tweaking the bit rate can make a huge difference, as jonathan suggested. have you tried that yet, ken?

if we can get some ideal settings for quality v. size for *both* the PC and the Mac--then i'll see if we can get a wrangler to make a sticky for us...that would solve a lot of heartache and make things a lot easier for future players.

if you folks experimenting can fix on the ideal settings for PC, can someone e-mail the results to me directly?

Well,

By taking it down to a bitrate of 200, I got it to 22MB per minute. The quality is not too bad but I'd be reluctant to go any lower. I think I would just target a slightly shorter film (of course you have to get your credits in too).

One thing for sure the workflow is nicer, by just rendering right out of Vegas.

Thanks Jonathan. I might look at the Vegas 7 upgrade.

Your welcome. I hope others will chime in on their MB per minute results from Vegas or other NLE's for that matter (along with corresponding settings.) It seems like a more practical solution than $499 for something that only does renders. Just my opinion.

And another suggestion to all who have the option... Always maximize the size of your file where possible by using every MB toward quality. If you are submitting a file that is smaller than 60MB you are loosing out.

-Jonathan

Just a note for those using Vegas 7.0e. I am getting much better results with .mov Sorenson 3 at the target 20MB per minute than I have been able to get with .wmv files. I was surprised at this so just thought I would pass it along.

-Jonathan

oh happy day! this may just be the equalizing answer we have been looking for!

thanks for all of your help with this, jonathan.

Audio problems.
 

I've just used Jonathan's video settings to render my UWOL#3 entry. The video quality is great.

Just getting a weird effect in the audio. I've lost the low frequencies and the high frequencies sound like they have a slight 'phaser' effect on them. Any ideas.

Here's my work flow:-

Recorded audio 16bit on Canon MV940
Clips edited in Vegas.
I added an extra audio track that I'd recorded 16bit on the XL2 last month.
Rendered to .avi (sound was fine)

Opened .avi
Rendered to .avi using Jonathan's settings (sound altered)

Grant

Problem solved. It was a audio compression artifact. I tried various methods of audio compression and eventually setted for muLaw 2:1 compression. It meant that I had to reduce the video bitrate from 325 to 310 but that didn't alter the quality too much.

UWOL3_gks_BetweenLandAndSea.mov has now been uploaded...

No sharks for me!