Amateur Recital Video Editing

[R Geoff Baker]

I lived & worked in the UK for a while too -- and frame rates there are certainly easier to grasp! It did annoy me to no end though that movies on television were typically just played back at 25Fps from their original 24Fps source; though I have nothing like 'perfect pitch' it did sound odd to have familiar macho actors speaking in voices that were just a little too high-pitched ...

Cheers,
GB

[Ron Evans]

Yes PAL doesn't have this problem.

Another reference

SMPTE time code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Ron Evans

[Eric Olson]

Uncompressed 1080i video is about 420GB per hour and completely unnecessary if you are going to be mastering to DVD. Render with one of the 1080i blu-ray presets for 11GB per hour.

[R Geoff Baker]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

Another reference

SMPTE time code - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Your link is absolutely correct -- but it doesn't support your earlier statements, rather it confirms that the framerate is never 30Fps but is in fact always 29.97. The fact that dropframe timecode is designed to 'mask' the discrepancy between the actual framerate of video and the nominal convenience of calling it '30 Fps' doesn't change the fact that the framerate is actually 29.97

Cheers,
GB

[Brad Ridgeway]

Thanks Eric for bringing this thread back to my latest dilemma. I was just about to come on here and ask about what format I could best use for rendering a smaller file that would still work well with TMPGEnc for downsizing to DVD format.

I've been reading the information on the following site for TMPGEnc settings and I'm feeling more comfortable using this program knowing some suggested settings to use. (DVD-HQ : Configuring TMPGEnc for high-quality DVD-compliant MPEG-2) The question in my mind was still what format to render from Vegas to use in TMPGEnc. I'll try another one tonight.

[Garrett Low]

Originally Posted by Brad Ridgeway

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?

Hi Brad,

After installing Lagarith, go to render your project as an AVI and then cutomize the setup. One of the options on the video tab will be the codec used. when you pull down the list you should see Lagarith as one of the options. Sorry I'm away from my editing computer right now so I can't give you any screen grabs or confirm all of the nomenclature.

I can't remember the exact size of files but if memory serves me an hour of 1920x1080 video is about 40GB.

-Garrett

[Ron Evans]

Brad, the Bluray preset under Mainconcept MPEG 2 will also work and would give you the HD file ready for making Bluray discs as well.

Ron Evans

[Brad Ridgeway]

Another thought... I've already been doing a lot of editing in Vegas with the original video files and have spent a lot of time adding chapter markers to assist authoring in DVD Architect. If I render out of Vegas to an intermediate file and then downsize with TMPGEnc, am I going to lose all my markers?

[Ron Evans]

Brad I render a Bluray preset with markers and use this in DVD Architect. When I encode an SD version with TMPGenc I just replace the media in DVD Architect and all the markers stay. You have to make sure that the authoring does not have more than 18 buttons on a page which is the limit for SD DVD. That way the BLuray and the SD disc are the same authoring done just once.

Ron Evans

[Ron Evans]

Geof I think we continue to talk at cross purposes focusing on our own view of things. My main issue is not with the fact that NTSC is 29.97Dropframe its with the confusion over interlace and progressive temporal motion. I should have stayed maybe with 59.94 fields a sec to make my point. I have recently got a Sony CX700 which will shoot at 60P. On my Sony 240hz LCD there is no difference between 60i and 60P on simple viewing. There is a difference when extracting stills as would be expected. On the Panasonic Plasma there is a very slight difference. The interpolation of the 240hz Sony makes the 60i and 60p look much the same.

Ron Evans

[Garrett Low]

Following Ron's procedure will allow DVDA to retain the chapter markers. The only thing you have to be careful of when using TMPGenc to create the DVD mpg2 is that the chapter markers have to be on an I-Frame. When rendering in Vegas you can force I-Frames as all markers. With TMPGenc it may not create an I-Frame at the chapter points. If that happens DVDA will show the marker in yellow. That means it is not a legal chapter marker that DVDA recognizes and you will have to manually adjust the chapter point.

-Garrett

[Sam Houchins II]

Hey Brad,
Too litle too late for this project, but for future reference, I recommend immediately trying color curves to tweak such brightening/darkening circumstances in post. It allows seperate, simultaneous treatment of both the highlights and darks, preserving the one while you mess with the other, or allows you to mess with both at the same time.
I also prefer just a touch of sharpness usually. Even though I leave the slider at zero, I still find it mysteriously makes it better.
FWIW, I've also found that a video that I've shot too dark has way more discoverable information using color curves, compared to one that I've shot that was too bright with blown out highlights. The blown out highlights have zero recoverable info. Consequently, when post-editing is the intention, I prefer to err on the dark side when shooting a difficult scene.

[Brad Ridgeway]

Sam... Thanks for the advice - looks pretty good! It may not be too late because the "bright" clips that I am using are only from my secondary camera angle which I am only using sparingly to cover mistakes with the main cam. I only have about 10 short cuts to this secondary cam on my timelines right now so it shouldn't take too much get them corrected if I can figure out exactly what you did.


Back to the rendering out of Vegas to an intermediate format to use in TMPGenc - I tried a Bluray preset under Mainconcept MPEG 2 and the file format was not recognized by TMPGenc (I think it was an AVC file extension). I am also trying to render as a Sony AVCHD (mt2s) format to use in TMPGenc, but the render for a 1 hour project took just over 8 hours (is this even a good format to use?). I'm really struggling here with what format to render out of Vegas for use in TMPGenc.

[Sam Houchins II]

Originally Posted by Brad Ridgeway

Sam... Thanks for the advice - looks pretty good! It may not be too late because the "bright" clips that I am using are only from my secondary camera angle which I am only using sparingly to cover mistakes with the main cam. I only have about 10 short cuts to this secondary cam on my timelines right now so it shouldn't take too much get them corrected if I can figure out exactly what you did..

Check out the veg file I included in my post. Open up the effects applied to the clip on the timeline to see exactly what I did. Hopefully it's accessible there. Use the same clip you posted online as the source.
I'm assuming this will work for you ;-)

[Garrett Low]

Brad,

I would recommend not rendering to an mpeg2 or avc file to be taken into another program or even Vegas which will then again compress the files. mpg and avc are highly compressed codecs. That is why they can create a nice compact file. However, they were never meant to be used in the manner you are using them for. You want to preserve the most information and hence quality that you until you are ready to render your final delivery format. In your case that is your DVD which will be an mpg2 file. For all steps in between you should be using a good intermediate codec. There are several available depending on your NLE and if you want to pay for them or not. working with Vegas are a number of them but the two most common are Cineform if you want to pay for it and Lagarith for a good free alternative. Both will create avi files that are readable in both Vegas and TMPGenc.

Part of the reason your renders are taking so long could be because of a few reasons. If you have a lot of graphics or text it will slow down considerably. Any sharpening or cleaning up of noise through the use of plugins like Netvidoe will really slow down things. And, taking an compressed video and rendering to another compressed video such as and AVC to AVC or MPG will slow the render down as it is having to interpret the compression then reprocess the video to compress it again. Both mpg2 and avc are interframe compression codecs meaning each frame is dependent on one or more adjacent frames. So, to render each frame your computer has to look at adjacent frames and decide what is important to render new or just tell the player to repeat from the previous frame.

8 hours to do a one hour video if heavily color graded and graphics is a little long but not unheard of. I rendered a two hour running time video that had a lot of color correction and had Neatvideo cleaning up some noise with moderate sharpening, that render took almost 30 hours. It also had a some high motion graphics so that's an extreme case.

-Garrett