DVD Widescreen Render Quality

mtnrunner wrote on 4/4/2009, 6:45 PM
Wondering how to get the same quality that I see on my captures on my DVDs.

I capture from an Sony HDR camera and convert to SD. Looks smooth on my PC. I add clip to Sony Vegas Platinum 9.0b and send to DVD Architect 4.5 and burn and no matter what settings I use, AVI, MPG2, best, good, whatever, the final result is choppy and less resolution than the original captured clip.

I've used earliar versions and have not had this issue. Ideas? What setting should I use? This is for a wedding video and it's gotta look pro!

Thanks!

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 4/4/2009, 7:14 PM
"Wondering how to get the same quality is see on my captures on my DVDs. I capture from an Sony HDR camera and convert to SD."

The answer is contained in your question.
You are starting with 1080i HD source and expect the same quality in a 720p SD render?

mtnrunner wrote on 4/4/2009, 7:22 PM
No...when I dump from the camera it's set to convert to standard definition. It saves at 720*480 at a datarate of 4000kbps. If I play it on my PC it looks smooth and even. Once I render if from Vegas Plat it comes out choppy. The pan scenes are especially crappy. All I want is the same quality of the capture; 480i in wide screen. Am i using the wrong software?

btw; running on Windows 7 - 64bit, 8GB or RAM and 2.4Ghz quad core...
musicvid10 wrote on 4/4/2009, 7:49 PM
Are you talking about the Preview screen in Vegas or the rendered video? They are two quite different things.

"All I want is the same quality of the capture; 480i in wide screen."

This is absolutely impossible. 480i is nowhere close to 720 SD widescreen.

"when I dump from the camera it's set to convert to standard definition. It saves at 720*480 at a datarate of 4000kbps."

If this is what you really meant, then 4000Kbs is pretty low, even for SD.

What is the capture format?

More important, assuming you are talking about the rendered video and not the Preview screen in Vegas, what is the render format and settings?
mtnrunner wrote on 4/4/2009, 8:10 PM
The rendered video. I can see the choppiness playing the rendered mpg2 or the AVI on my system and on the burned DVD thru my table top. I've made a lot of coasters here already!

I've experimented with mutliple render types, seems mpeg2 is what I should be using, but I've tried just about all others with no improvments. Wondering what is the recommended setting for taking it to DVD? And does final render quality have anything to do with video card? I wouldn't think so and my is pretty decent anyway...

Thanks for your help
musicvid10 wrote on 4/4/2009, 8:18 PM
"And does final render quality have anything to do with video card?'

No, unless your bitrate exceeds what your CPU and video card are able to handle.

"Wondering what is the recommended setting for taking it to DVD?"

One of the DVDA Architect templates.

"I can see the choppiness playing the rendered mpg2 or the AVI on my system and on the burned DVD thru my table top."

Then something else is wrong. The Project settings in Vegas, the frame rate, the bitrates, render settings, something is not right. An uncompressed AVI will play choppy on most systems, an MPEG-2 should not. Care to upload a 30 second example somewhere for us to look at?



mtnrunner wrote on 4/4/2009, 8:26 PM
Thanks for taking the time, I'm going to upload two samples, the cap and the Vegas rendered. I've done this before for quite a few weddings with earliar versions on older PCs and just looked at my last wedding and it looks great.

Sample and link to follow, thanks again for your time...
musicvid10 wrote on 4/4/2009, 8:45 PM
Appreciate it!

Two clips are worth a thousand words . . .
mtnrunner wrote on 4/4/2009, 8:49 PM
OK, you can find a 22MB zipped file here:

www.yarnold.com/samples.zip

Which contains a 'capture.wmv' and a 'rendered.mpg' You'll notice the capture is much smoother than the rendered from vegas mpg. In close-up pans the jagginess is unacceptable. Thoughts?

