Ok, I finally learned the ins and outs of my HG20 as well as Vegas. Here is a clip that represents the genreal approach I plan on taking with a guitar lesson DVD (I am guitarist and filmer and video editer and producer and lighting technician... not exactly ideal situatuion I know):

http://www.guitar-dreams.com/misc/video/test.mpg

This is without the lighting kit I ordered and I still plan on doing some work on the background. I hope to apply some lighting technique this week though I must say I think it looks halfway (or quarter way of fifth way...) decent even compared to guitar lesson DVDs I have seen out there.

The basic elements are wide shots, zoomed in shots (with picture in picture so people can see both of my hands if they want - it is one camera though) and images depicting what I am playing.

Of course audio is not from camera, but captured externally.

There are definitely some playback artifacts but I suppose that can't be avoided when publishing for the web. What do people tend to prefer for web format?

Thanks for helping me get this far in just a few days!

Brian

You're getting there. A couple of suggestions:

1. Lower the camera so that instead of looking slightly down, it's looking straight or slightly up at you. That way you can eliminate the floor in the shot, and it'll look a bit more professional.

2. Encode to mpeg4 and not mpeg1 (which is about as crappy as it gets). At that video size, a 768kbps mpeg4 encode should look REALLY nice.

3. Fade in from black and fade out from black. Makes things simpler if you start to do more than one video segment at a time.

I don't see MPEG-4 as a render option...

I don't see MPEG-4 as a render option...

Choose either:

"Mainconcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4)"

or

"Sony AVC (*.mp4, *.m2ts, *.avc)"

The resulting file (after I customize so that the width x height is same) is smaller than the regular mpg. Are you sure the quality is supposed to be better?

thanks,
brian

The resulting file (after I customize so that the width x height is same) is smaller than the regular mpg. Are you sure the quality is supposed to be better?

thanks,
brian

Yes, the quality is absolutely better. The codec is superior.

Mpeg1 was what was used for Video CDs 10 years ago. It's essentially been abandoned.

Mpeg2 is what is used for DVDs.

Mpeg4/AVC is what is used for BluRay disks.

Mpeg4/AVCHD is also what is in the current crop of cameras that look so good like the new Panasonic HMC-150. GREAT results in a relatively small file. It's why it's become the streaming standard.

I just rendered some mp4 files and they have some odd behavior. Maybe it is something wrong with my players but the output flickers about once a second and sometimes it appears that there are lights flashing! The mpg did not exhibit these weird artifacts (well it had a little of the flasing lights effect but not as much as the mp4 files).

brian

Take a screen shot of your render settings. I'm headed home from work and I'll take a look when I get there.

Also, if you can make available 10 seconds of raw footage from your camera, I'd like to play with it.

Hi Perone,

Here is screen shot of proejct and render settings:

http://www.guitar-dreams.com/misc/video/project-settings.jpg
http://www.guitar-dreams.com/misc/video/render-settings.jpg

And here is raw footage (one at best quality and the other at 1140x1080)

http://www.guitar-dreams.com/misc/video/raw1.zip
http://www.guitar-dreams.com/misc/video/raw2.zip

And here is my 1280x720 version that you recommended. You can really notice the flickering in this.

http://www.guitar-dreams.com/misc/video/youtube.mp4

Appreciate the help!

Brian

The screenshots worked, but the links to the raw files and the long mp4 file did not either as you can see from the broken link.

Ok I think I fixed it. I had to rename the raw files to a .zip. Just change it to MTS. Otherwise it seems like the browser tries to open the raw data in the browser window...

Also noticing some buggy behavior with those mp4 files and I saw this post:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/what-happens-vegas/140552-low-system-memory-8-1-64bit.html

I am having similar trouble (I have 32 bit WinXP pro with 2GB RAM and nothing running in the background).

thanks,

brian

The .mp4 is not flashing, it's macroblocking. It's encoded at 126kbps. You need to encode a file that size at around 768kbps or more. I tend to encode my 720p files at 4 Mbps, and my 1080p files at 6 Mbps. SD sized files at anything from 768k to 2 Mbps. That should make all the difference in the world.

Working on the raw files now...

Raw1 is up.

YouTube - raw1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVdQ_oO6exo)


Raw2 is up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceke1sM9mSs

Weird - but I chose 768 Kbps...

I just went to my wife's laptop and she doesn't see the Watch in HD option. Does youtube detect monitor settings? I am pretty sure her laptop can support 1280x720.

Strange stuff there. Maybe you're seeing cached info? Not sure what happened on the render, but if you open the encoded file, you can clearly see the bitrate.