If you are wanting a BluRay quality video, but not make a Bluray, then you use txMuxr to mux your audio and video files. I use it for my media players.

You can render using the supplied BluRay templates and author in Architect. tsMuxr is not needed.

tsMuxeR is easier to use than DVD Architect, especially for muxing separate audio and subtitle streams into the same file or Blu-ray folder with a rendered video-only file from Vegas when no menus are desired.

All I need to know is the best codec (Sony AVC, MAGIX Mainconcept AVC, etc) to use in order to output a Blu-ray compatible video file with a 20 MBps bitrate.

I hear Sony AVC renders come out cleaner... but you'll want more than the 16mbps the template provides, try to edit it.

All I need to know is the best codec (Sony AVC, MAGIX Mainconcept AVC, etc) to use in order to output a Blu-ray compatible video file with a 20 MBps bitrate.

It all depends on the goal or deliver methode and dimensions of your rendered videofile. So specify that goal you want to render to and the format of your project.
Today there are better possibilties for rendering and for delivering than the Blueray specifications.

It all depends on the goal or deliver methode and dimensions of your rendered videofile. So specify that goal you want to render to and the format of your project.
Today there are better possibilties for rendering and for delivering than the Blueray specifications.

 

I want to output a Blu-ray compatible 1920x1080 video file to mux with previously-created and already Blu-ray compatible audio and subtitle files into a menuless Blu-ray folder using tsMuxer, so that I can burn it to a Blu-ray disc and play it on a standard Blu-ray player.

Ok, that's clear now.
What are your hardwarespecs? Windows version, Processor, Grafics Card, a.s.o. All to see what the best rendertemplate is for you.

Ok, that's clear now.
What are your hardwarespecs? Windows version, Processor, Grafics Card, a.s.o. All to see what the best rendertemplate is for you.

It's all in my signature.

All I need to know is the best codec (Sony AVC, MAGIX Mainconcept AVC, etc) to use in order to output a Blu-ray compatible video file with a 20 MBps bitrate.

If by "best," you mean the old size-quality-speed bromide, these are my impressions:

• Quality: At 20-25Mbps, quality should be indistinguishable between Sony and MainConcept, assuming minimum bitrate in the latter has been forced sufficiently high.
• Size: It's a crapshoot between encoders, more dependent on source complexity.
• Speed: With MC set at 2-pass, Sony should be faster to render with about the same motion accuracy. With MC set at 1-pass, it may render faster, but motion and possibly shadow detail may degrade. How much? I don't know.

My choice would be Sony AVC, for not-very-important reasons.

Again, Vegas timeline rendering or Architect will author a menu-less BluRay disc or ISO, from which you can extract a BDAV.

Muxing 3rd source audio in a muxer is harder than one thinks owing to delay and drift. Tried the first half of a musical that way. Never again.

Not to send you on a wild-goose hunt, but some of us have tried to make AVCHD compatible x264, but without consistent success. Hint: the bluray-compat x264 switch doesn't seem to do a thing.

Here I have always used the Sony AVC and never had problems. I never noticed big differences between Sony AVC and Mpeg2.  But I noticed a drop in quality with the Magix AVC. Regarding bit rate, it will only make sense to set up 20mbs if your recording was made using 20mbs or higher.

If by "best," you mean the old size-quality-speed bromide, these are my impressions:

• Quality: At 20-25Mbps, quality should be indistinguishable between Sony and MainConcept, assuming minimum bitrate in the latter has been forced sufficiently high.
• Size: It's a crapshoot between encoders, more dependent on source complexity.
• Speed: With MC set at 2-pass, Sony should be faster to render with about the same motion accuracy. With MC set at 1-pass, it may render faster, but motion and possibly shadow detail may degrade. How much? I don't know.

My choice would be Sony AVC, for not-very-important reasons.

I tried a test render using Sony AVC, but it doesn't have the correct bitrate. I set it for 20,000,000 bps, but the resulting rendered file had a bitrate of only 17.6 Mbps. Also, a previous test render for which I left the setting at default (20,000,000 bps) wound up being only 14.0 Mbps.