Thanks so much for your time...
mtnrunner wrote on 4/4/2009, 9:48 PM
K, at my wits end. I've tried every setting, render type, project type, I've used custom render settings to match the bit rate, pixel size, etc. of the original captured video and the end result is always the same: jagged video. It may be slight but it's definately noticable in A/B comparisons and unacceptable as earliar versions did not suffer with this defect.

I've also used multiple PCs to rule out hardware issues depite my PCs being less than six months old and loaded with RAM etc. My conclusion is Vegas Platinum 9.0b is buggy. Spent 2 days on this and installed vegas on a newly built PC with nothing else on it and same result. If someone can look at the samples I uploaded and test with the capture to render a non jaggy video out of Vegas 9.0b I'll buy you a beer! For now I'm going shopping for another NLE...
musicvid10 wrote on 4/4/2009, 9:59 PM
Your "capture" file is WMV. This is not a good choice because it is highly compressed. Again, how are you capturing? Is it one of those USB devices?

You should be able to drop the original (AVC?) file on your computer and go from there.

I'm 90% sure the problem is that your WMV file was encoded DirectShow and Vegas decodes VFW. I know this because if I render it in Super with the DirectShow decoder, the problem goes away.
Ivan Lietaert wrote on 4/4/2009, 10:00 PM
In my opinion it 's caused by the low bitrate (4M). Do not bring this down in the early stage, keep it as high as possible until the final rendering for the dvd (it should then still be 6M minimum).

mtnrunner wrote on 4/4/2009, 10:14 PM
I captured directly off my HD camera. I'll attempt to capture again in higher bit rate. ARGHHH!! but why does my capture look fine while the rendering looks like crapperoonie? I'd think quality should remain unchanged...

Back to capturing...

Thanks all and please keep the advise coming...
musicvid10 wrote on 4/4/2009, 10:19 PM
See my edit above (after both of you posted).

"I'm 90% sure the problem is that your WMV file was encoded DirectShow and Vegas decodes VFW. I know this because if I render it in Super with the DirectShow decoder, the problem goes away."

Why is the capture file WMV? Surely your camera does not shoot in this format ...

i agree with Ivan in that it is something in your capture settings. As he and I both said, the bitrate is low. The capture format is also suspect, but I don't have your camcorder to test the options.
musicvid10 wrote on 4/4/2009, 10:34 PM
What are all the download options from your camcorder?

Surely there is a better choice that what you're using.
mtnrunner wrote on 4/4/2009, 10:36 PM
I'm using Vista to capture off my Sony HDR-HC1, one of the early HD cameras. It connects via iLink and I have few options. I'm attempting to recapture the entire tape now using the single file option which goes from 2GB to 13GB so bit rate should increase. We'll see what happens.

I have not shot/captured with this camera before so I agree the capture may be the issue but what I see prior to rendering looks fine so not sure why this would be of issue.

More to follow, and you guys are great! Not often do I even get responses for this sort of thing... Thanks!
mtnrunner wrote on 4/4/2009, 10:37 PM
I could set to HD vs DV but I'd think rendering down would take forever in Vegas, I'll try that after the current capture...
musicvid10 wrote on 4/4/2009, 11:04 PM
By all means capture as DV-AVI.
That is the best starting point for SD DVD.
mtnrunner wrote on 4/5/2009, 12:07 AM
That was it, thanks! After a capture in raw AVI everything worked as desired and expected. Thanks mucho for everyones help, you've once again proved the value of the world wide web!!!
musicvid10 wrote on 4/5/2009, 5:54 AM
I think maybe all we've proven is the "million monkeys" theory . . .
FBN Multimedia wrote on 4/22/2009, 11:22 AM
I always capture HD from my camera, but I use the Vegas capture software to do it (may not recognize your camera?). To answer your render speed question, I have not notice a huge difference in render time when sending a 1080i Vegas project to render for SD widescreen. I just use the MainConcept template for DVD suggested and it comes out fine. Good luck.