Good grief, another rendering question

JS wrote on 4/26/2012, 5:11 AM
I’ve read bits and pieces of answers to this question, but I’m looking for a straightforward, up-to-date, informed opinion:

With Vegas Platinum 10, I’m rendering a four-minute, standard def video to mp4 (Sony AVC) for viewing on YouTube. It’s mostly photos with moving titles and lighting effects. What are your recommendations for Profile (Baseline or Main), Entropy Coding (CAVLC or CABAC), and Bit Rate? File size is not a consideration--only quality.

Thanks,
JS

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 4/26/2012, 5:24 AM
I've never touched Profile or Entropy Coding, always having left them at the default values and i get very acceptable results.

If file size is not important then use the highest bitrate you can. Heck, go for 50Mbps. Better yet, use uncompressed and you won't lose any quality at all! But, do keep in mind that, even if you don't, your viewers might care about the file size or bandwidth needed to stream it. They'd probably prefer a 25MB file with the ever so slight occasional quality ding than a 25GB file that would take hours to start streaming. Oh, i believe YouTube has a file size limit too.
musicvid10 wrote on 4/26/2012, 9:12 AM
Main Profile, CABAC. [Emphasis added.]
If your slideshow is static (no fades, no motion), at 720p resolution (you didn't say!) it can be perfect at 300 Kbps VBR (that's right) with no advantage to higher bitrates.

If there is motion or fades, your average bitrate should be 5-8 Mbps with a minimum bitrate of 2 Mbps to minimize blocking and artifacts.

Better to follow the tutorial, decide on a method that works for you, and not spend the extra time rendering and uploading an exorbitantly large file to Youtube. The YT server re-encodes everything to less than 2.5 Mbps so starting with anything greater than 7-8 Mbps 720p is unnecessary, and optimal bitrate is often far less than that.


JS wrote on 4/26/2012, 4:14 PM
Thanks for your advice. The resolution is only 640x480, so I guess 5-6 Mbps would be more than enough for YouTube.

Nobody's got an opinion on Profile or Entropy Coding? The terms LOOK important, like something we can't afford to ignore. But the defaults seem fine.

musicvid10 wrote on 4/26/2012, 10:55 PM
"Nobody's got an opinion on Profile or Entropy Coding?"
Yes, and I have already offered it, above.

Although I try to refrain from repeating myself, Main Profile, CABAC.
Better compression efficiency, nothing else, and no downside.

With 640x480 analog video source, 2 Mbps is more than adequate. It's just math.
You really should watch the tutorial from beginning to end.