[Robert Payes]

FWIW, I’ve found that if I use the “Batch Render” script to render the video and audio streams, the markers don’t get saved. Weird.

Then again, considering how LITTLE time an audio render takes, it’s not a big deal to do separate video/audio renders…

Robert Payes
Photographer/HD Videographer
“High-Rez Images of Low-life Subjects”

[Robert Payes]

The only post solution would be to import the narration into an audio editor (such as Sound Forge), locate each popped “P” sound, highlight it, and then reduce the volume on the highlighted area.

The temptation is to remove it completely — but if the narration is on the source video, or otherwise synched to video, you’ll risk the audio drifing out of synch with the video.

(Narration is part of my day job, and clamping down on hard consonants — P, C, K, D, T — is a major part of post-production cleanup for me.)

Robert Payes
Photographer/HD Videographer
“High-Rez Images of Low-life Subjects”

[Robert Payes]

1) Check the settings on your Preview Pane. You may be in Draft mode, which is a lower-quality image but refreshes faster (good for slower, less powerful PC’s that can’t decode HDV in real time).

2) The DVDA manual gives optimal settings for rendering video and audio streams for quick ‘n’ painless DVD creation.

3) Not entirely sure about this one. For the overall video quality, check your settings when you render the video stream and make sure “Full Resolution Rendering Quality” is set to “Best.”

Hope some or all of this helps.

Robert Payes
Photographer/HD Videographer
“High-Rez Images of Low-life Subjects”

[Robert Payes]

Since Vegas and DVDA work hand-in-hand, outputting video for the latter is pretty simple. Page 23 of the DVDA 4.0 manual gives you the breakdown.

Basically, you’re gonna do separate renders of the video and audio streams, as follows:
Audio: PCM (.wav format), stereo, 48 kHz sample rate, 16/20/24 bit sample size.
Video: MPEG (using the MainConcept encoder, and the “DVD Architect NTSC Video Stream” with a 16:9 aspect ratio, 720×480 frame size, 29.97 fps frame rate, and bit rate of 8 Mbps.

As long as the video and audio streams have the same file name, when you add the video to your DVDA project, the audio will be imported automatically, and in sync with the video.

Render time? Can’t be too long for a 4 minute project. Depending on my computer, I’ve seen render-time-to-footage-time ratios ranging from 4:1 to 8:1. Then again, I was rendering feature-length videos, so I’d start the rendering process just before I went to bed and let it cook overnight. :->

Robert Payes
Photographer/HD Videographer
“High-Rez Images of Low-life Subjects”

[Robert Payes]

1) I’m pretty sure you have to upgrade to Vegas Pro 8 to edit AVCHD footage. Vegas 7 supports regular HDV (i.e. captured from tape).
2) No. Since I assume you also have DVD Architect, you can shoot and edit HD footage, then render for disk authoring using the NTSC Widescreen video setting in Vegas; your video will play fullscreen on a 16:9 monitor and letterboxed on a 4:3 TV. (Check docs for both Vegas and DVDA for details.) You’ll have to render separate video and audio streams, but once you add the video to your DVD project, the audio will be automatically loaded (assuming it has the same file name as the video stream). The big plus here is that DVDA doesn’t have to re-render the footage when it preps your DVD project, saving both time and video quality.
3) See 2.

Robert Payes
Photographer/HD Videographer
“High-Rez Images of Low-life Subjects”