A/V Club Help Needed

[obsession600]

I found Final Cut to be very intuitive when I messed around with it. I think you will get the hang of it pretty quick.

[KEN RAFLOWITZ]

Available for creative camera work.
I think I may also have some directing skills in me.

[boombox]

While all these video experts are raising their heads, can someone out there give me some advice, please?

My current videoing rig is a Sony DCR-SR90 (the first HDD camera they did) and an Edirol HR-09 for audio. The camera shoots in mpeg format (camera autosaves every 30 minutes) and though quality is not as good as tape, it\'s still pretty good. Of course, the sound is useless when filming rock concerts, hence the Edirol, which despite recordings being a bit bassy, with a few tweaks has proven itself a good investment (Before anyone asks, I will get mics when I get the cash). Software-wise, I have Sony Vegas 7 and TMPEG Enc DVD Author 3 and am using Vista on a PC.

Anyway, my problem is this: after shooting, I can combine the two sources, along with photos and text as necessary, easily in Vegas and render a pretty good quality file for youtube (check out user \'buquebusuk\' - boombox was already taken). However, for authoring up to DVD, that extra authoring stage in TMPEG, causes some horrible trailing motion when panning fast or following bouncing guitarists or drummers. It\'s almost like a strobe at times and makes those parts of the DVD difficult to watch. I have tried playing around with the interlace/progressive options, but can only get marginal changes - no doubt as I don\'t really know what I\'m doing.

Guess what I need is for someone to suggest the best settings for rendering, to minimise this unwanted noise  ie. in Vegas, should I render to PAL DVD Architect Widescreen and then change the interlace modes or something else? Then in TMPEG, which settings should I use? I have read, after hours of googling, that this is an unavoidable problem with mpegs due to the way the files are constructed, but would dearly love to make the best of the technology I\'ve got.

My other option is to find some software which will let me join multiple files within the same track and use one single upgraded sound file. Can\'t seem to be able to link the files in TMPEG.

This problem is really stating to irritate now. I have many hours of pretty good film, but no way to author it to a decent standard for sharing with others or viewing on my TV.

Can anyone help?

[ChrisF]

While all these video experts are raising their heads, can someone out there give me some advice, please?

My current videoing rig is a Sony DCR-SR90 (the first HDD camera they did) and an Edirol HR-09 for audio. The camera shoots in mpeg format (camera autosaves every 30 minutes) and though quality is not as good as tape, it\'s still pretty good. Of course, the sound is useless when filming rock concerts, hence the Edirol, which despite recordings being a bit bassy, with a few tweaks has proven itself a good investment (Before anyone asks, I will get mics when I get the cash). Software-wise, I have Sony Vegas 7 and TMPEG Enc DVD Author 3 and am using Vista on a PC.

Anyway, my problem is this: after shooting, I can combine the two sources, along with photos and text as necessary, easily in Vegas and render a pretty good quality file for youtube (check out user \'buquebusuk\' - boombox was already taken). However, for authoring up to DVD, that extra authoring stage in TMPEG, causes some horrible trailing motion when panning fast or following bouncing guitarists or drummers. It\'s almost like a strobe at times and makes those parts of the DVD difficult to watch. I have tried playing around with the interlace/progressive options, but can only get marginal changes - no doubt as I don\'t really know what I\'m doing.

Guess what I need is for someone to suggest the best settings for rendering, to minimise this unwanted noise  ie. in Vegas, should I render to PAL DVD Architect Widescreen and then change the interlace modes or something else? Then in TMPEG, which settings should I use? I have read, after hours of googling, that this is an unavoidable problem with mpegs due to the way the files are constructed, but would dearly love to make the best of the technology I\'ve got.

i think i had that problem when i tried rendering 1 song of weird beards onto a test dvd-rw. i used DVD Flick to render the AVI file to a dvd. dont know why it did that because it always worked fine rending divx, mpeg and quicktime files.

always keep it interlaced if it started out interlaced unless you are converting it to a video format that does not have interlaced video. you lose quality going from interlaced > non interlaced.

kens camera records in  mpeg and i never had any issues because of it. record in the highest possible quality. edit in vegas and render as an avi file in PAL DV Widescreen then author to dvd in dvd architect. and it will work

My other option is to find some software which will let me join multiple files within the same track and use one single upgraded sound file. Can\'t seem to be able to link the files in TMPEG.

wait.what???

This problem is really stating to irritate now. I have many hours of pretty good film, but no way to author it to a decent standard for sharing with others or viewing on my TV.

Can anyone help?

use dvd architect!!!!!!

