Ulead MF6-PLUS and HD-DVD

[Ben Hayflick]

How exactly does one render HDV footage from a Vegas 7d timeline, for import into Ulead MF 6+?

The original footage is Canon A1 HDV 30F. My goal is to make this into an HD-DVD, on DVD-R media, using a red-laser SD DVD burner.

Is another piece of software like Womble or Video Redo, necessary to do this?

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Ben Hayflick

How exactly does one render HDV footage from a Vegas 7d timeline, for import into Ulead MF 6+?

The original footage is Canon A1 HDV 30F. My goal is to make this into an HD-DVD, on DVD-R media, using a red-laser SD DVD burner.

Is another piece of software like Womble or Video Redo, necessary to do this?

I haven't used Vegas that way. My workflow uses Vegas for color correction mainly, and only when necessary. Otherwise, Womble is much faster for cut 'n pasting of clips because it doesn't render them. Womble exports the native m2t to mpeg-2 program required by Ulead MF6+, and converts the audio to AC3 5.1 in one step.

I would color correct in Vegas, render the clip to m2t, put the rendered clip onto the Womble timeline with all the other clips, and let Womble export to mpeg-2 program and AC3 5.1 without adding another lossy slow render. The Womble exported file is immediately accepted by Ulead MF6+ without rendering.

For a 4.7gb disk, the whole process after capturing is about 20-25 minutes to a burned, HD-DVD compliant disk. The breakdown is about 10 minutes for Womble, and 10-15 minutes for MF6+ to author and burn at 16x.

Your question was how to get Vegas to render to mpeg-2 program so the file can be imported to Ulead MF6+. I'm not sure if it can, but possibly you can get Vegas to work with a custom template.

[Paul Kepen]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

I haven't used Vegas that way. My workflow uses Vegas for color correction mainly, and only when necessary. Otherwise, Womble is much faster for cut 'n pasting of clips because it doesn't render them. Womble exports the native m2t to mpeg-2 program required by Ulead MF6+, and converts the audio to AC3 5.1 in one step.

I would color correct in Vegas, render the clip to m2t, put the rendered clip onto the Womble timeline with all the other clips, and let Womble export to mpeg-2 program and AC3 5.1 without adding another lossy slow render. The Womble exported file is immediately accepted by Ulead MF6+ without rendering.

For a 4.7gb disk, the whole process after capturing is about 20-25 minutes to a burned, HD-DVD compliant disk. The breakdown is about 10 minutes for Womble, and 10-15 minutes for MF6+ to author and burn at 16x.

Your question was how to get Vegas to render to mpeg-2 program so the file can be imported to Ulead MF6+. I'm not sure if it can, but possibly you can get Vegas to work with a custom template.

Hi Tom and everybody,
I use Vegas 6. When I encode and try to import into MF6 I always get a "file in unaccessable" message. Curiously if I send the original Cineform file that was editied in Vegas to PPro and then send it MF6, MF6 has no trouble accepting it.

I don't have the optional (expensive) Adobe Surecode 5.1, so I can't do 5.1 sound that way, so I just encode the Video and audio sepaeretly. I encode a AC3 5.1 file and import this into MF6 on the music track (no audio with the video file). Playback on the computer comes out in 5.1, but the HD-DVD discs made from MF6 are audibly only Stereo sound even though my receiver says it is getting a DTS 5.1 - which is curoius cause Vegas/DVD architect files usually say DD, not DTS.

So my questions are:

1. Why does MF6 always see Vegas Mpeg2 as "unaccessible."

2. Why does the audio not sound like 5.1 on the HD-DVD disc from MF6?

3. Why is the Audio volume so low compared to Menu background music and other DVD/HD-DVD discs ?

Thanks Everyone for any input/ideas you may have - PK

[Tom Roper]

I'll try a test using Vegas to see if I can get a rendered file to import into MF6+.

[Tom Roper]

The problem with Vegas is that the MainConcept mpeg encoder doesn't let you create any custom templates. It outputs straight HDV which is great for printing to tape, but useless for MF6+ which requires mpeg-2 program stream, which HDV is not.

For a workaround, you can save it as AVI using an intermediate codec with Vegas.

1.) Under File choose: Render As.
2.) Save As Video type: Video for Windows (*.avi)
3.) Template: HDV intermediate
4.) Click "Custom" button
5.) Click on the Video tab
6.) Video Format: Cineform HD codec
7.) Okay
8.) Save

Import the AVI file into MF6+, and burn to HD-DVD.
It works, although I screwed something up somewhere, had the wrong aspect ratio. Of course it's getting re-encoded.

I think you'd be better off using something like VideoRedo or Womble to losslessly transcode the Vegas HDV file to mpeg-2 PS.

