[John Rofrano]

After Effects only allows one clip per layer. There is nothing stopping you from creating a track for each clip in Vegas Pro and stacking them like in After Effects because Vegas Pro has unlimited tracks and the Tracks have composition modes just like After Effects. I would place all of the FX at the Track level and this should mimic an After Effects-like workflow pretty well.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Nigel O'Neill] “The most recent unsuccessful vendor used a Vimeo streaming only model that prevent downloading, which many purchasers objected to.”

Yea, I can’t say that I blame them. I don’t like the streaming model any more than the subscription software model. You have to find common ground. Customers need to understand that you are being paid for your time of shooting and editing and not for the physical copies you sell.

Ask your customers what they do for a living and then ask them if they would like to work for free. Then explain that this is exactly what they are asking you to do when they make an illegal copy. You have to reason with them because there is no other way to protect digital media for the small vendors like us.

When people ask me to do a shoot, I tell them I don’t do it anymore and when they ask me why, I tell them that there is no way to make money in the digital age with all of the copying. The video model has been based on the sale of DVD’s. Venues usually aren’t going to pay you for your time. You just shoot and hope to make ti back in sales. When that fails, you have to charge for your time up front, or find another line of work. 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Derek Charles] “Is there quality loss from rendering a1080 file to 1080 file with the same bitrate settings? Like if you do with a jpeg?”

Yes, if the codec is lossy. In your example jpeg is a lossy codec and every time you open the file, change it, and save it, you loose quality. PNG can be a lossless codec so you can change it and save it again and again and retain the original quality. QuickTime actually supports the PNG codec which provides lossless copies.

[Derek Charles] “But say I stuck with the 1080 mp4 with 4Mb avg and 8 Mb max as through the “Internet 1080 HD” render template as a render to new track – file is not as big”

Not a good idea. You will be loosing quality and disk space is cheap. Don’t do it.

[Derek Charles] “When am I losing latitude for color grading, levels, shadows highlights recovery, etc? Should I assume as long as the settings are the exact same I will still be able to adjust the footage without artifacts? “

It all depends on the codec. Lossy codecs will loose quality. Lossless codecs will not. The question is, will you see the loss? Rendering back to the same exact format and bit-rate I’m guessing you will not see the quality loss from just one or two generations, just like you don’t see the quality loss by re-saving a jpeg until you do it many, many times.

BTW, this is why people use Digital Intermediaries for color grading. They use near-lossless or visually-lossless codecs. The most popular intermediaries are Apple ProRes for the Mac, CineForm for Windows, and Avid DNxHD for both Mac and Windows. I would do all “render to new track” using a lossless digital intermediary codec or a vey high bitrate codec like Sony MXF 422 @ 50Mbps. That’s why on the Mac, everyone color grades with Apple ProRes and doesn’t even thing twice about it.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Nick Frankiewitz] “1. Other than being able to fit considerably more SD video encoded at max bit rate onto a single blu-ray disc, is there any advantage to authoring SD video as a blu-ray? I ask this question because some of the videos are less than two hours long – but the client still wants them authored to blu-ray. I think if I can make a case for why a DVD9 would be just as good as a blu-ray disc, the client would go along with that.”

More room to fit video is the only determining factor. The video will be the same quality as DVD if it’s encoded at the same DVD bit rates.

[Nick Frankiewitz] “2. As a follow up to the above question – can you achieve higher picture quality by encoding SD video at a bit rate higher than what is allowed for a DVD (9.8K)? In other words, would SD video encoded at a VBR of 12K and then authored to a SD blu-ray look better than the same video encoded at 9.8K and authored to DVD?”

12Mbps will look better than 9.8Mbps assuming your source was created at 12Mbps or greater. For example, if it’s DV then the bit rate is 25Mbps so you can encode up to the original bit rate to get the best quality.

[Nick Frankiewitz] “3. One other follow-on question. I’ve noticed when authoring a DVD with DVD Architect, the compilation and authoring literally only takes a few minutes to complete. If I take the exact same SD video and audio files and author them to an SD blu-ray disc, it will take an hour or more to finish. I realize the DVD is compiling several VOB files and the blu-ray is compiling all the video and audio into one .m2ts file. What I’m really curious about – is there any re-encoding taking place when authoring the SD video to a blu-ray disc (thus the significant difference in the amount of time it takes for the disc to finish)?”

