For 1920x1080 rendering I created my own Vegas Template. I started with the 1440x1080 template, and made the following changes:

1. Changed the Mode to Quality VBR
2. Changed Format to WMV Advanced Profile.
3. Changed the width setting to 1920.
4. On the Project Tab, changed the Quality to Best.
5. Changed the name of the Template and Saved it for future use.

A test render of a mixed B&W & Color image slideshow, first by only changing the standard template image Width to 1920, resulted in a .WMV file with an overall bit rate of 4.3 Mbps and a Max rate of 8.5 Mbps. Using my new template, the resulting .WMV file had an overall bit rate of 7 Mbps and a Max rate of 12.4 Mbps. Using Media Player Classic - Home Cinema, displayed full screen, there was a noticeable difference in picture quality between the two .WMV files. The new template produced a file with noticeable improvement in contrast definition.

The readings were taken using MediaInfo v0.7.58.

Gary James,

I have my own templates for the master render video that I create for the Net and always use CBR instead of VBR since the video eventually be converted to be played on either YouTube or as file at my own site with a JW/Longtail player. Curious as to why you choose VBR: is that for on-system play only -- such as in response to TonyBoyV's issue/question - or also for other platforms such as the Net?

Thanks.

I didn't interpret the original post as a discussion of rendering to the web. So, yes, you're correct. My settings are for play on my PC only. And yes, these are not space efficient by any means.

Thanks guys for the responses, it really means a lot.

I rendered it out as MainConcept .MP4 and the colors are more vibrant than the .WMV, its like night and day. The bit rate is 11593kbps on the final render of the .MP4 and I noticed that the darks get REALLY dark. I guess its the color depth or bitrate that is making it look really contrasted.

I will try your method Gary and see if the bit rate around 8.4Mbps is better, but the only difference is that I will change my frame rate to 23.976fps because that is the same as my source footage.

I am just really trying to make the final output look like exactly what I am seeing in my project preview window in Vegas at Best (Full) settings, with no loss in color or quality.

Will update as soon as its rendered. Thanks again.

I guess its the color depth or bitrate that is making it look really contrasted.I’m guessing you used computer RGB. MP4 requires studio RGB. Even if played on a computer.

Hi Red Prince,

Are you talking about the effect in Vegas called Computer RGB to Studio RGB and vice versa? I did not use that effect at all in my project and thanks for the tip because now I know what that effect is really used for.

Suggest you search this forum. This one levels FX can be critical to the quality of the resulting image, it's been covered extensively by some of the experts on this forum & is a "must read" for those of us who want to make better video.

Gary,

I tried your method and the video came out fine, but a little detail was lost during the render. I am very picky and anal and can spot very subtle differences that other people would otherwise not notice but I am just trying to make the best possible render for video playback on the computer.

I am going to try rendering my project out as a MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4) again as well as a Sony AVC (*.mp4) format, but this time mess with the variable bit rate. Does this have any effect on the quality of the final render? I am guessing it does because some of my blacks in the project look "crushed" or too harsh to the point where its too dark of an image. I want my colors to look rich but not too harsh.

So I am going to try and see if I set the bit rate a little lower or does this "two pass" option make it worthwhile to try? I researched a little about it and how it passes through the footage twice to get the best possible bit rate, even though it takes longer to render. My project is 48 minutes long, and I heard that its good to do a "two pass" if its a big project, but does that only relate to it burning to a DVD and not on computer playback?

I also tried burning a blu ray of my project in Vegas pro directly from the timeline, and set the settings accordingly (1920x1080 24p, 25mbps) and again the blacks looks crushed and I am guessing its the bit rate.

Does anyone have experience with bit rates and how it affects the overall look of the project and can give me some advice to set the settings for the best playback on my computer? How do I find the bit rate of my current project in order to know what I should set my bit rate to. Like I said, I just want what I see in the preview window of Vegas pro, which is at Best (Full), and I want the final rendered out project to look like that. As if nothing changed and no loss in quality.

