Help Needed for Mastering film for Commercial Release at DVinfo.net

Gary Franks · June 28th, 2009, 12:42 AM

The distribution company that is about to release my film has asked for the video to be rendered in one of two files types...

AVI or DVCPro

I originally submitted to them the highest Resolution MPEG2 i could make with Vegas and it looked fantastic, and I set it to the highest bitrate to allow for compression. Hell I have even used this MPEG master in DVDA 5 and compressed it down to fit a DVD5 and it looked good, even with the compression, and this disc was used to project the film on a 40FT screen at many theaters throughout my region. So I was kind of skeptical about re-rendering the footage to their requests, but I had to fix some small glitches in the film that was discovered at the distribution house.

Ok first, Source Footage is DVX100B 24PA Material shot in 4:3 OPEN Matte then framed in post to 16:9 using the Pan Crop Function. When I rendered my MPEG 2 I got a nice looking 24P 16:9 WS master.

Project settings are all set for NTSC DV 24P with a project setting PAR of 0.909

I am using Sony Vegas 8.0b

When I render the AVI I get very bad interlacing throughout the film, which runs 89 minutes, That is using both the standard 24P NTSC DV and the 24P NTSC DV Widescreen presets.

Now, when I use the Intel 4:2:0 Video setting everything looks great, and I am able to covert that 4:3 footage into 16:9 by setting the PAR at 1.2121, but I am worried that the distributor may not be able to master the footage. Even I tried importing it into DVDA as a test and DVDA wouldn't recognize it, so this has me worried about the distributor.

So then I tried the Quicktime DV/DVCPro with the quality set to Best (31) and everything to 16:9 and the footage looks horrid, so I went for 4:3 letterbox, and again, it looked horrid.

So I am at a loss here. I am ready to just say hey, use the High BITRATE MPEG 2, the screener you watched was made with that master it you thought it looked great so whats the issue.

Or, can someone maybe help me work out this interlacing problem witht he NTSC DV AVI settings in Vegas.

Thanks in Advance for any solutions.

Paul Fierlinger · June 28th, 2009, 08:35 AM

Isn't this now the responsibility of the distributor? I would make my master available to them and have them deal with the variables and also what will come next, which is perhaps multiple copies and conversion for DVD distribution and perhaps conversion to mini beta tape for a festival... maybe even subtitles -- these are all conventionally the responsibility and financial obligations of the distributor.

Gary Franks · June 28th, 2009, 09:34 AM

Well they still have to make the Films master, I just have to give them the master of the film. Since I cannot afford to do a Digibeta, nor do I own or can rent one, Hence why I asked for the help.

They are allowing me to stick it on a Hard Drive, which is rare these days, all though more distributor seem open to it.

I figured I would ask the other Vegas users for some help.

So does anyone have a solution?

Bill Ravens · June 28th, 2009, 09:56 AM

In my humble opinion, no matter how good it looks, mpeg2 or mpeg4 is a horrible format to provide as a master. It will, invariably, need to be decompressed and recompressed to put it out to another format. I would suggest a high quaility digital intermediate as a master file. Take a look at Cineform or Bitjazz's SHEER codecs. Both are platform agnostic, and provide 4:2:2 10-bit if needed, altho' Vegas won't process in 10-bit.

Ken Plotin · June 28th, 2009, 10:11 AM

Gary,
If you shot 24PA and edited on a 24P timeline (set to progressive) the interlacing problem may be in the render settings. Are you sure you're rendering progressive? Are you re-inserting pulldown in the output? Rendering your master to uncompressed AVI should look really good if you have the disc space for that large file.

Ken

Gary Franks · June 28th, 2009, 12:16 PM

I was doing the DV Widescreen 24P render, because I wasn't sure how big the uncompressed file would be. Even with all my HDD space, I only had a combined free up of 72gb, well until my External Comes back. Once my external comes back i will have room.

The films runs 88 minutes, how much estimated space would I need for an uncompressed AVI? If I need 100gbs + I will just go buy another external, but the external i need to send to the distributor is only 500GB's and it has to fit the film and all the extras.

Gene Gajewski · June 28th, 2009, 09:28 PM

If you spring for Vegas 9, you could render to DPX, which is what I understand to be a common format for film transfer.

Paul Fierlinger · June 29th, 2009, 01:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gene Gajewski

If you spring for Vegas 9, you could render to DPX, which is what I understand to be a common format for film transfer.

I just recently completed an 82 minute film on 35 mm using Vegas Pro 8.c to create a PNG image sequence (in 5 reels). The result was super. It came to about $ 30,000 for filmout, $ 10.000 for theatrical Dolby license and $ 6,000 for rating. When you step out of the digital realm back to film, that's when you get reminded of what film making costs used to be like.

Gary Franks · July 1st, 2009, 07:21 PM

Not doing a film out transfer. Most of my theaterical showings have been digital, which is fine by me, just trying to get it rendered for the DVD distributor.

Gene Gajewski · July 2nd, 2009, 12:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gary Franks

Not doing a film out transfer. Most of my theaterical showings have been digital, which is fine by me, just trying to get it rendered for the DVD distributor.

It does sound a bit strange that the DVD distributor would want AVI or DVCPro, especially over MPEG-2.

Anyway - AVI is a wide open container which can use any of a number of different encoders - we really need to know what codec they expect or can accept within AVI files.

To get the absolute highest quality output, you'd need to go with something like the Cineform codec, or maybe the Lagarith codec. Lagarith has the benefit of being both free, and using lossless compression - if your distributor can handle this, this is the absolute best it gets (quality wise).