[boombox]

I would use DVD architect, but as my copy of Vegas is of (cough) questionable origin, itdidn\'t come with it. I only intended trying out the program before updating to Vegas 8 (or 9), but have never got round to it. Will try your suggestion of avi rendering first though. Thanks, chris.

[ChrisF]

I would use DVD architect, but as my copy of Vegas is of (cough) questionable origin, itdidn\'t come with it. I only intended trying out the program before updating to Vegas 8 (or 9), but have never got round to it. Will try your suggestion of avi rendering first though. Thanks, chris.

so you are not rendering to avi right now? if you are taking a compressed mpeg and saving out an edited version in mpeg format its compressing it again. then when you author that to a dvd then its being compressed a 3rd time by the time it gets on dvd. no wonder uyou are having issues. maybe you are saving it out with different frame rates each time and thats part of the problem also.

time to get rid of vegas 7 and get vegas 9/dvd architect 5.

but it might be easier for you to use vegas movie studio 9 instead of pro. it has dvd authoring capabilities built in aand lets you put inyour youtube login info and upload straight from vegas.

its not as good as vegas pro but might be easier for you if you dont understand what you are doing with video formats and want to save out a project in dvd format in one step.

[mvallo]

there is a blur motion in Vegas. It helps a little bit. I found the problem to be worse when I recorded in LP mode. so make sure you are recording in the highest quality mode.
Yes, Render your Vegas session to AVI.
import avi into architect and let architect do the compression.
That will yield the best results for DVDs.

[boombox]

Thanks for the advice guys - my birthday\'s coming up in a couple of weeks. Guess I know what I\'ll be getting!

One question re studio or pro versions: is it that difficult to master DVD arahcitect? Have seen a number of reviews where people suggest it\'s difficult. As for different formats - I guess there is a default option to stick with till one gets more adventurous. I was tending to Pro for the Sound Forge that comes with it - Cool Edit Pro 2.0 is very limiting.

Will try the avi rendering later this week and let you know how I get on - need to buy another harddrive today to clear off enough space on my main working drive to render 90+ min shows.

[boombox]

Guys, it worked!!

Rendered to avi using the default PAL Widescreen option, but still had minor motion problems after authoring. However, changed the properties from lower field first to progressive and presto - clear DVD production!!

Can\'t thank you too much - though, I am now going to have to go back and rerender and reauthor everything I\'ve ever done - the difference in quality is phenomenal!

[ChrisF]

Guys, it worked!!

Rendered to avi using the default PAL Widescreen option, but still had minor motion problems after authoring. However, changed the properties from lower field first to progressive and presto - clear DVD production!!

Can\'t thank you too much - though, I am now going to have to go back and rerender and reauthor everything I\'ve ever done - the difference in quality is phenomenal!

you really shouldnt change it to progressive scan except for the version you upload to youtube or convert to divx. what you should do figure out what is wrong with your fields. maybe its possible your camera records with upper field first instead of lower? the original problem you decribed def could be upper fields on the bottom and lower fields on the top. vegas\'s default setting is lower fields first

progressive scan has 60 frames per second. but your camera records interlaced video with 30 frames per second and each frame has 2 fields. when you convert it to progressive scan it combines those 2 fields into 1 image and you are losing a lot of detail. and when you author a dvd its going to convert it back to interlaced anyway.

what youre doing to the video is similar to ripping audio off a cd and converting it to low quality mp3 and then burning an audio cd from the mp3.

[KEN RAFLOWITZ]

Holy SHIT! You guys sure know your stuff!
All I know is record,pause,play & stop!

[boombox]

I will try it rendering upper field first and see what happens. All I know is that the one where I changed it, it seemed to work. However, if there\'s an even better way, I\'m game.

It would help of course if the camera manual told you HOW it records!!

[ChrisF]

I will try it rendering upper field first and see what happens. All I know is that the one where I changed it, it seemed to work. However, if there\'s an even better way, I\'m game.

It would help of course if the camera manual told you HOW it records!!

if that doesnt help then sendspace me a 10 second video clip straight off the camera and i will figure it out.

[boombox]

Thanks for the offer, Chris, but  your therory about upper field seems to have been correct. It finally worked. One thing I did notice on the progressive scan one was that it wouldn\'t scan forward without being very jerky. Played Ok, but clerarly not right. Rerendered with upper field first then reauthored and we finally have a result.

Thanks once again for your help -  i owe you one!

[tyzack]

I don\'t know if this is the right thread for this, but I have some .ogg files that I want to burn to a CD using Windows Media Player (i\'m at work).

I was able to download the codecs so that the files could be played in WMP, but it still can\'t seem to burn them.