Amateur Recital Video Editing

[Ron Evans]

For dance you will need smooth motion so in my opinion the slower frame rates do not cut it at all. Your video is of an event and that is what the people will expect. As close to the live experience as possible. I would stay with 60i all the way which is what is the standard for DVD. I do dance and theatre and have no titles on the video so that the show plays through as if one is in the audience with chapter marks at all the dance numbers or other events in the program.. All dances names and credits etc are in the DVD authoring. For tape, titles were necessary on the tape but since everything is now disc I stopped putting titles on the video itself other than the titles at the beginning and final credits.

Downconverting is difficult to achieve and Vegas( or any of the other NLE's) does not do a good job of that at the data rate you will need to get everything on 2 discs. I would render from Vegas as an uncompressed HD file format then downconvert/encode in TMPGenc T5. In my testing this has the easiest and best downconvert and will just then go into DVD Architect for authoring either SD DVD or Bluray encodes. If you do not have TMPGenc there is a full functional trial so time things so that you can do all your encodes within the trial. If you like it you can then buy.

That was some long dance show though. Mine are normally over in about 2 1/2 hours or so at most. There are Junior and Senior version though.

Ron Evans

[Brad Ridgeway]

Ron... My intention all along is to try to keep this "as close to the live experience as possible." I am cutting very little from the original footage and allowing the flow to follow the actual event with awards and recognitions between performances, etc. With that being said, I may just take your advice on leaving out the titles as I would be including all that information in the authoring anyway as you stated. I was having fun though learning how to create "lower thirds."

Thanks also for the advice on downconverting. When you say "render from Vegas as an uncompressed HD file format," what is the best format you would be referring to? Also, if I do the downconverting / encoding in TMPGenc T5, I assume I will need to plan well to make sure the content will fit onto 2 discs at this stage. I am assuming I don't want DVD Architect to do any further compression to fit to the DVDs? Also, how much additional time/space will the authoring in DVD Architect require? What format would I convert to from TMPGenc T5 (MPEG-2 DVD)?

I apologize for probably not using correct terminology and asking so many questions, but I am so inexperienced at this and that's why I am here looking for help. All the help I have received thus far is MUCH appreciated.

[Garrett Low]

This is where preferences will come into your mix and it's up to you to decide what you think is best. I actually find more distracting motion blur from 60i than 30p. People get confused and think that 60i is giving the a higher frame rate but it actually is not. with 60i you still have a frame rate of 30 frames per second (really 29.97fps but for ease of reference we'll just call it 30fps). I'm sure all here know that but when you look at the footage you'll actually see more blurring and you loose some detail when interlacing the frames back. Now if you could shoot 60p that would give you a higher frame rate but as of now no standard system will play 1080/60p. Bluray can only play 720/60p.

When I produce dance shows I don't try to recreate the live experience. My reference is actually the live dance shows that you see put on by professional dance troupes. Unless it's a ballet I add lower thirds that usually have the name of the dance, class level or group name, and sometimes the style of dance (jazz, hip-hop, lyrical, etc.). I also cut out the extra pauses that occur between numbers. For some shows that can be a substantial amount of time and taking it out allows me to up the bitrate. or fit it all onto fewer discs. In addition I have a credit roll at the end. My goal is to make the DVD or BR as close to what they would buy if they went out and bought a disc of River Dance or something like that. It makes the dancers and family feel like it's something special. In today's market you have to make your product stand out or they'll feel like they could just go and video it themselves and throw it onto a DVD. There are two ways to stand out, either by having superior quality in the picture, which is possible through equipment and technique. Or, you have to make your DVD's look more professional than what someone could do at home. Again that's just my way of thinking.

But as a quick example, last year I did the school my son attends a favor and produced the DVD of their school talent show. It's a pretty big deal for them and they sell the DVD's to help the PTA. I did my usual minimal setup. Two main cameras, one for group stage acts and one only to pick up a piano that was not brought up on stage for each act but was off to the side. I created the DVD with usual lower thirds. This year, they had another company to it with three cameras. The quality of the video this year was not very good and the DVD was pretty much what they've had in the past. Almost a straight replica of the performances with chapter marks at each act but no lower thirds, no credits, opening was very blah, and really no menu's. Believe it or not the school has gotten a lot of negative feedback from this year's DVD and have asked if I could do their show next year. They wanted to book me almost a year in advance. Unfortunately I can't commit that far in advance for pro bono work. I really didn't think what I did was great because I couldn't put a lot of time into it but it was enough to really set it apart from what other production companies have done. And remember this will be a calling card of sorts.

For rendering TMPGenc is a good way to go and will give you better results than Vegas for downresing. I'm cheap and didn't want to spend the money so I use VDub to do the scaling and then render the mpg2 in Vegas. That gives me the same quality as the real killer is in the scaling. Also, for the amount of footage you have if you render to an uncomperssed HD AVI you're going to have huge files. You may want to render to a good intermediate codec. Lagarith is a good intermediate AVI codec that is free so it's worth giving it a try. If you google it you'll find it and be able to install it on your system.

