HDV 30P Workflow

[Matthew Amirkhani]

Hi There,

I have shoot in HDV 30F with my XHA1 for the first time . Will someone please tell me as what would be the best workflow in Vegas 7d? Should I be using HDV 720, NTSC Widescreen or other templates to render out for DVD architect?

Next question is in DVD Architect under Project Properties what should I be selecting? I do not have blu ray.

The footage is about 1 hour and 45 minutes.


Thanks
Matthew

[John L. Miller]

If you are planning to burn to DVD, unless you have blue ray or DVD HD hardware, you will not be burning anything in High Definition that can be viewed on any standard DVD player. You will have to convert the file to Standard Definition first. You can burn a DVD with your High Def files in Data format, but you will only be able to open and play it on another computer with software such as media player or equivalent. If you are downconverting to SD for DVD, then I render an HDV file first, then let DVD architect convert it to SD, I seem to get the best results that way and I have an HD file for later use, as well as the SD DVD. You can render directly to an Mpeg2 SD and burn it also. You asked about 720P? That is entirely up to you, I guess it is a matter of preference. Your camera outputs the HDV in 1440x1080 I believe, so to render to 720P is possible and the file size will be smaller. I like the look of 720P, but to find out for yourself, set your project properties in vegas as HDV 1440x1080 29.xxx and progressive. look at your monitor and then change the project properties to 720P HDV and look at the difference on your monitor playback. If you like the further out look, use the 720P rendering to one of the several choices in Vegas. I like to render to .WMV because the file size is much smaller and the HD is very good. It will take longer to render since it is whittling down the file size, but it is worth it. Select 6 or 8 mbps template and make sure you have your 29.xxx progressive, and slider to about 90 to 95. Use CBR and bitrate at 6 or 8mbps as I said. I recommend you render a good section of 15 seconds or so in different formats to see what YOU prefer. I also have rendered to MPEG2 HD using the 720P 30fps template and switching to Variable bit rate...changing only the bottom minimum setting to match the middle setting. Slide the slider to best quality and make sure your project settings are also BEST FULL and Best quality. Resolution for the 720P should be 1280x720 instead of the 1440x1080. Once you have your file completed, simply paste it into the blue menu in architect and set project properties to 720x480 widescreen and click on burn DVD. No need to optimize the file as Architect will rerender the project to Standard Definition for you. But I do suggest clicking on the little arrow with the box above the blue center menu 1 and select your project, then to the right of the blue menu 1 select "reduce interlace flicker"...this should keep out the twitter, if you will. Everytime I shoot with my Xh A1 I have to select this setting, I assume the HDV is just so sharp that it has to be slightly blurred on the straight lines during conversion to prevent this ugly look. try a small file to dvd without doing this and one small file selecting this box and see the difference. This information is of course my preferences from weeks of just trying everything, your preferences may very. If I can help any at all, just let me know. J

[Ben Hayflick]

Originally Posted by John L. Miller

If you are planning to burn to DVD, unless you have blue ray or DVD HD hardware, you will not be burning anything in High Definition that can be viewed on any standard DVD player.

Can't Ulead MF 6 Plus and Pinnacle Studio 11 do exactly this?

[John L. Miller]

I read last night that pinnacle studio 11 can burn the format HD DVD on a regular DVD. 30 minutes on 4.7GB and double layer is 60 minutes. BUT Remember, you still CANNOT play this DVD on a standard DVD player, DVD players are digital, they do not output High Definition. You can buy a brand new HD DVD player that will play these discs authored by Pinnacle for about 250.00 or so? As I stated, 30 minutes of HD footage on a regular DVD. The advantage of this is that you do NOT have to have a special DVD burner, burn it with your current burner, but you will have to Buy Pinnacle Studio PLUS 11, or Studio ULTIMATE 11. The standard Pinnacle Studio 11 is NOT HD compatible. 69.99 for plus and 99.00 for ultimate..on sale where I found it. Thats not a bad deal, having the ability to author and play on your HDTV--> true HD DVDs for 350.00 initially. Just remember, you are limited to the amount of HD 30 Min and 60 min double layer. The other option is Blu Ray. Plan on spending about 900.00 just to get started? A new burner, a new expensive player, and what, about 15 to 20.00 per DVD? I guess if you are making 90 minute full feature motion pictures, this is your option. But, if you are making shorts 1 hour and less, definitely look into the first option. J

