Audio quality and other questions

Caruso wrote on 3/21/2004, 4:17 AM
I'm new to DVD Architecht, although I'm well acquainted with Vegas. As I recall, my first DVD attempt involved rendering my Vegas project to MPG using the Main Concept coded from within Vegas. I didn't render the audio separately, but, (again, as I recall), believe that DVDA did that during the preparation process.

On my second attempt, I don't recall DVDA doing anything special other than burning the DVD. DVD attempt 1 seemed fine. Audio on DVD 2 sounded as though I had applied to much reverb. Both were in perfect sync with the video.

Attempt 3: From Vegas, I rendered the video sans audio to a separate file using the video stream template, then, rendered audio to a WAV file.

Using these two rendered files, I created and burned my third DVD. It seems to have turned out great, although, during a 30-minute event, there must be a half dozen instances of noticeable glitches in the video.

Questions:
1. what am I doing wrong or leaving out?
2. How do I eliminate the glitches?
3. If, per the manual, I've rendered the audio to a WAV file separately, why must that file be compressed further during the preparation stage by DVDA?
4. Is the current state of DVD editing/burning simply inferior to Vegas' print to tape output? An 8mm digi8 print of this project appears flawless. The video quality of my DVD is a notch lower, and, of course, suffers from the described glitches from which my print-to-tape version is free. So, is DVD just not that good, yet, or am I missing something?

BTW, I import my audio/video via a digi8 camcorder if that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance for your comments/suggestions.

Caruso

Comments

Rogueone wrote on 3/21/2004, 12:52 PM
About your audio problem;
Rendering to AC3 is a whole lot better than rendering to WAV format. That's why DVDA has to recompress the audio. AC3 is higher quality, and it's already in the correct compressing. So, when you render your video, render the video track only, then render the audio to AC3. That could also be why there are some sound glitches; DVDA might be having troubles re-encoding the WAV file into the proper AC3 format.
Caruso wrote on 3/21/2004, 2:46 PM
Rogue:
Thanks for the reply. My second burn had the funny sound (too "reverby" even though no reverb is used in my vegas project). Burn three, where I rendered audio/video separately, the sound was perfect, but the video had some glitches.

I'm going to try again using the AC3 just to see if there is any effect on the video (I don't really expect any).

Also, I'm burning to DVD+RW discs if that makes any difference. Also, burn three overwrote burn 2 on that particular RW disc. It appears that you don't have to erase this type of disc, as DVDA simply warns you that it will overwrite a proceeds to do so. Again, it would surprise me, but I'll ask the question, nevertheless - does using rewritables affect the outcome of the burn at all, and, would overwriting also have any effect on my results.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Caruso
Rogueone wrote on 3/21/2004, 7:22 PM
About the part that you said has glitches, what kind are they? Are they pixelation or distortion? And are those glitches during fast-paced, action type sequence, or at random areas? Sometimes digital effects can become distorted in final renders.

If they are still there, you might try adjusting the bitrate, and maybe render only the sequences that currently have problems to see if adjusting something could correct it.

As for your DVD+RW, the only problems I'm aware of are in some TV DVD players. Some of the units have problems reading RW discs. I don't think that overwriting the RW would cause issues.