Some flash and audio questions

illusory wrote on 5/10/2011, 10:19 PM
I'm trying to figure out the best route to get flash videos onto DVD with as little loss in quality as possible. I'm using Vegas Movie Studio and DVD Architect.

Since VMS won't load flash files, I am converting them to mpeg 2 with another program, which puts the audio into ac3. The resulting mpg files will work in DVDA without re-encoding again. But, strangely, if I put this file through VMS, and export the audio and video separately, using compliant formats, the result on the DVD (when burned in DVDA) seems to sound better. I generally save the audio as a wav. But it started out as ac3....

Is this my imagination or what is going on here? It also sounds better (for sure), if I'm editing vob files and export the audio as wav.

What's the best approach for getting music performances which were originally in flash format, onto DVD, with the quality intact, especially audio.

And if something is edited from a vob file, is it worth saving the audio as a wav, or just go with ac3? DVDA says it is not re-rendering the audio with either of these formats, but i find that hard to understand, especially when there is a mix of ac3 and wav on the same DVD...???

Any light anyone can shed on this will be appreciated!

Comments

Steve Grisetti wrote on 5/11/2011, 5:30 AM
Flash is a tough format to use as source footage.

But if you can convert to good quality MPEG2s, they could make good source video for DVD Architect -- which works with MPEGs natively.

Vegas Movie Studio, on the other hand, uses a different workflow. The ideal format for working in Vegas (as with most PC-based video editors) is the 720x480 DV-AVI.

Since you always want to minimize the number of conversions of any file, converting to a DV-AVI would be your best choice for creating video for Vegas Movie Studio.

(Though, technically, the BEST solution would be not to record in Flash format in the first place. Do you not have the option of recording in an editable DV format?)
illusory wrote on 5/11/2011, 11:17 AM
What I'm doing is assembling music performances from a variety of sources, including youtube (which is flv) and bits ripped from our own DVDs and old VHS. We enjoy having our own custom music DVDs to show, and be able to pick whatever we want to watch and listen to at a given time. So we have menus that list each piece, etc. But we don't want the quality to degrade in the process.

So far I'm only using Vegas Movie Studio to prepare compliant files to use in DVDA, so that they wont reconvert yet again once they are burnt to DVD in DVDA. So DV-AVI wouldn't be the right choice for this use, since DVDA will reconvert it.

Speaking of which -- which is the best to convert mpeg2s (or vob) to, for use in DVDA to burn DVDs without further conversion -- NTSC DV (740x480) or NTSC Standard (740x486)?

And which is the best to convert audio to for this same purpose -- .wav or .ac3?

thanks,
NJ
Steve Grisetti wrote on 5/11/2011, 1:20 PM
If you're putting the video into Vegas Movie Studio, even just to prepare it for DVD Architect, your best choice is 720x480 DV-AVI.

Then, when you are ready to output from Vegas MS, you choose Make Movie and Burn to DVD/BluRay and let the program choose the best settings.

If you want to manually create this video for use in DVD Architect, the specs are 720x480 MPEG2s (DV standard) using AC3 sound. DVD Architect will be able to convert that video to VOBs (which are, essentially MPEG2s) without re-encoding or recompressing it.