[Ben Hayflick]

Right, you'd need an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player. And yes, runtime is a limiting factor because of the 4.7 GB limit (or I suppose double that for DL DVDs). But I've read the results can be amazing for shorter pieces.

I think Ulead MF 6+ burns Blu-Ray, in addition to HD-DVD discs, on SD DVDs. Pinnacle 11 only does HD-DVD though. Is this true?

So, is there any reason that ULead or Pinnacle would have trouble burning HD-DVDs or Blu-Ray discs, on SD DVDs, with 30F footage output from Vegas?

[John L. Miller]

Originally Posted by Ben Hayflick

Right, you'd need an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player. And yes, runtime is a limiting factor because of the 4.7 GB limit (or I suppose double that for DL DVDs). But I've read the results can be amazing for shorter pieces.

I think Ulead MF 6+ burns Blu-Ray, in addition to HD-DVD discs, on SD DVDs. Pinnacle 11 only does HD-DVD though. Is this true?

So, is there any reason that ULead or Pinnacle would have trouble burning HD-DVDs or Blu-Ray discs, on SD DVDs, with 30F footage output from Vegas?

Ben, I am not sure about Ulead, but Pinnacle ONLY showed HD DVD format, I didn't see anything about Blue ray. You cannot burn a BLU_RAY project on anything except a Blue Ray disc. If you are outputing 30F HD or HDV high definition video from vegas, then yes you could easily burn that with pinnacle to a standard DVD and play it on any HD DVD player, not a standard DVD player though. But if you want a blue ray project of any kind, you will have to buy the blue ray burner, and buy a blue ray DVD player or Playstation 3 or something like that to view it on. You can use DVD Architect to burn Blue ray discs now...that is an advantage. But overall, to me, I just cannot see putting that much cash just to spend 20 bucks for each DVD to have my products in High Definition. I rather like the HD DVD scenario. Nothing special except a player and maybe additional authoring software. Give Blue Ray time, they will either come WAY down, or something else will force a price war..count on it.

[John L. Miller]

I do not know where i read that DVD architect has the blu ray capability. But i went back and read the help section and the Architect manual, and I couldn't find one word on Blu ray or HD. I did find that Vegas offers a Blu Print template to render to. Specifically for Blu Ray. So, you could render to Blue Print template and burn to a blue ray disc with a blue ray burner, however, I am not sure you could burn to a blue ray burner with Architect in HD, I am yet to find proof. YOu could certainly render a blue print file in Vegas and burn it with any Blu ray software though...shouldn't be a problem. But, the cost is still too high for me. DVD HD is the low cost solution for the Indie guy right now. J

[Michael Wisniewski]

My HDV 30F workflow for Sony Vegas

• I use the "HDV 1080-60i (1440x1080, 29.970 fps)" template - set to progressive.
• This is the setting I use for HDV 30F whether I'm editing MPEG-2 or a Cineform intermediate.
• I only convert to another format when required, for example, when going to DVD, web, etc.
• Whenever possible, I try to use the "two-pass" option.
• For rendering to DVD Architect
  • Use the "MainConcept MPEG-2 (*.mpg)" option
  • Set to "DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen video stream" template
  • I usually set the Frame Rate to 30.00 and turn on the 2-pass option
  • For audio the "Dolby Digital AC-3 (*.ac3)" template
• In DVD Architect I use the "NTSC Widescreen (720x480)" for the project template.

Note:
Vegas will show a Cineform 30P intermediate file as interlaced. Per David Newman at Cineform, Vegas users should just ignore it. (click here)