So what your saying is that "prepare" time was the audio being converted to AC-3? I think I found a setting to make it use WAV though. Say if everything is set (in other words the MPG2 is compliant and the audio is as well- with no need to re-render) when you go to burn the disc should it still take ten minutes or so before actually beginning to burn? Does creating the Video and Audio TS folders, etc take that long to build?

<<<-- Originally posted by Glen Elliott : Does creating the Video and Audio TS folders, etc take that long to build? -->>>

Doesn't sound out of line. The audio and video have to be multiplexed together to create the large VOB files.

For the very first DVD, DVD-A appears to manipulate the MPEG-2 and audio files you've provided, into the appropriate burnable files. But it won't re-render proper files. These new files go in a temp directory. Once you've done this, you can do successive burns without repeating this step, and your throughput will be higher. That's why if you want to do a burn of a totally new DVD, it asks you if you want to overwrite the exisiting project files in the temp directory.

> Does creating the Video and Audio TS folders, etc take that long to build?

For a full DVD, yes, it can. It has to basically copy your source files and mux them into the .VOBs that get burned onto the DVD.

10 mins seems a little long though, it's usually 3-4 mins for me. The time difference was probably what someone mentioned above, converting your .wavs to AC3. Save some HD space, use AC3, nobody will be able to tell the difference.

In response to Edward's question, looking to speed up (reduce) rendering time.

Rendering time is all about CPU clock speed.

You can get a very marginal increase in speed from lowering your RAM timings. You have to do this through your motherboard's BIOS. There is a certain point where the quality of your RAM will limit how low you can go (system stability is affected). Quality RAM may let you achieve lower timings but it is likely not worth it. You can get a marginal increase in speed by running 4 sticks of single-sided RAM (same brand) instead of 2 sticks of RAM, but that probably isn't worth it either.

Is your Pentium processor a hyperthreading one? The newest Pentiums have a faster front side bus speed and hyperthreading, both which should speed up rendering. Unfortunately, you would need to pay for new RAM, processor, and possibly motherboard.

Another possibility for improving system performance is overclocking your system. You could get around 15%-50% improvement in system performance depending on how far you go without compromising system stability. If your motherboard allows it try running a 5:4 memory divider and running prime95 (free download) overnight to test system stability. Running the 5:4 memory divider will increase CPU speed by 25% and decrease RAM performance by a bit. There are some cheap improvements you can make to increase system performance further (or to get your computer stable if for some reason this change makes it unstable). The cheapest improvement is properly applying a tube of Radio Shack heat sink grease ($4?).

To speed up rendering you need:

1) A faster CPU
2) A faster hard drive
3) Faster busses between the various components.

IMO VCD is a little better then VHS ( no scan lines, white spec's) .. i use it often for works in progress as i do NOT want persons to have higher quality till project is finished .

also many commercials i've worked on i (also clients) view different edits on the web ( they post 352x240 mpeg1 ).

mpeg 1 plays pretty much on any computer and i have found VCD play in most DVD players.

we just sent out 30 SVCD's and 30 mpeg2/mpeg1/wmv9 data Cd's. 23 persons said they could not view SVCD on home DVD player ,
14 could not view mpeg 2 on computer ... 1 could not view mpeg 1, 17 could not view wmv9 ...

If you're not after auto play or menus, you can use CD for demos by creating WMV files at the original frame size. Try the 3 Mbps setting if space allows.

They will play in Media player, Alt/Enter makes them full screen and they can look fabulous.

If you use WMV9, viewers will need the latest Media Player, downloadable from MS.

Personally I'd swap 2 & 3 if you are talking the SYSTEM bus here
(not IDE bus like UATA 133 etc.). Faster CPU is the main thing
indeed for faster rendering times and more responsive environment.

VCD is quite good for those things indeed Don! I must say I have
a bit better track record with SVCD. Although I haven't send out
lots of discs to different people I have tested my last movie on
at least 5 players with no problems at all (one player is known
to have problems with some SVCD's). Most have the players
DID require me to hit the PLAY button explicitly for some reason.
(when you insert a DVD it plays it automatically).

Most players recognized the disc by showing SVCD on the screen
and then just waiting for me hitting play. Weird.

Also with a VCD or SVCD you can add menu's. I've never tried
this myself though.

