Will there be a difference in output quality?

[ingeborgdot]

I am having a hard time deciding which program to use. I want great output quality from the program I use.
I want something user friendly but yet expandable.
I want something that is an easy editing program yet can be a little complicated if I want it to be.
I have used vegas pro 8 and love it but wonder if it is just more than I need.
I have used adobe PE 4.0 and it limits me for some things but is user friendly.
I have used vegas studio platinum 8 and it is similar to vegas but with some limitations.
I have never gotten too in depth with them but have done some neat things also.
Of all the products which will give me the best output quality. Even if I don't use all the features I will be willing to pay just to get output quality.
Would there be a difference in quality between vegas studio platinum or vegas pro 8?
My biggest part of the editing or authoring is the making of the menu because I need to create many chapters for easy access for my videos for football.
Are there any programs that will let you create some cool menus or even have downloads for menus (for example sports like football and basketball).
I have a lot to learn yet but I enjoy learning.

[edDV]

What is your source video?

"Quality" from the various Vegas products is similar. The issue is control of the various settings in the consumer versions. They tend to force you into canned solutions with menu options grayed out. This may or may not be a problem depending on your project.

I'm not directly familiar with allowed project/encoder/menu design settings in the Platinum 8 version.

[ingeborgdot]

Source will be from a DV camera.

[lordsmurf]

Using one program to both edit and author i part of your problem.

I edit an export with Adobe Premiere CS3.
I author mostly in Ulead DVDWS2.

Both are fairly easy, and I have a lot of control over the output.

[fredfillis]

I've used VMS and Vegas Pro and both do a decent job. IMHO, the extra couple of hundred extra (thru timing of deals / upgrades) was worth it when I upgraded to pro, just for the additional color correction tools (scopes). How much is your time worth to you?

[ingeborgdot]

I don't even begin to know how to use the color correction tools. At least not yet. I can get pro for a good price at the academic superstore.

[ingeborgdot]

What is your source video?

"Quality" from the various Vegas products is similar. The issue is control of the various settings in the consumer versions. They tend to force you into canned solutions with menu options grayed out. This may or may not be a problem depending on your project.

I'm not directly familiar with allowed project/encoder/menu design settings in the Platinum 8 version.

You say the quality will be similar, just that the path to get there will be little different. I guess with the new platinum 9 version maybe it would be just easier to get the same results. Or would it take more work because of the grayed out sections?

[edDV]

What is your source video?

"Quality" from the various Vegas products is similar. The issue is control of the various settings in the consumer versions. They tend to force you into canned solutions with menu options grayed out. This may or may not be a problem depending on your project.

I'm not directly familiar with allowed project/encoder/menu design settings in the Platinum 8 version.

You say the quality will be similar, just that the path to get there will be little different. I guess with the new platinum 9 version maybe it would be just easier to get the same results. Or would it take more work because of the grayed out sections?

I mean you may have less control of bit rate thus unable to optimize for DV 480i.

Maybe somebody that has Platinum can answer or you can download and install a trial version.

[ingeborgdot]

Yeah, maybe I would just be better off going with vegas pro but I would have to learn how to work with bitrate too.

[filmboss80]

There are many tutorials, tips, forums and support sources online for Vegas. Just do a search. The learning curve is not bad at all.

[ingeborgdot]

It does seem to be easier than most.

[edDV]

If you qualify for the academic discount, why bother with the lesser?

[ingeborgdot]

I know. Sometimes I get a little tight for some reason.

[fredfillis]

I used VMS platinum for 6 months before I pushed against the boundaries and made the move to "pro". Still only use 5% of the features but I can do more when I need to.

[ingeborgdot]

Is anyone running vegas pro on vista ultimate 64 bit????????????????????????????????????????????

[edDV]

Ultimate 32 bit here.

I also have the 64 bit disk but I'm not in a hurry to use it.

[ingeborgdot]

Oh how I love 64bit. There is nothing greater.

[ingeborgdot]

Well, I decided to take the plunge. I gave vegas pro back to my friend that gave it to me because for some reason we could not get the registration set on my computer. I really like vegas so I ordered it today.
I do have a question about menus if anyone could help me. I will need to make a video tomorrow night and was wondering if there was a fast way to make the menus? What I mean is that I will need at least 20-30 chapters for the menus made up for the game. I make up offense and defense menus for every series that our team has. If we run 16 offensive series and 13 defensive series I will need 29 chapters on the menus and will label each for quick access. What would be the easiest way to make all the menus the same size? The menus it made were just too small to my liking and it took over an hour for me to adjust their size. I have been reading but haven't yet found if this is possible and if so how. Would any one care to comment if they understand what I am talking about.

