Hmm, what's the best Quality compression method using Vegas 7?
 

Alright guys, I received my HV10 and she is very sexy!

My only problem is with compressing the video using Vegas 7. I'm not really getting great results and I was hoping some of you might have some "practical" advice for me (in other words..I'm not rich). :)

What's the best compression for Quality Visuals? The HDV raw footage is nice, but as we all know...the files are HUGE so compressing is a must, but I want to retain as much visual quality as possible. I would appreciate some advice from you guys as I have seen some nice stuff here on these boards.

I will be away for a few days for Christmas visiting my Wife's family so I'll check back here in a few days and see if you guys have some info for me to experiment with.

Many many thanks,
Brad

Isn't HDV raw footage the same data rate as DV footage (around 13 gigs an hour?)

I suppose, I'm not sure.

I'm just wanting to know what compression method is being used for some the HDV consumer samples I have been seeing.

Hi,

The HV10 records using MPEG2 at around 25Mbit/sec. This means that you can keep almost the same quality with half the bit-rate using advanced coding schemes (WMV9/H.264).

From what I've read, WMV9 (Also called VC-1) delivers almost the same quality per bit-rate as H.264. Microsoft claims the decoding takes about 1/3 of the processing power compared to H.264/AVC.

VC-1 is supported on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD so it's not proprietary standard today.

Vegas 7 supports both AVC & WMV9. I've encoded HV10 footage with WMV9 and got very good results with files about 1/2 of the original m2t. I'm using a PC and found out that on a PC, WMV support is better than AVC support.

Hope this helps,

E.S.

Oops, Double post.

Thanks Etan,

I will experiment with those settings.

BTW, I love Israel. I hope to visit there some day!

So far I kind of like H264 720p - 8-12 mbs, 59.94 fps using a decent de-interlacer (frame controls in compressor). The files are still huge with long render times though. I think the footage really dictates how much compression you can get away with, I'm not sure there is one setting that will work for everything.

Hmmm, I have QuickTime Pro, but I don't have access to the H264 codec.

H263 shows up as an option, but it looks awful after compression.

Funny thing is, sometimes after compressing with WMV 720 the file size is about the same or even larger.

Anyhow, thanks for the feedback. I'll keep checking back in if you guys have any more advice for me.

I'll be posting some of my sample shots after I get back form my trip to PA this week.

Thanks again guys.

Vegas 6d captures in M2T, conversion tools?
 

Vegas 6d supports HDV? But the captured files from the HV-10 are M2T files. What free conversion tools can be used to convert the raw M2T files into files recognised by Sony Vegas 6d? Is there a plug-in for Vegas 6d to utilize these M2T files as well?
Thanks,
Christo

Vegas7.0.1 I believe has the true M2T editing support including split-by-scene (using timestamp info.) Not sure what support previous versions have.

Ulead MSPro8 will render/transcode to WMV-HD also... but such transcoding is really slowww... I'm probably just going to leave in MPG2 HDV format, and rely on big harddrives to store raw video, and hope/wait for my HD S3 Tivo to eventually play back HD files from the PC over network (eg , HD network media extender/player)... I don't have any HD dvd players to play back WMV9 off a DVD-R yet anyway.