Letting Vegas render for DVD from hi-def footage?

[Jeff Harper]

I always deliver weddings on Bluray and also give customers DVD versions of weddings.

I normally prepare the DVD version separately in Vegas. I have never ever allowed DVDA to render a project before.

I'm wondering how it would turn out to allow DVDA to render for me for DVD, it would save me time, and work, I imagine.

Any thoughts?

[Juris Lielpeteris]

Fast workflow with acceptable quality:
- changing Architect BD project settings to DVD;
- replacing all videos to rendered in SD by Vegas.
P.S. I use project and footages PAL 704x576 with pixel aspect ratio 1.4545

[Jeff Harper]

Your workflow is my current workflow, till I hear other wise I'll stick to it.

[Juris Lielpeteris]

I tryed this other workflow too but rendering a video for Architect in Vegas is faster and can use VBR include two pass for longer videos.

[Steven Reid]

Originally Posted by Jeff Harper

I always deliver weddings on Bluray and also give customers DVD versions of weddings.

I normally prepare the DVD version separately in Vegas. I have never ever allowed DVDA to render a project before.

I'm wondering how it would turn out to allow DVDA to render for me for DVD, it would save me time, and work, I imagine.

Any thoughts?

Yeah. You lose control over bitrate and the downsizing algorithm is not the best. DVDA is also slower. My workflow:

1. Render HD master from Vegas (Cineform avi for me).

2. Compress HD master to MPEG-2 in Vegas for Blu-ray.

3, Resize HD master to SD master (Cineform avi) in VirtualDub using Lanczos3 algorithm. Vegas does not have this algorithm.

4. Compress SD master to MPEG-2 in Vegas for DVD.

The steps are a few clicks and you can let Vegas and VD just render in the background while you perform other tasks. It's a time-honored and quality-tested workflow.

[Kevin Janisch]

Originally Posted by Steven Reid

Yeah. You lose control over bitrate and the downsizing algorithm is not the best. DVDA is also slower. My workflow:

1. Render HD master from Vegas (Cineform avi for me).

2. Compress HD master to MPEG-2 in Vegas for Blu-ray.

3, Resize HD master to SD master (Cineform avi) in VirtualDub using Lanczos3 algorithm. Vegas does not have this algorithm.

4. Compress SD master to MPEG-2 in Vegas for DVD.

The steps are a few clicks and you can let Vegas and VD just render in the background while you perform other tasks. It's a time-honored and quality-tested workflow.

I can attest to this workflow in terms of the downrez from HD to SD quality with VirtualDub vs using Vegas. Its remarkable how much better VirtualDub looks compared to Vegas downsizing. Do a quick comparison of the two with a test clip and you'll notice it immediately.

[Jeff Harper]

Thanks guys. I'll stick to my current workflow. I'm happy with the quality of my Blurays and DVDs as they are, just felt lazy and wanted to reduce the steps. Thanks for all of the tips.

[Peter Riding]

Originally Posted by Steven Reid

Yeah. You lose control over bitrate and the downsizing algorithm is not the best. DVDA is also slower. My workflow:

1. Render HD master from Vegas (Cineform avi for me).

2. Compress HD master to MPEG-2 in Vegas for Blu-ray.

3, Resize HD master to SD master (Cineform avi) in VirtualDub using Lanczos3 algorithm. Vegas does not have this algorithm.

4. Compress SD master to MPEG-2 in Vegas for DVD.

The steps are a few clicks and you can let Vegas and VD just render in the background while you perform other tasks. It's a time-honored and quality-tested workflow.

Steven, could you share the settings you use for your Cineform AVI template?

I've found that going HD to SD within Vegas Pro is has been decent since - I think - v10 and this has also been the experience of some colleagues. But I am shooting everything in 1920x1080p at either 50 or 25 and rendering for 16:9 so there is only so much that can go wrong :- )

However some of my master projects where I use multiple nested projects can take an extremely long time to render, especially if some of the nested projects have a high stills slideshow content.

