wmv settings

Woodenmike wrote on 1/27/2014, 11:06 AM

Greetings Vegas users! I have a project to get out this week that is supposed to be uploaded to a competition for musicians with disabilities, and they have asked that it be delivered in wmv. I have 3 clips that are under 7 and a half minutes long, shot in widescreen SD that have to be in separate wmv files. Can i use any of the templates in the render as wmv drop down, and if so, should i change any of the settings in the "customize template" section for better quality.

I have done a PIP of my client playing a pipe organ with the over the shoulder view showing him at the keyboard, a static shot of his face in a small frame top right, and a static shot of his feet on the pedals in a small frame bottom left...i want to be sure the small frames read as clear as the full frame shot. I used track motion to create the small frame placements. Have not ever rendered to wmv before and just want to know from those who have what the optimal render settings should be/workflow, etc.

Comments

Laurence wrote on 1/27/2014, 11:30 AM

I have found that the WMV encoding from Vegas is as bad as it's H264 encoding. I get far better results rendering to 35Mbps XDcam mp4 (which is actually mpeg 2), then encoding that into WMV with the free Microsoft Expression encoder found here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=18974

The difference in quality, especially at lower bitrates, is similar to the difference of an H264 encoded with Handbrake rather than directly in Vegas.

Not that I'm picking on Vegas. Other NLE software like Premiere Pro or FCP is equally bad at rendering low bitrate versions.

There is also a paid version of the Expression encoder which I'm sure is even better, but I only have experience with the free version.

Woodenmike wrote on 1/27/2014, 12:27 PM

Thanks Lawrence...I'll do a test with your method and see how that looks. Right now, i'm having quality issues with the small frames done in the track motion and wonder if there is a better way to achieve that?

dxdy wrote on 1/27/2014, 2:03 PM

Track motion is always the last thing you want to use for downsizing. Use event pan/crop if you can instead.

Woodenmike wrote on 1/27/2014, 2:47 PM

Would I down size it in pan/crop and then place it in position in track motion?

Chienworks wrote on 1/27/2014, 4:40 PM

As long as you don't resize with track motion, that would work ok. However, it's not necessary. You can do it entirely in Pan/Crop. Drag the cropping border out larger to shrink the image, then drag it side-to-side/up-down to move where the image appears in the output frame.

Woodenmike wrote on 1/27/2014, 9:45 PM

Thanks for the help guys. I seem to remember trying to do something like this before (PIP) and tried using pan/crop and being able to get the clip re-sized, but only being able to drag it so far on the screen when it would disappear before getting to the edge of the screen. I just tried it now, and it works as explained, so not sure what i was thinking of. Thanks again!