I usually hear "liberal" things like "turn up the bit rate until you get the quality you desire", but that doesn't mean much if nothing at all, when like me you don't know what you're doing. So I need a strict "fascist framework" to be sure I'm using the right settings.

Edit : @j-v : I just saw your answer after I was typing mine. Well i know you mean well, but that's exactly what I hear all the time from people who are trying to help, stuff like "pick what suits you", "Try different things". It's just too liberal for me.
I need more precise and directive advice and figures.

As for the purpose right now I need an intermediate template because my original files are xvid, and previewing them in Vegas is hard. I'm also looking for a final rendering template, but not right now.

I had a very similar question and someone posted these graphs and information for me. Sorry, their username slips my mind at this point but it seemed like exactly what we were looking for. Honestly I don't fully understand all of this at this time because I'm more of an audio person than a video person currently, and hope as I learn more about the ins and outs of video it will start to make more sense but my take away was that a 20Mbps bitrate was a good rule of thumb starting point of the perfect balance between video quality and file size.

Here's their original message:

"Here's a chart I made comparing x264 bitrates versus quality over increasing RF settings. A measurement called SSIM is used to compare accuracy to the original, with 1.000 being a perfect copy. It's been found that "optimal" quality for modern encoders ( including x265) is at SSIM 0.995, the maximum reasonable quality without throwing LOTS of bits at it."

As you can determine from the chart, "optimal" bitrate for x264 occurs at 20-28 Mbps, or RF 18-20. Above that, the eyes can perceive no differences (as their resolving power has long since been surpassed), so quality is essentially as good at 25 Mbps as it is at 144 Mbps, despite wasting nearly 6x times more space!"

They also posted this which I don't fully understand as well. 😊

The above information made sense to my audio brain since I had done similar studies in the past for audio bitrates. It was often said with audio 128Kbps bitrates was "CD quality" and I have often downloaded video with bitrates of 128kbps but my ears and studies didn't agree this was CD quality. I could often hear artifacts not present on the CD audio. For audio my minimal bitrate is 224kbps, where like video it will highly depend on the source if you can perceive a difference or not. Using 256kbps bitrates I have had a very hard time perceiving any differences on any type of source audio, but I tend to encode using 320kbps bitrates just to ensure any differences are not perceivable.

In the past, I did spectral analysis of the audio and found 320Kbps did not discard audio frequencies on a spectral graph for anything below 20Khz, which is the same point most agree we can no longer hear above. 256Kbps cut-off the frequencies around 18Khz and above. So therefore for my range of acceptable audio encoding of quality vs file size is between 224Kbps - 320kbps bitrates.

If a reduced file size is a concern, then 224Kbps is what I use and if not I use 320kbps. The happy medium for me is at a 256Kbps bitrate.

128kbps, 160kbps, and 192kbps I categorize as "acceptable" audio quality bitrates but definitely not in the ranges where you're not introducing highly potential noticeable artifacts and definitely not "CD quality".

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/uncompressed-vs-sony-yuv-vs-magic-yuv-the-shootout--113650/

Edit : @j-v : I just saw your answer after I was typing mine. Well i know you mean well, but that's exactly what I hear all the time from people who are trying to help, stuff like "pick what suits you", "Try different things". It's just too liberal for me.
I need more precise and directive advice and figures.

I'd like to have 720p and 1080p ready to use figures and settings I can rely on for Vegas most recommended codecs and also for xvid , h264 , and maybe h265 codecs, these three, I understand, have the advantage of having a smaller size but are hard or even impossible to preview in Vegas.

 

What's wrong with the present rendering templates in Vegas?

@Rednroll you have to consider and precise what codec, because mp3 and aac are not same. AAC 160kbps is the same quality than MP3 320kpbs.

@Rednroll "Sorry, their username slips my mind at this point..."

That graph was posted by @Musicvid in collaboration on my original work in this thread...

Analysis of Rendering to a Target Bit Rate vs Constant Rate Factor 

My name slips minds very frequently. I expect I'll be buried in an unmarked grave.

On topic:

I shared my favorite render method in this thread. I don't use it all the time for every application. I tailor my output method to suit the target usage. Picking one method is futile.

@Rednroll Now we're talking! 🙂. That's the kind of approach I was looking for.
So I h264, 28 Mbps, and I'm done ? Is that it ? Is it good only for final rendering or also for an intermediate render for good preview in the Vegas timeline ? is it 28Mbps for 720p and 1080p too ?

My bitrate "philosophy" is to render to the same bitrate as my source file from the camera. In my case 28Mbps (1080P ). I have done some tests to rerender the rendered file several generations (about 5 or 6) and can´t see any loss in quality, comparing the last rendered file to the original.

 

If a reduced file size is a concern, then 224Kbps is what I use and if not I use 320kbps. The happy medium for me is at a 256Kbps bitrate.

