Vegas Video discussions from 2005 (Q1Q2)

[Edward Troxel]

First question: WHERE are you seeing this?

Second question: WHAT is your final output destination?

[Philippe Gosselin]

I can't believe I missed it

Thanks for the heads up Rob

Phil

PS: As soon as you make a decision for the LadyX let me know cuz am in :)

[Rob Lohman]

Why would Sony need to make this work? They didn't make the
program/plugin. Isn't Winmorph supposed to work as a plugin
for Wax instead of Vegas (directly)?

[Albert Rodgers]

1. I see this (horizontal lines through hands during fast movement) when I do a selective prerender in avi format and playback at Best on preview monitor.

2. The final destination is onto a DVD.

[Michael Wisniewski]

Check to see if you're mixing aspect ratios.

I've gotten severe shearing/blurring when I've shot 16:9 video and output using a 4:3 template.

[Kim Kinser]

supposed to? yes/ Does it? nope Unless someone here has made it go and can enlighten me

[Glenn Chan]

1-
If your target format is video DVD (for playback on TVs, not computer monitors):
A- I *highly* recommend you connect a TV to your edit system. A TV will be a lot closer to what your video looks like than what you see on a computer monitor.

Computer --> firewire cable --> camcorder/deck (set to convert DV-->analog) --> A/V cable --> TV/monitor (set it on the right input).

In Vegas, click on the TV icon.

If you've never done this before I highly highly recommend this as you can spot problems like overscan, chroma crawl, interlace flicker, etc. before they occur.

B- Play back your video and watch it on your TV. Does your footage look smooth?

C- If you'd like, you could de-interlace the footage. Watch the results on your TV. It shouldn't make that much of a difference for TV viewers. Motion will not be as smooth, and resolution may be lower depending on your de-interlace method. There may be advantages for people who are watching the DVD on a computer.

[Edward Troxel]

The reasons for my question were:

If the source is interlaced, and the destination is interlaced, then you may as well leave it interlaced. If you are looking at interlaced video on the computer monitor, it will NOT look the same as it does on an interlaced TV. The suggestion to preview on an external monitor is a good one and will give you a better representation of what the final result will look like.

[Philippe Gosselin]

Hi all,


So I just rendrered my latest project with divx pro , it is 2:30 and the size comes up to 90 meg...

I've been watching some videos lately from a company that makes the same kind of stuff that I do and they manage to put a 640x480 4:30 in just a 60 meg file using Mpeg.

I've played with all kinds of codecs and so far divx is the one that is really comes out the most beautiful. Is there any trick then , like maybe rendering to a regular uncompressed file and encoding it in Tmpge or any other program. What could these guys have used to get such results.

My project will be web-based so it can't be 90 meg.

Thanks for your time :)

Phil

[Emre Safak]

If it is Web-based, resize it to 320x240 if you want streaming video. You should easily be able to get away with a bit rate of 500kbps. For a 2:30 clip that means 150s x 500 kb/s = 9MB

If you want really want full-frame, aim for 1Mbps - 1.5Mbps. For a 2:30 clip that means 20-30 MB.

"Where did I go wrong?" you ask. You probably did not control the bit rate. Be sure to use two passes since size is of the essence.

[Emre Safak]

Since my sound card has a low-grade mic input, I want to use my camcorder to capture live audio (in other words, not from tape.)

Is it possible to use Vegas to capture only audio so I do not use excessive disk space?

[Philippe Gosselin]

Hi Emre,


Thanks for the answer

So , would it be possible to explain , in a nutshell, that pass thing , can't seem to find any "english" definition

So how low can the bitrate be before one starts to loose quality...

In the example that I use , the guys used mpg , would you suggest the same, if so would you suggest rendering it in mpg or rendreing it raw and encode it in mpg with another program.

Thanks for your time

[Emre Safak]

Oh yes, I would always recommend multi-pass encoding, if time allows it.

With DivX (aka MPEG-4 SP) I shoot for roughly 0.2 bits / (pixel *second) if I want high quality. For low quality, 0.1 bits / (pixel * second). For NTSC DVD resolution you are looking at 1-2 Mbps. Obviously, If you reduce the resolution (recommended practice for Web distribution), you can reduce the bit rate. Ideally you should compress a representative clip of your video to determine the ideal bit rate (aka, "perform a compressibility test".)

There is a new standard called H.264 (aka MPEG-4 AVC) that is even more efficient than DivX, but the software is still maturing, so I would give them a bit more time before using them.

I can not give you a step-by-step guide to multi-pass encoding in the limited space, so let me refer you to divx.com support.

[Edward Troxel]

Without using the soundcard and staying strictly with firewire you have a couple of options:

1) Capture with Vegas with video, render the audio to a separate file, and delete the original file.

2) Get Scenalyzer Live which can capture audio-only over firewire.

[Emre Safak]

So it is possible, but not with Vegas, it appears.

Is it possible to monitor the audio levels while doing a live recording?