I was requested by a broadcast company to deliver the file in a Mov container uncompressed burnt to a DVD. Im not sure what the end use will be. I think it will mostly be used as stock footage for people to use.

Also another question: When I try to render as Sony mfx there is no option for 1920x1080, only 1440x1080, what am I missing here?

Sami

Ignor the presets - you can select the res you want in custom.

When I choose Save as type: Sony MFX Im given templates from NTCS DV to HD 1080-24p. In all of these (when I click custom settings) the Frame size, Frame rate and Aspect ratio are all greyed out. There's no way I can change them.

I have the latest Vegas 8.0b (build207) version.

Could you give me a step by step guide how to do it?

Sami

Anyone? I just dont see any way to set the custom frame size?

Sami

OK Sammy. For best quality as you want I would not render to mxf just as you would not render to Cineform avi. Depending on whether you are making a Blu-ray disk or a data file render to m2t or m2v. In the custom choose full HD with High settings and a suitable bit rate for your player. When you are at the custom page open the Sony help for that page and all will be explained.

Hi,

Thanks very much for trying to help me out. Im trying to deliver a datafile that would be moderate size. A few GB and the quality should be the same as the original MFX files. Your advice is a bit too vague for me since I dont know much about how to choose correct bit rate. A couple of more questions, please bare with me :)

1) MFX would be my ideal delivery format since the files are already in that format and would need no re-compression except for the parts where Ive put crossfades right? So how on earth do I do that in 1920x1080 size? I really see no way to do this in Vegas Pro 8b.

2) if I choose to render as MPEG-2 (As I suppose is suggested by "render to m2t" it does not have an full HD option under custom settings. It has the options HDV and ATSC (this in the vegas online help says "meant to conform to the broadcast standard for HD, but this for some reason can only include compressed audio)? Quite confused about this one :)

Sami

No Sami: I said don't be misled by the presets. In m2t you have full true HD, not HDV. Here is the detail.

Render As
MainConcept MPG2
Select Custom (not a template)
In Video Tab:
Select output as MPEG2
Select 1980x1020
Set Profile to HIGH
Set Level to HIGH (NOT HIGH 1440)

To get the right bit rate you may need experiment but I use 35 VBR because that is the same as the EX1 uses mxf. Remember it needs a good computer to play the result. Playing on a PS3 is best solution usually.

I do not know why Vegas has no HD mxf template. Anyone?

Wow, this seems to be amazingly difficult. I did exactly as you suggested I think. The outcome was a 1GB file that looked extremely pixelated and very poor. Just to make sure:

video quality slider at 31 (HIGH)
I chose constant bit rate 35 000 000
Field order progressive (Cause I want to export this as progressive.)

Problems: As said looks extremely pixelated. Renders audio as compressed (would like to export a file that has uncompressed audio).

I still cant believe there is no 1920x1080 MFX render possibility from Vegas. No one knows about this?

How do other people deliver HD material to broadcast companies?

Sami

Sami: I did not say move the slider. I said set Level and Profile. Try again doing what I said. No need set video quality to bes, just to good but in the video tab do as I say.

If you want high bit rate true HD your files will be big.

No, there is no 1920x1080 mfx render possibility, and I think I can say that the development team is aware of that.

But you can develop a template for an mpeg2-programm stream quite simple - and that is what I would do, similar to what Stevens has suggested. I have done so - and see no pixelation:

Try following template in the mainconcept mpeg2 encoder:

Project:
- best

Video:
- MPEG-2
- include video stream: yes
- 1920
- 1080
- I frames 12
- insert I-frame at markers: yes
- field order: none, progressive
- frame rate: 25 (in the PAL countries; in NTSC countries 30)
- square pixel (especially important, if you exclude audio)
- B-frames 2

- quality 31
- insert sequence header before every GOP: yes
- constant bit rate: 35.000.000

Avanced Video:
- 9 bit
- component
- ITU 709 (3 times)
- VBV buffer size: 0


Audio:
- include audio (if you do not wish audio, say no here. then you have to export audio separte with the wave encoder, and must mux the material)
- stereo mode
- 384 kbps
(here you are quite free)

System:
- save as separate elemtary stream: no
- stream type: program
- sector sice: 312
- sector delay: 0
- auto calculate
- 23
- auto calculate
- 2
- auto calculate

- aling sequence: no


For me that worked with EX1 material quite fine.

Hi

Wolfgang your suggestion seems to produce good results with a good file size. I saved that as my template.

I really hope Sony will make this a bit easier by Vegas 8c and provide ready templates for EX1 users.

Thank you very much for your help!

Sami

There is still some color banding on fades that doesnt look too good... Anyway to get rid of those? The file size is 1 GB now and it could easily be 1.5 or 2 GB for the 4 minute piece it is.

Sami

"How do other people deliver HD material to broadcast companies?"
There's good reason why there's no 1920x1080 MXF. The one and only XDCAM that does it is the EX1. The XDCAM disks only do 1440x1080, HDCAM tape is also only 1440x1080. You need to setup up to HDCAM SR to get 1920x1080.
DVCPro HD is only 1280x1080.
You could well be delivering something that the recipient can't use or that they'll downgrade anyway.

Bob.

How do other people deliver HD material to broadcast companies?

Depends on the quality level needed.

For highest quality, it used to be exclusively HDCAM SR.

Today, delivering a QuickTime file on a hard drive is becoming increasingly common.

This saves time on the receiving end, a hard drive costs less than a blank HDCAM SR tape, and the format can be the same.

In your case, they already asked you for a QuickTime file ("mov container"). They suggested a data DVD, because they thought it might fit.

Even a small hard drive will certainly take care of any format for your deliverable.

Time to call them, say you have the stuff ready but it won't fit on a DVD), and could they take a raw hard drive or would you need to deliver it on MyBook etc. packaged drive with an interface?

Remember that NTFS disks are readable by both Macs and PCs, so disk format is not an issue.

Added:

Decklink HD 10 bit 4:2:2 uncompressed 1920x1080 is 132MB/sec = 7.92GB/minute.

4 minutes would take 24GB in 8-bit.
.

I just feels very weird going the hard (drive) way. As the original MFX are barely over 1 GB I find it a bit of a nuisance why I should provide uncompressed footage that's 10 times the size of an original file. But I guess if there is no other way thats the way to go.

thank you for all your help!

Well, look at it this way: if they can't read your 1GB file, then you need to provide the video in another format that won't deteriorate after additional rendering.

Uncompressed fits that, and is readable by anyone.

There are several other codecs that could do the job in far less space, for example Avid DNxHD or Apple ProRes HQ, but you don't know yet what they have (and you probably don't have either).

Is there any news if the MFX 1920x1080 rendering would become available soon in Vegas? It would be handy to give the "source" material in edited form to customers.

At this moment I dont have any other codec's than what comes with Vegas Pro 8. But I could easily buy some if there was a relatively cheap alternative.

You don't even know that they are able to work with MXF 1920x1080.

Time to pick up the phone and ask them what formats they can take, seeing uncompressed won't fit on even a DL DVD.

Yes I know they could work with MFX 1920x1080, this has been confirmed. We are currently in talks about finding a good solutions to get the files to them. At the moment an option is they will send me a hard drive and I will put the uncompressed rendered file on it and send it back.

But for future it would be nice to work via the ftp. 60GB is too much for that but 1-5GB would be no problem.

maybe this would work for you.

http://digitalanarchy.com/micro/micro_main.html

I use it alot.
The playback codec is free

Wolfgang: You go a bit deeper into the menus than I do so let me ask you what changes to your recipe do you make to get an m2t file.