[Laurence Kingston]

If you buy Womble Mpeg edit, you also get Womble Mpeg VCR for free. Just load the m2t into Mpeg VCR and save as an mpeg 2 file and it will work fine with the Ulead program.

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Laurence Kingston

If you buy Womble Mpeg edit, you also get Womble Mpeg VCR for free. Just load the m2t into Mpeg VCR and save as an mpeg 2 file and it will work fine with the Ulead program.

I agree with Laurence, except recommend if you go that route, get Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD which includes the AC3 5.1 encoder. Yes, it does 'true' 5.1 audio encodes, not just spoofed stereo sound, and it comes out that way with MF6+.

Reviewing what Paul wrote, you would lay the audio that you want in AC3 5.1 on the Womble timeline, and encode it there. The audio gets rendered, not the video so no loss is PQ. That's what you import in MF6+, already muxed by Womble rather than put the audio track on the MF6+ timeline where it may be getting screwed up for Paul.

[Paul Kepen]

Originally Posted by Tom Roper

I agree with Laurence, except recommend if you go that route, get Womble MPEG Video Wizard DVD which includes the AC3 5.1 encoder. Yes, it does 'true' 5.1 audio encodes, not just spoofed stereo sound, and it comes out that way with MF6+.

Reviewing what Paul wrote, you would lay the audio that you want in AC3 5.1 on the Womble timeline, and encode it there. The audio gets rendered, not the video so no loss is PQ. That's what you import in MF6+, already muxed by Womble rather than put the audio track on the MF6+ timeline where it may be getting screwed up for Paul.

Thanks For the responses - Tom and Laurence. Tom, I seem to be able to customize the Mpeg 2 output in Vegas 6 to pretty much whatever I want - bit rate, constant/variable/2pass - with/without audio. I have tried .avi, .mpg, .m2T, .M2V etc. The strange thing is that Premiere Pro has no trouble accepting these Vegas files. I then re-render the V6 files to the same format in PPro, and MF6+ takes them - no problem. Ofcourse the extra render in PPro takes more time and degrades the quality somewhat. What is the advantage of going V6-Womble-MF6, versus V6-PPRO-MF6 ? Either way, aren't I getting an extra re-encoding?
I don't encode the audio with the Video, because in Vegas 6, there is no option to encode AC3 5.1 in the mpeg stream - only stereo. In Vegas 6 going to DVD architect, the AC3 5.1 audio is rendered as a seperate file from the Video. I can get the Video to MF6 as explained above through PPro with no audio. Then I make the AC3 5.1 file in Vegas and MF6+ takes that directly from V6 - no problem. I put it in the music track. My receiver says its getting a 5.1, but the sound is distinctly just stereo - even though I have selected 5.1 surround (L,C,R,LR,RR) in MF6 the 5.1 surround. The same audio file - used in Vegas/DVD architect has is definitely a 5.1 track.

Tom you say "The audio gets rendered, not the video so no loss is PQ" which kind of sounds like your rendering audio seperately, but then you say "already muxed by Womble rather than put the audio track on the MF6+ timeline." Sorry to be stupid, but I've heard the term "remux", but what does that mean? Audio and Video mixed togehter in the same Mpeg stream?

Thanks Guys, sorry this got so long, and I hope you can understand what I'm saying - its getting late. Have a Good Night, and Thanks Again - PK

[Tom Roper]

I understand you perfectly Paul.

Basically, it's this. Womble uses "Smart Rendering," meaning that it doesn't render your video except for a few frames on either side of the edit point. Usually, if it's just simple cuts-and-joins it doesn't even have to render those. So using an example, you have a clip, you put it on the timeline, you want to cut out a segment in the middle. Womble will rejoin the remaining segments without rendering at all, so it's extremely fast, and no loss in picture quality whatsoever, no matter how many times you do it. Womble has a progress bar that tells you when something is going to be rendered. Blue means 100% stream copy. As long as the edits on the progress bar don't switch to red, there's no rendering. So when does it render? As long as you aren't mixing different frame sizes on the same timeline (which Womble does allow), about the only time it renders anything is around transistions, fades, wipes, titling, or the various filters, color, contrast, embossing etc.

So number one, it's different in that it doesn't render as much as Vegas or the others that force a complete render whenever you do anything.

Let's say you have a clip that needs color correction. Well, Womble has tools for that but Vegas is better. So you do your color correction, chroma key or whatever inside Vegas for only the portion of the clip that needs it, then you can put that rendered clip on the Womble timeline and it won't render it further. So Womble is really good for assembling footage, not as good for sophisticated effects and renders.

