Selecting Rendering Options in Vegas Pro 16

Alan-Chitlik wrote on 9/20/2018, 12:29 PM

Hey there,

I have recently upgraded to Vegas Pro 16 and need help selecting the best rendering option for me.
Mostly, I'm editing .mp4 footage shot with my Samsung S7.

I am using a Sager laptop with 16 gigs of RAM and the processor is an Intel i7-6700HQ @ 2.60 GHz. My video card is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M.

My footage is 1920 X 1080 and I'm trying to render to that size.

How do I know if I want AVC or HEVC? And whether I want a non-descript version or Intel QSV or NVIDIA NVENC?

Will the quality of the end video potentially be different based on my selection? Or is it just a matter of how fast it renders?

Thanks so much for any insight. Alan

Comments

j-v wrote on 9/20/2018, 1:07 PM

What is it that you can't test it for yourself and your goals with small parts of a video?

NickHope wrote on 9/20/2018, 6:56 PM

What are you planning to do with your rendered video?

Alan-Chitlik wrote on 9/20/2018, 7:15 PM

Hi Nick. So I'm a wedding DJ. Because most of my couples don't hire videographers, I typically put my phone on a tripod and capture moments like the ceremony and toasts for them. And then I use Vegas to merge those videos with the sound that I've captured from the soundboard. (And perhaps do some light video editing, like cropping.)
So I want to give them an .mp4 file that they can do whatever they want with. I assume most will view it on their computers, but if they want to burn it onto a Blu-Ray, I want to give it to them in the same quality that my phone takes it. Does that make sense?

Alan-Chitlik wrote on 9/20/2018, 7:20 PM

j-v, maybe the best comparison that I can give you is buying an automobile. Someone CAN go for test drives and select a car based on just that. And, yes, I could test render and select based on just that. But, just as I would want more information before choosing between different cars, I'd like to understand the differences between the different rendering options to help me make a decision.

karma17 wrote on 9/21/2018, 1:28 AM

Yeah, I'd say to shoot some test footage and play it on the biggest screen you can find. I'd also recommend playing all the samples you are comparing with a mirror split or something like this:

so you can look for any qualitative differences. If you watch them separately, sometimes it is hard to tell unless you are just staring at the same spot in each video.

Grazie wrote on 9/21/2018, 2:23 AM

@karma17 : Great work! Really well done. Would you be able to add scopes to the comparisons?

Well, to my aged eyes, I’d say the middle option. Detail in the fine shadows is better and the whites don’t appear blown, skin tones look “natural” and the blacks are less crushed. As I said, having Scopes would be really neat.

And again, great work - thank you.

NickHope wrote on 9/21/2018, 2:30 PM

I wouldn't give them HEVC yet. It's generally tougher to decode and the compatibility is still too limited.

The AVC options are all a trade off between quality, file size, speed of encoding, and ease of decoding. Hardware encoding such as QSV, NVENC, VCE, CUDA may make the speed of encoding faster (that's the point), but can damage the quality compared to software-only encoding.

The MAGIX AVC/AAC MP4 template that matches your original footage format is a good start. Personally I would leave the encode mode at Mainconcept AVC (i.e. software-only encoding) unless render speed is really important to you.

If you want them to be able to burn the file directly to Blu-ray, that limits your options in terms of formats. See the Blu-ray tempates for MAGIX AVC/AAC MP4.

There is an FAQ post, somewhat outdated, on improving the quality of AVC renders: https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/faq-how-can-i-improve-the-quality-of-my-avc-h-264-renders--104642/ It's written mainly from the viewpoint of improving renders for subsequent upload to YouTube etc., rather than direct playback by a client. You have to be more careful about compatibility in that situation, and may have to dumb down some settings if you don't want customers to have problems with playback. I started a thread about that here, as I am intending to sell downloads of my own soon.