So can I make a 1920x1080 project (for the menus) but have all features in 640x480i? And what's the best settings for taking an avi in h.264/aac (that needs to be reincoded because in the original file, the audio is not synced and I cut them multiple times) and rendering it in movie studio 14 in BD format for my project? How do I determine what bitrate to render my files in? Why isn't this automatic?

And I'm not one of /those/ people who confuses Mb/s for MB/s.

......BD format for my project ?

Which project in which program?

What are the projectsettings in that project for that program?( f.i. avc or mpeg2)
Those projectsettings are important for the decision how to render in VMS 14.
VMS 14 cannot make a BD with menu.

I have Vegas movie studio platinum 14 and it includes DVDA 7 which the menus are in.

DVDA project settings: 1920x1080 AVC with PCM audio. 23.976 fps

All my original media files are 640x480i 29.97 fps AVC/AAC.

I'm not trying to make a blu ray with menus or any blu ray in VMS 14 (I'm using DVDA 7 for menus and VMS 14 for editing/rendering files). I'm having an issue with what the perfect bit rate is and how to determine that.

Yes, I'm rendering the edited videos as BD compatible files (Sony AVC and Sony wave64) and putting them into DVDA 7 where I make the menus.

The summary of what I want is that I want the perfect best quality bitrate for each video so I can get as many remastered tapes onto each BD disc. I don't know how to find this for my files and I don't want unnecessarily high bitrates as that means less videos per BD.

What am I doing that's not for what design? I'm encoding a video only file and an audio only file, both BD compatible, in VMS14, and putting those into DVDArchitect 7. What I do works and they play in BD players but I am basically guessing at what bitrate I need for each file and I want my work to be of quality.

Are you telling me that VMS can't use smart render or something - where my source file is already AVC/AAC - so I don't have to guess for bitrates?

The summary of what I want is that I want the perfect best quality bitrate for each video so I can get as many remastered tapes onto each BD disc. I don't know how to find this for my files and I don't want unnecessarily high bitrates as that means less videos per BD.

For the perfect best quality only the max possible bitrate is sufficient. Less bitrate will always be a compromise between quality loss and available space. When you will see the quality loss we cannot predict and is also strong depending on how much movement, details and noise there's in your video. This means a good bitrate for a video with less motion and details will be not enough for a video with lots of details and motion. So you have to do some testing to find out which bitrate satisfies your quality requirements.

Also, I would never use a BD as storage medium for archiving remastered tapes. I would store them on a Harddisk in mp4 (h.264 or h.265) and use Handbrake for the conversion. With Handbrake you determine which quality you need and Handbrake computes the needed bitrate according the complexity of the video. Handbrake is for free, very fast and delivers perfect quality at minimal bitrates.

Thank you for that answer. I've been asking the wrong questions or in the wrong way. And I remaster tapes for friends and and give them blu ray compilations of them. I do keep my archives in h264 and since I recently found out about the wonders of h265 it's great for my storage space. The thing is that I can't exactly give them hard drives of their tapes or even data files on DVDs of their tapes because they're not usually computer savvy. Blu rays are just easy for them: make pretty menus with scene selections and perhaps photo slideshows if they had pictures of the events, too - buy some viva elite BD cases and print a nice cover and print onto printable white top BD discs and it's a pretty good thing for them. The problem isn't for me, it's for them.

The best way to find out is to do a test with a short piece of video yourself. I suspect Cornico's suggestion of 10 Mbps is about right. I used 15Mbps CBR when I converted some PAL SD to 1080 but it was probably an overkill. But I wasn't concerned about file size. Do a test run with 6, 10 and 15 to see how the quality varies. In SD DVD days 8Mbps was the tops with mpeg2 codec. AVC (mpeg4) is apparently much more efficient so its equivalent may be as low as 6 Mbps. Also bear in mind that bitrates are measured per sec so are independent of frame rate or image pixel size. But obviously the larger the image the greater the number of bits needed for best quality. But in your case your starting source is only 640x480 and you say they are AVC. What is the video bitrate of these AVC files?

..so I can get as many remastered tapes onto each BD disc. I don't know how to find this for my files and I don't want unnecessarily high bitrates as that means less videos per BD.

Upscaling 640x480 to 1920x1080 is just the opposite of what you want to achieve. I would start testing with upscaling to 720x480 (which is also bluray standard) at 4mbps.

What is the video bitrate of these AVC files?

Anywhere from 800 Kb/s to 3500Kb/s.

I like his suggestion of 4mb/s. The question is can DVD architect 7 have 640x480 media in a 1920x1080 project? (for menus). I do have some blu rays with special features that have a 1080 menu and main feature with 480 clips and my TV actually reports switches resolution to 480.

The question is can DVD architect 7 have 640x480 media in a 1920x1080 project?

Try it!

With me it's impossible. All the video get the pixel dimensions of the projectsettings.

When you bring in 640x480 media it will be rerenderd to 1920x1080.
 

Then how are there 720x480 media files on commercial 1920x1080 BD menus? If I examine the files on those discs they are not 1920x1080, they're 720x480 4:3 and the main feature is 1920x1080 16:9

That's because 720x480 is the NTSC DVD image size with stretched/squashed pixels. Under the blue ray specs if they are compatible they will go on a BR disc without recompression. The vob files from a DVD can be used this way.

That's because 720x480 is the NTSC DVD image size with stretched/squashed pixels. Under the blue ray specs if they are compatible they will go on a BR disc without recompression. The vob files from a DVD can be used this way.

Since 640x480 was an older DVD standard would that work as well? Would I encode them as mpeg2 or would DVDA pick up on an AVC in 720 or 640 without re-encoding to 1920x1080? Is there a guide for my odd situation somewhere with multiple formats on a BD?

Sorry for my mistake.

With me it's impossible. All the video get the pixel dimensions of the projectsettings.

When you bring in 640x480 media it will be rerenderd to 1920x1080.

Earlier in this topic I was wrong because I did not use the right SD template for BD

I tried another time with this customized SD NTSC template

together with a HD NTSC template

In the made 1920x1080 BD iso both kept their pixel dimensions

Thank you so much, my friend.