Thanks for the guidance.

I selected the Sony AVC mp4 format. I used the Internet 1920 x 1080-30p template. I did not change any of the settings in the Custom menu. So the default bitrate was 16,000,000 bps.

The first render went fine until it encountered a couple events near the end of the timeline. The sound rendered ok but the screen was black on these two.

So I shut everything down and rebooted and am trying a second render to see if the hiccup gets removed.

When rendering to this mp4 format, do I need to change my project settings from what I was originally using, or, is that irrelevant when rendering to an mp4 format?

"I selected the Sony AVC mp4 format. I used the Internet 1920 x 1080-30p template. I did not change any of the settings in the Custom menu. So the default bitrate was 16,000,000 bps."

This is horrible overkill for DVD source.
720x480 at 4,000,000 bits per second interlaced, will be more than sufficient to retain full quality in an AVC render of your DVD source.

Lots of things we don't know here.

1) What's the aspect ratio of the source?
2) What's the technology used to display the video on the website?
...a) Embedded YouTube/Vimeo/??
...b) Flash player such as JW Player?
...c) Silverlight?
...d) Embedded Media Player (WMP or Quicktime)?
...e) HTML5 <video>?

All that said, assuming a flash playback, I've had better success rendering to square pixel. 854x480 (16:9) or 640x480 (4:3). Also, I don't have Movie Studio so I don't know what, if any, templates might be included.

I think (but not sure) that YouTube/Vimeo uploading & processing will sort out the aspect ratio issues if you upload a 720x480 anamorphic .mp4 render.

Best bet would be to go to the web support folks and ask them for format specs.

Good Luck!
...Jerry

My VMS10 Project Properties were set at 1600 x 1080.

I did the first render with the Sony AVC mp4 format at 1920 x 1080. Picture was great but the file size was 2.8GB.

Second render was also with Sony AVC mp4 format but at a resolution of 1280 x 720. Again, good picture and the file size reduced to 1.4 GB.

Third render used the MainConcept mp4 format with my default project resolution of 1600 x 1080. Still a great picture and the file size dropped to only 371,783 KB. So this works - the website could not handle anything greater than 1 GB. This mp4 file actually looks better than the DVD, which was at 720 x 480.

Thanks for all the input - another notch in my learning experience.

Bob

"My VMS10 Project Properties were set at 1600 x 1080."Bob,

The conventional wisdom is to set your Project Properties to the specs of your source media (there are some rare exceptions to this, but let's not confuse the issue). Is your source actually 1600x1080?

Now, I'm going out on thin ice here ('cuz I don't own VMS 10), but here's the way you should set the Project Properties in Vegas Pro 10. If it's different in VMS 10, someone else might chime in and I'll bow out of this discussion.




Next thing you want to do is to create a custom render template that will keep the total file size under 1GB (by selecting a preset template and reducing the bitrate &/or frame size) . Once we know the aspect ratio of your source, I can give you the procedure for Vegas Pro, but maybe someone with VMS 10 can spell this out (I suspect there may be differences in the way it's done).

...Jerry

The original media that was placed on the timeline was a mixture of 1600 x 1200 and 720 x 480 events.

I also had some title segments that I created in Blufftitler that were in a widescreen 16:9 format.

The closest properties resolution that VMS10 offerred was 1600 x 1080, so that is what I set the whole project at. Otherwise, I would have set Project Properties to 1600 x 1200.

Oh my, you've introduced a whole bunch more variables here. Rather than trying to change your whole project around, here's my suggestion (to get you thru the immediate problem):

If your DVD is playing at a 4:3 format, set a custom Sony AVC template at 640x480, 4Mbps:


If your DVD is playing at a 16:9 format (or pillared 4:3), set a custom Sony AVC template at 854x480, 4Mbps:


Edit: I've had better luck with MainConcept h.264 than Sony AVC, but I see you've used the Sony AVC encoder (above) - so that's why I posted these screen prints. Testing HERE

Now, you may have to trial-and-error the bitrate as it's a trade-off between your user community's ability to progressively download the video and quality. You may have to go 1.2Mbps or lower to get your users to seamlessly download/play the video. But then the quality may suffer - it's trial-and-error.

Also, you'll have to run MP4faststart to get the video to start playing before the media is completely downloaded.

Furthermore, you never answered the question about how the web programmers want to play the video. All this is assuming they are going to use a Flash Player (e.g. JW Player). If not, please ignore this note.

The easiest way would probably be to upload your render to YouTube or Vimeo and embed the video in the website. Let them take care of the bitrate tweaking.

Good Luck (and remember, my screenprints apply to Vegas Pro, Not VMS 10),
...Jerry

I may be mis-interpreting what you have said, but I am not rendering this mp4 file from the DVD, I am rendering it directly from the VMS10 timeline.

As mentioned above, the MainConcept codec rendered great. The resulting mp4 file plays wonderfully with Window Media Player - no delays, stutters, or hiccups.

I don't know how the website folks will present this for users to view. I had assumed that they would just post the mp4 file on the website and people would double-click the file and it would automatically open in Windows Media Player - that is what I did and it works great. I have not heard back from the website folks on how they will upload the file.

YouTube is not an option, the movie is 30 minutes long - YouTube has a 15 minute limit.

Thanks for the comments.

"I may be mis-interpreting what you have said, but I am not rendering this mp4 file from the DVD, I am rendering it directly from the VMS10 timeline.Oh my, I believe we are not having a meeting of the minds. I am suggesting you render from the Vegas Timeline. The way I read your earlier posts was that you were using the Sony AVC encoder to render to MP4 and MainConcept to render to MPG. Somehow we are truly not connecting. My comment about getting better results for Web Delivery from MainConcept was when rendering using the MP4 option (not MPG).


I've given you the exact rendering specs you should use to reduce the size of the file. I'm not sure how much further help I can give you.

Regardless, you should render from the Vegas timeline using either the Sony or MainConcept encoders (that's the h.264 .mp4 encoding specs) at 640x480 (if 4:3) or 854x480 (if 16:9) either option should be square pixel and a bitrate of 4Mbps or less (after trial & error you will probably end up at somewhat less than 2Mbps).

Good Luck,
...Jerry

PS: To other Vegas Movie Studio users: Am I being confusing because of the differences in Vegas Pro & Vegas Movie Studio? If so, I apologize.

Yes, I was rendering to mp4 for both codecs.

Bottom line is that I have an mp4 file that plays great and is under the maximum file size required by the website. So, all is good.

Again, thanks for all the guidance.

Bob