I have 1080 24p footage I want to put on a DVD. Since it does not need deinterlaced, etc, how will Vegas 11 do resizing it? I'd like to avoid conversion if possible.

I may just try it and see, but my TV is not reliable, so I don't trust what I see. (Need a new one)

I have to burn 24 copies, so I don't want to screw it up.

It should work fine. Make sure you set your "Video Rendering Quality" to "Best".

...Jerry

The AF100 DVD is comprised entirely of 1080 24p AVCHD footage rendered directly to 480 24p MPEG-2 for DVD from Vegas 10.

Older versions of Vegas had problems, but no longer.

I found Vegas does a very poor job downconverting HD to SD. I ended up downloading a program that converts hd footage to an uncompressed SD avi file. I then used DVD Architect to convert that to mpeg for DVD burning. The end result is pretty good. Far better than vegas IMO. It's been a while since I've used the program and I forget the name. When I get home tonight I'll post the name of it.

Thanks Jerry, David. I have rendered many 720p weddings for DVDs and they have all turned out extremely nice, they look nearly as good as the Bluray version, at least the closeups do; but I've been under the impression for along time (old info, I guess) that 1080 didn't do so well.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement guys.

Craig, maybe you're deinterlacing also? Could that be part of the problem? Or are you using an old version of Vegas?

You guys are right, the DVD looks outstanding. I'm using the same method I used for 720, I crop the footage on the timeline to fit 480 using Aspect Ratio script, so it reduces the work Vegas has to do, and it turned out perfect.

Didn't make it home last night to get the name of the software. Sorry. (but it was a good night!)

I've been using Vegas Pro 10, but just upgraded to 11 a couple of weeks ago, so i haven't tried downconverting 1080 to 480. I found v10 had horrendous aliasing. Even version 9. Maybe Sony fixed this with version 11. I hope so. Rendering HD to SD like I was doing took up to 8 hours for a two hour project.

craig, try cropping the footage on the timeline to 16:9 aspect ratio, use Aspect Ratio script if needed to do it all at once, then set project properties to sd 16:9 There should be no aliasing of any kind.

I wonder if you are deinterlacing when you shouldn't, or vice versa, but only you know that.

For me this morning it took 15 minutes for 1080 24p (one hour ten minute) project to render to SD, and it came out perfect for me, even though I added a 60i wrapper to the 24p footage. Project also had heavy color correction.

If you need the aspect ratio script let me know and I'll email it to you.

I found v10 had horrendous aliasing.

That's not what I've seen. V9 and previous, yes, but not V10.

even though I added a 60i wrapper to the 24p footage.

For DVD? No need. In fact, you really *shouldn't*.

Thanks for the tip Jeff. I'll try it this weekend

David, please explain. I just burned 25 of them! I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that for DVD the wrapper would ensure compatiblity.

I love these posts that prompt me to do a little research - it gives an old dog the opportunity to learn some new tricks.

First, it appears that DVD Architect does not have any native 24p options. In other words, if you are going that route, you must use the 60i wrapper. Edit: This statement is not true - read several posts down

However, the with the Tools->Burn Disc->DVD option directly from Vegas 11, you can create a native 24p DVD.

So, I ran a test creating a DVD using both procedures (starting with 1920x1080 60p footage). In both cases I used the default render settings. Both DVDs played great and both had excellent images on my i7 laptop and Samsung BDP1600 BluRay Player w/ Samsung LCD TV.

However, when I took the DVDs to my very old Toshiba SD-1800 DVD player connected a Sony Trinitron CRT TV, the 24p/60i DVD played smoothly with a great image. However, the native 24p DVD played for a few seconds, momentarily paused, then continued - almost like it was trying to catch up with its buffering. This could be because the video bitrate of the 24p/60i DVD was 6,176 kbps whereas the native 24p bitrate was 7,955 but who knows? The image quality was visually identical.

The bottom line... if it were me I'd go with the 24p in 60i wrapper - the safest choice.

Interested in hearing other opinions.
...Jerry

David, please explain. I just burned 25 of them! I thought, perhaps mistakenly, that for DVD the wrapper would ensure compatiblity.

Use the DVD Architect 24p DVD Widescreen template. You're putting in (60i) interlacing where there doesn't need to be any and compromising quality on progressive displays.

Any player can play a 24p DVD. The player itself will output a 60i stream if necessary. You don't have to put it in yourself.

@David,

How would you do this in DVDA? I can't find the 24p option.

...Jerry

David, so the worst case with my burned DVD is it won't look as good as it might? Having burned them that's all I care about at this point! I did use the setting you named but I modified it by choosing the add pulldown setting. For future reference your advice, if correct, is much appreciated, as I will be burning 24p wedding videos at some point.

Jerry, if you render 24p, and use the correct DVDA settings, (the one David listed) and if DVDA does not recompress your video, then it will be a 24p DVD or Bluray, there will be no wrapper.

Don't mess with the templates -- they're already optimized. The 24p template gives you everything you need to make a DVD which will play on any player. (The only thing you should ever change is the render quality to Best if you're resizing footage, but later versions of Vegas set it to that automatically anyway.)

If you want it to be 60i, just choose the NTSC template.

As it happens, if you changed the setting in the 24p DVD template, you probably didn't add any actual pulldown and the files probably aren't actually 60i.

David, it added pulldown. The finished mpeg is 29fps, and after thinking about it I can't imagine why it wouldn't look fine, even if it will not looks it's best. It is a dance recital and the quality will likely be much better than anything they've received in the past anyway.

We'll see after I get feedback. Main thing is that it plays.

David, One of the things I love about this stuff is continually learning new stuff. For some reason, I was under the impression that if you put media in DVDA's timeline that didn't match the DVDA project settings, then you would get a re-render.

However, I tested what you recommended - NTSC WS 720x480 60i DVDA project, 24p mpg on the timeline - works like a champ!

Thanks,
...Jerry

PS: I've put a correction in post #13

Jeff, if it works it works. Out of curiosity, though, if you take the MPG file and drop it into Vegas, what do the clip properties say the frame rate is?

David, by right clicking on the file itself and going to details a clips properties are displayed, and Windows sees it as 29fps. In Vegas the properties are greyed out. With match properties, Vegas sees it as 24fps. However, when it's rendered without pulldown windows sees it as 24fps.

Windows is reading the flags and interpreting it, which is why it says "29 fps." It's an esoteric point, but it's a 24p file. That "23.976+2-3 pulldown" selection (which is the default for the 24p DVD template) only adds the flags, not actual pulldown fields. That is the selection you want for a 24p DVD. If you give DVD Architect a 23.976 file with no flags, it'll have to re-render in order to add them.