mov HD with vegas

Weldon wrote on 9/8/2011, 10:42 AM

Hi,
I know I can render out full HD to an uncompressed quicktime mov however, I am not sure how to get a good compressed 720 or 1080 mov file using VP10. Original footage is 1080i AVCHD. I have been using the uncompressed to handbrake for vimeo and love it however, I have a client that wants a mov HD file. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Comments

rs170a wrote on 9/8/2011, 11:03 AM

Try the animation codec.
Choose Uncompressed, click Custom, select Animation in the "Video format" dropdown box and further customize as required/desired.

Mike

Former user wrote on 9/8/2011, 11:15 AM

Buy QT Pro for $30 and make an h264 file.

Dave T2

robwood wrote on 9/8/2011, 12:13 PM

or install Avid's free DNxHD codec (high quality, mac / pc)

webpage
http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=372311
"Export a movie at a size of 1920 x 1080 (1080i/p HD), 1280 x 720 (720p HD), or 1440 x 1080 (DNxHD-TR 1080i/p) for optimal quality. This codec supports alpha channels."

direct download
http://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/SupportFiles/attach/PC%20Avid%20CodecsLE%202_3_2.zip

Weldon wrote on 9/8/2011, 12:26 PM

Thanks everyone!
This is for a 15' outdoor display and they wanted a HD mov file under 2 gig. It's a 59 second spot. I used the Avid compressed under custom Quicktime and it came out around a half a gig and looks pretty good.

This forum is so freaking helpful...thanks!

Laurence wrote on 9/8/2011, 1:58 PM

You'd probably get away with rendering an mp4 in Handbrake and just renaming the extension to .mov.

musicvid10 wrote on 9/8/2011, 2:41 PM

@robwood,
The 2.3.2 Avid codecs are buggy on Windows NLEs.
The 2.3.4 download is here:
http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=392959

musicvid10 wrote on 9/8/2011, 2:43 PM

You may pick up some relevant techniques from this tutorial:

If you were to give them an Avid MOV file, and they don't have the codecs installed on their system, it won't play.

Laurence is quite correct that you can rename your .mp4 from Handbrake to .mov

Laurence wrote on 9/8/2011, 4:38 PM

Renaming a handbrake render isn't exactly totally honest because I don't think it really is in a .mov container, but for all practical purposes it works just fine. ;-)

Weldon wrote on 9/8/2011, 4:48 PM

I like the mp4 better because I can watch them with media player. I have never really been a fan of the quicktime player.

Can you really just rename the file as a mov and it work?

John_Cline wrote on 9/8/2011, 5:15 PM

MP4 IS a container format, not a codec. I'm pretty certain that renaming an MP4 to MOV is perfectly valid. An MOV written by Quicktime using the h.264 video codec and AAC audio codec is indeed an MP4, it's just named MOV. The MP4 file format specification was created on the basis of the QuickTime format specification originally published in 2001.

PeterWright wrote on 9/8/2011, 10:47 PM

Inspired by this thread, I downloaded and installed the 2.3.4 Avid codec to see how it looked for a current project.

The resultant .MOV looked fine, but it was almost 35 times bigger than a WMV of the same project, 2.7Gb compared with 79 Mb, and in fact I would say the WMV looks better.

Is there something I've overlooked? I did try making it smaller by reducing Quality to 70%, but the file was the same size, so the Quality slider evidently didn't change bitrate.

musicvid10 wrote on 9/8/2011, 11:02 PM

"Is there something I've overlooked?"
Maybe, you should use the 145Mbs 8-bit template. 220Mbs 10-bit (default) is overkill.
Of all the intermediates tested, DNxHD is smaller than all of them except Sony MXF.
I ran comparisons using the Belle-Nuit and actual footage, and I would not suggest WMV as an intermediate.
Quality slider is not used with DNxHD because it doesn't use motion estimation the same as other codecs.

PeterWright wrote on 9/9/2011, 12:06 AM

Thanks musicvid - I am using 25p 1280 x 720, and there was no setting for 145 8bit so I tried 120 8 bit.

Again it looked ok but even this one was 1.89 Gb.

This is for streaming, not an intermediate, and at present the 79Mb WMV is much better value. I've also done an mp4 using Sony AVC, and this was 107 Mb.

John_Cline wrote on 9/9/2011, 2:53 AM

DNxHD is not at all suitable for streaming. Choosing 120-8bit means 120 megabits per second which is way too high a bitrate by a factor of at least 20. Filesize is 1280x720 at around 4-6 Mbits/sec is about right. If there isn't a lot of motion, then maybe 2-3 Mbits/sec would be high enough. You can take the 120 Mbit/sec DNxHD intermediate and feed it into Handbrake and make a nice looking, small filesize MP4 which will stream very well.

PeterWright wrote on 9/9/2011, 3:13 AM

Thanks John - I hadn't realised that DNxHD is only for intermediates.

I'll try the Handbrake way - it'll be good to see a decent looking small .mov - the Sorenson 3 included in Vegas looks well short of decent.

John_Cline wrote on 9/9/2011, 3:51 AM

Peter, watch the tutorial referenced at the top of the thread linked below and encode your DNxHD intermediate in Handbrake using the setting discussed in the tutorial, then just change the extension of the resulting MP4 file to MOV and you're done.

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=767882

PeterWright wrote on 9/9/2011, 4:21 AM

John, for some reason I can't currently access that thread, but whilst trying to find it through Search I read a comment by you about QT player being notorious for jerky playback.

This was a relief, because the attempt I had just made with Handbrake, my first try with this software, suffered from this same jerkiness*, so I put the same clip into Vegas and played it from the Trimmer where it looked much better. I'm now looking forward to seeing that tutorial to maximise quality ...

* I wonder why the word jerk keeps cropping up in association with QT ;)

John_Cline wrote on 9/9/2011, 5:59 AM

Sorry, Peter, try the link again.

PeterWright wrote on 9/9/2011, 6:08 AM

Thanks John - I'd just found it via a series of searches - watching now ...