I’m guessing that there is no re-encoding going on, just re-wrapping the original content into a new container which happens very quickly. I’ve never placed SD on a Blu-ray but from your description, that’s what it sounds like is happening.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Derek Charles] “Would the 1080 on the DVD just play as 720, or is that a strong NEVER play?”

That’s a very strong never. As Nigel said, the DVD spec support MPEG2 video only. You can use NTSC 720×480 @ 27.97fps interlaced, PAL 720 x 576 @ 25fps interlaced, or 720×480 @ 24fps progressive. That’s it. Audio can be PCM or AC3 for NTSC, and PCM, AC3, & MPEG2 audio for PAL. Those are your options.

The fact that any particular DVD player can accept other formats is totally non-standard and not advised unless you are making this for your personal use and own one of those DVD players and are fine with the disc not working in the future when the DVD player breaks and the new one doesn’t support those nonstandard formats anymore.

If you want to author in HD you need to Blu-ray not DVD.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[kingsley asumadu] “My goal is to be able to use it to create content with Adobe cc in conjunction with my iMac.”

You’ve just answered your own question because the iPad Pro doesn’t run Adobe CC so you won’t be doing any content creation with desktop Adobe CC applications on an iPad like you can with the Surface Pro. Having said that, you should check out the Adobe Mobile Apps and see what they have for the iPad. For example Adobe Illustrator Draw and Adobe Photoshop Sketch would be great for creating graphic content for your video work, and those apps have access to the Adobe cloud, but if you were hoping to edit videos I don’t believe there is an Adobe app for that (but I don’t use any Adobe products).

iPad Pro Vs Surface Pro

You should know that these are two completely different beasts. The iPad Pro is a tablet with a user interface designed from the ground up for a touch based user experience which is very “Mac-like” in the way it behaves. The Surface Pro is basically a Windows 10 laptop with a touch screen and detachable keyboard. It runs the Windows desktop which is IMHO, a horrible interface for a tablet since it was designed to be used with a mouse. Very clunky and not the smooth experience of the iPad at all.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Derek Charles] “I’ve since dragged the 1080 24max/12avg file and rendered that file to 10max and 4avg and the size is now 1.09GB so I can fit both on one DVD. “

You do realize that it will NEVER play because DVD’s don’t support HD video!

You need to render to SD MPEG2 if you want to make a playable DVD unless you are just using the DVD for data storage like a USB stick,

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Nigel O'Neill] “I am beginning to think it cannot be done.”

You are correct that you can’t do this.

…and if you did, I would never buy a video from you just like I would never by a video from Amazon because they add copy protection that limits where I can watch the video. I have videos from Amazon that are locked to an old PC that I don’t even own anymore. What a complete waste if money. People buy MP4’s because they want to watch them on any device they own. It’s unfortunate that they don’t respect your business.

Your only option is to charge a lot of money for that one copy and when clients ask why it cost so much, admit to them that you need to make up for all of the copies they are going to make without paying you just like they admitted making illegal copies to you.

I have purchased videos of my daughter’s dance competitions where DVD’s were $19 and HD Digital Copy was $30 and I would always pay the $30 and get a USB with a digital copy that I could then play on my phone, or media server, or wherever.

One option is to personalize the copies. Have the videos pre-rendered but add an opening title that says, “This video licensed to “name of customer”, Illegal copying is strictly prohibited”. Now when they hand out copies, it has their name on it and everyone knows they are doing something illegal. Shame is about the only option we have left. 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Tom Burgess] “…but there is a downside…now there’s a damned iPad in my future, as well. Ha!”

Yea, that is a device that you don’t know what you would do with it until you own one and then a week later you wonder how you every lived without it. lol ???? Good Luck!

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com

[John Rofrano]

[Brian Seegmiller] “FCP X is a new animal and at first you might ask yourself, what the hell? Once you get it, you will probably love it.”

+1

I would never edit with an archaic track based NLE again if you paid me. What heck does tracks have to do with video? It’s a ridiculous paradigm. Video is a medium for telling stories. FCP X allows you to work with primary storylines and secondary storylines and clips are are connected to the story you are trying to tell. Get your head out of worrying about what track to place a clip on and into telling the story and FCP X will make a lot more sense. 😉

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasstsoftware.com