Why are these bitrates so low? Is my quality compromised?
by Kent Clark
on
Oct 23, 2008 at 2:33:07 am
I'm using DVD Architect Studio 4.5 and Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 8.0 to make some DVDs from digitized 8mm movies.
I've finally finished the formatting of the first DVD, thanks to so much help from people here at this forum. But now I'm looking at some numbers that I don't understand.
After reading Ed Troxel's newsletters and searching the forum for information about bitrates and rendering I made my videos less than 75 minutes each.
After creating the DVD in Architect I started the burn process. In the Optimize window I see the following numbers:
Intro video clip: 22.3 mb, 32 seconds, 5.408 bitrate
Intermediate video clip: 86.5 mb, 2:01 minutes, 5.674 bit rate
Main video clip: 3.333 gb, 70 min, 6.463 bitrate.
I've learned that the custom option in Vegas Movie Studio is not available for setting optimum bitrates, but I thought that if my DVD was short enough I would get maximum bitrates by default.
The bitrate numbers quoted by Architect look extremely low to me. Is there any way to make them better in Studio? Or are these numbers OK?
Re: Why are these bitrates so low? Is my quality compromised? by Steve Rhoden on Oct 23, 2008 at 2:39:41 am
Thats the best you are gonna get in the "studio" version.
If you want total control over customization along with
more options for output quality, etc....you are gonna have to
get the professional version for all that.
Steve Rhoden
Creative Director
TNX EFFECTS STUDIOS.
sample bits at
www.youtube.com/hentys
Re: Why are these bitrates so low? Is my quality compromised? by Kent Clark on Oct 23, 2008 at 3:02:21 am
Steve, I understand that only the Pro version let's me set custom bitrates.
But I also thought I understood that for a DVD the size of the one I'm making the default bitrate built in to Vegas Studio would give me close to 8.000 bitrate...actually I thought I understood that a DVD of my size would actually give me the default maximum 8.000 bitrate.
So my question really is, Why are those bitrates so low for a 72 minute DVD? Did I misunderstand? Totally possible.
Re: Why are these bitrates so low? Is my quality compromised? by Mike Kujbida on Oct 23, 2008 at 3:16:16 am
[Kent Clark]"Did I misunderstand?"
No Kent, you didn't.
My suspicion is that it's the program doing that to you.
For example, for a very long time, the default MPEG-2 render setting in Vegas Pro was 6,000,000.
While this meant that you could easily get 90 min. onto a DVD, for shorter videos (for example, 1 hr.) the quality would suffer - a lot.
I think that Sony (wrongly) assumes that the products you're using should have a wide safety margin built in.
The only way to change this is for several users to let Sony know that they want just a bit more flexibility built into the software.
Odds are that the response will be "buy Vegas 8 Pro".
Your job is to convince them that you don't need all the power (i.e. $$$) of Pro, just this one minor addition.
Re: Why are these bitrates so low? Is my quality compromised? by Kent Clark on Oct 23, 2008 at 3:45:24 pm
Mike, that would definitely be an upgrade that I would pay for. Last night I downloaded the trial copy of Pro 8. In the next few days I'll compare the video from Studio and Pro using a custom bitrate and see what it looks like.
If the difference is clear I think I'll buy the Vegas Pro 8 DVD only from B&H Photo for $130 since I really can't justify spending $450 on software right now. B&H website says it doesn't have Architect or AC3 capability.
Studio Architect has just about everything I need so I won't miss the full version. I wonder about that AC3 though, isn't it integrated into the program? Anyway, if it really isn't included I assume I can render AC3 audio in my Studio version. And then someday when Vegas 9 comes out I'll have an upgrade path to the full version.
Thanks for the help Steve and Mike. Discovering this forum has made all the difference in making this video project workable and satisfying.