Thank you guys so much for the responses. I really appreciate it.

"I will try your method Gary and see if the bit rate around 8.4Mbps is better, but the only difference is that I will change my frame rate to 23.976fps because that is the same as my source footage."Pardon me for butting in here, but in addition to the framerate change, I'd make sure my PAR (pixel aspect ratio) was set at 1.000 for rendering 1920x1080.

...Jerry

Thanks Jerry and yes I did that because the 1.333 pixel aspect ratio made my project look funky and like "widescreenish" looking.

Once again, have you even TRIED high-bitrate 1920x1080 PAR 1.0 MPEG2?

By the way, bit rate has nothing to do with crushing the blacks. Also, different players can make subtle (and not-so-subtle) changes in the look of the video playback.

Regarding two-pass encoding, read my explanation in the following thread, it was about DVD encoding, but the explanation is applicable for all two-pass encoding. Since disc space isn't a factor in your case there is nothing to be gained by using two-pass encoding, you can use CBR if you choose a high enough bitrate to begin with.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=724366

MPEG2 at a constant bitrate of 30,000,000 bps or so will look great and will use very little CPU horsepower to decode and play. It will also encode MUCH faster than MP4. Don't get me wrong, I like MP4 just fine but sometimes MPEG2 is a better choice.

Hey John,

Regarding your method, I want to make sure I do this right. So can you please give me the guidelines and specs regarding the way you outlined? So here are the steps I think you want me to take and please correct me if I am wrong:

1.) Render As, MainConcept MPEG-2
2.) Choose Blu-Ray 1920x1080-24p, 25Mbps video stream template
3.) Should I change the aspect ratio from default 16:9 Display, to Square Pixels? Video quality slider all the way to high or keep in the middle by default?
4.) Keep the Maximum (bps) to 30 Mbps, Average (bps) to 25 Mbps, and Minimum (bps) to 20 Mbps, correct?
5.) What should I do regarding the "include audio stream" or the audio tab?

There are alot of check boxes I dont understand such as : I-frames, B-Frames, etc. Should I just leave them alone by default whatever their settings are?

I just want to make sure I do this right because I obviously don't know what I am doing in regards to the technical aspect of getting your project out of Vegas in the best way possible for computer playback, and I just need your guidance.

Here are my source footage specs if it helps, taken directly from Vegas Pro:

Video: 1920x1080x12, 23.976 fps, 00:00:20.20, Alpha = none, Field Order = none (progressive scan), MPEG-2

Audio: 48,000 Hz, Stereo, 00:00:20.20 PCM

UPDATE:

Just finished rendering out and the picture looks very similar, if not the same, as the .MP4 file where the blacks and dark areas look a little too dark. Also, I guess my audio didn't render out with it, even though I checked the box to "include audio stream," so that was kind of odd. The audio was in a separate media clip, it wasn't combined with the video. I use Media player classic 95% of the time when I playback media, unless it has to be played by another player. Please Advise, thank you.

Video quality slider all the way up. This adds extra precision to the encoder's motion search algorithm.

You could probably just set it to CBR at 30,000,000 and skip VBR altogether.

Under the "System" tab in the custom render settings, uncheck the box that says "Save as Separate Elementary Streams"

About the level shifts, Vegas simply writes to the screen using Window's standard display routines, most video players use a method called "hardware overlay" which allows an application to write directly to the video card's memory, bypassing any Windows Color Management. This can account for the difference in levels. You can adjust the video levels of the hardware overlay using your video card's configuration utility. This is probably why you're beating your head against the wall. There is probably nothing wrong with your renders.

