[Mike Kujbida]

Are you getting great looking DVD’s from your original material?

No problems here. I looked back at your original post and see that you’re shooting with a 3 chip DVcam. I shoot with a JVC DV-550U so I have great footage (quality wise) as well. For example, I shot a fashion show last weekend at my kids grade school. Due to budget problems (i.e. none), the “spotlights” were a pair of overhead projectors. All things considered, it loooked suprisingly good!!

One more thing to try. You say that your videos are from 5-20 min. Try using a CBR (constant bit rate) of 8,000,000 instead of the VBR settings you posted. The videos are so short that you can afford to max things out. Make sure to set the “Video Quality” slider to it’s highest setting (31) as well. I believe it defaults to 15.

[Mike Kujbida]

I guess that’s why we’re such good neighbours 🙂
p.s. Glad the link was of some help.

[Mike Kujbida]

I sure hope
Max- 8,000
Average – 76,000
Minimum – 192.000
is a misprint and that you meant to say
Max – 8,000,000
Avg – 6,000,000
Min – 192,000.

BTW, I’d bump the Min up to 2,000,000.

[Mike Kujbida]

I have no idea why you’re seeing a brightness difference between the two.
Maybe there are slightly different standards?

You use colour bars to calibrate a video monitor, preferably one that has a “blue gun only” switch.
Here’s an article on how to do this properly.
BTW, thanks for spelling colour properly 🙂

Mike
a Canadian

[Mike Kujbida]

There’s a snow veg on this site. A rain scene/veg doesn’t sound familiar but a search of this same site may turn up something.

[Mike Kujbida]

How long was the video?
What render settings and templates did you use?
Did you use AC3 audio or PCM?

[Mike Kujbida]

The price of the Noise Reduction package has scared away a lot of folks.
Apps like Audition have something similar built into it. Is Sound Forge any better? I have no idea as it’s all I’ve ever used and it works for me.

I think you’ll like working with Vegas. I come from a dpsVelocity background myself and found Vegas to be a bit confusing at first. Once I learned it though, I rarely go back to the other software.
If you have any questions, ask them and you’ll get answers very quickly as folks here are very helpful.
BTW, Edward Troxel’s newsletters are a great resource, especially if you’re new to Vegas.

[Mike Kujbida]

…are there plenty of audio tools within Vegas?

Vegas does have a lot of audio tools with it – but you can never have enough 🙂
Sound Forge is another excellent tool to have in your arsenal. It’s capabilities go far beyond what Vegas is capable of as auido is the only thing it does – and it does that very well.
The link Edward posted from Videoguys gives you both Sound Forge AND Noise Reduction for an extra $200. When you consider that these apps separately would cost almost $600, I’d say buy it. That’s a fantastic package price!! Even if you don’t use all the features right away, you’ll have them when you eventually need them.

[Mike Kujbida]

When you’re previewing it, is the preview window set to Preview (Auto)?
If so, this would definitely account for the poor quality. This is the default to allow for (as close as possible to ) real-time preview.
Setting this to Best (Full) will show you close to what it’ll actually look like. A number of factors (such as processor speed & the number of FX involved) may severly limit the ability to do full-speed full-motion preview.

Aspect ratio is only a concern if you shot or want to render in 16:9. I’ll leave that subject alone for now.

As far as DVD settings, here are recommendations based on numerous posts here and elsewhere. You didn’t say so I’m assuming NTSC. Replace with PAL if necessary.
Audio portion render: select Dolby Digital AC3 in the “Save as type” window. The default template is fine for now.
Video portion render: select MainConcept MPEG-2 in the “Save as type” window and “DVD Architect NTSC video stream” in the “Template” window.

Render both files to a folder on your hard drive somewhere and you’re ready to create a DVD. You didn’t say if you had DVD Architect or not so I’ll stop here.

Edward Troxel (one of the moderators) has an excellent series of newsletters on his site. I encourage you to download and read through all of them as they contain valuable tips on all aspects of editing, rendering and DVD creation.

Feel free to come back here anytime and ask questions. I know you’ll find this to be a friendly and helpful group of folks.

[Mike Kujbida]

Hopefully I’m not too late for this.
There’s no need to render the project again. DVDA allows you to insert markers on it’s own timeline.
And, as Gary said, insert your markers in Vegas from now on. Even if you don’t end up using them, at least they’re there.
Don’t forget to select the “Save project markers in media file” option when rendering or you’ll be doing this all over again.