What am I doing wrong in this render?
 

Ok, here is the deal. I am using Vegas 8 pro and am having ALL kinds of problems in rendering. I have a video file that I have ripped off of one of my dvds onto my hardrive as an AVI file (Mpeg4 highest quality). I dropped it into my timeline and edited it. Then I went to render it and when I play it on my computer it looks good. but, when I burn it to DVD, it looks terrible, pixelated, etc...

Here are the settings. Please HELP!

IN PROPERTIES:
NTCS 720X480
PROGRESSIVE SCAN
LOWER FIELD
.9091 PIXEL ASPECT RATION
8 BIT PIXEL FORMAT
BEST RENDERING QUALITY
GAUSSIAN MOTIN BLUR
BLEND DEINTERLACE

RENDERING SPECS:
VIDEO RENDERING QUALITY: BEST
OUTPUT TYPE: DVD
FRAME RATE: 29.970
4:3 ASPECT RATION 720X480
I FRAMES: 15
B FRAMES:2
PROFILE AND LEVEL ARE AT MAIN
QUALITY SLIDE BAR IS AT MAX
FIELD ORDER: LOWER FIELD FIRST
INSERT SEQUENCE HEADER BEFORE EVERY GOP IS CHECKED
VARIABLE BIT RATE IS CHECKED WITH 9.5BPS MAX, 6.0 AVERAGE


WHAT ARE THE RIGHT SETTINGS TO BURN A MPEG2 FOR A DVD?

Hi Jim

First of all you mention your ripped the DVD to an AVI but then say (MPEG4 Highest Quality)
Is the file an AVI or an MPEG4 ...Is the AVI uncompressed also??? A compressed AVI will give shocking quality when re-rendered to MPEG2.

I suspect your problem is in your source file for starters!! In project propertiesw try loading the project properties by using the "Match Media" function in the project properties window. That way Vegas will tell you what it considers the file to be. If the file was on a DVD it would be interlaced so you don't need to de-interlace at all...Vegas will do that for you!!

To render simply select MainConcept MPEG2 and use the DVD NTSC preset and as long as the source file is not rubbish your rendered file will be great.

However I do suspect that you have a 'garbage-in/garbage-out' problem as the source file is the issue!!

Chris

Re: Problems
 

Why convert? Just copy the .vob files from dvd to your hard drive and change the extension to .mpg - no converting is needed.

Let me know if this helped.

Tom

PROGRESSIVE SCAN
LOWER FIELD

Can't be lower field if it's progressive...

Coming from a DVD it would be Interlaced...

MediaInfo - Download

Install the above and after that you can right click any video file and get information on it.

VARIABLE BIT RATE IS CHECKED WITH 9.5BPS MAX, 6.0 AVERAGE

That can be a problem too. 9,500,000 is the max 6,000,000 is the average, and if you left it default then the min is 192,000 which will give you a lot of nasty compressed bits.

Try a CBR (Constant Bit Rate) setting of 9,200,000 or so.

Try a CBR (Constant Bit Rate) setting of 9,200,000 or so.

It's been recommended on numerous Vegas forums to never exceed a CBR of 8,000,000.
The primary reason is that cheap media and cheap players can quite often choke on bit rates that are too high.
I use a CBR of 8,000,000 for any program that is under 70 min. long.
Any longer and I use the VBR settings from this bitrate calculator:
http://www.johncline.com/bitcalc110.zip
BTW, I ignore any recommendations it makes for a bitrate higher than 8M and I've never had a return yet (more than 5 years and more than a few thousand DVDs).

Mike,

For some reason I'm remembering reading 9,200,000 as the max-out point for cheap hardware... Am I hallucinating here?

I am sure you've delivered many more projects than I have, but I know people have run my stuff on cheap hardware with no problems. I guess you just never know.

Actually, 9,200,000 bps is the maximum bitrate for replicated, not burned, DVD media for compatibility with older or cheaper hardware. Since most burned DVD media has lower reflectivity than factory-pressed/mastered (replicated) DVD media, a lower 8,000,000 or even 6,500,000 bps is advised.

Gotcha. Makes sense, thanks!