rendering options

vcalder wrote on 12/23/2009, 8:23 AM

I'm creating a video for viewing on both an older 4:3 TV and a HD 1080p flat-screen. I was planning to render two versions (if necessary?). I did the first one as MPEG2, DVDA NTSC (non-widescreen) template. The dvd looks great on the 4:3 TV, but not so good on the flat-screen (even using an upconverting DVD player and setting the TV so the picture is in 4:3 format).

If I decide to do a second render and make a DVD just to watch on the HD TV via an upconverting DVD player, is there a better render setting I should use, or am I just wasting my time? I did go ahead and render a version using the HD template, but I realized that when I take it into DVDA and burn it for viewing on a regular DVD player, the file will get compressed and may loose some quality. Bottom line question is this: Am I better off trying to use this HD rendered version (compressed) or another render using settings that will better match a 16:9 screen format?

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 12/23/2009, 8:45 AM

You haven't mentioned what your original source material is. Is your source HD? If not, then there's not much point in upconverting it yourself. Your player will probably do a much better job of it than Vegas can.

On the other hand, if you can only burn DVD and only have a DVD player then you're stuck with SD anyway. Uprezzing it to render in HD, then downrezzing it to burn a DVD, then uprezzing again in the player just seems like a huge waste. The additional steps can only degrade the image further.

If your material is at least widescreen then you could render a 16:9 SD MPEG2 file an d create a widescreen DVD. At least that would match the shape of the big TV.