HDV workflow in Vegas
 

I would like to hear some suggestions on how some of you do your HDV workflow in Vegas. I cannot seem to render a file to put on DVD that is as good as my old XL2 in SD. The HDV files look beautiful, but when I compress them to DVD, they look worse than SD in my opinion. I have tried about every type of file imaginable and I assume my problem is which codec and the settings. So, with that said, if someone could enlighten me as to the BEST way and file type and settings to get my XHA1 HDV files to a DVD through Vegas and Architect, I would be happy as heck! Thanks. J

I shoot in HDV 50i with my XH-A1,
capture and edit with properties set to HDV 1080-50i (I'm in PAL land)
once project is finished I render out to MPEG2 DVD Architect Pal Widescreen video stream
render audio out as ac3

open DVD Architect and set project properties to PAL Widescreen
Author DVD menues etc
Select Make DVD button and burn disc.

Quality I am seeing is way WAY in excess of what my old SD footage looked like.

Thanks for your info. I have been shooting in 1080 24F with my A1 and editing the M2t file then I tried Rendering Mpeg2 but it doesn't look to good to me. I believe it compresses too much. What bit rate settings are you using or are you using the default settings? J

I render to HDV then use TMPGEnc 4.0 Express to convert to a DVD file, then I use Ulead Movie factory to author the DVD.

John...

The default MPEG2 bitrate settings in vegas are too low. Reset them to 8 Mbps for both min and max.

Min/max at 8 Mbps? That sounds far higher than I'd be comfortable to send to clients, let alone for mass distribution ... :) We have a bunch of dvd players of varying ages and I find that min=5500 max=6500 is about as high as I can go without introducing skips in some devices. NOTE! 2-pass encoding gives a big quality boost for no extra bandwidth, but at the expense of render time.

Kris...

Max allowable is 9600bps, but this leaves no room for audio. Every pro I know uses 8000bps. Sony recommends 8000. Neither they nor myself have ever experienced playback probs at this datarate. You may well do better with VBR, provided there's not a lot of pans in the video, but I would suggest max 8000, min 6000.

Cheers Bill, that's interesting! I'd love to hear more people's experiences? I've definitely read recommendations to keep it as low as ~5Mbps, my own tests found that to be overkill .. we saw very occasional problems at the ~7.5+Mbps level, with 5.5-6.5 being very very solid, and not a single skip (seen or reported) in a long time.

Oh, and I believe it's 9800 max, I use 9.8Mbps CBR when making "web masters" .. ie. mpegs from which to derive web/streaming versions of projects.

To Pass or Not 2-Pass?
 

I've kinda glad this issue has been raised as I've being fixing the maximum, minimum and average all at 8000 or whatever is suitable given the length of my project.

I 2-pass 99% of the time, though in regards to DV many folk have questioned whether there is anything visual to be gained when rendering out to mpeg2.

I don't know what folk think of HDV 2-pass and the merits of rendering out to mpeg2 for DVD delivery.

Neil

I have been playing with the bitrates in an attempt to get a better quality, I was able to get better quality with the XL2 cameras, but with the A1, rendering from HDV down to SD, I just cannot get a good quality DVD. Many things look like they are waving around in places on the video...it just looks cheap. I had the problem with the XL2 in the beginning but after toying with those bitrates, that cleared up. But not so with my A1. I have been trying to render to MPEG2 and then burn in DVArch. Of course I have tried rendering to WMV too. Still no luck. When I render to HD it looks great on computer, but cannot burn that. Keep suggestions coming. J

Maybe I got it wrong from the start but I render the HD to SD .avi.

I then pick the .avi file up in Architect and mpeg it there as I've always felt that re-doing the mpeg twice leads to loss?

I actually do the same thing. I ve had the same issue with direct to conversion to mpeg for DVD. It seems that the reencoding for HDV direct mpg for DVD has some issues. I've noticed this in both Vegas 7 and Premiere 2.0...

Bill or Chris,

What settings do you specifically use while rendering to SD .AVI? Resolution, Bit Rate, etc, etc.

Jon

Due to the way vegas 7 and DVDA software is written, you're better off rendering to NTSC DVDA inside Vegas, rather than rely on DVDA to do it.