Then I probably should have encoded to AC-3 from the start. I specifically chose WAV beings the program (even at 7mb/s) isn't in danger of filling the DVD.

If you gave it a WAV file and you told it to use PCM audio then I'm sure the audio was not encoded. However, it does take time to build the VOB files and any other background things. I think you are fine.

I wasn't trying to put them into any particular order - just listed them as I thought of them.

Here is a comparison: I have a desktop PIII 750MHz with 256 Meg RAM and 7200 RPM drive and a laptop PIV 2.8GHz with 1Gig RAM and 5400 RPM drive. I honestly don't know the bus speeds but imagine the laptop is faster. I also have a weekly program I edit that is very consistent from week to week.

Doing a PTT of this project on the desktop takes about 50 - 55 minutes in rendering time before the countdown screen. The PTT on the laptop took 15 - 20 minutes for the same task. This was expected.

However, if you do a full Render AS of the hour long project the timings get more interesting. The desktop unit will get done FASTER than the laptop because all of the unedited areas must be copied (which is the majority of the program) and the desktop unit does that MUCH faster.

Moral of the story? It's a combination of things that determines the final rendering speed to take all things into consideration. However, RAM is minimal in this equation.

Transition effect I'm looking for....
 

I've been watching alot of peoples wedding videography work and there is one transition that I really like and believe it is on the FCP platform. It's like a blur/dislove/morph. Clip A blurs out and, for lack of better description, "morphs" into a blurred clip B then comes back into focus. Does Vegas have anything to simulate this effect other than manually setting keyframes to a guassian blur? What about the morph part- I'm assuming it can't do that.

Actually, if you want TRUE morphing check out WinMorph at http://www.debugmode.com. Satish has WinMorph, Plug-n-pac, and Frameserver available for Vegas.

However, if you look on the transitions tab, click on Cross Effect, what about the Cross Blur A/B transition?

I see your point Edward.... CPU & harddisk then. <g>

Bella's DV Keyboard with Toggle Control
 

Has anyone looked into Bella’s DV Keyboard with the Vegas sticker set?

If you setup an autorun.ini file on your VCD then you can get it to automatically play with Windows Media Player on win95 systems and up. Search dvdrhelp.com on how to do this.

VCD is probably the most compatible.

Compression question?
 

When you render to a new track, and use that avi, instead of the original material, does it lose quality when the whole project is rendered out?

No

See I really should do more research before I start blurting out questions- thanks again Edward! Going to check it out today as soon as I get off from work. TGIF!

As long as the rendering was done at full quality right? You don't want to use a medium quality render as your source.

Thanks guys. I didn't think so but wanted to be sure.

I believe I did that but I will make sure. Thank you.

Do you have a link? Because there is one manufacturer that
I seem to run into a lot that makes all kind of NLE keyboards,
EXCEPT for Vegas...

http://www.bella-usa.com/Products-DV...rd-details.htm

It appears you buy the keyboard and a set of stickers.

Divx v Mainconcept
 

So if Divx is so good, should I be using this codec instead of the Mainconcept one that comes with Vegas?

DiVX is a computer-only codec. It's not going to do you any good for DVD encoding, the main point of the Main Concept codec.

If you want to distribute web or CD movies for watching on computer, DiVX is a contender right along with Quicktime and Windows Media.

This company has Vegas keyboards with laser etched icons:

http://www.worldtechdevices.com/

I've noticed some commercial standalone DVD players (Circuit City, Good Guys, etc.) advertising DiVX (MPEG4) playback.

http://www.dvdrhelp.com/dvdplayers lists 45 players with
this support. This doesn't confirm an emerging trend until
the major players include the feature in all models in their product line . Phillips, Pioneer, Sony, Toshiba and
and other major players have one entry on the list.

