Again, in RENDER-AS, select Microsoft AVI, then look under “Video Format” to see if Cineform is one of the available codecs you have.

If you don’t have it, just Google for it! Download it and install it.

So yes, you can just import your M2TS files into your Vegas Movie Studio and simply render it out as an AVI using the Cineform video codec, if that’s all you want to do!

[Alan] (4) I read it somewhere earlier that Cineform convert the file into their own special .avi format. But whatever format it became, I will then be able to use this as intermediate format to do all kinds of editing in Vegas(in addition to simple cutting), and then render it as either normal mpeg, avi or .m2ts, and the resulting file will looks almost like orignial?

Cineform doesn’t have its own *special* AVI format. So, if you follow, Cineform is just a *video codec* and AVI is just a media *container*. Select AVI is your media container, then select Cineform as your video codec. Then select the codec you want for your audio stream as well.

Yes, Cineform is commonly used as the *video codec* for an INTERMEDIATE FILE because it is VISUALLY LOSSLESS. A human being can not tell the difference between a LOSSLESS (or UNCOMPRESSED) video and a VISUALLY LOSSLESS encoded version of the same video. So to reduce harddrive storage space, people will use CINEFORM as the *video codec* for their INTERMEDIATE FILE, and use AVI as the media container.

If you are not doing any further processing beyond rendering it out to just ONE format, you can just keep your original M2TS files for archiving and skip the Cineform video encoding stage.

MPEG-2 is the video codec that is used for .MPEG files. This video codec is the only option if you want to make a DVD, ie. standard definition 720×480

MPEG-2 is a LOSSY video codec. AVCHD is a LOSSY video codec. LOSSY is not the same as LOSSLESS.

When you use a LOSSY video codec, depending on what your settings are, the resulting render-as video may not appear VISUALLY LOSSLESS. That is, if you use low quality settings, you will notice compression and upscaling artifacts. Your video will not look similar to the original.

A side not here: Cineform is *technically* a LOSSY video codec. It’s just that Cineform does a great job compressing without any human noticeable artifacts. That is why people call Cineform a VISUALLY LOSSLESS codec. But technically (bit-by-bit), it is a LOSSY video codec.

The two main settings you will most likely be concerned with are:
1. FRAME SIZE
2. BIT RATE

To ensure the highest quality, you want to make sure you are using a FRAME SIZE that is equal-to your original video files. And you want to make sure you are using a BIT-RATE setting that is *atleast* equal-to your original videos.

(If you want to make a Blu-ray or DVD, there are restrictions to what your settings can be. But that is another subject for later on.)

Here is my suggested workflow for you:

For *single* HOME use only:

[CAMERA]->M2TS files->[edit in VEGAS]->[render-as high-quality MP4]->MP4 file

Archive your M2TS files along with your Vegas project files into your backup harddrive. Use the rendered MP4 file for viewing.

Make sure your PROJECT SETTINGS match your frame size and frame rate of your source M2TS files.

When you RENDER-AS a MP4, use one of Vegas MP4 TEMPLATES that matches your project settings. For best quality, then make sure the BIT-RATE is equal-to or greater than source M2TS video’s BIT-RATE.

Here is an example for MULTIPLE USAGE:

[CAMERA]->M2TS files->[edit in VEGAS]->[render-as AVI using Cineform for video and uncompressed PCM-16 for audio]->AVI file

Then, for *home* use:
AVI file->[start new project in Vegas]->[render-as high-quality MP4]->MP4 file

For making a DVD:
AVI file->[start new project in Vegas]->[render-as MPEG-2 DVD-quality]->MPEG-2 file

For making a Blu-ray:
AVI file->[start new project in Vegas]->[render-as Blu-ray AVCHD or MPEG-2]->M2TS file

For uploading to YouTube:
AVI file->[start new project in Vegas]->[render-as YouTube quality MP4]->MP4 file

Then as before, you can archive your original source M2TS files along with your Vegas project files and delete the AVI file.

Or alternatively, you can just archive your AVI File and delete your original source M2TS files. Keeping the AVI saves you rendering time in the future, but then you lose the *originals*.

