Work flow for usb+dvd wedding output

[Roger Gunkel]

Having recently upgraded my pc, I have also changed my modus operandi. I now deliver all weddings on both dvd and HD USB to clients and have done so for a while. On the previous editing system, I was editing normally on the timeline, usually with multi camera video and audio streams for ceremony and speeches and two cameras for first dance. After adding various stabilisation, colour balancing etc, it was taking about 2-3 times dvd length to render out to the first dvd, which for dvds of regularly up to 2 hours was an overnight job. I would then break the timeline down intto shorter sections for outputting up to 4gb 1080 mp4 files for USB delivery. This would mean that each mp4 was being mixed and rendered from the original edited footage with about 3-5 times real time to complete each one, another very long process. Also, with the dvd render on a long production with many effects, colour matching etc, I was sometimes getting lockups due to high memory and cpu use, wasting time and requiring a reboot.

I have now changed my working method completely, so that, after the main edit is complete, I break the timeline into what would have been chapter points for the dvd then render out to mp4. On the new system that is around real time for each render. I then drop each mp4 into a new timeline for the complete production, adding chapter points where each mp4 meets, set up my standard menu in about 5 minutes, with a still from the video and their music choice, then render out to dvd. As all the basic mixing down was done at the mpeg render stage, the dvd finishes in about 40% of the running time. As an example, I have just completed a 2 hour dvd and mpeg usb in 2 hrs 45mins total rendering time, which is a massive improvement over the previous method, where everything was being mixed down twice. Each mp4 file also matches dvd chapter points and most modern tvs seem to run the files sequentially with no problem providing they have a numerical sequence of file names.

Just to reassure myself on quality, I also rendered a 5 minute section to mp4 then dvd from the mp4, and did another dvd of the same section from the original HD footage timeline directly rendered to dvd. I expected to see a slight reduction in quality or stability with the previously rendered mp4 to dvd, but if anything the playback seemed smoother and sharper.

I wondered whether this is something everybody else has been doing for ages and I have just seen the light, or whether most still make dvds or bluray by rendering to mpeg2 and doing it all again for mpeg 4 usb.

Roger

[Chris Hewitt]

Yes, Roger, I'm still doing it the way you have been in the past and it's a huge pain, especially this week where I'm having render problems for the first time ever. I have often thought that rendering to a single HD mp4 video file from the timeline (my source is 1920/50P) and then rendering that to mpg just for the DVD might be the way to go. I provide Bluray and DVD for my clients and am never happy with the way DVD looks. I use Vegas 12 and it does what I need well but your new workflow is something I will take a look at tomorrow, primarily to see if it might give me a better final DVD. Having that intermediate mp4 at source resolution would also give me the option to provide a USB flash drive, maybe. Food for thought.
I don't have the memory lock-ups you mention although I have white balance and exposure plug-ins on most interior shots as well as other fx.

[Roger Gunkel]

Hi Chris,

I am also working from 1080 50p and 25p in low light. What I have also found encouraging is that I can render MP4 from 4K at virtually the same rate as from HD. As I intend to do a lot more 4K filming over the next 12 months, it has removed my worries about greatly increased rendering times. My NLE is Magix Movie Edit Pro 7.

I think my lockups were due to limited ram and a slower AMD cpu, with the new i7 system handling things more efficiently. I may increase ram from 16-32Gb, but my builder felt that 16Gb of DD4 ram should give enough headroom. Certainly the monitoring information shows the system is working well within it's capabilities whereas the old system shows that both cpu and ram are frequently running at maximum capacity for similar tasks.

I'll be interested to see whether you find any improvements by trying the MP4 rendering route.