I strongly disagree Bill, regardless of how it is written, if the results are subpar, then one should render the way you can get the best results. I myself, am getting crappy results rendering to MPEG2 from HDV and then sending to architect. I had the same problem when using My XL2 camera in SD until I changed the Bit Rates in the render. But, changing the Bit rates have not helped when rendering from HDV AVI files to MPEG2 then to Architect. The results are just terrible. You guys that are rendering to an .AVI file, what settings are you using? Are you rendering to an HDV AVI file and then letting architect rerender? Or are you rendering to an SD NTSC AVI file and then letting Architect turn it into an MPEG2? There are soooo many different avenues..I would really like for someone to tell me the BEST way to get it done. Thanks . J

Following the belief that the fewer intermediate steps the better, I have always rendered from the HDV m2t timeline directly to MPEG2 ready for DVD, and have been extremely happy with the results, even when the resultant SD DVD is viewed on a big plasma screen.

I did encounter some wavy vertical line artifacts early on, but now I always render at Best quality and things are fine.

Peter, I have rendered the M2t Directly from timeline to MPEG2 and I end up with those wavy artifact lines also. That is precisely what I want to get rid of. If it were not for those, I would have it made. I do render best quality and still get them. I can get rid of most of them using the Chromablur by sony effect. But I am still in search of the way to rid my work of them without having to add another effect. J

Just out of curiousity, the type of DVD or DVD RW wouldn't have any effect on the final product would it? I am testing on rewritables so I do not waste DVDs. J

John I'm trying to remember back to when this appeared, and I - I think I tried also applying Reduce Interlace flicker, even though the size of the "waves" was too large to be directly interlace related.

Here's an old thread on the Sony forum which may yield a clue - good luck:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=424040

John - I've continued searching, and here's possibly an even more relevant thread going back to the first day I brought my Z1 home:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=364704

... and I finally came across another thread - same problem, but here it seems the solution boils down to (a) rendering at Best quality, and (b) setting a deinterlace method other than "none", even when you're not deinterlacing. Here's the quote:

"When you go from 1080i to 720p, the deinterlacing options will actually deinterlace the footage. When you go from 1080i to 480i or 576i, the deinterlacing options will not deinterlace the footage, but need to be checked in order for Vegas to resize the interlaced footage by field rather than by the whole image. The resulting downrezzed footage is still interlaced."

I do hope this helps - please report back.

I've just spent the last couple of days testing various scenerios of creating DVD's with Vegas & DVDA and here are the settings I found most helpfull for the highest quality DVD production.

#1) It's important that if you are building an HDV compilation that your project settings are set to match the proper HDV file you are working with.

#2) When it's time to export, Render As MainConcept Mpeg-2 and then in the custom settings choose NTSC Widscreen DVD-Architect.

#3) Choose Custom button to the right, choose Best Quality, then on the Video Tab choose "2-pass"

When opening up DVD-Architect, I choose File -> New and make sure the properties of the new project I'm creating also has NTSC Widescreen. I import the formerly created .mpg file and do NOT choose to reduce flicker as this will cause a recompress. At this point the disc burns without any additional compression and the results are very good. I too have seen the issues I believe you are speaking of but since going through this workflow to create DVD's, I've not seen it and frankly, I'm very happy with the quality of the product.

Jon

I sent my raw 1080-30p footage direct to DVD-A and it re-renders it perfectly.

Joe, you say "raw footage" sent to DVD arch and it does fine. What kind of file are you sending to Architect? Are you at least converting to .AVI? Elaborate a little on this. And Jon, I have been using your exact workflow except not using two pass, and I cannot believe two pass will get rid of these lines. Let me start over here. I am shooting in 1080 25F on my A1 camera. I am hearing from some to apply a De-interlace filter. I am anxious to try this when I have time and see if it helps. There is another post from Luis Rolo that is having the exact same problem and he has posted a picture of these lines. If anyone has a chance this is a very recent post from Luis, please check it out and see if that helps clarify what some of us are seeing. I just cannot hardly believe one person uses the same workflow and gets a better result. That is why it is so important to post EVERY setting, camera, and Editing software..so we can find our differences. Those of you that are shooting in 1080 25F on the A1, any HD setting changes or other changes you have made on your camera other than presets? J

I am going to try this Peter, thanks. J

Could you elaborate on resetting this bitrate, where inside vegas

Bill, I reset those bitrates to 8,000,000 for each. (8Mps). I can see an improvement, but when I set to this bitrate in Vegas, DVDarchitect will rerender and compress again. I am afraid this is degrading any quality we may have gained. Any further suggestions? J

