iPod Video

helixboy wrote on 12/1/2005, 10:42 AM
Sony Tech support informed me that it is a "known issue" that iPod video is currently not supported by Vegas 6.0c and gave me the impression that 6.0d might contain the required profile to encode these files. I am guessing this is for H.264 .m4v files.

In the meantime, I know it is possible to have Quicktime .mov files with generic mpeg4 320x240 max 786 bit rate and with AAC audio to play on an ipod. On the Mac - a litte app called Podner encodes such files. Does anyone have an idea (preferably experience) how this can be done on Vegas with the Quicktime Mov profile?

Without iPod support - our entire company is now considering to finaly swith to the Mac platform abandoning Windows for good because Sony Vegas/DVD Architect can no longer provide us with a complete solution (Vegas was the only reason for sticking with Windows).

Comments

Former user wrote on 12/1/2005, 10:46 AM
You can purchase the QuickTime pro for Windows for $29.99 US that will convert from AVI to the QT formats.

No need to go to MAC.

Dave T2
p@mast3rs wrote on 12/1/2005, 11:25 AM
heck, did they mention when we could expect V6d?

"Without iPod support - our entire company is now considering to finaly swith to the Mac platform abandoning Windows for good because Sony Vegas/DVD Architect can no longer provide us with a complete solution (Vegas was the only reason for sticking with Windows)."

No offense but your company is quite knee jerk are they not to base a complete change on a product that was just announced and released in the last month. Furtermore, how does your company plan on protecting its content since the Itunes/Ipod Video DRM will not be made available outside of Apple? Not knocking you or your company but just seems way too early in a product launch to even think of changing OSes and workflows without serious market penetration as of yet.
epirb wrote on 12/1/2005, 5:54 PM
Plus as DaveT2 said jst get QT7 pro and do it that way .
I taken an 1hr and 30 min file from one of my DVD's and squeezed to like a 430 mb file and it looks great on the Ipod's screen.
yeah it would be great to do it in Vegas but heck for the price of QT7 pro its a no brainer.In the file menu of QT select export-movie to ipod. Plus the encode is pretty fast too.
aspenv wrote on 12/1/2005, 9:35 PM
There is a Free applicaton called Videora that converts any source video to Ipod video
Xander wrote on 12/1/2005, 11:22 PM
iPod is 4:3 and not 16:9 - tad bit small too.
helixboy wrote on 12/2/2005, 8:47 AM
The decision to swith OSes is not so hasty as it came off in my message. What I was saying was that Vegas was the last lingering thread that kept us working with Windows. We are a small company and can't afford an amry of IT Windows Gurus to help with the daily mishaps caused by an aging and poorly built operating system.

Vegas has been a blessing to us because of its ease of use - our two editors had no prior experience with video editing - and its ability to produce professional looking video even then. Speed was another concern. In the industry we are in, we have to release several full length movies monthly, ready for DVD duplication and online viewing. Vegas would allow us to render WMVs Real Media Videos, and Quicktime and the MPEG2 with one simple batch render job overnight. Adding a watermark track on top of the main video, and sticking logos and warning titles to the beginging and end of the video and outputing web-ready video was easy as pie.

Now - in order to stay ahead of the competition, we are forced to render all our videos to iPod video. Quicktime Pro (which we have) will not do batch jobs, renders only in H.264 multipass making render-time excrutiatingly long and with unnecessary high quality (our means of protecting content is to provide limited quality video to push the sales of our DVDs) and although I am not very sure how I can easily add a watermark with Quicktime where as with Vegas it was so simple.

There is no one stop solution on the Mac either yet: Autodesk Cleaner 6.5 migth provide ipod video support, but it will not render WMV9 video. But the Mac would still alow us to be far more productive in many other respects.

So fix it damn it! :)
p@mast3rs wrote on 12/2/2005, 9:25 AM
I may be wrong but I dont put much faith in Sony fixing QT7 support because of its competition. Sony added AVC support which as noted is VERY limited for use with PSP (Sony.) I just cant see Sony enabling us to push a competition's product (QT7/Ipod). In the older days of Sonic Foundry, this would have been a no brainer and probably implemented not too long after the announcement.

That is also why I dont see Sony support HD-DVD authoring next year because of the competition with Blu Ray.

Futhermore, if QT7 compatiblity is what you are after along with batch encoding, let me suggest x264 (H.264 AVC open source) and MeGUI which can be found at the following thread:

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=96032&page=1&pp=20

Supports different profiles inlcuding High Profiles, PSP, and yes, Ipod video. Check it out. Youll be plesantly surprised.

edit: If the .mov container is absolutely needed, then you could pass the output files from MeGUI into QT7 and remux the output into the .mov container.