"Again, Vegas timeline rendering or Architect will author a menu-less BluRay disc or ISO, from which you can extract a BDAV."

So it's possible to render a Blu-ray folder straight from Vegas without using DVD Architent? If so, can it handle multiple audio and subtitle streams without re-encoding any of them?

That's because Sony AVC uses a form of quantizer encoding. It will not allow excessive bitrate even if you ask for it. Since there is no scan pass, there is really no way to predict an actual bitrate, only a target zone if the source warrants it.

Bitrate alone is not a determinant of quality in modern encoding. It is the distrinution of available bits that counts, not at all like you are used to. 20Mbps is just a number pulled from a hat, that may or may not be appropriate for your unique source; a completely backwards way of thinking, I know, but it is the way that Long GOP CQ works, and its a lot smarter than we are.

In VP14, the menu is Tools>Burn Disc>Bluray Disc. You can burn to a virtual drive if you like. You can also burn an ISO image that contains the complete folder structure. Slices are 100% irrelevant. Leave it alone because we do not care even a little bit about internal b-frame synthesis.

That's because Sony AVC uses an early form of quantizer encoding. It will not allow excessive bitrate even if you ask for it. If you render stills without fades set at 20 Mbps they will come out at only 250 Kbps maximum!

Bitrate alone is not a determinant of quality in modern encoding. It is the distrinution of available bits that counts, not at all like you are used to. 20Mbps is just a number pulled from a hat, that may or may not be appropriate for your unique source. a completely backwards way of thinking, I know, but it is the way that CQ works.

I tried another test render. I tried setting it to 22 Mbps, but it automatically changed to 21,999,616 Mbps. The actual rendered video wound up being 19.4 Mbps, which is fairly close to the 20 Mbps I was initially wanting to get. Interestingly, the original video that I loaded into Vegas and edited was 19.3 Mbps, so this result is surprisingly close. Could this be a result of the principle that you just described? Also, do you think that this latest result is probably pretty satisfactory, considering the similarity in bitrate to the original video?

Bitrate of your source is 100% irrelevant because it used a different encoder!

If your wife looks great in a size 12 dress, does it mean your daughter will also?

Matching bitrates only applies to the same encoder from the same developer with the same source.

Outcomes may be ten times larger, smaller, or the same as original, all with the same quality.

Unfortunately, this is not conventional math, with which we already have a hard enough time explaining here.

Outcomes may be ten times larger, smaller, or the same as original, all with the same quality.

Unfortunately, this is not conventional math, with which we already have a hard enough time explaining here.

How should I ascertain what a good bitrate for a particular video is?

Also, do you know the significance of the "number of slices" setting? By default, it's set to 1.

I tried a test render using Sony AVC, but it doesn't have the correct bitrate. I set it for 20,000,000 bps, but the resulting rendered file had a bitrate of only 17.6 Mbps. Also, a previous test render for which I left the setting at default (20,000,000 bps) wound up being only 14.0 Mbps.
 

Could that be that the bitrate figure shown with Sony AVC represents the highest not the average?

How should I ascertain what a good bitrate for a particular video is?

Whatever fits comfortably on your disc. Trust the encoder. Ask questions. Be sure to keep it under three hours, and experiment!

File Size (MB) = Bitrate (Mbps)* x Time (Sec) x .125

(*Including Audio).

How should I ascertain what a good bitrate for a particular video is?

The program knows that trough your projectsettings what the best bitrate is and those have to be set as your sourcefiles or the goal you want to render to.
What the best settings are for you depends on your choice in the Make Bluray option of Vegas, depending on your project framerate.

You have to make a choice in the render option as follows

Could that be that the bitrate figure shown with Sony AVC represents the highest not the average?

That's a possibility. I didn't think of that.

I struggle with this all the time. Aren't there any general rules of thumb to go by?

I'm an audio guy so I tend to relate to these things to how they're done in audio where I have much more experience. When I read through the responses my take away is that everything seems so grey and cloudy to figure out. It's more artsy than scientific.

