MPEG-1 & WMV render options & time tests

eman wrote on 9/16/2003, 7:29 PM

I am looking for a method to export the edited videos from Vegas into MPEG-1 and WMV in the quickest, highest quality and most efficient way. I have done several tests today whose results you will find below. I can't think of any other possible ways of exporting the timeline from Vegas. Can you anyone exprience please give me some feedback on the best approach to render MPEG-1 & WMV?

Testing methology: a 10 second clip which is composed of 3 cuts from other PAL DV captures. The filters/modifications were 3 dissolves, HSL, saturation adjust, Black level and brightness/contrast. Video was cropped from 720 pixel width to 702. No audio manipulation.

A - Project size - 767x576 - Square Pixels
* pluginpac frameserver -> avisynth (resize, add logo) ->
-> CCE (0:50 time to encode)
-> TMPGEnc (1:30 time to encode)
-> vfapi -> WMV8Enc (1:20 time to encode - wrong time on video)

B - Project size - 448x336 - Square Pixels - Added Text overlay in Vegas
* pluginpac frameserver ->
-> CCE (0:32 time to encode)
-> TMPGEnc (failed)
-> vfapi -> WMV8Enc (0:50 time to encode)

C - Project size - 448x336 - Square Pixels
* pluginpac frameserver -> avisynth (just logo - no resize)
-> CCE (0:38 time to encode)
-> TMPGEnc (0:45 time to encode)
-> vfapi -> WMV8Enc (0:30 time to encode - wrong time on video)

D - Project size - 767x576 - Square Pixels
* maincoder Vegas 448x336 - best (30 sec)
* maincoder Vegas 448x336- good (30 sec)
* WMV8 Vegas 448x336 best (49 sec)
* WMV8 Vegas448x336 good (49 sec)

E - Project size - 448x336 square pixels
* maincoder Vegas - best 36 sec
* maincoder Vegas - good 30 sec
* WMV8 Vegas - best 49 sec
* WMV8 Vegas - good 49 sec

F - Project size - 702x576 PAL DV project
* render timeline as DV (1:20)
* avisynth -> CCE(0:06)
* avisynth -> TMPGEnc (0:17)
* avisynth -> vfpai -> WMV 8 (0:25)

Can you please give me some feedbacks on my methodology to render/export and maybe some other ideas? I haven't checked quality yet of all outputs but I am doing this right now and will report back.

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/16/2003, 11:42 PM

I've found that everything I render to a low quality (non DVD or DV) had to be tested in several formats. I usually render in Mpeg-1, MOV, and WMV(8). I then compare file size and quality. Render time isn't import to me. I've found that none of those is the winner 100% of the time. Infact, I just rendered a file that was better in WMV format (and smaller) then the equivilent Quicktime. But, last week I renderd another clip in Quicktime that was the same size as but better quality them WMV and MP1. So... I should consider makign a script to render in several formats. You migh want to try that too. Then you could have your computer render 5-10 files and you can compare them in the morning.