In order to test whether the renders are correct, re-render your video into an audio/video program stream by unchecking the separate streams box. Then bring the render into Vegas and match its position on the timeline exactly to the original video on a track above everything else, apply the "invert" filter to this track and set this track's video level to 50%, this will now show you the difference between your original project on the timeline and the finished render. If everything matches, the preview screen will be solid gray. Open up the scopes and go to the waveform monitor, there should be a single, flat line at 50%, any differences will show up as deviations from the 50% line and you will see slight variances in the preview window. Very, very minor differences are to be expected, just nothing more than maybe +/- 1-2%. If these match up, then you need to calibrate your video overlay settings in your video card to get the player to look the way you want it to.

Hi John,

I just rendered out my project with all of your settings and still the video came out looking the same. Blacks look crushed and the film looked a little too saturated to where my actors' skin tones were kind of orange looking. Another side note is it gets frustrating when I try and burn a blu-ray and the video looks exactly the same with the crushed looking blacks and the over saturated skin look. So can I ever burn a blu-ray project where it looks like what I am seeing in the project preview window?


When I preview my project from Vegas pro on the preview window, it looks exactly the way I want it. A couple days ago I rendered out my project as a .WMV and it looks 98% of what I want it to look like and the closest to what it looks like editing it in Vegas pro when I play it back on any player. Here are the specs of the .WMV video if that helps with anything:

Frame width / height: 1920x1080
Data rate: 89046kbps
Total bitrate: 89121kbps
Frame rate: 23.976fps

Audio bit rate: 75kbps
Channels: 2(stereo)
Audio sample rate: 44 kHz

So I guess maybe I should stick with .WMV for rendered out projects? I also tried your test method for Vegas Pro and my preview window did grey out completely and the line on the waveform monitor was flat lined at 50%. So I don't think its my graphics card or anything like that. I guess what I am seeing in the player is exactly what I am seeing. And like I said, same goes for when I burned my project on a blu-ray, blacks look crushed and over saturated skin.

I just want the project to play out the way its suppose to when I present it. It just seems kind of odd in a sense that Vegas pro edits the way you want the image to look like and now in terms of exporting it you will have to settle for something different. There has to be a way for it to be the same.

Any other help from anyone would be appreciated and thank you guys so much for taking time to help me.

OK, if it passed the test, then it's not the MPEG2 or MP4 renders. What happens when you view the rendered files in Vegas? They should look IDENTICAL to what you're seeing in Vegas originally. (By the way, WMV files are notorious for color and luminance shifts, it raises the blacks and reduces the whites.)

You monitor is not calibrated using a hardware calibration device like the Datacolor Spyder. You can't absolutely trust what you're seeing in Vegas (or any other program for that matter.)

All image quality judgements made in Vegas are being made using the Windows display routines. These are different routines than than the players you are using to view the rendered files. [i]Vegas (using the Windows display routines) and the media player (using the hardware overlay routines) will almost certainly look different. Once again, without calibrating your monitor, you have no idea what to trust.[i]

Now, there are a couple of ways to get it to look correct on YOUR particular monitor, but that is NO guarantee that it will look the same on someone else's uncalibrated monitor.

Try this: Take the Levels FX preset "Computer RGB to Studio RGB" and drop it right on the Vegas Preview Window, this will apply the filter to the entire render. Then render out another MPEG2 file and view it in your media player of choice. It will probably look exactly just like you want it. Of course, by applying the FX filter in Vegas, the preview monitor will look washed out, don't worry about that. If you remove the FX filter and load the rendered file back into Vegas and view it on the preview monitor, it will also look washed out. Regardless, it will look fine in your media player and that's what you want.

Gary James

Thanks for your response to my query on local vs. online settings. I'll stick to CBR for my ditties :) I need to get some more hard drive space for I'm starting to cheat on intermediate renders -- i.e. replacing an image sequences of .jpg by their 1-event video render with 1920 sized WMV at high bit rate.

Not the smartest thing to do and some of the elders here would wag their finger at me for using that codec, but since the output is never above half that resolution (my .veg projects are 1920 x 960), I suppose I can get away with it - lol.