Don't let DVDA recompress your files. Create a DVD compliant mpg2 in either Vegas or some other program such as TMPGenc and an AC3 audio track. try to keep your total bitrate under 8Mbps. The DVD spec allows you to go over that but I've had trouble with older players with bitrates over that. I'll push upwards of 2 hours to maybe 2:15 if there isn't a lot of fast motion. If there is, I keep it at 1:45 per disc. Lowering the bitrate enough to fit over 2 hours on each disc for something like a dance show will most likely give you some really bad compression artifacts.

Again, just my way of doing things which isn't necessary the best but it works for me.

-Garrett

[Ron Evans]

Well 60i has the temporal motion of 60 exposures a second. The camera is actually taking shots every 1/60 a second but only recording fields, half the vertical resolution. The 29.97 frames comes from the fact that the time code refers to frames, so 60 fields is 30 frames, 2 fields is one frame. In drop code this is 29.97. These fields are of course 1/60sec apart and do not belong to each other. Unfortunately 29.97fps does not relate to the motion at all just the time code.

30p is 30 frames a second so has the temporal motion of 30 exposures a second, half the exposure rate of 60i. On a CRT 60i will be smooth, that was the system it was designed for. On a LCD or plasma the 60i has to be deinterlaced and presented at 60P for the display which has a refresh rate of 60hz. Every time one views an interlaced video on a flat panel one is dependent on the capabilities of the deinterlacing algorithm and the scaling algorithm used in the panel. They will all be different. Higher refresh rates give the deinterlacing and scaling algorithms more data to work with in creating the progressive image the display needs. As an aside the only way to truly see 24P is on a set that has a refresh rate a multiple of 24 ie 48, 72, 96, 120 etc. 60hz refresh must always use 2:3 pulldown so one is then watching a 2:3 cadence not 24P. This is currently only possible from 24P Bluray over HDMI for players that understand 24P and TVs that have a refresh rate a multiple of 24 AND respond correctly to the HDMI input.

As to export from Vegas, Garrett recommendation of Lagarith will work though you may want to really see how big some of the other choices may get. For me editing in Edius I use Canopus HQ which produces files about 4 times the size of the original. TMPGenc has a preset for DVD and allows you to see how much your file is filling the disc and I make sure that I set limit of 8000 and do not fill disc beyond about 4G, AC3 audio. Select separate video and audio as encode choice and you can use in DVD Architect without any re-encodes. I found that although VDub does do a good downconvert I needed to add some sharpening and chroma to get an image I was happy with and then encode to MPEG2 for DVD. TMPGenc does it all in one go but does cost.

Ron Evans

[R Geoff Baker]

<Unfortunately 29.97fps does not relate to the motion at all just the time code.>

Not sure what you are intending to say there, but of course the frame rate is 29.97 precisely -- the description as 30 is a convenient but wrong label. So the fields are actually 59.94 per second, as you'd expect.

This is why there is 'drop frame' nomenclature -- by dropping some periodic frame address labels, though not any actual frames, the timecode can be used to describe the passage of time without applying some sort of corrective formula. In effect, the corrective formula is applied as part of the naming convention so that a timecode of 5:30 does in fact describe a duration of 5 minutes 30 seconds, despite the fact that the actual frames are actually just a little over 1/30th of a frame each .... Clear as mud?

Sorry to be a pedant, but you seemed to be saying something rather different.

Resume normal behaviour ...

Cheers,
GB

[Ron Evans]

The drop frame time code for 60i is 29.97 so from a time code point of view there are 30 frames a second non-drop. But one must not confuse this with exposure rate. 60i has 60 exposures a second, not 30, they just happen to be fields not full frames so only count as half a frame. But they are real pictures with half the vertical resolution. That is what gives 60i the smooth motion as the temporal motion is the same as 60P. Not as clean as 60P because the only way to watch it is either on a CRT or dependent on the de interlacing and scaling of the display.

30P is not the same as 60i though from a timecode point of view both are 29.97 drop frame. This was the main point I wanted to make. 30P is truly 30 frames a second in exposures and timecode. 60i is 60 exposures a second and 30 frames a second timecode.

Ron Evans

[Garrett Low]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

...or dependent on the de interlacing and scaling of the display.

This is perhaps why I don't find 60i very pleasing on modern LCD or Plasma screens. The loss in resolution is more noticeable on the larger screens. The "half" frame idea was a concept based on the perceptible number of scan lines that it was thought that people could process. I don't find the motion blur from 30p as much of a distraction as the loss of resolution.

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly with regard to 29.97fps. It is in fact not 30fps. It is only 29.97fps. Drop frame or Non Drop Frame is only a method of keeping track of time. Drop frame refers to dropping one frame out of every 1000 to keep track of time for editing purposes. Drop frame timecode or non drop frame has no bearing on the actual frame rate. Maybe we're saying the same thing but I just don't want to get people confused as there is an actual 30 fps and 29.97fps settings when rendering.