June 28th, 2009, 12:42 AM	#1
Gary Franks Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Location: Germantown, MD Posts: 46	Help Needed for Mastering film for Commercial Release The distribution company that is about to release my film has asked for the video to be rendered in one of two files types... AVI or DVCPro I originally submitted to them the highest Resolution MPEG2 i could make with Vegas and it looked fantastic, and I set it to the highest bitrate to allow for compression. Hell I have even used this MPEG master in DVDA 5 and compressed it down to fit a DVD5 and it looked good, even with the compression, and this disc was used to project the film on a 40FT screen at many theaters throughout my region. So I was kind of skeptical about re-rendering the footage to their requests, but I had to fix some small glitches in the film that was discovered at the distribution house. Ok first, Source Footage is DVX100B 24PA Material shot in 4:3 OPEN Matte then framed in post to 16:9 using the Pan Crop Function. When I rendered my MPEG 2 I got a nice looking 24P 16:9 WS master. Project settings are all set for NTSC DV 24P with a project setting PAR of 0.909 I am using Sony Vegas 8.0b When I render the AVI I get very bad interlacing throughout the film, which runs 89 minutes, That is using both the standard 24P NTSC DV and the 24P NTSC DV Widescreen presets. Now, when I use the Intel 4:2:0 Video setting everything looks great, and I am able to covert that 4:3 footage into 16:9 by setting the PAR at 1.2121, but I am worried that the distributor may not be able to master the footage. Even I tried importing it into DVDA as a test and DVDA wouldn't recognize it, so this has me worried about the distributor. So then I tried the Quicktime DV/DVCPro with the quality set to Best (31) and everything to 16:9 and the footage looks horrid, so I went for 4:3 letterbox, and again, it looked horrid. So I am at a loss here. I am ready to just say hey, use the High BITRATE MPEG 2, the screener you watched was made with that master it you thought it looked great so whats the issue. Or, can someone maybe help me work out this interlacing problem witht he NTSC DV AVI settings in Vegas. Thanks in Advance for any solutions. __________________ Panasonic DVX100B, INTEL Core 2 DU0 at 3.0ghz 2 TB HDD space, Sony Vegas 8.0B, 4gb of Ram

June 28th, 2009, 08:35 AM	#2
Paul Fierlinger Major Player Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Wynnewood, Pennsylvania Posts: 355	Isn't this now the responsibility of the distributor? I would make my master available to them and have them deal with the variables and also what will come next, which is perhaps multiple copies and conversion for DVD distribution and perhaps conversion to mini beta tape for a festival... maybe even subtitles -- these are all conventionally the responsibility and financial obligations of the distributor. __________________ Paul

June 28th, 2009, 09:34 AM	#3
Gary Franks Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Location: Germantown, MD Posts: 46	Well they still have to make the Films master, I just have to give them the master of the film. Since I cannot afford to do a Digibeta, nor do I own or can rent one, Hence why I asked for the help. They are allowing me to stick it on a Hard Drive, which is rare these days, all though more distributor seem open to it. I figured I would ask the other Vegas users for some help. So does anyone have a solution? __________________ Panasonic DVX100B, INTEL Core 2 DU0 at 3.0ghz 2 TB HDD space, Sony Vegas 8.0B, 4gb of Ram

June 28th, 2009, 12:16 PM	#6
Gary Franks Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Location: Germantown, MD Posts: 46	I was doing the DV Widescreen 24P render, because I wasn't sure how big the uncompressed file would be. Even with all my HDD space, I only had a combined free up of 72gb, well until my External Comes back. Once my external comes back i will have room. The films runs 88 minutes, how much estimated space would I need for an uncompressed AVI? If I need 100gbs + I will just go buy another external, but the external i need to send to the distributor is only 500GB's and it has to fit the film and all the extras. __________________ Panasonic DVX100B, INTEL Core 2 DU0 at 3.0ghz 2 TB HDD space, Sony Vegas 8.0B, 4gb of Ram

July 1st, 2009, 07:21 PM	#9
Gary Franks Regular Crew Join Date: May 2005 Location: Germantown, MD Posts: 46	Not doing a film out transfer. Most of my theaterical showings have been digital, which is fine by me, just trying to get it rendered for the DVD distributor. __________________ Panasonic DVX100B, INTEL Core 2 DU0 at 3.0ghz 2 TB HDD space, Sony Vegas 8.0B, 4gb of Ram

June 28th, 2009, 09:56 AM	#4
Bill Ravens Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: santa fe, nm Posts: 3,264 Images: 10	In my humble opinion, no matter how good it looks, mpeg2 or mpeg4 is a horrible format to provide as a master. It will, invariably, need to be decompressed and recompressed to put it out to another format. I would suggest a high quaility digital intermediate as a master file. Take a look at Cineform or Bitjazz's SHEER codecs. Both are platform agnostic, and provide 4:2:2 10-bit if needed, altho' Vegas won't process in 10-bit.

June 28th, 2009, 10:11 AM	#5
Ken Plotin Major Player Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 254	Gary, If you shot 24PA and edited on a 24P timeline (set to progressive) the interlacing problem may be in the render settings. Are you sure you're rendering progressive? Are you re-inserting pulldown in the output? Rendering your master to uncompressed AVI should look really good if you have the disc space for that large file. Ken

June 28th, 2009, 09:28 PM	#7
Gene Gajewski Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Edgewood, NM Posts: 162	If you spring for Vegas 9, you could render to DPX, which is what I understand to be a common format for film transfer.