Hopefully, you have a clearer understanding of things now.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

Mike,

No where did OP say where he was taking his VOB file size measurements from!

Was it from the DVD preparation [Windows] folder, or from the actual burnt DVD? The OP did not specify.

If the OP would have said he was measuring from his actual burnt DVD, then it would have been a no-brainer why he was getting smaller file size measurements. I would have given the same answer Stephen gave.

Now if the OP had taken his file size measurements from the DVD preparation [Windows] folder, than the smaller less complex DVD file structure explanation would not apply here.

See? If I were to use your earlier objections about my replies, then it would apply here as well.

Just let the OP clarify what might be his problem and what might be the correct answer and solution for it.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

Dave,

I have not change my position at all. If there is any confusion it is because there are two kinds of compressed 480p videos we are talking about here: 480p AVC and 480p MPEG-2. And depending on which one we are talking about, the differences in quality from 1080p low-bitrates will vary.

Similarly, in our discussion, there are two 1080p-AVC videos: YouTube 1080p-AVC which varies between 3-6 Mb/s and a straight 1080p-AVC video at exactly 6 Mb/s.

I’ve also already pointed out to you in the other thread your claims of 1080p superiority (including YouTube 1080p) even at very low-bitrates like 6 Mb/s over 480p videos at higher bitrates, regardless if it is 480p AVC or 480p MPEG-2.

Again I appreciate the fact that you went to all that trouble creating your experiment for us. I will take your word that you did not purposely skewed your test case towards the best case scenario. But remember, I never asked you to create your experiment.

All I asked was to use basic common sense: like MATHEMATICS. The BIT-RATE setting is a huge factor to video quality.

It seems like you are denying this basic fact. Your argument seems to be based on some belief that the BIT-RATE has no effects on quality.

So let’s use some basic math again.

FS = frame size = WIDTH * HEIGHT = W * H
CD = color-depth
CF = compression factor
FPS = frames per second
BPP = average bits per pixel = CD / CF
BR = bit-rate
Q = video quality = signal-to-noise-ratio = PSNR

I will use ‘<~’ to mean the PROPORTIONAL sign from mathematics.

It should be obvious that: Q <~ 1 / CF

INCREASE the CF value, then you decrease Q
DECREASE the CF value, then you increase Q

So what we then have is this:

BR = FS * BPP * FPS
BR = W * H * ( CD / CF ) * FPS

BR <~ 1 / CF

Hence, Q is directly proportional to BR:
Q <~ BR

=>INCREASE the BR value, then it INCREASES the Q value
=>DECREASE the BR value, then it DECREASES the Q value

Let’s compare CF for 480p AVC/MPEG-2 to 1080p-6 Mb/s AVC, using FPS of 24 and CD of 24.

CF = ( (W*H) * CD * FPS ) / BR

480p-6Mbs AVC:
CF = ( (720p*480p) * 24 bpp * 24 fps) / 6 Mbs
= 33.1776

480p-8Mbs MPEG-2:
CF = ( (720p*480p) * 24 bpp * 24 fps) / 8 Mbs
= 24.8832

1080-6Mbs AVC:
CF = ( (1920p*1080p) * 24 bpp * 24 fps) / 6 Mbs
= 199.0656

Now for average test cases, most experiments put AVC at about a 5-to-3 *efficiency improvement* over MPEG-2. This means, AVC can encode with 3/5 times less bits than MPEG-2 to achieve the same PSNR quality result.

So let’s multiply the 480p-8Mbs MPEG-2 CF value by 5/3:

CF = 24.8832 * (5/3)
= 41.472

So in terms of Q (PSNR) so far, the ranking we have is:

480p-AVC > 480p-MPEG-2 > 1080p-AVC

At the given bitrates, a 480p-AVC and 480p-MPEG-2 will have much less compression artifacts than a 1080p-AVC at 6 Mb/s.

So the debate now is this:
if we UPSCALE these 480p videos to 1080p, how much will UPSCALING affect Q?

