How to keep original VBR rates on rendering

[Bencuri]

Sony Vegas offers two settings on bitrate when rendering in VBR: average and max bitrate. I wonder how to determine the optimal settings to get results that are as identical to the source as possible. Mediainfo only reports the max. bitrate of the source, how to determine what to set as average?

[sneaker]

Mediainfo only reports the max. bitrate of the source, how to determine what to set as average?

It does? For me it usually shows the average bitrate. Post the log you get.

[Bencuri]

Yes, it does, and there is a line: "Bitrate". Maybe that is standing for the Average Bitrate? I am not sure...

General
Complete name : C:\Users\Bence\Videos\templomi esküvő.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42 (mp42/isom)
File size : 5.12 GiB
Duration : 34 min 30 s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 21.2 Mb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2017-05-23 07:48:35
Tagged date : UTC 2017-05-23 07:48:35

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Main@L4.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=4, N=15
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 34 min 30 s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 21.0 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate : 24.0 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 50.000 FPS
Original frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Standard : NTSC
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan type, store method : Separated fields
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.202
Stream size : 5.06 GiB (99%)
Language : English
Encoded date : UTC 2017-05-23 07:48:35
Tagged date : UTC 2017-05-23 07:48:35
Color range : Limited

[LigH.de]

Average bitrate (bits per second) = video data size (bits) : playback duration (seconds)

Remember, file sizes are often binary-based (Ki = 1024), but bitrates are decimal (k = 1000).

5.06 GiB * 1024^3 * 8 b/B : (60*34+30) s : 1000^2 ~ 21.0 Mbps — MediaInfo appears to be correct (provided the playback duration is a timestamp difference)...

[_Al_]

Bitrate does not have to be identical to guarantee quality. It is just sort of information if you are in the dark, or for anyone who does not know what bitrate to set in Vegas, but frankly who does.

Where does that video come from?

Frame rate : 50.000 FPS
Original frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan type, store method : Separated fields
Scan order : Top Field First

[LigH.de]

"NTSC" standard with 25 fps is funny?!

[Bencuri]

Yeah, very odd. This is the case if you render the video from Sony Vegas using their Main Concept AVC Internet HD 1080p preset. Probably they expect people will use it to upload to the internet, and as I remember Youtube is 30/60p by default, Vegas may predict that framerate to be used and adds the NTSC code to the file. Maybe wrong, just guessing. But the NTSC info is still there when you set 50i. In spite of this this is the only useable preset of the software for mp4, as the other one, the Sony AVC creates terrible movement irregularities, the video looks as if it was occasionally fastened.

[Bencuri]

Bitrate does not have to be identical to guarantee quality. It is just sort of information if you are in the dark, or for anyone who does not know what bitrate to set in Vegas, but frankly who does.

Where does that video come from?

Frame rate : 50.000 FPS
Original frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan type, store method : Separated fields
Scan order : Top Field First

This is from the original MTS of my camera shot in 50i and rendered from Vegas.

[_Al_]

wow, I tried to encode interlaced HD with Vegas 10.0 using MainConcept avc and I got progressive video despite interlace settings in encoder, so weird as well, ..., I use frame server for years and never looking back ....

[Bencuri]

For certain Main Concept AVC presets it exports in progressive, no matter if you select interlaced. I think those are the Blu-Ray presets, not sure though, but I experienced it, too.

What framesetver you recommend for exporting in mp4 Main Concept AVC interlaced?

[LigH.de]

This would be surprising. 1080p25 (like PAL) would not be Blu-ray compatible, only 1080i50. That's why x264 offers a "fake-interlace" mode to encode 1080p25 video in AVC with MBAFF interlacing enabled, but always "deciding" to use progressive mode per MB/slice. But 1080p24 (like Film) is a different issue. Blu-ray video constraints are a bit strange here.

I would not care too much about the price of the software. Expensive does often not mean better. The best converters to produce Blu-ray compatible AVC I know are freeware user interfaces for handling AviSynth scripts, using the x264 encoder. You could try e.g. StaxRip x64, MeGUI, or several others. Then import the finished video stream into Vegas, if you have to use it for the final production.

[Bencuri]

You know, I would use any other tool, but why I am stick to Vegas is because this is the software I learnt editing in. I didn't know you can use outer software as input and output, but in the future I will look into it, as I always have much problem with rendering.

[LigH.de]

I couldn't easily afford such software, so I can't help you discovering if either the software makes a mistake or the user; and the "philosophy" is not always obvious: Do you have to create an interlaced project to make the encoder work in interlaced mode, or do you have to set up the encoder in addition to the project options? Manuals don't help always. But I would expect from such a semi-pro software that you should be able to set it up matching the demands of your intended result...

[_Al_]

About that Vegas transport stream export, I forgot already, render is somehow not clean anyway and TV's can have problems to play it or there are other bad scenarios. That seems to be another glitch in Vegas, hopefully fixed in latest versions, not sure. Maybe that is why mediainfo shows those weird readings. I just got reminder from different forum. 3 years ago I made simple batch that fixes that m2ts to either m2ts again or to MKV. Using tsMuxer or ffmpeg.
fix m2ts.zip
extension has to be m2ts

[_Al_]

For certain Main Concept AVC presets it exports in progressive, no matter if you select interlaced. I think those are the Blu-Ray presets, not sure though, but I experienced it, too.

What framesetver you recommend for exporting in mp4 Main Concept AVC interlaced?

There is debugmode frame server

I use together with my batch using Avisynth to export whatever I need from Vegas, Blu-Ray streams, DVD, MP4 (with H.264 or HEVC) but it might be overwhelming for you, not sure to give you that zip link. Try how it works first. If you decide to give it a shot: You install debug mode frame server and avisynth first. Export avi from Vegas thru frame server (it is virtual avi) and then load that avi into Avisynth then load that avisynth script into some x264 front-end Staxrip, megui to encode it. Some x264 encoder GUIs load that avi directly but loading it thru avisynth has definitively advantages using filters like resize, deinterlace and most importantly fix color to 0-255 RGB if coming from Vegas because Vega squeezes that color space natively using frame server. This is what LigH.de is talking about.

You can also always export a real lossless avi from Vegas and do it without frame server.

[Bencuri]

Thanks for your help! Already Googled some videos on how to install debugmode frameserver with Vegas and use it with other tools, will open another thread if I get stuck somewhere here or in the Vegas forum.