Essentially, I think what we all want and what the OP is looking for is to know ahead of time when we render out a video is to get some type of comfort level prior to rendering that we'll get the best looking video without any drastic and noticeable artifacts when compared to the original source files, and in most instances we want that to come out to the smallest file size possible without having noticeable artifacts being present. If you start with 1080p 30FPS video source files which is Blu-ray level quality, and you want your render to be comparable to what you would see on a Blu-ray disc video, then what is a baseline starting point?

So when I look at audio rendering and compare it to video rendering. I know if my audio source files are 44.1Khz/16bit wave files and I want to ensure there are no strange artifacts added to the audio during rendering, then I'll render out the audio at 44.1Khz/16bit and above multiples of the original sampling rate and bit depth as a general rule of thumb. Going below those original source file properties, I know there will be some loss and potential artifacts. If those losses are noticeable or not, we won't know that until it's finished rendering

If I want a smaller file size and I want to minimize any losses as much as possible then I'll render at 320Kbps 44.1/16bit if my source files started at 44.1/16 bit lossless wave files.

Aren't there any similar general rules of thumb to go by when rendering video or is this all trial and error, throw a dart at the wall with a blindfold on until you find something that works?

This kind of stuff drives me nuts. When I'm editing my video I see no motion blur, I know my original source files didn't have any motion blur, but then when I go to render the final video into a file, I see motion blur, where I scratch my head and guess I should have chosen a higher bitrate, but how was I to know that ahead of time without some type of rule of thumb to go by?

Rednroll, you are dealing with apples and oranges. In audio you say you use a WAV file which is digital's form of an uncompressed audio file. But when dealing with Bluray and DVDs, you are using Compressed files. And many people have different experiences when compressing video. I have always been happy with MPEG files for my Blurays but some people like AVC files. I go for max bitrates, some people prefer variable bitrates. If video was uncompressed, there would be no discussion.

Rednroll, you are dealing with apples and oranges. In audio you say you use a WAV file which is digital's form of an uncompressed audio file. But when dealing with Bluray and DVDs, you are using Compressed files. And many people have different experiences when compressing video. I have always been happy with MPEG files for my Blurays but some people like AVC files. I go for max bitrates, some people prefer variable bitrates. If video was uncompressed, there would be no discussion.

I don't feel I'm really talking apples and oranges since I did also mention MP3 and their bitrate. MP3 was based off of the same lossy compression algorithms as MPEG. There's variable and constant bit rates as well.

The difference here to what I'm describing is that if someone told me they were starting off with 44.1/16 bit .WAV as their source files for a mix and their final intended delivery medium was CD but they wanted to mix down/render to a compressed file format with the goal to not hear a discernible difference in audio quality and not hear any lossy compression artifacts, then I would be able to confidently say to them that if they rendered as a MP3, WMA, OGG, AAC etc or most any other lossy format and they selected a 320Kbps bitrate, where the bitrate of an audio CD is 1411Kbps, the resulting audio quality would be very comparable to if they had authored directly onto the audio CD while gaining a 6:1 compression ratio on file size. I would further be able to say to them that most are unable to distinguish a noticeable drop in quality or hear compression artifacts when compared to CD when going down to a 256Kbps bitrate which would provide an 8:1 compression ratio as well. I would also be able to say that once they dropped down to a 224Kbps bitrate, then there may be some noticeable degradation and artifacts heard but it would be highly dependent of the content of the audio and the encoder selected where you now start getting into those trial and error areas where from what I'm reading its sounding like everything seems to be trial and error when rendering video.

Those are basic rules of thumbs I feel pretty confident in stating when talking about audio and the rendering to the different available lossy compression file formats and their associated codecs available, and bitrate selection and that's what it seems Roketeer was asking in regards to rendering to different video formats and their associated bitrate options and so far the only thing I'm identifying in regards to advise is coming across as "it depends" and "render at whatever the highest bitrate there is with the highest quality codec available" which just seems like pretty obvious advise.

That's not apples to apples? What am I missing, we're talking about rendering to lossy formats in both instances, possibly making a suggestion on the codec to use where I would likely recommend Main Concepts MP3 or Apples AAC and some rules of thumb of the bitrates to choose.

Analogies between frame-based and sample based encoding?

Hmm, guess I'll have to think on that one.