Hey John,

I just did your method on a small clip of the film so I could just check if it worked without waiting for the entire project to render out, and it worked perfectly. The blacks were no longer crushed and the skin tones looked normal. I will try and render out the whole thing now and see how the rest of the film looks.

I completely understand that it may look good on my monitor but not on someone else's and I have to take that risk because really I have no choice. Its so technical that I am a little overwhelmed. I am just a university film student and I am going to showcase my film on the 23rd and I am panicking because I can't make it look like the editing and at least I found a work around and I thank you so much for it.

Regarding the rest of our post, it sounds way too technical and complicated for me but I have an understanding and thanks for explaining. I use an 42' LG HDTV as my monitor and calibrated it through the settings where the settings guide you into making it the right contrast, color, tint, etc. Is this the correct way of calibration that I am doing?

Another thing is that if I apply this levels FX and burn a blu ray it should turn out the same don't you think? Also, if bit rate has no effect on the overall quality of the film then why does Vegas pro give me options to burn a blu ray in 25Mbps, 16Mbps, and 10Mbps in terms of video. So what makes one different from the other and what does bit rate have to do with anything regarding video? Does the number I put in the bit rate apply to audio as well? The default bit rate of my project I believe is 192Kbps, and the default of the MPEG-2 render is 224Kbps. Does this make the audio sound fuller or have any effect the higher the bit rate?

@ TonyBoyV.

I normally do not get involved in these discussions since there are people far more knowledgeable on this than me. I do read them since I always learn.

However, only John Cline, three post above, talked about RGB levels which I feel is your main problem. You have to keep them in studio RGB space for the codecs you are rendering to (except for Window Media player which requires Computer RGB). This could be tricky when you start including generated media and still pictures.

I would suggest you have a look at the Glen Chan articles pertaining to Vegas Color spaces here. (Look at least at the last one under Sony Vegas - "Color Spaces / Levels in Vegas 9 and 10")

If you are going to use Vegas it is unfortunately necessary to understand and use the scopes (specially Levels) to manage the RGB space to ensure your get the results you expect.

Hope that helps.
Willem.

Bitrate is all about accuracy, but it affects motion and detail more than the color or levels. Video encoding is a very complicated subject and it's really an art. There is no way I can explain it all in a single post on a forum. Generally speaking, the higher the bitrate, the fewer encoding artifacts. Videos with very high motion and lots of details require higher bitrates. Audio encoding will be more accurate and more true to the original at higher bitrates. A BluRay disc can contain video encoded up to close to 40Mbps and audio can be multichannel uncompressed 24 bits.

"Thanks Jerry and yes I did that because the 1.333 pixel aspect ratio made my project look funky and like "widescreenish" looking."

You're right. The image I posted was an older screen capture I took before I made the 1:1 PAR change. Sorry about that.

Willem,

Thank you so much for directing me to that article. It does provide so much information, even though it sounds a little too technical for me, but I sure am learning a lot just by reading it. Who knew Vegas has so many adjustments you have to make in order to start editing your footage with it right off the bat?

Do you happen to know of an article or something that can help me with blu-ray burning in terms of settings? I have never worked with blu-ray up until now. Always burned my projects to regular DVD's when I gave them to people.

@ John

Thanks again for your help John. I think I am understanding it the more and more I delve deeper into it. I want test screen my project at the theater that I am planning on showing it, just as soon as Ii can nail down this blu-ray setting for burning thing. In regards to the audio, so does that mean I can set the bit rate of the audio higher in order to achieve a more fuller sound and better quality? I am thinking about setting it to 224Kbps or 320Kbps. Does 320Kbps sound better than 224?

Thanks again.

TonyBoyV

Glad you found the article helpful. Not too difficult to control the color space once you understand the one or two basics.

As far as Blu-Ray is concerned I am afraid I cannot help you. I had no request for any and hence did not invest in a burner, yet. When HD video is required all clients just want delivery as mov or mp4 files on hard drive or memory stick.

Best of luck with your show.

Willem.