I know it's been asked before but Smart Render...

Hulk wrote on 11/15/2008, 10:10 PM
I know this has been discussed before especially regarding MPEG-2 but now with AVCHD and Blu-Ray I think it's even more imperitive that Smart Render be available in Vegas Pro 8.

With DVD's you would normally shoot DV and transcoding to MPEG-2 was absolutely mandatory if you wanted to make a DVD. There was no way around it.

Now with AVCHD there are many consumer cameras that are just putting enough bits to the storage device to get a solid image. I have a Canon HF100 and with proper lighting and exposure I can get a very clean image. No post processing needed. Just some cuts here and there.

DVD Architect 5 will accept the native video from the HF100 without recompressing. That's great because as I said there really isn't a lot of headroom in these files for recompression. The audio will be recompressed but that's really not a big deal.

Since the bitrate available on BD is actually higher than what most consumer cameras record it really does damage the video to have to recompress. Especially when most fo the time one may only need some straight cuts. When the capture format had more headroom than the delivery format this really wasn't as big a problem. i.e. DV to MPEG-2 for DVD.

A well documented AVCHD Smart Render feature in Vegas would really be fantastic. By well documented I mean something in Vegas showing what formats are compatible with BD's in DVDA. Also the ability to easily know which parts of the timeline will be recompressed and which parts will not.

And thanks to Sony for building Vegas Pro 8 so that it does handle my Canon HF100 video well at this point in time.

- Mark

Comments

bsuratt wrote on 11/17/2008, 8:59 AM
Mark,

Since 8.0c Smart Render has worked flawlessly for me on HDV M2t files. I did edit some M2t files from a friends AVCHD HDD Camcorder and they Smart Rendered fine. PQ of rendered files indistinguishable from direct camera playback.

Input params must = output params. Easiest way to set project settings is on Project Properties, top right folder icon (match media settings), and point to an original M2t file. On render pick the appropriate video type and go!
Hulk wrote on 11/17/2008, 4:54 PM
Thanks for the tip. Learned something new with the "match media settings" option.

I still can't get a Smart Render with the native video from my Canon HF100. I am have tried output using Sony AVC Blu-Ray m2ts (errors out) or the AVCHD 60i option in that tab. Renders but no Smart Render as far as I can tell.

Do you remember the settings that worked for your friend's camera?

- Mark
blink3times wrote on 11/17/2008, 7:00 PM
I don't do a lot of work with M2TS files (I do mostly HDV) but from what little I have done I found that DVDa will recompress ALL M2TS files, be they mpeg2 based or avchd
Hulk wrote on 11/17/2008, 7:20 PM
Well the nice thing is that DVDA will not recompress the video of the native video files from the Canon HF100 camera.

If there was just a way for Vegas to Smart Render them. From what I am reading Vegas will only Smart Render HDV.

I would even be happy, as a temporary measure, if Vegas would offer a BD acceptable encoding method that was 2-pass.

- Mark
bsuratt wrote on 11/17/2008, 9:23 PM
My friend's files were captured using some software that came with the camera (Sony). I copied his M2t files from his PC so I can't tell you what, if any, conversion was done. But the output files looked as good as the playback from the camera. During render a "No Compression Needed" text flashes intermittently in the preview window.

Blink:

Are you using separate AC3 files in DVDa? I have not had a problem with DVDa wanting to recompress as long as you have separate video and audio files.

blink3times wrote on 11/18/2008, 2:58 AM
"Blink:

Yes.
If you use M2v with a separate ac3 file there is no recompression. But m2tS files (which are either avchd or mpeg2 already muxed with the ac3) are almost always recompressed.

M2TS files are what usually comes out of a avchd cam... either that or TS anyway.
Hulk wrote on 11/18/2008, 11:05 AM
MTS is the extension that comes with the Canon HF100 video files.
As I mentioned above DVDa will not recompress video of these files but it will recompress the audio.

Looks like I've hit a dead end here.

- Mark