Vegas HD to SD DVD Export/Render/Version Questions

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kentme

Member
Hi- I'm hoping someone can give me advice or suggestions. I'm working on a project in Sony Vegas Platinum 8.0 and have the demo for Pro 8.0. I need to make a short video from MXF files originally from an HVX200, shot in 720 24pN. I am using Raylight as the converter of these files. All is great. Now, I need to render and use DVD Architect to make the DVD. This will be used for broadcast TV purposes. For rendering, the Raylight tutorial says: Click on File->Render and select Main Concept MPEG-2 file 23.976 fps with 3:2 pulldown, widescreen, if you shot and edited at 24P. The audio should be exported to the Dolby Digital AC-3 format. In the Pro 8.0 version the closest option for "Main Concept MPEG 2" is a template reading "DVD Architect 24p Widescreen video stream", and the closest option in Platinum 8.0 is "Main Concept MPEG-2" with the template being "DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video stream"...I believe. However, this setting has no audio. I go into CUSTOM and click to enable audio stream. (I guess this is what I'm supposed to do?) The quality seems OK. But, are there any suggestions for rendering, settings, templates- should I be rendering to an AVI for better quality? Since what was filmed is 24pN, should I even be choosing the template for 24p? (In Platinum, there is only a general "DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video stream" option but it keeps trying to default to HDV 720 25p when I go to enable audio.) This will be eventually be transferred to a DigiBeta for use on TV, so I need the best possible quality, and it's only a few minutes long so I can use the least compressed (or no compression) settings.

Also- for the project I am working on, is there really any difference between the Platinum and the Pro? Is it worth the upgrade? I'm new both to HD and Vegas.

Any suggestions would be incredibly appreciated.
Thanks so much-Ken
 
There are hundreds of differences between the Platinum and the Pro versions. In this instance, the most glaring one is that even though you can manually create a 24p project in Platinum, you can't output that way. You're cutting 24p. You want 24p.

What you want to do is use the DVD Architect 24p Widescreen template, then render your audio separately using AC-3.

IF you're going to output as standard NTSC DV from Platinum, make sure that if you can, you right-click and disable resample on all of the clips. (You should be able to do this to just one, copy it, then paste the event attributes to all others -- but you'll also past all added FX and crops.) If you don't, it'll resample the footage to 60i and the motion will look more like video.
 
Hi Ken,

Going to a DVD is not necessarily the direction I'd suggest if your project is going to be broadcast. The MPEG CODEC that it is going to give you is SD and it is lossy.

Broadcast in the US isn't 24fps, either, something you likely want to consider. NTSC is 29.97 fps. I'd leave the audio in stereo PCM 48K. Compressing to AC3 would be counterproductive.

You might just want to download Huffy YUV and output it to that on a external drive and out-source your Digibeta folks do the dub. It's lossless and works like a champ.

http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/huffyuv.html
 
Wow- that was fast! Thanks so much for the info. I didn't know you can't output the same way in Platinum. I'll also disable resample on the clips- thank you again. The one thing that keeps hanging me up is the audio. I can't seem to figure out how to render the audio separately using AC-3. I thought it might work when I enabled audio, but there isn't anything that states I'm using AC-3 vs PCM, etc. Is this something I manually type in? Or am I completely missing the boat here?
 
Can't do it in Platinum. That's another thing Pro has.

Mike makes very good points -- I guess I missed the part about this being for TV broadcast. Unless the broadcaster specifically said DVD, it's not a good way to go.

That said, 24p DVD shouldn't be an issue as any DVD player will insert the necessary pulldown to make it 60i.
 
Thanks again David, and thanks Mike. I'll check out the Huffy. AH! Something else new to figure out! :) This is quite the learning process. Does Huffy work in Windows XP? It's not listed if it does.

And- just so I get closure on this: in the Pro, how does one enable/separately render the audio AC-3? I've looked in the Help sections and have had no luck figuring it out. Any help place you can point me, or is it something easy that I'm just missing?
 
Hi,

Huffy is a CODEC (COpression, DECompression) tool. It should be available when you bring up the AVI wrapper under Video for Windows as one of the export options - you can configure there. At least that's were it is for me in my configuraton.

While I have Studio, I don't use it as much as Vegas Pro and so I'm not quite as familiar as I should be - although they are all cut from the same cloth...

Vegas wants you to render the DVD streams separately which really helps the mindset. You get a handle on your video and your audio settings.

