Help in rendering a wedding video

Travelbuddy wrote on 3/8/2011, 1:33 PM

Hello, I've uploaded using Sony PBM /Import from a Handycam software a 10gb,16.9 .avi file and have used vegas studio platinum 9 to create a project with video/sound/background music in the PAL format. I now need to render this out to a widescreen .mpg file, but when I select MainConceptMPEG-2 and Template = DVD PAL and create the file the quality is poor and only displays in 4.3. Have tried using template DVD Architect PAL Widescreen Video Stream, which produces good quality video but without sound. Understand the latter requires rendering both a video and a sound file for input to DVD Architect, which outputs a video to a DVD disc. Worried here about sync problems between video and voice and would appreciate a steer please. Have also tried rendering using MainConceptMPEG-2 and Template = HDV 720-25, this did work well but the resulting output file was 6.7gb and i was hoping to fit it all on to a 4.7 DVD+R disc. Again would appreciate any steer in configuration or usage. Cheers, Travelbuddy

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 3/8/2011, 2:20 PM

What format is your source video? Standard def widescreen? AVCHD? HDV?

If your project properties match your source footage, you should be most of the way there.

Then it's just a matter of selecting the right Make Movie output and ensuring the Stretch Video to Fill Output Frame option is selected.

Travelbuddy wrote on 3/9/2011, 6:32 AM

Hello and thanks for your time on this. Hope the following are the answers to your questions.
The uploaded images from my sony standard DV mini tape camcorder are in widescreen .AVI format, there are 44 files amounting to 10gb of disk space.
Project properties are:
VIDEO
>Template=PAL DV Widescreen (720x576, 25.000 fps)
>width=720
>height=576
>frame rate=25.000 (PAL)
>field order = lower field first
>pixal aspect ratio= 1.4568 PAL DV Widescreen
>full resolution rendering quality=good
>deinterlace method=blend fields.
AUDIO
>Master bus mode=Stereo
>sample rate Hz=44.100
>bit depth=16
resample stretch quality=good.
What i'm attemptng to achieve is to render the images+sound out to any format which can then be burnt to a single 4.7gb DVD-R disc for payback on the parents and wedding couples DVD players. So far i've only acheived in rendering a widescreen+sound images to a .m2t file in AVCHD format, which amounts to 6.7gb. Happy to provide further data, cheers and thanks again, Travelbuddy.

laz wrote on 3/9/2011, 7:46 AM

Have you tried rendering within the Vegas program? Go to Render as and choose mpeg2 and see what size that comes out to. If it's still too big try mpeg1.

BTW it's a big drop from 10gb to 4.7 so you're always going to lose a lot of quality. Plus the 4.7 isn't an exact size on a dvd so the render needs to be even smaller.

Or you could try compressing the file you've rendered with a good program called Rejig to fit the dvd http://www.afterdawn.com/software/audio_video/convert_video/rejig.cfm

I assume your dvd writer can't support writing to dual layer.

Travelbuddy wrote on 3/10/2011, 4:15 AM

Ok, I have now run rendering tests using a small .avi file and a project with properties as previously descripted. The tests used different save types (i.e. MainconceptMpeg-1, MainconceptMpeg-2 and Sony AVC) and different templates (i.e.default for mpeg-1. SVCD, DVD Pal and HDV 720-25p for Mpeg-2 and AVCHD 1440x1080 PAL for Sony AVC).
Only 4 test produced a satisfactory widescreen video + sound output file. These were - 1) MainConceptMpeg2/HDV 720-25p with stretch video to fill output frames unchecked, 2) the same settings as 1 but with stretch video to fill output frames checked. 3) Sony AVC/AVCHD 1440x1080 PAL and 4) same as 3 but with stretch video to fill output frames checked. In addition MainConceptMpeg2/HDV 720-25p produced an output file size of 112mb whereas Sony AVC/AVCHD output a file size of 88mb. So in conclusion the Sony AVC/AVCHD looks the best option but can anyone confirm that this will when burnt to a DVD be playable on most DVD players? Cheers, Travelbuddy.

TOG62 wrote on 3/10/2011, 4:50 AM

None of the HD formats will play on any DVD player. To play HD you need a Blu-ray player. You can author onto DVD discs, but not all Blu-ray players will be able to play them.

Jack S wrote on 3/10/2011, 6:36 AM

Hi Travelbuddy
This problem appears to be simple to resolve. You say you have 10Gb of AVI clips. This equates to about 50 minutes I would guess. You can render this to MPEG2 and it will easily fit onto a DVD. I have VMS10 so I'm not sure if you can customise the bit rate in VMS9 but at 50 minutes a default bit rate of 6Mbs should handle it easily and the quality will be near to as good as the original AVIs. Just render as MainConcept MPEG-2 and select a bitrate of 6Mbs. Load this into DVD Architect, do your menus etc then when you prepare it DVDA just needs to convert the audio to AC3 (which doesn't take long).

TOG62 wrote on 3/10/2011, 7:52 AM

I haven't used VMS 9 but, as I understand it, you can't adjust the MPEG 2 bitrate. In that case you'll get the best quality for DVD by rendering as DV AVI and using DVDA's Fit to Disc option to create the disc or image.

Travelbuddy wrote on 3/14/2011, 2:56 PM

Hello again, just back from a short break so a belated thanks to Jack S and TOG62. Well on Saturday I read up on DVD Architec Studio 4.5 and it's basic need for video in mpg and audio in AC3 formats and so tried the following starting with Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.
1) Using the 10gb .avi upload file as input I created a project with the same attributes as described previously to the forum on the 9th March.
2) Then used Render As to create a.mpg and a .ac3 file.
Now to DVD Architect Stuudio 4.5.
3) Created a project with same attributes as above and selected a Single Movie with no menus. Imported the .mpg file which had the effect of also pulling in the ac3 file. Checked Optimise DVD which indicated an output file size of 2.197gb, or 47% of a 4.7gb disc.
4) Ran Make DVD, which is in 2 stages - "prepare" and "burn". BINGO this produced a disc which was playable on my sony DVD player and also on the philips DVD player of the grooms parents.
So in conclusion I really need to understand both pieces of Sony software and their interaction a lot more, especially DVD architect!
Thanks for all your help/support, which I'm sure will be requested again.
Cheers,
Travelbuddy.