Is there a way....

jazzmaster wrote on 7/7/2009, 2:10 PM
I do a half-hour cable TV show every week--green screen and al that, shooting in HD on V1U. I have been rendering it mpg2 (rt2) and it takes about 3-hours to render at HD DVD Widescreen. But it looks scrunched on 4:3. So I rendered the next show out a HD 1080i 60p and although the result is what I want, it takes 13 hours to render!! Also in making my DVD, it formerly took 12-minutes and now it takes 2 1/2 hours and says it has to be compressed. How do I get the results I want with faster render and DVD times? I'm on HP dual core 64 bit Wisdows Vista, Vegas 8.1. Any help?

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 7/7/2009, 3:19 PM
OK, you have a cable show that I assume is shown 4:3 standard definition but you're shooting it 16:9 HD. What is it you're looking for? Do you want it to appear letterboxed with black bars on the top and bottom?

There is no such thing as "HD DVD Widescreen" and there is also no such thing as "HD 1080i 60p" so we need to know what you're really doing.
jazzmaster wrote on 7/7/2009, 6:17 PM
OK, thanks, John
I shoot in HD on my V1U

I was rendering Main Concept MPEG-2 as an .m2t file adn the template was DVD ARch. NTSC Widescreen video stream.
This took about 3 hours to render, but it was squished in 4:3

So I switched to a differe template for rendering, doing it on HDV 1080 60i. This gave me what I wanted, but it took 13 hours to render and in DVD 5 it said it had to be compressed.

i do not mind the black bars as long as it doesn't look squished at 4:3. It looks like 16:9 to me on a widescreen HD TV, but that's OK.

i'm wondering: is there a way to get what I want without 13 hrs. of rendering.

Many thanks,
Burt
PerroneFord wrote on 7/7/2009, 6:34 PM
Your first rendering method is the correct one. What we need to know is what you do with that video AFTER you render it?

Do you use DVD Architect? If so, what template do you use when you create a new project? That is likely where things are falling down. I do this same thing all the time creating SD DVDs from my 1080p masters and it never looks squished in 4:3.
John_Cline wrote on 7/7/2009, 8:23 PM
Every DVD player has a setting in a menu somewhere where you can tell the DVD player if it's hooked up to a 4:3 or a 16:9 TV, the DVD player can then adjust its output accordingly. If you're playing a widescreen DVD on a 4:3 TV, then the DVD player will add bars to the top and bottom and letterbox it. If you're watching the same widescreen DVD on a 16:9 TV, then the DVD player will not letterbox the output. All of this depends on the DVD player being set correctly! I suspect that the DVD player that you're using to view your widescreen DVDs is not set correctly for the type of TV it's feeding.
jazzmaster wrote on 7/7/2009, 9:00 PM
Ah ha! Then it is the DVD player at the cable access studio that is not set correctly. That makes sense. I thank you both very much. This only happened recently and I'll report it. I'm happy I won't have to put up with any 13 hour renders again!
Thanks all,
Burt
PerroneFord wrote on 7/7/2009, 9:20 PM
One thing... DO make sure when you create the DVD, that are selecting a widescreen template and not a 4:3. Otherwise, there will be nothing no signal to the dvd player that it should add those bars.
FilmingPhotoGuy wrote on 7/7/2009, 11:16 PM
PerroneFord, It's interesting what you say about HD projects.

I'm a little confused about what to render my projects out to. I shoot in HD but need to output it to DVD which can read 720x576. I know that in a few years time most people will have 16:9 screens so I make DVD 720x576 16:9. But I also want to keep the "mastered" copy in 1280x720 HD format.

Do you make your project 1280x720 then convert it to SD or do you make your project (in my case PAL) 720x576 for the purpose of the DVD?

Since disk space is an issue, I don't want to keep both SD and HD movies.

- Craig
ushere wrote on 7/8/2009, 12:23 AM
disk space a problem? in this day and age?

i can get a 500gb ex hd for the cost of a digibeta tape......
FilmingPhotoGuy wrote on 7/8/2009, 1:37 AM
It's not so much the disc space only but also the time needed to make both (SD and HD) of every project. After I have my final outputed file I delete the filmed footage. I also read that DVDs and CDs only last about 10 years so we have to keep masters on hardrives. So you back up to IDE drives, right? I'm not sure if you have noticed that IDE drives are on the way out. So now you have to buy SATA drives and transfer ALL your masters. After a while a 1TB doesn't look so big anymore since HD movies are huge.

However the original question was more about workflow. I suppose it makes sense to keep HD and TMPG-enc to whatever format you want afterwards.

-Craig
Rory Cooper wrote on 7/8/2009, 2:18 AM
Craig get yourself a pro 7 tech multimedia player. Plays mpeg 2 and mpeg 4 HD also hooks up to external HD

Generate your content in HD 720p and dump them on external drives

Glue your unused DVD,s to a beach ball and sell that as a Disco ball to recover wasted money

PerroneFord wrote on 7/8/2009, 9:14 AM
The whole 10 year thing is folly. I have plenty CDs older than that. Please read this articles:

http://www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa11.htm

http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media

My guess is something closer to 25-50 years for the stuff we're burning now. And I am MUCH more concerned about format obsolescence in that time span than anything else.

In terms of workflow, for my major projects I keep the entire project at the resolution it was recorded in. I write the source files, and finished master to BluRay. If I have room, I write a master of delivery size if it's different than the source files. So for my normal 1080p work, the original MXF files get written, as well as a 1080 master. If I create a DVD then the .iso goes on the disk also as well as the DVD Authoring project file. I will now be putting the subtitle files on as well as we've now started doing that.

In essence the BluRay has everything included to recreate the project if necessary and if room allows, has several finished versions also in case a quick duplicate is needed. I've found that a 25GB BluRay can generally house a 1hr project and the 50GB is used for 2hr projects. For longer stuff, I just use multiples.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 7/8/2009, 12:06 PM

Rory, what is a "pro 7 tech multimedia player"? Got a link handy? I can't find anything about it.

Thanks!


Rory Cooper wrote on 7/8/2009, 10:34 PM
Jay,I also came up empty on Google . [After someone else e-mail me]

Because of time, unexpected goofs and limitations with DVDs, Some technical guys over here use multimedia players at events to play out content for big screen LEDs and plasmas.

It maybe that pro 7 are specifically made for them…I will get some more details

But there are a MANY other multimedia players that pump out HD even HDMI so you can render and store even at 1080p
And interchange hard drives

If you go through the hassle of filming HD editing in HD then produce a PAL DVD???...multimedia players is a better solution