rendering full HD to mpeg2 or avchd?

[Stanley Szpala]

I realize rendering questions are asked all the time, but:

I need to create a file (not a bluray) with my 5 min long film shot in 1920x1080, and edited in Movie Studio, stereo sound. I want great video quality, but I want to make sure it plays well on most decent laptops (e.g. dual core ~2.8GHz).
AVCHD plays fine on my PC, but it might not be ok for above???

Should I use mpeg2 instead, and what settings? anything else?
Thanks.

[Aaron Holmes]

What operating systems? Bear in mind that AVC playback wasn't a part of Windows until Windows 7, less than two years ago. Anything older than that, while it may have the horsepower, won't necessarily have the codec ready to go. If you're planning on passing your video file around to friends, MPEG-2 is certainly the most compatible way to go. To provide quality closest to your original video you'll need a somewhat higher bitrate with MPEG-2 than with AVC. Some experimentation is probably worthwhile. Viewing your video on the "small screen" also minimizes the appearance of compression artifacts, so unless you need the same render to withstand viewing on a 50" plasma, you might get away with less.

Not sure what to expect of Macs.

Best,
Aaron

[Stanley Szpala]

thanks, mpeg2 it is.
I don't know much about the laptop/pc to be used - it's for a festival. I hate to keep asking questions the organizer, especially that he doesn't appear very clear regarding technical issues.
So knowing this, or not knowing much :), what mpeg2 settings experienced people would recommend, bps in particular?

[Aaron Holmes]

I see. Well, "festival" might make things trickier. :) I'd definitely be pressing the for the details! I haven't submitted anything for a festival before, but I've read quite a few sets of submission guidelines. Many accept (or expect!) the form of your original submission to be standard-def DVD, or else some similarly-accessible format. If chosen for exhibition, professional master formats such as Digital Betacam, HDCam, etc., are later requested. So definitely find out if at all possible! If the submission guidelines are vague or ambiguous, maybe seek out a former participant and see what they got away with. :)

Ignoring the festival issue for a moment: 40Mbit/s is tops for MPEG-2 on Blu-ray, and IMO it looks pretty darn good. In the interest of compatible file-based distribution of some of my work, together with an interest in putting it on Blu-ray, I've done a number of 40Mbit/s MPEG-2 renders based on 24Mbit/s AVCHD from the NX5 and have been pleased with the results (even played on large screens).

Best,
Aaron

[Gerald Webb]

hmmmmm, I may be off track, but. if it was me, I'd go Quicktime h.264.
reason being, everything I have ever had to give to anybody "in the industry", has had to be for Mac's.
And to be honest, anyone who looked at you and said,
"Quicktime, whats that?"
would have to be from another planet, and would prob get fired by the event organizer on the spot.

[Aaron Holmes]

Not off track; I wouldn't have suggested MPEG-2 files had I known the intended audience. Some festivals do accept QT files (SIFF, my hometown festival, is one). Definitely get this straightened out prior to submission, though! There really should be nothing left to chance as format goes. If the organizers aren't clear on this, something is wrong.

Best,
Aaron

[Stanley Szpala]

about mpeg2: Movie Studio encodes audio (Bluray template) to a separate file. How can I have it both audio and video in the same file? It is possible with SD mpeg2, so I would think should be doable in FullHD too.

About the submission guidelines:
Film format for the main competition (check one or more):
Film File (.mov, .mpeg2, other)___ DVCam___ HDV___ HDCam___ Digital Betacam___ DVD___ Other_
(and dvd for the selection process).

[Aaron Holmes]

Haven't used Vegas much, but look for a "multiplexing" option. You want the audio and video to be multiplexed into an MPEG-2 Transport Stream (possibly just called "TS" multiplexing--that's what Premiere calls it, anyway).

Good news about the submission formats; they seem pretty flexible.

Best,
Aaron

[Stanley Szpala]

so far no luck with finding "multiplexing" or something similar...
I really would love to have mpeg2 !

I'm working in parallel on *.mov. It might be good to submit more than one file and let them choose.
Preliminary testing is good, although I don't see "h.264"
I'm using video format "video", which doesn't sound very descriptive, but the quality seems to be good in 1920x1080.

[Aaron Holmes]

Odd. I've gotta believe there's a way to get a multiplexed HD MPEG-2 out of Vegas Movie Studio, but if not, you could always use one of several free multiplexer apps out there. tsMuxeR is popular:
SmartLabs - SmartLabs tsMuxeR

Best,
Aaron

[Stanley Szpala]

big thanks!
- tsMuxeR seems to be working very well: I combined m2v with mpa into *.ts" file (TS muxing), and this file (video+audio) plays fine on my PC with Windows 7.
Actually, I've never seen "ts" extension before. Is it a file that is playable on most computers? Or I should try another output option?

P.s. it could be my limited skills preventing me from encoding audio to HD mpeg2 in Movie Studio, or limitations of the non-professional version.

[Aaron Holmes]

Yeah, feel free to just rename your .ts file to the somewhat more ambiguous ".mpg". Everything will be fine; that's all it is under the surface.

Best,
Aaron

[Robin Davies-Rollinson]

If you delve into the CUSTOM options when you choose the BluRay export option, you'll find boxes to tick/untick in the video and audio preferences for including or excluding the audio in the final stream.
I use this option all the time to render out a combined audio/video stream. It's all in there in Moviestudio or Pro versions

[Stanley Szpala]

thanks, but it's not working for me. I do check 'include audio stream' box. It works with SD mpeg2, but not with FullHD (*.m2v). When I select mpg extension, it overrides it to mtv. Weird.

But tsMuxeR works fine, so I'm a happy camper now.

[Aaron Holmes]

I was just talking about renaming your .ts file to .mpg after tsMuxeR has created it for you. I have no idea what you'd do in Vegas.

EDIT: I hadn't noticed Robin's intervening reply, so please ignore me! :-)

.mpg is just a more-recognized extension than .ts.

Best,
Aaron