You can sort of think in terms of a disc as being an elastic bag that can stretch as much as you want. It can hold all the content you can put in it - it just will look wretched after a while, very wretched a while after that, and unwatchable after that. :cheesy:

You can keep going, but what's the point? The trick is to make high quality content fit into a 4.7 GB disc. That's pretty much 2 hours with a good quality encoder software and using AC3 (Dolby) audio encoding. In the US, we have traditionally stayed away from MPEG audio encoding since it hasn't be a part of the NTSC audio standard. DVD decks here don't have to adhere to MPEG audio. PAL decks play MPEG audio great. I wish ours universally did - they don't, some of the older DVD players are finicky that way.

Vegas wants you to encode a MPEG2 NTSC video stream into a folder and an audio stream into the same folder for DVD Architect. If you use the same project name - the default, Architect will load both names into the DVD project.

Vegas Pro is a worthwhile program to have and it is really not a big cost up from Studio. I think the upgrade allows you to get your investment back on what you have in, too.
 
Thanks again for the explanations. That helped quite a bit. Your section here is what I am having the problem with: Vegas wants you to encode a MPEG2 NTSC video stream into a folder and an audio stream into the same folder for DVD Architect. If you use the same project name - the default, Architect will load both names into the DVD project. This has not been happening, or I simply just don't know how to get that audio stream into the same folder. It's preset in Architect to use AC-3, however, I just don't know the process of getting the audio to be recognized. SO- using the MPEG2/widescreen template, it says it has no audio. Got it- it needs to be rendered separately, and end up in the same folder as the video. Here's where I get stuck: how? where? what function does this happen with? how does one get that in the same folder? Is architect supposed to be fusing the video and audio together? I have AC-3 as the default in Architect...but it doesn't change that the MPEG2 in Vegas has no audio...so...what i don't get is how to render separately. I have a funny feeling I'm overthinking this...but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out the process of how to render this separately! And when I google it, everyone always says "render it separately" but it's strangely never explained how.

And- I'm attempting to install Huffy and I keep getting an error where it can't locate the dll. I browse to the folder which has the dll, and it still says it can't find the dll. I'm looking right at the dll, but for some reason it says it's not in there. I think I'm just having one of those days! I'm usually pretty technically proficient. Not so today!
 
Hi,

First, just export the AC3 (Dolby file to the same location as the DVD video file. If DVD Architect doesn't bring it in automatically, in the Exporter, just drag and drop it on to the video file. It will sych up to the video file.

The Huffyuv.DLL that is the zip file that you downloaded with the huffy.inf file will install in \windows\system32 and will be registered in the registry as a CODEC.

I'd likely just delete the files I downloaded and download again.

The file is Huffyuv.dll

Good luck!
 
HI again Mike. The Huffyuv is installed and I'm able to use it as a codec. May i ask what settings you use, or what settings you might use when exporting to a DVD or a file? Ultimately I'll be handing over a DVD or a file on a hard drive to be transferred to DigiBeta for SD broadcast. When I follow the instructions for Huffy and implement these into Sony Vegas when rendering, the rendered avi files look terrific on my computer (though i am having some issues with pixel size and playing around with making the files not look stretched or cramped). But when I burn them onto DVD using DVD Architect, I get "messages" for every file that they will be compressed (both the video and the audio). Mind you, these test avi's are about 200-300mb each! There's lots of room left on the DVD. And the burned DVD's look pretty awful as far as color and graininess, etc. As a side note, when I previously used the "DVD architect widescreen" rendering templates I would still get a widescreen DVD that would fill my 16x9 tv screen. Now with Huffy, I'm getting a "boxed" picture with the black borders on all sides (I'm choosing NTSC 720x480 as the Huffyuv frame size, frame rate 29.97, 1.0000 pixel aspect ratio- that's the only choice that doesn't distort the image- and video rendering quality as "Best" or "good".

Any suggestions? Thanks again so much.
Ken
 
Hi,

To be absolutely clear. Huffy will not make any kind of DVD that will play in any kind of DVD player anywhere. That's not what that does. Huffy is an uncompressed CODEC for exchanging files from one incompatible system to another (which is what you need to do).

While I love the look of my HVX200's 24P settings, I don't much use those settings for our TV shows. PBS requires 29.97 of us and that's what we have to give them. Like the old joke goes, '186,000 miles a second, is more than a good idea, it's the law.'

What you have a few hurdles. One is 24PN footage that has to be intercepted to 29.97fps. That should be easy enough by exporting from the Vegas time line using Huffy as the CODEC in an AVI container with 29.97fps as the frame rate.

I'd use the same size as the project (and aspect ratios) that you are currently using for the the project and save it to a hard drive. The project itself should be rather large. If it is over a few minutes, it likely won't fit on a DVD. Uncompressed AVI files are rather large. Your Digibeta guys will likely be able to take these files and work with them.

That will likely work out just fine.
 
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