What Encoder Used By Architect

drisley wrote on 9/21/2003, 12:09 AM

Just curious, I usually use Vegas 4.0 to pre render my video files to Mpg2.
I understand that Vegas uses the Mainconcept encoder, but what encoder does DVD Architect use?

Sometimes I like using Architect for my workflow. Just wondering if the encoder is the same as Vegas.

Comments

kentwolf wrote on 9/21/2003, 12:32 AM

Both Vegas and DVD-A use the same Mainconcept MPG2 encoder.

drisley wrote on 9/21/2003, 3:25 AM

Thanks alot kentwolf.
That's great news.

terryleier wrote on 9/22/2003, 11:20 PM

I have a followup question on this.

How do you set the quality level for the DVDSA render. The DVDA preview emulator has 4 quality levels (Best, High, Medium and Low) which only really affect what you see in the preview window.

I have a low quality issue with the video rendered by DVDA on the menu pages. I've got a video sequence from Vegas that scolls through a newspaper article. The columns of text end up being about 6 TV screens. A movie of this is not too helpful because the reader will want to pace the pages to their reading speed.

When I render the video in Vegas, the text comes out perfectly on good or best render. The Vegas rendered files of each page (I've rendered them in AVI and MPG, to try all the angles) are put on separate menu pages in DVDA so each page will have the forward arrow to get to the next page. The next page begins with a pan/scan from where the reader is down to the next screen ful of text. The menu loops at the end of the video giving a still page the reader can digest at their own pace. When the next page is wanted, the reader presses enter or forward arrow to get to the next page etc.

The problem is the text is poor quality and difficult to read from the menu page DVDA produces. As I said, the Vegas version is great, but never pauses. I realize the Vegas produced video has to be recompressed in DVDA to get the "arrow" image in the corner and set up the substream for the button highlight. To avoid DVD recompress and keep the original quality of the mpg, I even rendered the menu arrow graphic in the Vegas mpg video file and told DVDA to show nothing for a button (in DVDA I did use the rectangle higlight in the area of the button render to get the button highlight substream business). Since the substream for the button highlighting is merely a DVD player overlay, this substream should not force a recompress of the video file that it is a substream of. But, alas it does.

How can I set the DVDA mpg encoding to match the options in Vegas? If I can't, is there any way of rendering a menu page video that bypasses DVDA encoding?

Any help thoughts would be appreciated.

kentwolf wrote on 9/23/2003, 7:06 PM

>>How can I set the DVDA mpg encoding to match the options in Vegas?

The place you can set encoding settings in DVD-A is in the "optimize" dialog.

>>If I can't, is there any way of rendering a menu page video that
>>bypasses DVDA encoding?

It is my understanding that if the video is already MPG2 encoded, DVD-A will not reencode. Try this by setting up your project, then, go to the Make DVD/Prepare DVD dialog. Look at the messages and it will tell you if thus and such clip is being recompressed (reencoded).