[John Bean]

Most likely, your DVDa project settings, don’t match what your MPEGs files are coming out Vegas.

Most likely, you probably set a DVDa bitrate setting that is smaller than the bitrate setting you used for your Vegas renders. Or you are using a different pixel frame size that is different from what you set for your Vegas renders.

For example, if your DVDa bitrate is 7 Mb/s but your videos are at a bitrate greater than 7 Mb/s, say 8 Mb/s, then DVDa will re-encode your videos to 7 Mb/s. Or if your DVDa frame size is set to 720×480 but your videos are set to 704×480, then DVDa will re-encode your videos to 720×480.

The DVDa project settings apply to both your menus and imported video files. So to prevent DVDa from re-encoding, you have two options:

1. Make sure your DVDa project settings for bitrate is equal-to or greater than your the bitrates of your MPEG videos. Make sure the frame size settings matches too.

or

2. If you want to keep your DVDa project settings as is for your menus, then you need to manually override those settings for each of your videos. In DVDa, the settings are configured during the OPTIMIZATION SETTINGS stage of DVD preparation. There is also a menu option under FILE to set your OPTIMIZATION SETTINGS.

You can manually override the settings for each video (and menu as well) so that DVDa will not re-encode to your global project settings.

That’s it!

Cheers!

[John Bean]

Did you check the BITRATE info for the MAINCONCEPT rendered out file?

What does it say?

Again, if the file size is 12 GB, given your time of video length of 1.5 hours, that is suggesting that your bitrate is around 16 Mb/s.

Maybe you are setting the MINIMUM BITRATE to 3 Mb/s and your AVERAGE BITRATE to 16 Mb/s.

For MAINCONCEPT variable bitrate, there are 3 bit-rate settings you can set: minimum, average, and maximum.

Given that your source project media files are 16-17 Mb/s, and you are not doing anything fancy with them, then you are probably good to stick with 16 Mb/s as your average bit-rate since size is not an obstacle for you.

How is the visual quality of the MAINCONCEPT rendered out file? Is it similar to your source media files?

Your Sony AVC file of 2.5 GB does seem rather small for 1.5 hours with source media files that are 16-17 Mb/s. How is the visual quality for this file? It should be not as great as your source media files and your MAINCONCEPT rendered out file.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

Paul,

Make sure you are using a DVD Architect template. Make sure you are not rendering out the audio too (make sure audio is disable in the rendering options).

For DVD Architect, you need to render out the video and audio separately into two different files. I’m not sure, but Vegas might complain if you are trying to render your video with audio when you are using a DVD Architect template. So check this first. If your audio is stereo, you can choose either PCM or AC3-stereo. Go with PCM (uncompressed) and if you don’t have enough DVD space, then decide later in DVD Architect to convert it to AC3-stereo.

If it is still no go for you, you can try to let DVD Architect render it to MPEG-2 for you if Vegas is being a pain in the arse.

From Vegas, render out your file as an AVI using either a LOSSLESS or VISUALLY LOSSLESS codec. Hopefully, Vegas won’t complain here as well.

For LOSSLESS, I use Lagarith. There’s also Huffyuv as well. To reduce colorspace conversions errors, set your LOSSLESS codec to RGB and whatever bit-depth your project is currently in. I usually work in 32-bit, so I set it Lagarith to RGB-32bit.

A VISUALLY LOSSLESS codec will take up less space than a LOSSLESS codec if hdd space is a concern. A VISUALLY LOSSLESS codec will be just as good as a LOSSLESS codec, since humans won’t be able to tell the difference anyways.

Lagarith and Huffyuv are free open source codecs. Google it if you don’t already have the codecs.

Cineform and Avid’s DNxHD codecs are excellent VISUALLY LOSSLESS codecs. Your version of Vegas might already have Cineform. If I am not mistaken, both these codecs are *free* as well. You’ll have to Google them to find where to download them if you don’t already have them installed.

Then DVD Architect can encode your AVI to MPEG-2 with the highest quality that it can.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

Try Google Earth.

Depending on what you want, you could setup some video screen capture of the process of you zooming into your location.

If you want better quality, you can manually save images from GE from the desired zoom levels and create the effect of zooming in with Vegas.

Google Earth allows you to save images upto 1000×1000 pixels. Google Earth Pro (non-free) allows you to save images upto 4800×4800 pixels.

But you’ll need to read their LICENSE. No commercial usage allowed.

[John Bean]

I use MAINCONCEPT whenever I can over Sony AVC.

Reason being I have more control over the settings. With MAINCONCEPT I can set min and max, as well as 2-PASS.

I believe Sony AVC just does 1-PASS, hence, why it is quicker to finish rendering than MAINCONCEPT.

So I trust MAINCONCEPT to do a better job than Sony AVC.

Your BITRATE settings really just depend on your requirements and the quality of your project media.

So I can’t really give you an answer to what you should set it too.

QUESTIONS you should ask yourself are:

What are the BITRATES of your project media? Are they high or low? What is the MAX BITRATE for all your source media files? What is the MIN BITRATE for all your source media files? What is the average BITRATE of all your source media files?