128kbps, 160kbps, and 192kbps I categorize as "acceptable" audio quality bitrates but definitely not in the ranges where you're not introducing highly potential noticeable artifacts and definitely not "CD quality".

128kbs is just too low because depending on what's being recorded it can fall apart completely. I remember back when people encoded at 128kbs the song called LoveFool by The Cardigans was a great example to show how terrible a song can sound like that anyone can notice. In 2019 where storage isn't a concern & video is much larger there's no reason to ever use the low bitrates for authoring. Producing encode for a website etc(no re-encoding) is a different story as there's a lot of compromise involved

@john_dennis "Picking one method is futile."

Yet it's what I need. I don't want to be bothered thinking about it each time I render something.

Memorize this.

@Mats

That “philosophy” will break down as you start acquiring video with more capable cameras.

Memorize this.

-Asks for simple perfect ready to use figures
-Gives you a 79 pages long powerpoint written in hermetic technical language with pro and cons so that even if you understand something you'll still dither about what to choose.

3Point always has more than three good points.

Edit : @j-v : I just saw your answer after I was typing mine. Well i know you mean well, but that's exactly what I hear all the time from people who are trying to help, stuff like "pick what suits you", "Try different things". It's just too liberal for me.
I need more precise and directive advice and figures.

I'd like to have 720p and 1080p ready to use figures and settings I can rely on for Vegas most recommended codecs and also for xvid , h264 , and maybe h265 codecs, these three, I understand, have the advantage of having a smaller size but are hard or even impossible to preview in Vegas.

 

What's wrong with the present rendering templates in Vegas?

Do you suggest that they are already perfect?

There are no perfect universal settings, like PNG is better for solid color but not for photos, while JPG is better for photos but not for solid colors.

Perfect settings for quick and constant movements of a realistic F1 race video are not the same than for a static bicolor video of a Tetris session.

Also, the resolution is a factor to consider.

But yes, in most of cases default settings are very good.

But yes, in most of cases default settings are very good.

 

Indeed.

Perfect would be when Vegas would be able to render "smart" (like my other NLE). Means leaving original content untouched and render changed/edited parts with the same resolution and bitrate as the original. This will give the highest quality but also ofcourse the largest files, but those files are perfect for archiving. For viewing, the best compromise between filesize and quality gives in my opinion a rerender of this "smart" rendered archive file by Handbrake. In that case I can decide afterwards, if I want for example a downscale of my 2160p original file to 1080p or 720p. Or to deinterlace a 1080i original file to 1080p.

@Rednroll you have to consider and precise what codec, because mp3 and aac are not same. AAC 160kbps is the same quality than MP3 320kpbs.

While I agree AAC is definitely a better codec than MP3, as it should be since it was developed after MP3 with a goal to improve the audio quality over MP3 at lower bitrates, but saying AAC 160kbps is the same quality as MP3 320kbps is a bit far fetched. Most tend to agree 256kbps AAC is equivalent to 320kbps MP3 but if you would like to show some spectral and L/R correlation graphs of 160kbps AAC vs 320kbps MP3 encoding using 20-22Khz uncorrelated pink noise as your source audio, I would be interested in seeing those. I've done those type of studies on MP3 and WMA encoding in the past, so that's what I'm familiar with at this time in regards to bitrates.

Could we leave the audio part out just for now and focus on my particular demand?
As I said, right now, I need an intermediate template because my original files are xvid, and previewing them in Vegas is hard.
Quoting myself :

"It has to be perfect, meaning uncompromising bit rate and settings. yet not absurdly high to the point a rendered file is 10 times the size of another and even the most trained eye can't tell the smallest difference between the two even after trying hard."

Rednroll suggested h264, 28 Mbps. But isn't h264 good only for final rendering or also for an intermediate render for good preview in the Vegas timeline ? And is it 28Mbps for 720p and 1080p too ?

Sylk and 3point suggested the default rendering templates in Vegas, if it's the case I need only one that obeys this rule :

"It has to be perfect, meaning uncompromising bit rate and settings. yet not absurdly high to the point a rendered file is 10 times the size of another and even the most trained eye can't tell the smallest difference between the two even after trying hard."

Debates are interesting, but I need a concrete perfect template with concrete figures (numbers) and settings.

There are no perfect universal settings, like PNG is better for solid color but not for photos, while JPG is better for photos but not for solid colors.

Perfect settings for quick and constant movements of a realistic F1 race video are not the same than for a static bicolor video of a Tetris session.

I don't know... I just want something that respects original content whatever it is.

As I said, right now, I need an intermediate template because my original files are xvid, and previewing them in Vegas is hard.

Before further advising, some more details are needed from your xvid files. Let Media Info https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo analyze your xvid file and publish the result here.