Define UF=upscale factor. Then:

UF = (TARGET FRAME SIZE) / (INITIAL FRAME SIZE)

It should be self-evident that:
Q <~ 1 / UF

INCREASE UF, then Q DECREASES
DECREASE UF, then Q INCREASES

Then, we get:
Q <~ 1 / (CF * UF)

480p UPSCALED to 1080p:
UF <~ (1920*1080) / (720*480)
UF <~ 5.53846

Then,

480p-6Mbs AVC:
CF * UF = 33.1776 * 5.53846 = 183.75

480p-6Mbs MPEG-2:
CF * UF = 41.472 * 5.53846 = 229.69

So in terms of Q, we get:

480p-6Mbs AVC upscaled to 1080p:
Q <~ 1 / 184

480p-8Mbs MPEG-2 upscaled to 1080p:
Q <~ 1 / 230

1080p-6Mbs (unscaled)
Q <~ 1 / 200

Of course, it should be reminded that we are talking about proportional relationships and not exact values for Q.

Depending on the UPSCALING algorithm, these Q factors for the upscaled 480p videos may be higher or lower. I openly acknowledge that there may be a difference here since I do not have any data for comparing how the best UPSCALING ALGORITHMS will affect Q. If you do, please share.

If the Q factors I have calculated here hold true, then to the human vision system, the differences between Q factors of 1/184, 1/200, 1/230, is not going to be that great. So to a human, you will not see much of a difference in terms of visual quality.

A 1080p video degraded to low bitrates of 6 Mb/s has already dug itself a deep hole that a 480p video at a high bit-rate can in most cases can be better in quality – if not better, then equal. Especially in the cases where we are using the same video compression codec.

Downgrading a 1080p video to low bitrates like 6 Mb/s is such a huge compression factor, that as shown by these Q factor calculations, it is almost similar to just down-scaling the video to 480p instead!

A TROLL is somebody who does not back-up their claims with COMMON SENSE, like mathematics.

Somebody who backups their claims that contradicts with your claims is not a TROLL. Somebody who doesn’t back up their claims could be consider a TROLL.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

You mean you don’t see any movements in the PREVIEW WINDOW?

These text effects are very CPU intensive. I have used them, and rarely can I get a PREVIEW of them in realtime on my system.

So if you want to verify that it works, just try rendering it out.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

The other thing to check is your AUDIO SETTINGS in DVD Architect.

Maybe you’ve rendered uncompressed PCM from Vegas but have DVD Architect setup to do AC3. If this is the case, DVD Architect will encode your PCM audio tracks to AC3, thus reducing your DVD size.

Also make sure that you are not rendering both the video and audio streams out into one MPEG file from Vegas. You need to render video and audio streams separately.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

How is it not relevant?

Just because you render using a DVD Architect template from Sony Vegas does not mean DVD Architect will not re-encode your video.

Take the extreme case where the total file size of all your media files exceeds the DVD limit of 4.7 GB.

Clearly, here DVD Architect will have to re-encode your videos with a much smaller bit-rate if you intend to fit it all on one 4.7 GB DVD.

If you do not know how to setup your DVD Architect PROJECT SETTINGS and OPTIMIZATION SETTINGS, it may cause DVD Architect to re-encode your videos even if you are sure you used a DVD Architect template from Vegas.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

SMART RENDERING

The word you want is SMART RENDERING, not “lossless rendering”.

From the Sony Vegas Pro 11 website: https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro/io

“Utilize SMART RENDER technology for faster encoding of cuts-only projects, or projects with minimal changes. No generation loss occurs because video frames pass through the engine unaltered. When rendering to any of the following formats, unedited video frames are passed through without recompression (smart rendering):

DV AVI, DV MXF, IMX MXF (IMX 24p MXF is not supported for smart rendering), HD MXF, MPEG-2 (for files such as those from HDV and DVD camcorders), XDCAM EX.”

So SMART RENDERING does not apply to AVCHD encoded files. There are no NLE apps out there that can do “smart rendering” of AVCHD encoded files. It is due to the compression complexity of the AVC codec.