After a ton of testing, I have discovered that when rendering to MPEG2 from vegas, if you change the frame rate from 23.976 adding 2+3 pulldown to just 23.976 without pulldown, then architect will rerender the file. (I have no idea why). Not that this really matters since I have found to get the best results, Architect will rerender anyway. Using my M2T files on the timeline, after all editing is done. I click file, then "render as". Then choose "DVD Architect 24P widescreen" or whatever you are shooting..stick with a DVD architect template though. Then click "Custom" click "video" tab and change bitrates at bottom of page. Change all 3 of them to 8,000,000 which is 8Mbs. check the box "2 pass", after this, I change my 23.976 + 2-3 pulldown to just 23.976. No pulldown. Because according to what I read...24F on our A1 camera does not use pulldown. I have done it both ways and do not see much if any of a change. Field order should be NONE Progressive. After these changes, I save this template as HDtoSD. This way you can quickly use this template next time. Then name your file and click save. When it is through rendering..open DVD architect and paste the file in the Menu1 box. AFter pasted there, just slightly above and to the left of the blue menu box is a selection box that now reads menu1. Click the little arrow on the right of that box and now you see menu1 and your file to choose from. Choose your file, then go to the right of the blue menu1 box and choose "Reduce Interlace Flicker" After this is done choose "make DVD" from toolbar above. Then click "burn", then select current project and next. Then click optimize. click on your file and then the video tab. Change your frame rate to 24.976 and make sure you change the box on lower right to read NTSC widescreen 720x480 or whatever you are trying to accomplish. I set my Progressive to yes instead of Auto. Now click OK, NEXT, then name your DVD, insert DVD and Click Finish. This has gotten the best results for me. The difference for me was clicking the "Reduce interlace flicker"..that seems to get rid of 90 percent of the lines we have been seeing. The only other method I have found to reduce these lines is adding a Chroma Blur Filter in Vegas and turning both controls just above half. It gets rid of many lines..but, takes much longer to render. If anyone else has any ideas..throw them out here...J

De-interlacing just blurs the picture a bit.

I don't see any of these artifacts until I open the flie in Architect.

I'm wondering if this problem isn't directly related to the resizing when going from HD to SD.

I mean, how does 1440x1080 resize properly to 720x576 (is that just PAL?)while still maintaining aspect ratio? Something must be physically getting tweeked, squashed or stretched, surely.

After rendering the file in Vegas, I can see these artifacts if I open the file and play in windows media player. The problem is not in DVD architect. It is definitely in the rendering. Possibly in the resizing, I do not know.

What I don't understand is how is it possible for vegas to have this issue when it is such a basic component of what most vegas users need? What concerns me is that I saw this issue once or twice but it has seemed to completely disapear mostly on it's own and my DVD's made with Vegas look spectacular.

Jon

Still Testing
 

I have watched the HDV section of Vegas training DVDs to try and pick up the workflow they use to convert HDV to SD. They use the batch render under scripts to do the rendering. No adjustments available, just use the template they provide. I am testing this now but I doubt my results will be any better. However, I did find that once each clip is captured, you can open the properties for that clip and there you have an option to click "reduce interlace flicker" for the clip itself. I have not tried that yet, but plan to. I captured some clips today using 1080 60i, 1080 30f and 1080 24f for comparison. According to Vegas training DVDs, they claim a great result capturing 60i and then choosing a widescreen 24P DVD architect template for rendering (converting 60i hi def to 24p sd). I am going to try this also. I will post findings from all my different workflows. J

The best results seem to stem from shooting in 1080 60i and converting to 24p in the render. The lines are all but completely gone. I got good results shooting in 30F with my Canon A1 and rendering in 29.976P. When shooting anything other than the 1080 60i, I have to use the "reduce interlace flicker" in DVD architect to get rid of 95 percent of the lines. No way around it. I am shocked at how good the 1080 60i converts to 24P rendering from VEGAS. It was the cleanest of the clean. It really looks nothing like 60i when it finishes. I am doing more testing to make sure that is my preferred workflow. I am still working with the 30F and rendering to 30P. At this point, I do not like the 24F if you are going to have any motion. Too hard on the eyes. Until further testing changes my mind, I will either shoot the 60i so I can turn it into whatever I want in rendering, or shoot the 30F. Not sure yet. Though 60i by itself is UGLY. But using it as the base and rendering to 24P gave me very clean results, cleaner than shooting in 24F. J The testing I am doing right now is upping the bit rates on 30P and also from 60i to 24P to see what happens!