What to render the file to?

[harley2ride]

Hey MTD. Any noob here could read the guides and tutorials, and use the help functions in Vegas to resolve your problems. Video editing isn't something you can just jump into feet first. Take some time and read about how it is supposed to be done, before expecting everyone to snap to your aid... We are glad to help, but we want you to at least learn the language before hand...

[MTD]

I can't open the MPEG2 file in VDub for some reason, it says:

"MPEG Import Filter: invalid pack at position 3: marker bit not set: possibly MPEG2 stream".

And as for you Harley, I'm not ignorant. I did tons of searching online and in Vegas before I came here, especially seeing it's the NEWBIE section. I know it is easy to blow off new people to say "just go elsewhere", but then there wouldn't be a newbie section now would there?

I worked in a store two years ago editing people's work on Adobe Premiere Pro. Of course, they had a better setup, and I never ran into problems. I'm in school for video production, and I have a one month old daughter, I don't always have time to search the net really, really well.

Vegas's help flat out sucks. I'm sorry, but Movie Maker had a better help function in it's software. Just because I got render and encoding backwards, doesn't mean I don't know any language.

I've really appreciated the help I've got so far, and besides, I have never come across any help that indicates specific problems such as a black bar at the bottom of the screen. I always find other problems in FAQs that don't relate to me. Vegas had nothing on where to set your own bit rate, let alone why it changes by itself when it's not on auto calculate. Vegas also had nothing on a single black bar when you convert to MPEG2. It's just specific problems I can never find information for.

This is exactly why I'm posting in the newbie section...alright...a lot of this stuff isn't new to me, but I haven't had to do it all by myself before. I'm into recording music with mixers and such, moreso than video, hence my lack of knowledge on video. I apologize if it seems like I'm demanding everyone "snap to my aid", I'm trying to convey my problems as best as possible...plus I've been trying to get this done for so long now and I don't have a lot of time on my hands nowaday.

So if this thing gets sorted out...then I should be good...so bear with me, at least I'm trying, I have seen a lot of audio newbies come and ask questions that have obviously wrong lingo and so on, without any intention of trying to help themshelf.

Okay, that went kind of long, and yes I did make a typo, I believe I meant 720 by 480 at 29.970 fps.

[MTD]

Sorry if that previous post comes off harsh...I know it looks like it when you read it.

[pijetro]

MPEG Import Filter: invalid pack at position 3: marker bit not set: possibly MPEG2 stream.

VirtualDub is an .AVI editor, not an Mpeg editor..
VirtualDub-MPEG2 is both Mpeg and .AVI editor..

Again, give us a snapshot of both the edited .AVI frame, and an MPEG frame, and that way, we can see where the problem lies..

As far as MainConcept encoder is concerned, did you uncheck the (stretch video to ouptut frame size) box??

A side note, yes, it's frustrating..
But as far as helping people out, it's hard to comprehend that advanced editors and encoders are being used, yet some people don't know the difference between .AVI and MPEG (not picking on you of course)..

Let's just see if your checklist is the same as mine....
1)Vegas=Capture, edit, save as .AVI..
2)VirtualDub=View the .AVI file for inspection sake..It's a great program.
Whatever goes wrong here, revert back to step 1.
3)Mainconcept encoder=Create an MPEG (the guts of your final DVD).
4)VirtualDub-MPEG2=View the MPEG for inspection sake. Whatever goes wrong here, revert back to step 3.
5)DVD Architect=Compile a DVD folder (VIDEO_TS) from the guts of step 3.
6)Software playback=View step five's completion within any of these viewers. Whatever goes wrong here, revert back to step 5.

Burn!!!

[MTD]

Oh man, I just went to the one your post got linked too, I've never heard of the MPEG one...okay I'll check that out in a bit when I get the time and I'll get you a snapshot of an AVI and MPEG version and all that. Thanks man.

[MTD]

Okay, the MPEG might actually be fine. I opened it with VDub and it has the same info (720x480) and there is no black bar at the bottom. What I was watching it with before was Windows Media Player, so I bet it was that program that puts it there, for some reason. Or what do you think? Still want snapshots?

EDIT: Oh yeah, I opened it in Vegas (the MPEG file) and there is no black bar either. So...?

[MTD]

So assuming there is no black bar anymore, which I think there isn't, does it make much difference if the bitrate calculator says set it to 5766 and after entering that number into Vegas it switches to 5600? Either way, I think I'll start encoding and see what happens.