Procoder and DVD-A Re-rendering - why???

dexterbot wrote on 5/23/2004, 7:11 PM
I have a small time production company which I recently picked up a pretty nice DVD project. I got a nice advance on this project so I purchased Canopus Procoder 1.5 and also upgraded to Vegas 5 with DVD-A 2.

So I recently started to do a couple of test runs by capturing the footage of the final DVD from DV then did my editing with Vegas 5 and decided to render back to AVI (NTSC DV). From there I used my Procoder and used the Mastering Template and decided to render to Program Stream which created an M2P file which has Video and Audio.

I opened up DVD-Architect, dragged and dropped the M2P file and pressed the Make DVD icon. I noticed that the video seems to go through another rendering process. Can someone explain to me whether it is actually rendering again to MPEG-2? Why is it doing that if I had chosen the DVD template in ProCoder? Am I not going to lose quality then if this is the case?

In addition, I went to the help in DVD-A and I found out that there is an Optimize DVD option under FILE which I noticed that there is my media object in the menu has a yellow diamond with an exclamantion mark which means that it will have to be re-rendered. The oddest part is that I can't change the option to not re-render.

What am I doing wrong? Have anyone had any experience with ProCoder to DVD-A?

I don't want to spend anymore and get another DVD Authoring software if DVD-A can build this without re-rendering.

HELP HELP HELP!!!

Comments

dexterbot wrote on 5/24/2004, 2:02 PM
Bump! No replies :( :(

Any help anyone?
Jsnkc wrote on 5/24/2004, 2:52 PM
I think in order to have DVD-A not re-render your footage you need to render the MPEG file directly out of Vegas using the DVD-A Templates. We use Procoder for a lot of MPEG encoding, they work great with DVDIt, but I haven't tried any yet in DVD-A since we just got the program.
dexterbot wrote on 5/24/2004, 4:18 PM
Thanks Jsnkc for your feed back. That's what I was wondering.

I probably should have asked people in this forum first before buying Procoder. In any case, I'll look into DVDit or some other DVD authoringware.

I think I would much rather use Procode than the Vegas bundled MPEG encoder.

Again, thanks and hopefully will get more feedback from others.
dexterbot wrote on 5/24/2004, 10:44 PM
bump...
cef wrote on 5/24/2004, 11:14 PM
hi. i had several files that i rendered in procoder as mp2 and imported them into dvda2. it worked fine without re-rendering the video. it had to re-render the audio to ac3 though but that is it. the optimize dvd window in dvda has a check mark for the video and a yellow diamond for the audio. one reason i could think of for dvda2 to re-render the video is if it exceeds the size limit of the dvd-r. but if that is ok, then i do not have any answers. sorry.

cef
Spot|DSE wrote on 5/24/2004, 11:57 PM
Just tested this here as well, loading mp2 files from Procoder just fine. I can also load them to the Vegas timeline and render AC3 from the MP2 stream, then import to DVDA and create the disc without rendering.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 5/25/2004, 6:41 AM
I'd be curious to know what's wrong with encoding the footage using the Vegas DVDA template?

J--
Jsnkc wrote on 5/25/2004, 8:24 AM
Well, I tried it last night and I was able to import MPEG-2 files that were rendered in ProCoder and brought them into DVD-A and all that DVD-A re-rendered was the audio (to AC3) and didn't touch the video at all. I believe the settings I used in ProCoder were just the standard DVD templates, all I adjusted was the video bitrates.
dexterbot wrote on 5/25/2004, 8:56 AM
Thanks for all the responses.

So from what I'm hearing is that most likely I will have to reopen the Procoder rendered files in Vegas then export those to a DVDA template in Vegas in order for DVDA to open those without re-rendering?

Does that mean I will open these files in Vegas then save as? or render as? I think I'm missing something... Can anyone be a little more specific?

OK.. new finding today, I rendered in procoder a Mastering Quality and it appears that the sound and video needs to be re-encoded in DVDA (yellow diamonds on boths audio and video). However, I re-encoded the same footage but this time using High Quality and it appears that the sound is the only thing I need to encode. I'll play around with it some more and post more updates.

Reason I want to use ProCoder is because of quality. I really want the best quality as the project I'm working on will be pressed and sold in stores (I hope on major retail stores, LOL). ProCoder has been claimed as one of the best software encoders. I don't have money for CCE and also, I like the ease of use of ProCoder.
cef wrote on 5/25/2004, 11:49 PM
just an addendum to my post up there..........time was the factor i considered when i used procoder. it renders a lot faster than vegas does. But i have stopped using procoder. the quality that i get is better for files rendered in vegas. i noticed that the files that came from procoder have occasional green line/s (horizontal). they seem to be a single line on a single frame of video and happens maybe twice or thrice in a two hour video for me which is unacceptable.

cef
jdas wrote on 5/26/2004, 7:18 AM
dexterbot, (and others) I need some help with the Procoder settings.

The final output for my 30 mins video( a birthday party) is PAL DVD. What settings should I choose for high quality output ?

Upper or Lower fields ?
CBR or VBR (1 or 2 pass)
Bitrate ?

Thanks.
dexterbot wrote on 5/26/2004, 9:59 AM
@jd555
I'm in the office so I'll go with what I can remember. I use Mastering Quality and I use VBR (variable bit rate) and 2-pass since space and time is not that big of an issue for me.

I usually leave the average bitrate 6000 and max to 8000. As many mentioned, if you go beyond 8000 plus the audio sometime you will have playability issues with some standalone dvd players.

On my P4 2.4 with 1.5 GB PC2700 Ram machine, 1 hour worth of video too me 4 hours to render which just finished last night so I haven't had the chance to author the DVD and inspect it yet. This is my first long render with Procoder so I'm a bit excited to see the results. Obviously, I'm still running into the issue that DVDA is still re-rendering the video for some odd reason so I'm playing around with that tonight.

@ceffie
What settings are you using to encode? I didn't quite follow your post, you are saying that the files rendered in Vegas came out better than the ones rendered in Procoder? I've noticed that my files rendered in Vegas does not come out as well as Procoder but I didn't notice the green line but I'm fairly new using Procoder. I would call Procoder's support to find out why or see if any customers have the same problem.
cef wrote on 5/26/2004, 7:12 PM
hi dexterbot. i usually use the default config for ntsc dvd mpeg2, but change it over to 2 pass vbr. the bitrates vary depending on the length of the video of course. oh, and i use program stream instead of elementary stream. i use highest quality more often than mastering quality. the green bars i see are hit or miss. sometimes all would be fine and not have any lines but some..... i do not notice THAT big a difference between files from either procoder or vegas. but considering the green lines i get occasionally, i'll take vegas anytime.
dexterbot wrote on 5/26/2004, 11:17 PM
Ah.. ok ceffie.. I'll keep an eye out for those green lines. I hope it's version 2 you are using.

In any case, I finally got my Procoder rendered M2P program stream to load. I think the trick was that I had to open the advance options and ensure that the DVD compatibility checkbox was checked in Procoder.

I was able to create the DVD without re-encoding in DVDA. Thanks to all who replied.