disappointing quality in disc burns through DVDA

Tom Vegas Pro 11 wrote on 6/30/2014, 9:49 PM
So I have taken some pretty good quality video of a dance recital (moving subjects) at 1080p and 1080i (5 camera angles). Built my movie in Vegas Pro 11, rendered at 18 Mbps to both MPEG2 and AVCHD (MPEG looks a little sharper to my eye). When I build and burn the disc, either DVD or BR in DVDA, the quality becomes so bad that I have a tough time watching it. BR is better than DVD but still disappointing. Pixelation, washed out featureless faces, color blotches...sad to see so much work go into a poor result. What is the difference between the quality of video you see on a Hollywood DVD and one produced through Sony Vegas and DVDA- I know this sound like a dumb question, but is it just the quality of the compression equipment? Comes down to money? I see beautiful movie trailers or even decent youtube vids that are so clear!
Any suggestions or commiserations are appreciated!
Vegas Project- 1920x1080, progressive scan, Square pixel aspect ratio, 29.970 NTSC Frame rate, 32-bit floating point pixel format, Best rendering, Guassian blur, Blend fields
Rendered in lots of different formats, all 1920x1080 max quality, from 8-25 Mbps
DVDA dual layer disc, 9.8 Mbps, 16:9, 720x480, 29.97 Frame rate or BR Mpeg 2, 18 Mbps, 16:9, 1920x1080 24 frames progressive
thanks for reading this long post!
P.S.- if I save the Vegas rendered file to a USB thumb drive and watch on the BR player, the image is much clearer than the BR or DVD disc on the same player!

Comments

PeterDuke wrote on 7/1/2014, 1:05 AM
If you want to make a DVD then render your project in Vegas to the appropriate MainConcept MPEG2 template (presumably NTSC widescreen) for video only and AC3 Pro template for audio. If the video and audio have the same file stem name and are in the same folder, then loading the video will load the audio as well.

If you want to make a BD, and your source is AVCHD then render to an AVCHD or Blu-ray template.

Since you have both progressive and interlaced HD sources and will want interlaced renders at 29.97 fps for both DVD and Blu-ray, it would be best to set your Vegas project properties to Interlaced, not Progressive.

I suggest that you stick with 8 bit pixel size.

Make sure that you set the project properties deinterlace method to either "interpolate fields" or "blend fields" if you have interlaced source. (If you don't, Vegas will down-res interlaced frames as though they were progressive, giving poor results for moving objects.)

What source frame rate(s) do you have? Changing frame rates can lead to poor quality.

The general rule of thumb is to render your sources in Vegas to a format that DVD Architect will accept without having to re-render. If you want both DVD and BD then you should render twice.
Tom Vegas Pro 11 wrote on 7/1/2014, 1:27 AM
Peter, I really appreciate the post!
Is 8 bit better than 32 floating?
I already default to Blend fields. It looks like my clips have some different frame rates- my favorite camera angle is at 23.976, one that appears washed out is at 59.940, another weak shot is at 29.970, second favorite angle is at 59.940 (but this camera is the closest to the action- actually on the stage), and my last is at 23.976. The last camera is the highest quality (canon 7d DSLR) but has the worst contrast ratio.
I guess my biggest dissatisfaction is that I can get the movie to look great after the first render out of Vegas to an MPEG file. I have been rendering to an HD format so will try your advice to render in Vegas and avoid the render in Architect. It is simply disappointing to know how great the source file was and how choppy and indistinct the final DVD is. Total run time of the video is just over an hour. The HD file is about 8-9 gigabytes when I put it into Architect but the disc burns at just over 5 gigs when rendered down by Architect to 720x480.
PeterDuke wrote on 7/1/2014, 1:47 AM
Preserving colour integrity and handling the different colour space standards during renders is a perenial topic on this forum, and is too hard for me! I have never used 32 bit pixels, but I understand that there can be some issues.

Your sources are probably 8 bit (you can check with MediaInfo) and you would only need 32 bit if you are doing a lot of complex effects and swapping backwards and forwards between Vegas and other editing software.

Mixing 29.97 and 59.94 frame rates is no problem because one is exactly twice the other and Vegas will take care of it.