[Eric Olson]

Dear Brad,

This discussion about how to create the best quality DVD is excellent and indeed there are many better quality methods to master a DVD than what's built into Vegas. However, Vegas and DVD Architect actually do a pretty good job on their own. To keep things simple for this first project, I would suggest

1. Render from Vegas using one of the 1080i blu-ray disk presets.
2. Import these high-definition files into DVD Architect.
3. Adjust DVD Architect so it will encode each project to fit on a 4.7GB DVD.
4. Watch each disk on both an LCD and a CRT type television before duplicating.

In addition to being simple, this method allows DVD Architect to encode with the maximum bitrate that fits on the DVD as well as giving you the ability to easily master a blu-ray disk later.

If the DVDs will be sold for more than 10 dollars each, I would suggest full color artwork on the disk surface as well as packaging the disks in standard DVD boxs with full color covers. If you don't have your own disk printer, there are many duplication houses which charge about 2 or 3 dollars per disk. Good disk and cover artwork have an amazing effect on customer satisfaction and can be very effective marketing even if you only plan to do this as a hobby.

-Eric

[R Geoff Baker]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

30P is not the same as 60i though from a timecode point of view both are 29.97 drop frame. This was the main point I wanted to make. 30P is truly 30 frames a second in exposures and timecode. 60i is 60 exposures a second and 30 frames a second timecode.

No, there are 29.97 FPS in both 30p and 60i -- the latter has 59.94 fields per second. You seem to be suggesting that 29.97 is just some sort of timecode detail ... it is in fact the real frame rate. I won't continue this as it really doesn't address the OPs questions, but note that 29.97 is the actual frame rate, not just some sort of naming oddity.

Cheers,
GB

[Brad Ridgeway]

Originally Posted by Garrett Low

For rendering TMPGenc is a good way to go and will give you better results than Vegas for downresing. I'm cheap and didn't want to spend the money so I use VDub to do the scaling and then render the mpg2 in Vegas. That gives me the same quality as the real killer is in the scaling. Also, for the amount of footage you have if you render to an uncomperssed HD AVI you're going to have huge files. You may want to render to a good intermediate codec. Lagarith is a good intermediate AVI codec that is free so it's worth giving it a try. If you google it you'll find it and be able to install it on your system.

I tried rendering a one hour section of my project last night as an uncompressed HD AVI and I didn't have enough disc space on my 500 Gb drive. I got a "disk full" error when the AVI file reached 400 Gb. I may try the Lagarith codec tonight. After installing Lagarith, will I have an option in Vegas to render using it or is there some other workflow that I will need to consider?

[Paul R Johnson]

I always edit dance shows per section, and then compile these into the finished product - much easier to manage, and quicker in terms of any rendering time. Files are smaller, and system demands lower. A multi cam short sequence is better than an entire hours worth. I also find it less difficult to mess up!

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by R Geoff Baker

No, there are 29.97 FPS in both 30p and 60i -- the latter has 59.94 fields per second. You seem to be suggesting that 29.97 is just some sort of timecode detail ... it is in fact the real frame rate. I won't continue this as it really doesn't address the OPs questions, but note that 29.97 is the actual frame rate, not just some sort of naming oddity.

Cheers,
GB

I will not continue either but I suggest people look up the detail on Wikipedia and see the real source of drop and non drop time code and the reason they were introduced. The reason we have 29.97 and 59.94 is purely in NTSC colour to keep the timecode aligned with the real world clock. It is a time code detail that is very important for sync to other sources like audio that do not have the same issues. In non drop time code there are in fact 30 frames or 60 fields of video. Flags are imbedded in the video signal to tell the timecode counters in decks etc to drop frame counts to keep the video timecode in sync ( or close) to the realtime clocks.

Ron Evans

[Mike Kujbida]

Here's a brief PDF that goes through the history of timecode and how it's applied in the NTSC video environment.
It is an older PDF but the underlying principles remain the same to this day.

[R Geoff Baker]

Thanks for the link Mike. The dropframe nomenclature is necessary precisely because the frame rate is not 30Fps but rather is 29.97 ...

Think of it this way: The original video signal was exactly 30Fps, then colour was introduced. Each colour frame needed a little more information ... so every frame was extended by a fraction, resulting in only 'room' for 29.97 frames in a second. That is and remains the proper framerate, and is what all video devices use as their baseline. The difference is modest, and in many instances irrelevant -- but it is an absolute fact that the frame rate is 29.97 not 30.

Dropframe naming was designed precisely because of this -- both dropframe and non-drop video use the same rate of 29.97, but dropframe naming makes for easier planning of the actual length of something. The same program, using non-drop naming, will not be the length implied in the timecode ... because the frame rate is 29.97 not 30!

HTH
GB

[Robin Davies-Rollinson]

Makes me glad I live in a PAL area guys! :-)