Best quality rendering for DVD... give me a chance!

M

mrblondee

Member
Hi all! This is my first ever post after lurking for years, so please go easy on me.

I am rendering 25P footage (HVX202) to DVD, using Vegas 7d and DVD Architect 4a. Playback will be on a variety on equipment, mainly tv (lcd/plasma/crt) and even pc. Essentially, I want the closest equivalent to a commercial DVD movie you'd buy from any department store. And I assume 90% of people rendering for DVD would want the same.

There are many, many threads on rendering to dvd, but I'm finding getting the right information frustrating. There are obviously a lot of factors involved.

Some of my concerns are:

What should the project property settings be? (mainly: field order, motion blur type, deinterlace method). Main settings are set to HDV 720-25p (1280x720, 25.000 fps)

What template do I use for rendering, I assume "DVD Architect PAL Widescreen video stream", and is there anything worth tweaking here for the best results?

Any other handy tips? I'm using the Broadcast Colours filter set to Conversative and Unsharp Mask set to Light. These are just quesses based on what I have read.

Now, I apologise for posting this when it has been discussed so much. But I really couldnt find all the definative answers. Some posts contradict each other, others cover one lot of settings, but they might degenerate the final render when combined with other settings. I'm hoping some of you can help create the ultimate render to DVD thread. I've spent weeks trying to make sense of all the information, then rendering, trying on multiple formats, and I'm still not sure what I have is commercial quality.

Thanks for listening, I know I might get flamed, but it seems burning a project to dvd and having it look great/be compatible is not as straightforward as it should be.

By the way, thank god for dxvuser and its members. You've been a real life saver on my learning curve.

All the best

Steve
 
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You don't need the broadcast colors filter -- that's only an NTSC concern, for broadcast.

Use the DVD Architect PAL Widescreen template, as you say, but no, don't tweak anything. It's already ideal (which is why it's a template in the first place!). The only thing you might have to worry about is lowering the bitrate IF and ONLY if your project is too long and won't fit on a 4.7 GB DVD. But that's really only a concern when you get past about 1.5 hrs.

Be sure to use a lopp region when you render. Then, use the same loop region to render your audio as AC-3, and save it under the same file name and in the same folder. That way, DVD Architect can automatically mate them when you drop your video into the DVD project.

In DVD Archtect, use a PAL Widescreen project.
 
David, thanks so much. This has saved me weeks of work and confusion. I have learnt a lot from your many previous posts. One curly one for you, I'm using Raylight. When I view the project through the Vegas preview window, it looks fine. When I render, it adds a thin black border to the left and right of the widescreen frame. When I import in DVD Architect (Pal Widescreen 720x576 or Pal Widescreen 704x576), it retains this black border. If I change the rendering template settings in Vegas from 704x576 (which I'm loathe to do, following your advice not to change settings), it comes out perfect, no border. When I import this into DVD Architect, either in Pal Widescreen 720x576 or Pal Widescreen 704x576, it comes out fine. So is it ok to change to 704x576 in Vegas (I wish I knew why I have to do this!) and should I set DVD Architect to 720 or 704 (both work)? Also, in DVD Architect, should I enable Reduce Interlace Flicker?

Most of my work is short music clips, so I have plenty of space, is there anything worthwhile doing in bitrate (or two pass) to boost the end result?

Under Vegas project properties, what are the best settings for Field Order, Motion Blur Type and Deinterlace Method?

Thanks again for your help on this, after so much frustration, I'm hanging on your every word.
 
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In Vegas, go into Pan/Crop, and then right-click on the frame. Choose "Match Output Aspect."

IF you think the black lines are a problem -- no one will see them on a TV, and no one would probably notice them on a computer.
 
With my DV PAL 25P projects in Vegas I always render to MPEG2 using the DVD-Architect videostream Template, but I change the following settings:
1- change Good to Best quality
2- choose 2 Pass rendering
3- I increase the lower bitrate from 6000 (default) to 7000
4- field order set to 'progressive' (=25P)

Especially the first and second options make my films look better, they feel 'cleaner' encoded.
 
You guys rock!

David, the match output aspect didnt fix the problem for me I'm afraid, but I'll use the 704x576 settings as a workaround for the moment. I find it annoying enough to have to change it.

Pesie, I'll give those all a go. Best quality is the default setting on my template anyway. With the field order, are you referring to the Project Settings or the Render Settings? I have my Project Settings set to None (Progressive Scan), but my Render Settings set to Interlaced (Bottom Field First), because I thought there was some quality issues if you werent viewing with a progressive scan dvd player and tv. Might be way off the mark with this!

Also, by default my maximum bitrate is set to 8,000,000, average is set to 6,000,000 (is this the one you refer to as lower?) and minimum is set to 192,000. Should I just bump the average to 7,000,000?

Anyone out there have any idea on the best motion blur type and deinterlace method in the project property settings?

Thanks so much guys, this is an awesome thread for a newbie like me.
 
Hi MrBlondee,

You can and must set the fieldorder to progressive also in the render settings! If you leave this to lower fields, that's the version you get issues on different playback systems is my experience. I've shot several short movies in 25P and rendered them to progressive dvd's which have played on several film festivals, on high end and low end equipment, on interlaced and progressive scan home equipment. There is never any playback issue, so don't worry about it.
(In fact, I get issues with playback when I forget the progressive fieldorder during rendering).

Don't forget the 2 Pass rendering.

Sorry for the confusion, I meant the average bitrate to 7000. Yes, that's the one.

Motion blur: leave it as default. It won't affect your 25P video when you render it to 25P (there is nothing to re-deinterlace), only when you change the speed of certain scenes in your film. The default setting works fine for me. There are small differences when you do a slow down in your film, read the Vegas manual for the differences between the settings.

Keep the resolution at 720 x 576 during rendering, you don't want your final video affected by little pixel aspect changings.
 
2 Pass Rendering?

2 Pass Rendering?

Hey Pesie, I noticed in your post that you recommend "2 Pass" rendering. I looked around in Vegas and noticed that seems to be an option for rendering Mpeg2 files. Can you explain what this does and why one would want to do this? Thanks -
 
I just burnt the best looking DVD I have ever made following the advice on this thread. Sincere thanks to everyone that has contributed so far.
 
The first pass "maps" the video file; the second does the encoding. It can make for a more efficient compression, but it does take longer.
 
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