Thanks Martin,

I have successfully rendered long mp4 files for the web in the past also. Maybe I am going about this all wrong, but I am trying to preserve .avi quality (as best I can) but conserve disk space. I took the mainconcept mp4 template customized to a 720x480/29.97 constant 7mbps bit rate. Pixel aspect ratio of 0.9091 progressive. It worked great for the 1 minute test file but the long one failed.

I am experimenting with vbr and upper field first now to see if the results change.

If anyone else has any suggestions on best quality to filesize rendering, I would appreciate it. I have about 200 hours of video that I need to archive. Mostly old 8mm tapes. I'm afraid my 8mm player will not last forever and I want to preserve the quality with the smallest file size possible.

Thanks,
JAB

What size are your files coming out to be? There might be a functional 2GB limit (like .WAV) or a system 4GB limit (like FAT32).

The file was 2.1 gb. I'll break it down a little more and see if the 2gb thing holds.

Thanks!
JAB

That would be sad if that's the case because that's a rather restrictive limit.

On the other hand, speaking of data DVDs, keep in mind also that if you have any files bigger than 2GB then you have to use UDF format. ISO format is limited to 2GB.

I'm thinking of just rendering to mpeg2 and being done with it. I'm not getting consistant results with mp4.

UDF format works fine for me.

JAB

Jab,
there are two ways to render out mp4-files in Vegas Video: The MainConcept AVC/AAC encoder and the Sony AVC encoder.
The latter one has some templates for Blu-Ray. Those should provide more than enough quality and - although I've never tried it myself - will most certainly be able to render much larger files than 2GB (provided you are using a NTFS formatted disc).
Martin

Thanks Martin,

I have been playing with both mainconcept and sony encoders and trying to come up with a combination that will yield great results with a small file size for DV .avi's. I have not come up with a combination yet that satisfies me. I still have to do some more testing but if anyone has a "magic template" that works well for this and wants to share their settings, it might save me some time. bit rate is probably my biggest gray area. I want to compress as much as possible without seeing the compression artifacts and this is a touchy thing. I will be running a whole bunch of footage through this process so I want to get it right on the front end.

Thanks,
JAB

There isn't a "magic template" that will guarantee all material will look good and be as small a filesize as possible. All the interframe encoding schemes, like MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, DIVX and WMV, get their encoding efficiency based on the difference (or lack of difference) between one frame and the next. (It's actually a bit more complicated that that.) A completely noise-free video of a talking head on a solid colored background will look MUCH better at a low bitrate than a video of an automobile race. Relatively few pixels in the talking head video will change from frame to frame, conversely, in the video of a automobile race, EVERY pixel will change from one frame to the next and will require a MUCH higher bitrate to maintain acceptable visual quality.

Encoding is an art. Hollywood movies for DVD are encoded by experts who manually determine the bitrate on a scene by scene basis and often on a frame by frame basis. You will have to do this yourself on each different project to determine what is best compromise between bitrate and acceptable quality. Ultimately, the size of the file is determined entirely by bitrate and the bitrate affects the quality.

I noted that you're trying to encode 8mm film footage, this is almost a worst-case situation since the footage is likely quite noisy and, perhaps, quite shaky as well if these are home movies shot without a tripod.

John

Yes John,

You are correct. Unfortunately the bit rates that achieve the quality desired, are not saving much disk space over mpeg2. I think I'm going to have to edit as I go with this "archival" process. It is still going to yield much more material than I care to store on hard drives, so I'll probably dump it back to DV tape to preserve the quality. At least that will give me a few more years of shelf life.

Thanks,
JAB

How about a 500GB hard drive for around $110? That will store as much as 38 MiniDV tapes and cost only about half as much. Mount it in to your computer temporarily, dump all the videos to it, unplug it and put it back in the antistatic bag and shipping box it came with, and store it in the closet.

Or get an external 500GB drive for only a few dollars more and connect it via USB. Much easier than handling an external drive. I will point out though that there are a shocking number of reports of people losing data on external drives. I myself have lost the entire contents of 4 of the 4 drives i've tried and have now given up on the idea completely.

If you don't mind opening up your computer's case the internal drive is a much better method. For that matter, if you've got an open slot and connector, just buy the internal drive and leave it in the computer.

The 500G harddrive is a good idea, and you can get them for less than $110. On Black Friday Circuit City will sell 500G external (USB) harddrives for $79. I am planning on picking up at least two. Seagate drives.

http://www.blackfriday.info/ads/circuitcity-black-friday-ad.html

See under Portable USB storage

That is looking like a great option. It would probably take around 2.5 terrabytes to store it all, but it would be done and all in DV format. $79 x 5 = $395. I would pay that to save the man hours in render time alone.

JAB