Have you done a lot of restorations and corrections to your video?

Are you doing a lot of intense high activity scenes, transitions, texts, or effects?

What is the maximum file size requirement for the final deliverable for your project?

Where are you storing your output rendered video? On a Blu-ray? Uploading to YouTube?

For example, Blu-ray defines a MAXIMUM BITRATE restriction of 40 Mb/s for video and a maximum overall bitrate of 48 Mb/s at any given time in your video (which includes audio streams, subtitles, and Bluray menu and title features).

So these are all the types of questions you should asking yourself in order to figure out what BITRATE settings best works for your own project.

Also, check the BITRATE info for your Sony AVC rendered file. Based on the file size, it appears it is only 3.8 Mb/s. Even though you used a setting of 16 Mb/s, I don’t think Sony AVC could find enough bits to obtain 16 Mb/s.

So the quality of project media files may be in question here. Your project media files may not be of high bitrate quality equal-to or greater than 16 Mb/s to begin with. Or maybe alot of your footage is of simple pictures with very little details and colors (very smooth and uniform).

So yeah, do some tests with MAINCONCEPT.

Cheers!

[John Bean]

Dave,

There is no need to get angry here.

Now how is it bailing when your test cases are skewed to best case scenarios?

And from the other thread, I was the first one to propose a *challenge* to you to go do a visual comparison of DVD movies and their 1080p 6 Mb/s online streaming counterparts. Did you do that test? Nope. Did I accuse you of *bailing*? Nope.

Plus, why I am going to waste my internet bandwidth downloading all of your test cases when its clear you skewed them towards a best case scenario?

Do a real test like I suggested. Here they are again:

1. Get a DVD of your favorite movie. Something that is visually awesome. Say Transformers.

Then compare it to a 1080p stream of it that you may find online. To make the test fair, make sure the stream has a bitrate of around 6 Mb/s. The max bitrate offered by YouTube. And DVD movies are around 8 Mb/s.

Even simpler: just compare high-quality TRAILERS found on DVDs to their YouTube 1080p counterparts. Again make sure the bitrates for the DVD trailers are high (7-9 Mb/s). YouTube maxes at 6 Mb/s.

2. Or, ask yourself, would you be willing to shoot your next video project with one of those $200 consumer camcorders that are 1080p with low-bitrates of 4-6Mb/s. I mean, it’s 1920x1080p, right?!

You wouldn’t would you? Why?

[John Bean]

Dave,

I appreciate your efforts. That is the only way to learn.

However, all it took was one download to see that the test case file you used is skewed heavily towards the best case scenario for any codec – be it AVC or MPEG-2.

Your test case=> solid colors, smooth background, smooth objects (a car), very few objects, slow motion

So of course, the results will look good even at low bitrates.

But most videos are not car commecials (or a commercial for Vegas Pro using cars). They are of people interacting with each other in various environments (outdoors and indoors). So the complexity of the frames will be greater than your test case file.

Here are some simpler tests.

1. Get a DVD of your favorite movie. Something that is visually awesome. Say Transformers.

Then compare it to a 1080p stream of it that you may find online. To make the test fair, make sure the stream has a bitrate of around 6 Mb/s. The max bitrate offered by YouTube.

Even simpler: just compare high-quality TRAILERS found on DVDs to their YouTube 1080p counterparts. Again make sure the bitrates for the DVD trailers are high (7-9 Mb/s). YouTube maxes at 6 Mb/s.

2. Or, ask yourself, would you be willing to shoot your next video project with one of those $200 consumer camcorders that are 1080p with low-bitrates of 4-6Mb/s. I mean, it’s 1920x1080p, right?!

You wouldn’t would you? Why?

Cheers!

[John Bean]

You can do a simple calculation to determine what your MAX file size will be for a CONSTANT BITRATE setting.

For a CONSTANT BITRATE of 16 Mb/s:

file_size = 16 Mb/s * (90 min * 60 s)
= 86400 Mb
= 10800 MB (= 86400 Mb / 8 bits per byte)
= 10.8 GB

So it should be clear that you are using a CONSTANT BITRATE setting of 16 Mb/s for your MAINCONCEPT render.

The Sony AVC codec only does VARIABLE BIT-RATE.

So if you change the setting to VARIABLE BIT-RATE, then the MAINCONCEPT codec will rendered out a file that is similar in size to what Sony AVC is giving you.

If you don’t know difference between CONSTANT and VARIABLE BITRATE, Google is your friend! :p

Will you be using DVD Architect?

[John Bean]

You can also try this test:

1. Start a new Vegas project.
2. Import your rendered out file into this project.

Does Vegas show a complete waveform graph of the audio track?

Can Vegas play a PREVIEW of this video without any audio cut-offs?

[John Bean]

Check the specs for your edition of Vegas.

An app needs to be designed to optimize multiple CPU usage.

If you system is already optimize for an application like Vegas, then really, there’s probably nothing else you can try except upgrade to a PRO version of Vegas. Download the latest trial and try it out.