I live in PAL-land so I have never had to mix 29.97 and 23.976. I will leave somebody else to advise on that.

Before you tear any more hair out, try rendering to DVDA Arch compliant templates for your 29.97 and 59.94 fps sources. (Don't do your whole project, just a few minutes of each source to see how it comes out. Never be afraid to experiment, but don't waste time with too large test projects.)

When you say MPEG, I presume that you mean MPEG2. Remember that AVCHD is (a sub-set of) MPEG4.
Chienworks wrote on 7/1/2014, 6:27 AM
[i]"DVDA dual layer disc, 9.8 Mbps, 16:9, 720x480, 29.97 Frame rate or BR Mpeg 2, 18 Mbps, 16:9, 1920x1080 24 frames progressive"[\i]

9.8 is a bit high for DVD. Combined audio/video rate should probably not go above 8.5 or you risk dropouts while the player struggles to keep up.

18 is a bit low for HD. 25 is better for good quality.
PeterDuke wrote on 7/1/2014, 7:34 AM
If you are rendering HD to an AVCHD (MPEG4) template, 18 Mbps is about right, but to a Blu-ray MPEG4 template, then about 25 would be more common. (AVCHD is a subset of the Blu-ray spec so far as coding is concerned). The higher the bit rate, the less degradation from the re-encoding process, but you are chasing small improvements.

If you are rendering to HD MPEG2, then about twice the bitrate of MPEG4 would be appropriate, for the same quality. However, If you are starting with AVCHD I suggest that you re-render to MPEG4, but you don't have to.
Tom Vegas Pro 11 wrote on 7/1/2014, 9:44 AM
Ugh! tried the new render last night (8 pixels in Architect compliant template) and the result looks pretty similar to what I was getting on the final DVD out of Architect. Unfortunately I have lots of new skips and hiccups that I haven't had in the movie before. I'll try again going back to 32 bit floating. I do have lots of complex effects- fades between cameras, intentional ghosting, color improvements, sharpening, slow-motion, etc.
I just can't get over the quality degradation against what I see on other DVDs. Is it possible to produce a video of similar quality to Hollywood movies using home equipment?
videoITguy wrote on 7/1/2014, 10:58 AM
You will get disaster when you don't follow best practice workflows.

1) In VegasPro you may need to accomodate mixed source footage - this will always be an accomodation depending on your sources. Some mixes will not work. You must use processes in sub-projects that bring your worst offender into line with the most prevalent standard of your master project.

2) Using 32bit processing should only be used on the best source footage when multi-layer compositing is the issue and only for complex sequences. Again these are sub-projects. Bring all sub projects together in 8bit for the master project.

3) Always use the standard DVD or Blu-ray video and audio elementary stream templates of Vegas to output for authoring in DVDAPro. Nothing else is satisfactory.

4) To tweak all of the above pre-processing steps, pay attention to video levels, color correcting, and sharpening under best practices for same.
PeterDuke wrote on 7/1/2014, 6:47 PM
"I do have lots of complex effects- fades between cameras, intentional ghosting, color improvements, sharpening, slow-motion, etc."

Try crawling before walking.

Take a sample of your source videos with no effects applied and render using the appropriate templates for a DVD and a BD. Prepare a disc for each without burning, or use a rewritable disc to save expense. If that meets your expectations, then you know that you have the basics right and can look further.

Applying effects may reduce quality, and there is nothing you can do about that. Just the effect of re-rendering alone will lower quality. That is one reason (the other is rendering speed) why I still use Vegas 9c to render AVCHD, because it smart renders (sort of). Nothing will smart render video that has been modified, of course.
videoITguy wrote on 7/2/2014, 12:26 PM
Applying some efx could lower output quality, but generally if you use the 32bit mode for complex composite and efx in a render to a good digital intermediate - the quality loss is negligible.

Some good digital intermediates are Cineform, Avid DNXHD, and Sony MXF. Remember digital intermediates go back on the Vegas timeline for final render to the elementary streams as always for all imports into DVDApro. This means your efx have minimal quality effect on the form seen on the DVD or Blu-ray.