Roger

[Chris Hewitt]

Just trying it out now, Roger, I was too curious. I've tried disabling the default resample on all clips on the timeline as I had heard that gives a sharper DVD mpg but it looks horrible, especially on windy trees, wherever there is fine detail like brickwork etc.so I guess I'll keep resample 'on' . I know Magix have acquired Vegas recently. I'll post back here when that render is done, hopefully your new workflow will be beneficial for me. BTW, my system is i7 with 12 gb of ram on Win 7 and no problems ever (till today).

[Chris Hewitt]

Burning the midnight oil, Roger, but I've had a massive, massive result. How to make the perfect mpg for DVD from a single HD event!
Ok, what I did was disable resample on all original first generation video events on the timeline, render the whole project to HD mp4, throw that on to the top track as one clip, mute everything else and then render that to mpg. Some might say that's a lossy way to do it but going from HD to DVD, it really isn't and I have to say that the final mpg has no motion blur, almost looks HD and is light years better than what I've had before. It looks so damn good you almost expect Tom Cruise to jump out from behind a bush.
I know this wasn't exactly your original topic Roger, but what you wrote got me thinking and that worked big time for me so I thought I'd share that with anyone else having trouble when downsizing to DVD, the internet is full of it....and the beauty of it all is that any small changes that may be required, well, fix the gap or flash frame on the origial edit and just put the amended frames on top of the mp4 on the timeline in sync and rerender at lightning speed. You don't have to wait ages for the normal rerender. How good is that? Thankyou.

[Roger Gunkel]

That's a good amendment Chris. So basically you are using the original original footage edit as a reference and correction track once you have rendered the MP4, placing the MP4 clips on a new track parallel to the original edit, then muting all the original and then outputting the DVD from the MP4.

As you say, if there are any corrections necessary later, they can just be cut and pasted from the original as it will already be in the correct sync, without having to re-render the original edit. Nice one! :-)

Hope you got some sleep!

Roger

[Chris Hewitt]

After a few trial and errors, the discs are burned and look good. Yes, the timeline ability to ignore the original edit is a big timesaver if re-edits need to be done. One thing I did find is that after the mp4 is made at 25fps, it's important to remove any reference to 50 fps as that can introduce all sorts of nasties. Thanks again Roger for the idea.

[Noa Put]

My workflow is quite simple, I recently did some testing to see what resulted into the fastest workflow so I have some time data as well. I have a pc with a I7 4790k, 32gb of memory and a nvidia gt610 videocard.

For each part of the day I make a separate sequence in Edius 8 so I can have a sequences called "trailer", "highlights", "ceremony", "speeches" and "presentations/acts by friends"

Those are rendered out to a 35mbs h264 MP4 file resulting into 5 different files. Those files I import into tmpgencauthoringworks to make my dvd and my blu-ray, my menus only will show the 5 different files but I don't make any additional chapters for the ceremony so each file has to be watched from the beginning.

That same 35mbs h264 MP4 file I import into handbrake and I render out a 7mbs h264 MP4 file for the client which goes onto the usb stick. Since the client always get a blu-ray disc now that disc also serves as a backup for their wedding as it contains m2ts files that have a +30mbs bitrate and that can just be copied of that disc to the pc if they ever would loose their files that where on the usb stick.

I also keep backups and the 35mbs h264 MP4 files I keep on one disc and the dvd iso and blu-ray iso I keep on another disc.

In terms of rendertimes my "waitingtime" is manageable, I tested this a while back using a 4K one hour recording from a Sony AX100 that was placed into a 1080p 25p project in Edius.

To render that one hour file out to a 35mbs h264 MP4 file takes 24 min.

That file then gets imported into handbrake and to render it for a dvd takes 22 min and to render that one hour file to a blu-ray takes 25min.

The same 35mbs h264 MP4 file also gets imported into handbrake to render it into a 5 to 7 mbs average bitrate with 2 pass encoding and that takes 33 min.

The total time spend on rendering considering that my average weddings have a total length between 1,5 hour to 1 hour 45min (total length of all 5 files combined that are rendered out) is between 2 hour 45 min and 3 hours.