So I'm looking to render each subproject to AVI and then make the finals from the AVI's ..... but without creating the gi-normous AVI files if possible.

I have been setting the Cineform codec to YUV 4:2:2 and the encoding quality to "Medium". The frame rate is 25 (I'm in PAL land), field order Progressive (all the clips are shot in progressive), Pixel Aspect 1, Interleave every 0.250 seconds, Render alpha channel, Create an open DML compatible file. Some of that I understand, some might as well be in Mardarin!

Pete

[Steven Reid]

Originally Posted by Peter Riding

Steven, could you share the settings you use for your Cineform AVI template?

I've found that going HD to SD within Vegas Pro is has been decent since - I think - v10 and this has also been the experience of some colleagues. But I am shooting everything in 1920x1080p at either 50 or 25 and rendering for 16:9 so there is only so much that can go wrong :- )

However some of my master projects where I use multiple nested projects can take an extremely long time to render, especially if some of the nested projects have a high stills slideshow content.

So I'm looking to render each subproject to AVI and then make the finals from the AVI's ..... but without creating the gi-normous AVI files if possible.

I have been setting the Cineform codec to YUV 4:2:2 and the encoding quality to "Medium". The frame rate is 25 (I'm in PAL land), field order Progressive (all the clips are shot in progressive), Pixel Aspect 1, Interleave every 0.250 seconds, Render alpha channel, Create an open DML compatible file. Some of that I understand, some might as well be in Mardarin!

Pete

Pete, I'm not sure that nesting will gain you anything. A render is a render. Perhaps I misunderstood your reason for nesting.

Since my projects often contain a lot of compositing, I keep Vegas in 32-bit color depth. Also, I preserve as much quality as possible using Cineform's Film Scan 1 setting, all others being what you listed, I believe, because I have multi-generational workflows. The CF setting might be overkill --"High" might be OK -- but I seldom work on a deadline (it's a hobby), so I don't usually mind long renders.

You think CF avi's are big?! Try Lagarith or another mathematically lossless codec. They're about 3x as large.

Also, do you really need an alpha channel? I haven't tested this, but you might save space if you don't render the alpha channel.

[Peter Riding]

Thanks Steven. I use nesting because my shows are typically between 1 and 2 hours in total and may contain a large number of stills with transitions in addition to clips from up to 4 video cams and several audio recorders and music tracks; the upshot of that is that an editing error could be disastrous if not spotted in good time so I prefer to have 5 or 6 independent projects to bring together in the master project.

I make a lot of use of transparent backgrounds with the stills in order to be able to position multiple images anywhere on the screen. I make the transparent backgrounds in a Photoshop batch action during the batch conversion of JPEGs to PNGs. So I reckon I need the alpha unless I've misunderstood.

When it comes to rendering, each nested project renders fine on its own but when I put them together it can slow right down to a crawl, especially with the stills projects. So the reason for doing an intermediate AVI would be to get all the heavy lifting out of the way one by one before bringing the 5 or 6 chapters together.

Using Cineform has become a moot point. Just tried my old template and v12 couldn't find a compatible codec. Neither could v11. I hate having to try and deal with Cineform support - with their ridiculous convoluted licensing and updating system (I have Cineform Neoscene but maybe Cineform Studio with the Gopro has messed it up).

Trying Lagarith now :- (

Pete

[Steven Reid]

Originally Posted by Peter Riding

Using Cineform has become a moot point. Just tried my old template and v12 couldn't find a compatible codec. Neither could v11. I hate having to try and deal with Cineform support - with their ridiculous convoluted licensing and updating system (I have Cineform Neoscene but maybe Cineform Studio with the Gopro has messed it up).

Trying Lagarith now :- (

Pete

Whenever I reinstall Windows, the thing I dread most is trying to get Cineform to work again. What keeps me coming back is the space savings since I rely heavily on making AVI masters of my projects. Anyway, sorry to hear of your travails.

Lagarith hasn't ever failed me. It just plain works. Big, but it works.