[guns1inger]

What are you authoring with ?

Most many dedicated authoring tools have some automated way to create chapter menus, generally based around templates. As chapters are not named in the DVD spec, all you will get are numbers in most apps. If you use named markers in something like DVD Architect then these may flow over to the chapter menus.

Note that there are limitations on the number of menu items you can have on a page. For 4:3 m3nus it is 36, and for 16:9 menus it is either 16 or 18 (can remember of the top of my head). This isn't a chapter limitation, but a button limitation, so it includes all buttons.

[ingeborgdot]

DVD architect. I have not found one that I like better. Is there one? Everything I edit in vegas transfers over to architect. If I do chapters in vegas I don't have to redo them. I am putting about 6 chapters on a page.

[fredfillis]

I assume you are using thumbnails at 6 per page.

You can try themes. It took a little messing around for me but I got it to work, not bad for a dumbass.

Quick? Took me about an hour to get the menu sorted the way I wanted it. Had 3 pages, six per page plus the navigation elements.

And yes, the marker names I applied in Vegas transferred across nicely.

[guns1inger]

Don't forget that there are extra free themes at Sony for download as well.

[ingeborgdot]

Yes, 6 thumbnails per page. That is what I really mean when I was talking about menus. My terminology is not up to par yet. What I do is get a main menu for just play and then another box to go into chapters (thumbnails). The one thing I want to do is to up size the thumbnails all at once. Is there a way to do that, at least on one page?
Also, I have been having a few problems capturing with WinDV and wanted to try the vegas capture but it would not let me for some reason. It said it was not connected. I went into preferences and looked at video and then external capture application but don't know what should be used. Does anyone know if this is even the place to go and if so what should I choose?

[ingeborgdot]

I also want to try using a dual layer disc to see if the quality is even better. The question I have is I rendered it in vegas and it shows that it is 16gb. When I go to burn it only puts it at 5.8GB at the highest bitrate setting it has of 9.8. What am I doning wrong to get more gb on the disc.

[ingeborgdot]

Anyone care to add to the last two comments. Is there anything to comment on?

[edDV]

If WinDV or WMM won't work, Vegas capture probably won't either. They all depend on DirectShow.

[ingeborgdot]

Actually WinDV does capture in Vista 64 but it won't in XP. I have more problems in xp than in vista. I get the microsoft visual c++ errors. So it does capture in vista. I am getting my new sony vegas. I had the oldest vegas 8. Maybe that was the problem.

[gadgetguy]

I had problems with capsferring on my XP laptop. Same symptoms you're seeing. Not really a problem with WinDV, XP SP2 just wasn't seeing the camcorder. I installed SP3, no more problems.

[ingeborgdot]

Two things. First a comment I stated earlier.
I also want to try using a dual layer disc to see if the quality is even better. The question I have is I rendered it in vegas and it shows that it is 16gb. When I go to burn it only puts it at 5.8GB at the highest bitrate setting it has of 9.8. What am I doing wrong to get more gb on the disc?

Second, have you seen that Sony now has a new upgrade out? 8.1 which is made for vista 64 bit. I will try to contact sony but I was wondering if anyone knew how I should upgrade. My new Vegas 8 should be here tomorrow so I will get rid of the old and install the new disc. I am sure it is not the newest update but was wondering if I should upgrade to the 8c and then 8.1 or just go to 8.1? Is anyone familiar with that? Thanks.

[edDV]

Two things. First a comment I stated earlier.
I also want to try using a dual layer disc to see if the quality is even better. The question I have is I rendered it in vegas and it shows that it is 16gb. When I go to burn it only puts it at 5.8GB at the highest bitrate setting it has of 9.8. What am I doing wrong to get more gb on the disc?

DVD specs cap bitrate "Up to 9.8 Mbps* (9800 kbps*) MPEG2 video".
See https://www.videohelp.com/dvd

DVD players expect that bitrate maximum.

Disc space = bitrate x seconds. It seems 5.6GB was sufficient for the total seconds you encoded.

Check out the bitrate calculator.
https://www.videohelp.com/calc