AVCHD Decoding

So Vegas has to decode (uncompress) your AVCHD videos. The major conversion changes result from having to do a color space conversion from YUV to RGB. Vegas works internally only in RGB. So, it’s this color space conversion that will cause the most *changes* from your original AVCHD source videos.

But it’s OK. Because you should do some color enhancements and corrections to your video anyways. If you want to view your videos on consumer TVs, computers, and devices, you have to do some color enhancements and corrections if you want your video to look good. For example, you need to make to make sure your video’s color levels are corrected to what Vegas’ calls STUDIO RGB LEVELS for best results on consumer devices.

RGB allows a lot more colors than the YUV colorspace of AVCHD videos. So when you are doing color enhancements and corrections, you will be adding NEW information to your videos. In others, you are improving your video!

For highest quality, set your project settings to 32-bit mode precision. The default is 8-bit.

RENDER-AS Codec

This all depends on what you want to do with your videos. Do you want to burn a Blu-ray of them? Do you want to just place them on a network media server? Upload to a website like YouTube? Maybe all the above!

If you have multiple uses for your videos, what you want to do is render your videos out to an INTERMEDIATE FILE. This will save you rendering time. And if you want, you can keep this INTERMEDIATE FILE for archiving when you are done.

So your two best options are: LOSSLESS vs VISUALLY LOSSLESS

LOSSLESS is what the name says it is. It will preserve your video as it is in Vegas exactly the same bit-by-bit as if you had rendered it out as an UNCOMPRESSED video. The difference between LOSSLESS and UNCOMPRESSED is that LOSSLESS will be a lot smaller. Anywhere from 3-6 times smaller depending on the complexity of your videos.

VISUALLY LOSSLESS codecs take advantage of the limitations of human vision. From a bit-by-bit perspective, VISUALLY LOSSLESS codes do not preserve the bits of an UNCOMPRESSED video exactly. From a human perspective, you cannot tell the difference. So a VISUALLY LOSSLESS encoded video will be *human visually* equal-to a LOSSLESS and UNCOMPRESSED video – but not the same bit-by-bit. The advantage is that a VISUALLY LOSSLESS encoded video will have a much smaller file size than a LOSSLESS encoded version of the same video.

After rendering out your video from Vegas as either LOSSLESS or VISUALLY LOSSLESS, you can then further re-encode your video to whatever format you need it to be. Be it for Blu-ray, network streaming, or YouTube.

FREE OPEN-SOURCE Options for LOSSLESS: Lagarith or Huffyuv

Options for VISUALLY LOSSLESS: Cineform or Avid DNxHD

Cineform comes with Vegas. And I believe both Cineform and DNxHD are *free* but you will need to check with their LICENSE about usage, especially in the case of commercial or public viewing usage.

For your home computer and network, you then should re-encode this INTERMEDIATE video to an AVC (H264) encoded video using either a MP4 or a MOV container. Vegas has several great options for MP4. Just start a new project and import your INTERMEDIATE video. Then pick the desired matching template for MP4.

To get an AVC (H264) encoded MOV, you are best to use another application to encode your INTERMEDIATE video for you because Vegas will not be able to do it with its Quicktime (MOV) encoder.

For YouTube and other websites, you then can upload this MP4 or MOV without much problems. Check the max bit-rate requirements of the website.

For Blu-ray authoring, you are best to let your authoring software encode it for you.

For example, for the current version of DVD Architect (Pro 5.2), for the highest quality, you will need to let DVD Architect encode your INTERMEDIATE video. DVD Architect will not accept any Sony Vegas encoded .M2TS files with bitrates greater than 16 Mb/s – even if you use the DVD Architect templates. I’m not sure if this is a BUG or a current limitation of DVD Architect.

ARCHIVING

If you plan on keeping your source M2TS video files, you can just archive your Vegas project file. And then, if in the future, you want to re-render, just re-run your Vegas project file.

If you don’t want to keep your source M2TS video files, you can archive your INTERMEDIATE FILE instead. After you delete your source M2TS video files however, your Vegas project file is useless now.

Good luck!