Sony vegas and .mp4

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Peter Copestake
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Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by Peter Copestake »

Our new Epson projector will not allow us to alter the screen to 4:3 for older films from DVD. (A disadvantage for a group such as ours with a library of old films)
Instructions say the ability to do this depends on the source.
We think .mp4 on memory stick by usb connection will work but to confirm I am trying to make an .avi file into .mp4 on Sony Vegas Movie Studio HD Platinum 11.
The route seems to be to 'render as ...' of which the best (highlighted) seems to be called Sony AVC/MVC.
This leads to a whole list of Memory Stick QVGA options at 3 different kbps rates or QVGA baseline at 512 or 896 kps
This is all mumbo jumbo to me although I guess the kps is the speed at which the render happens, but what's the difference between QVGA and QVGA Baseline?
Perhaps don't tell me the difference, just which to choose, please.
And will it be the same procedure for a 16:9 film standard def or HD?
As always my thanks in advance
Peter Copestake
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John Roberts
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by John Roberts »

Hi Peter - good luck with this!

It very much depends on your project settings at the outset and how you import your footage; let me tell you what I do to transfer my old 4:3 footage into mp4 using Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 12 (the settings between v11 and v12 are more or less the same I believe).

Firstly, I have never started a project in 4:3 ratio, I always use 16:9 and export at 16:9, even when I'm dealing with old 4:3 footage. I simply set up the project as normal - on the opening screen I will select Blu-Ray disc with the properties of 1920x1080-50i. I use this setting for everything.

I will then import my old 4:3 footage - either from .avi files or extract from disc - and this should place the video in the centre of the screen. In effect you end up with a 16:9 format with the 4:3 video in the centre and two black borders on either side. Edit as normal and then render as a 16:9 video. You can therefore guarantee that just about every projector and media player will play it back properly, because you are in effect doing everything in 16:9 format.

You are right about the 'Render as...' procedure, but I use a custom setting as follows:

Select render as Sony AVC/MVC as you have found, then select one of the 'internet' options - it doesn't really matter which one at this stage. Click on it once to highlight it.

Then click the 'Customize Template' button underneath the list.

On the Video tab of the window that opens, ensure 'Frame Size' is set to 'High definition 1920x1080'
Ensure 'Frame rate' is set to '25.000 (PAL)'
Set the 'Bit rate (bps)' to 15,000,000. Any bit rate of 4,000,000 or less will show compression artefacts and I've never had a quality or playback issue at 15,000,000

Then click on the Audio tab on the bottom of the window and set 'Bit rate (bps)' to at least 192,000. No need to set it above 320,000. This is the audio bit rate - as with video, the higher the value the better the quality, but don't drop below 192,000

Then, in the very top-most section of the window, where it says 'Template,' overtype the text in there with your own, say "Peter's Internet 1920x1080-25p 15mbps" and click the little save icon next to it. This will save your settings as a new template in the AVC/MVC list of templates for you to use again and again.

Then click 'Render' as normal to create a high quality 16:9 format mp4 file. Incidentally ALL my videos are now saved as this format, and this also makes it easier to create a compilation DVD of any number of films, regardless of their original format, because all the mp4 files are 16:9.


I hope this helps, but sorry if it's a little unclear - I've never had to explain it before! Other Vegas uses, such as Tim Stannard, might have a better, easier way of creating the file.
Peter Copestake
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by Peter Copestake »

Thank you, John. I'll print this and take it stage by stage! I'd use the same process for making DVDs nowadays and in fact have done that already from the original Premiere 6.5 (!!!) but hadn't thought of doing it for the usb stick. Why? Don't know! Another anno domini reminder, I think.

Peter.
Peter Copestake
Peter Copestake
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by Peter Copestake »

"hadn't thought of doing it for the usb stick. Why? Don't know! Another anno domini reminder, I think."

Of course - because the object of the excercise is to see if we can make the projector change to 4:3, so giving people as many options as they may be able to offer.
Peter.
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TimStannard
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by TimStannard »

A very thorough explanation from John Roberts which is a tried and trusted workflow.

I do exactly the same in terms of setting up the timeline and importing the footage, although I will place a solid black on the track below so that the bars are definitely black, rather than "nothing". Apparently this is good practice, though I've never experienced a problem.

Like John I produce a high resolution "master" from this which I archive and then import into a new project to produce my "delivery" formats - DVD, BluRay or "Internet" formats.
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
Peter Copestake
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by Peter Copestake »

Thanks to you, too, Tim. Yes, I put Black background below when I'm doing 4:3 on 16:9 tho have used a colour roughly matching the scene when mixing with original 16:9.
Peter.
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ned c
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by ned c »

Well described by John. I follow the same procedure and recently worked on recovering old PAL DV 4;3 from a mountain of tapes. Now; I live in NTSC land so out of curiosity set the render to 1920x1080 Internet HD 29.97 fps (NvidiaNEVC). The result is a perfectly transcoded PAL to NTSC file; I have subjected a clip to analysis using MediaInfo and it is definitely pure NTSC. It also renders at blinding speed.

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John Roberts
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by John Roberts »

That's one of the aspects of the Vegas editors I've noticed - the ability to perfectly and transparently 'smart render' from one frame rate to another.

I use the somewhat ageing Lumix GH3 cameras, and their slow motion recording is only done at 24fps. Pop the footage on the timeline and ask Movie Studio to smart render the clip to 25fps and the result is flawless slow motion without a hint of a dropped frame. No idea how it does it but I'm sure glad it does! :D
Peter Copestake
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by Peter Copestake »

Sorry to put a dampner on this enthusiasm for Sony Vegas and it's probably my thick head but though I thought I was following John's instructions correctly I got lost when his description didn't match my window.
However, the good news is that Serif sent me all the codes I needed to unlock the process and it is now doing the conversion. Then to see if the projector can make sense of it!
We have heard today that newer versions will change aspects automatically. Where have we heard this before?
Thanks all who have joined in.
Peter.
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John Roberts
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by John Roberts »

Hi Peter, I have both Movie Studio 11 and 12 installed on my editing PC, if you want I can run v11 and find out exactly what buttons you need to press :-)
Peter Copestake
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by Peter Copestake »

That's very generousof you to bother, John, thank you. The reason I would be glad of this is that some of my coleagues use vegas and it would be good if I could pass on the info to them. I thought I'd cracked it with Serif but then realised I'd been exporting 4:3 on a 16:9 setting, more or less as you'd suggested, but that doesn't test our projector, and have just set it going again as genuine 4:3.
In the long run I'm sure we should be making them so no one has to alter anything.
Peter.
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TimStannard
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by TimStannard »

Peter Copestake wrote:Sorry to put a dampner on this enthusiasm for Sony Vegas
Peter, it's not really to do with enthusism for Vegas, more a case that John and I are both familiar with Vegas and not so, at least in my case, with other products.

Looking at your original post, perhaps it is the DVD player which is not outputting the info to the projector which tells the projector to show DVDs in in 4:3. I have a reasonably recent Sony Bravia TV and a Sony BluRay player so you'd think they'd play well together. Can I get them to play a 4:3 DVD "properly"? Possibly, but I haven't figured out how!

Sometimes we have to take the pragmatic approach. If you create a widescreen SD or HD film, it (almost certainly) will play properly.
Tim
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Peter Copestake
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Re: Sony vegas and .mp4

Post by Peter Copestake »

Agreed, Tim. We can't alter aspect ratio on our Sony Bluray at home or the club one. We alter our Panny TV at home. to several different formats if we wanted to.
With Serif the option to export as mp4 came up an was easy to do in one click once I'd unlocked the bits needed.
Peter Copestake
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