Reminder: Free VASST DVD prep file creation script

Laurence wrote on 11/23/2010, 8:05 PM
Since there have been several recent threads about how to make an SD DVD from an HD project, I thought I would re-post a link to the excellent VASST DVD Prep script:

http://store.vasst.com/store/vasst-freeware/dvdprep.aspx

To make a DVD using DVD Architect, download and install the above script.

Go into your project properties and make sure that you have selected either "blend fields" or "interpolate". If you are going from 60i HD to 60i SD it doesn't matter which one you choose, since you are not actually deinterlacing. This switch will just set Vegas into the mode where it will resize interlaced footage correctly.

The DVD prep script will generate two files: an mpeg 2 video file and an AC3 audio file. Put them into a folder where you will be able to find them when you need them. It is important that both files are in the same folder.

Now insert the mpeg 2 video file into your DVD Architect project. DVDA should automatically find the AC3 file and use it.

This script will avoid most of the simple mistakes that many beginners make.

Comments

Laurence wrote on 11/23/2010, 8:19 PM
If you're running this script and you'd like to improve your SD DVDs a little, there are some extra steps you can take.

1/ Go into all your titles text properties and make sure that none of your text primary colors go above 235. Vegas defaults with a white of 255 which is too bright. White on a DVD or Blu-ray disk should be 235,235,235: no brighter.

2/ Keep your titles and animated photos on track that are separate from your video clips. Most of the time when you see twitter on an old CRT, it's on titles with fonts with fine detail, or on animated high resolution photographs. You can get around this by choosing video friendly fonts or by adding a little horizontal blur on these tracks for DVD renders. Blu-ray renders don't need this. Remember that twitter is only a problem on older CRT TVs and there are fewer and fewer of them. None are being manufactured anymore. The twitter you lose on these old sets will come at a price of less sharpness on newer flatscreen 16:9 sets. You may well just decide to not worry about twitter on the older sets. Only worry about this on 60i or 50i projects.

3/ Any animated photos are going to look too contrasty on a DVD or Blu-ray disk because they are in cRGB color space which is different than the sRGB space of the video. If you are going to be making a DVD, I would add a cRGB to sRGB color correction filter on any tracks that have photographs on them. Make sure that these track only have photos: no titles or video.

4/ Where the generated media tracks can be too sharp for a DVD, often the video tracks won't look sharp enough after they are downrezzed. To get around this, add a Sony sharpening filter with a value of zero on any video tracks. Some people recommend putting this filter on each individual video event, but I can't see any advantage of this over just putting the filter on the tracks no matter how hard I squint.

5/ When adjusting colors on a computer monitor, be aware that what you're seeing and what you will get after a DVD render are not the same. The computer monitor is in cRGB color space but your television is in sRGB color space. What I do is put a sRGB to cRGB color corrector on my master video bus and enable it if I'm adjusting color on video tracks or events. I put it into bypass when I render though. This isn't as good as the calibrated monitors and cards that some of the real pros here use, but if you are just using regular computer gear, it will put you in the ballpark. I edit on a laptop, so I use this trick all the time.

6/ This is so rare now that it's probably not worth bringing up, but I do it anyway so here goes...

Some old TVs and active AV source switchers will freak out and lose sync when they run into a black with RGB values of less than 16,16,16. I ran into this most recently about two years ago with an active AV input switcher from Walmart, and some older TVs suffer from this as well. Anyway, to avoid this and to keep your colors within the sRGB range, you can add an additional track beneath the rest of your tracks a put a track with a solid media generator generated track of 16,16,16 black. This will show up any time your video goes to black and give you that "almost but not quite black" black that you see in any professionally produced DVD. It will keep your fade to black level at the same amount of blackness that your blackest shot video blacks will be. Is this important? Frankly, I don't think most small time video content makers pay any attention to this at all, but you'd be hard pressed to find a DVD at Blockbuster or Netflix that doesn't have 16,16,16, blacks.

After doing the steps in this post, you can just run the VASST DVD Prep script and your results should be pretty darned good.