Womble has timelines that look like Vegas, video, audio, music, stills, etc. With Womble, you could take a video track and drop it onto the video timeline. You could take a 5.1 audio track and drop it on the music timeline. More than one, if need be. Womble will transcode (not render) a new file that muxes (combines) the video and audio elementary streams into one stream that has the video and audio. THAT's the file that you import into MF6+. You don't want MF6+ doing any rendering. Womble gets the stream into the format that MF6+ can use without putting its own rendering onto it. That makes it go fast and preserves the quality.

What I like about Womble, is I can take footage straight out of the camera, go into Womble with it, make my edits, convert the two channel camcorder stereo into AC3 5.1 (and it does this beautifully), and author it to HD-DVD with MF6+ without doing a single video render, not one. The video quality is as pristine as what you recorded on tape, only looks better via the HDMI output of the HD-DVD player compared to the component video outputs on the camcorder.

Just to make sure I've answered your questions, "remux" means you are recombining into one file separate elementary video and audio streams. With Womble, you don't have to demux them unless you want to. It includes tools for demuxing and muxing elementary streams of audio and video. Let's say you have camcorder footage with two channel stereo, and you have a 5.1 music stream you want to use for background music. You drop the camcorder footage onto one timeline, and you drop the 5.1 music onto another, then when you export Womble will combine them together into one mpg file, all in 5.1 AC3. You import that one file into MF6+ instead of separate video+audio as you are now.

It will play discrete channels of sound from all of your speakers. It leaves the 5.1 channel music alone, but splits your two channel camcorder stereo into 5.1 with front, center, rear and subwoofer. How it does this I don't know but it does do it very professionally.

Remux, or just mux...video and audio together into one mpg file.

Womble is not perfect, it has some quirks, but it's cheap, easy to use, and you can download a 30 day free trial that is 100% fully functional.

[Mark Donnell]

I have read this thread and it is very interesting, but I have one question. When burning your HD-DVD on a standard DVD, are you using a regular DVD burner or a HD-DVD burner ?

[Paul Kepen]

Thanks Tom,
I will give Womble a try. I still don't understand why MF6+ won't take any of my HDV files directly from Vegas. MF6+ has no trouble with any of my SD Vegas files. It is only the HDV ones that it always says "FileName is not accessible."
This would seem to imply that there is something in Vegas that is denying access by MF6+ to ONLY the HD files. However; these same "unaccessible" HD files are accessible to Adobe Premiere. That just does not make sense to me.
I take it that you use Vegas, but go through womble to get the 5.1 audio into the Mpeg-2 output file to MF6+. I will give that a try. Thank You very much for your help.. Have a Good Weekend - PK

[Paul Kepen]

Originally Posted by Mark Donnell

I have read this thread and it is very interesting, but I have one question. When burning your HD-DVD on a standard DVD, are you using a regular DVD burner or a HD-DVD burner ?

Yes Mark, you can burn a HD-DVD disc with a standard DVD burner on a standard DVD+/-R. No expensive burner to buy. The image quality is superb, and the only down side is that you can only get a bit over 20 minutes on a disc, or 40 minutes on a DualLayer disc. It is great to finaly be able to see the image quality of our HDV camcorders in our edited output. I only wish that Adobe and Sony would incorporate this into their editing products - which would make the work flow a lot easier - PK.

[Victor Wilcox]

I just got a Toshiba HD-A2 (with current firmware) and have been burnning content (1080i 29.97). I've tried M2T (25 mbs) files converted to MPG with Womble DVD and rendering to MPG from PPro CS3. Then burnded with MF6+. They playback discs stutter so much they was unusable. I had to drop the bit rate below 15 mbs to get them to play. Several users have reported using 25 mbs.

I've been using TDK DVD+R discs.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Tom Roper]

Originally Posted by Victor Wilcox

I just got a Toshiba HD-A2 (with current firmware) and have been burnning content (1080i 29.97). I've tried M2T (25 mbs) files converted to MPG with Womble DVD and rendering to MPG from PPro CS3. Then burnded with MF6+. They playback discs stutter so much they was unusable. I had to drop the bit rate below 15 mbs to get them to play. Several users have reported using 25 mbs.

I've been using TDK DVD+R discs.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This has been covered at AVSforum (HD DVD software topics, sticky for HD DVD authoring experiences).

Bottom line, burn onto DVD+R or +R dual layer as you are doing currently, but use firmware utility for your burner to set the book type bitsetting to "physical media type" or +R. The default for most burners is DVD-ROM, which is where the problem lies for the A2, A20, XA2.

Not all burners allow the booktype setting to be changed. For those that don't, you may be able to do a search for (or read the thread I mentioned, toward the end) for utility software that does it for your burner via a firmware patch. Some burner firmwares already support booktype bitsetting, in which case burning software like NERO allow you to change it.

[Victor Wilcox]

Thanks for the help. Time to search for a new burner.