YES vegas see's frame mode ( captured thru V ) as progressive.

if your clip was shot frame mode V can edit it as progressive or as interlaced project because a progressive frame is made up of 2 fields just like interlace therefore it will always remain 2 fields in progressive or interlace.

where you will see the difference is in effects , moving titles .. if you set project up as progressive then effects will be progressive ( both fields in frame will be same = 30 motions per second) .. if you set project as interlace then ( NONE on deinterlace method) moving titles will be smoother ( 2 fields are NOT same = 60 motions per second) , transitions smoother etc.. but the clips frame (2 fields) will be same ..

to test for yourself - set project up as lower field order 1st ( interlace) , and drop a frame mode clip in TL ..now render the clip out as interlace ( deinterlace NONE) ... now compare orginal frame mode ( which Vegas see's as progressive) to the rendered interlace clip ( which Vegas see's as interlace) ..notice they are exactly the same...

now if you set your project up as progressive and you have some interlace video then this is where the deinterlace method you choose will come into play on the interlace clips. .. if you choose NONE then it will leave the clips as interlace. i prefer BLEND when mixing interlace with frame mode ..

i shoot only frame mode & progressive but i prefer the smoother transitions, titles, fx's so i set 90% of my projects up as interlace.

Vegas video and JPEG sequence output
 

I need to output my VEGAS DV edit work as a JPEG sequence, which is announced in the product brochure but does not even appear in the HELP file.

How can I accomplish that?


Emilio

Let me get this straight-you edited something in Vegas---now you want to output it as a JPEG sequence file--What are you trying to accomplish--an animation? If that be the case then the instructions are within the Vegas 4.0 help file. Here it is:

From the File menu, choose Import Media. The Import Media dialog box is displayed.

Choose the folder where the file you want to open is stored:

Choose a drive and folder from the Look in drop-down list.

—or—

Choose a folder from the Recent drop-down list to quickly select a folder from which you have previously opened files.

Select a file in the browse window or type a name in the File name box. Detailed information about the selected file appears at the bottom of the dialog box.

To limit the files displayed in the dialog, choose a file type from the Files of Type drop-down list or enter *. and an extension in the File name box. For example, enter *.wav to display all wave files in the current folder, or enter *guitar*.wav to display all wave files that have the word guitar in the file name.

If you select an image from a still-image sequence, you can select the Open still-image sequence check box to import all images in the sequence as a single entry in the Media Pool. In the Range box, enter the number of the last image you want to open. For example, if you'd selected AnimationOne_00001.tga in step 3, you could enter 120 in this box to create a new Media Pool entry using AnimationOne_00001.tga to AnimationOne_00120.tga.

Click Open.

Vegas adds the file to the Media Pool.




IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING ELSE IN MIND PLEASE BE MORE SPECIFIC IN YOUR DESCRIPTION.

divX is the best computer codec. It may not suit your needs if you need compatibility with viewers.

check in on the Vegas board .. there was a SCRIPT available that renders out png sequence and i believe it has been modified to output jpeg too ... they can tell you where to get it .. it might be on the CD or if you downloaded yours it might be on sonys V4 download page under SCRIPTS. also there are many scripts at sundance media ..

http://www.sundancemediagroup.com/home1.htm

click on "To reach the digital media tutorials, click here"

then under catagory choose "automated scripts "
then look for "render image sequence"

you need to have .NET loaded on your computer. use windows update to get the newest .NET

Stills into video
 

Learing the process of DVD authoring I have stumbled across menu creation.
I grab a frame for processing in stills imaging software (Photoshop or Ulead PhotoImpact 8) (to serve as background for main menu, paste it there and besides of deinterlacing I have to adjust a resolution prior to adding additional elements on top of this frame image.

As for PAL I read I'll have to change to 768x576 (from originaly grabbed 720x576)
in order the added graphic elements to have correct proprotions once improting the image back into authoring software.
(as I understood to compensate for non-square pixels of TV -> to square shaped pixels of PC monitor)
However I work in NTSC originally grabbing 720x480, so how shall I later the resolution prior to working with image ?

I'm guessing, since 768x576 equals to 4:3 proprotion for square pixels with preserving original vertical resolution, trying to do that for pal yields 640x480, but than improting it back to, say video editor (Vegas) I get black bars to the picture sides in preview window.

Also, if no any further graphic processing on frame grab is necessary
(aside of deinterlacing), should I also convert it proprotions in Photoshop in order to be properly rendered in authroign software once importet back to such ?

regards, Alex

for vegas NTSC make your stills 654x480 ( some say 655x480 )

Thanks a lot, Don, that helps. The image improted back as .bmp onto time line fills the preview window precisely once 655x480.
But what is the exact consideration ?
655x480 is not exactly 4:3 for PC monitor interpretation.

regards, Alex