Sony Vegas: Mixing standard Def and Hi def in a video project for Blu Ray

[liberty610]

Hello everyone,

I have been editing video and making DVDs for years now. I am finally looking to jump to BluRay, mostly because of the HD and the amount of data that can be placed on each disc.

I am currently working on a project for my family that involves old standard def footage and new HD footage.

I use Sony Vegas Pro 10 and DVD Architect Pro 5 (for Blu Ray Authoring). I am about to purchase my first Blu Ray burner. I am looking to make projects out of these family videos where I will be mixing HD and SD footage together in the same project.

There are 2 main formats I will be using for all of these projects. The SD family videos are in MPEG2 format. These files are 16:9 720x480. The HD footage is all 16:9 1440x1080 60i

How would I go about mixing both of these video types together to keep the Canon footage at HD? Obviously, the old home movies are not going to get any better in quality no matter what video settings I use.

This is how I would guess to do it... please tell me if I am wrong in doing so.

1.Make the project properties in Vegas Pro set for for HDV 1440x1080 60
2. Load in all HD footage and standard def footage; edit project as desired.
3. Render the video using the Sony 1440x1080 60i for BluRay setting, repeat render for ACC audio track.

Is this the correct steps? Or should I consider doing something with the SD footage before using it with HD footage?

[aedipuss]

should most likely be fine. only thing that vegas may not like much is that one source may be tff and the other bff.

[liberty610]

Ok great. Thanks for the reply.

I also have another question. I have the hauppage collosus card for HD video capturing. For some reason, but my Vegas Pro 10 32bit and Vegas Pro 11 64bit freeze and crash when trying to import any footage I cap with it. He footage plays fine in any media program I use. Windows Media Player, VLC Media player ect. I have even had no issues importing the footage in smaller editing programs.

I have bee playing ping pong with Hauppage tech support to see if they can pin point the issue. Until then, I have descovered that if I take the footage I capture, and load it into a program I have called Format Factory which is a file converting program, and convert it to any other format, Vegas plays it just fine. My only concern is loosing quality if I convert these files.

The card captures in MT2S format. So here is my question.

In format factory, I can set all the details for the file conversion. Video bit rates, audio settings, the works. So, if I take the M2TS file, load it into format factory, and convert it to like an mp4, can I do this without loosing quality? If I take the MT2S file andook at the properties where it displays he video bit rate, audio sample rate ect and put those same scar settings in format factory and covert the file to mp4, will I loose any quality on the video?

I tried this last night and couldn't tell any difference between the new rendered mp4 and the original MT2S file.

The plan is to edit the mp4 files as desired, and then render them to the Sony Vegas preset for the BluRay files.

[liberty610]

The plan is to edit the mp4 files as desired, and then render them to the Sony Vegas preset for the BluRay files.

[aedipuss]

i'd keep trying to find a setting that allows vegas to use the hauppage files natively. if that's the source of your 1440x1080 30i files, i'd try using a square pixel setting instead like 1920x1080 30i or even 30p depending on what you are capturing.

[poisondeathray]

This was a known issue with HDPVR and Sony Vegas, Hauppauge released a firmware fix a few months ago, maybe the did the same for Collossus ?

You can use a lossless codec like lagarith, huffyuv, ut video codec if you're worried about quality loss, but you need lots of HDD space

[liberty610]

In reply to aedipuss, I can't get any of these files to work in Vegas Pro 10 32 or 11 Pro 64bit. As soon as I try to open them in Vegas, it freezes and crashes. It doesn't seem to matter what settings I use.

poisondeathray, They have not released anything for the Collossus yet as far as I know. If they have, none of the tech support offered me the info. They offered a newer driver set that they have not officially released yet, but the updates had nothing to do with my issue. I am not sure what this lossless codec option is. Not to familure with messing with codecs outside of DivX and Vegas. As far as Harddrive space goes, I am all set.

My computer is a studio beast. I do project studio work on it. Windows 7 64bit, 16 gigs of Quad Kit ram, AMD Phenom II 6core processor at 3.30GHz, and 4 internal hard drives - 2 at 500 gigs, and one is a full TB drive. I also have another TB drive I am putting in as a hot swap drive. Both TB drives have 64mb cache with 6gb/s transfers.

I have been on with their tech support, because I did see some success by using a different DVD player to capture the footage. Here is the details on all this...

I sent them a short 2 min. clip to test. The DVD player I used to capture that file that I sent them was a Panasonic DVD Recorder/Player. It's a standard one that hooks up to a TV. It has Standard video outs, component outs, and an optical audio out. It is also the same unit I used to record the original VHS home movie tapes to the DVDs I am now trying to capture. So this Panasonic DVD Recorder/Player was used to record the original VHS tapes to DVD, and I am now trying to capture the footage from those DVDs to the computer.

Just to try it and see what would happen, I switched to a Sony DVD player, and captured a few second clip. That clip loaded into Vegas just fine. I
captured form the same DVD and everything. Just a different player. When I switched back to the Panasonic DVD Recorder/Player to capture another few
second clip, the file would crash Vegas right away.

When I went back to the Sony DVD player, I captured another few second clip, and no issues what so ever loading it into Vegas. So apparently it had
something to do with the Panasonic DVD Recorder/Player. However, when using the Sony DVD player to capture the footage, if I captured longer clips (like 20 to 30 mins), Vegas would load them, but become unresponsive for while. It wouldn't crash though. It eventually would respond and begin working, but it would take about 20 to 30 seconds depending on how long the clip was. Then, when scrolling through the file on the time line, Vegas would lag terrible. If I tried jumping from the beginning of the clip to the middle or towards the end, it would take a long time before the curser would move. The only time I could get steady playback in the preview window was if I started playing from the beginning of the file. And the core gadget I have on my desk top would show all 6 cores skyrocketing in use when trying to jump around on the time line.

To test it farther, I made an attempt to render one of those longer MT2S files that was making Vegas lag. I rendered it as a new MT2s file just to
see what it would do. It took longer then usual to render, but when I took the rendered MT2s file and loaded it into the time line, it was flawless. No
lagging, played great.

So it seems that if I can load the MT2S files into a program successfully, and re-render them as a MT2S file with the same settings, Vegas will read them fine. No idea as to why this is happening....

[poisondeathray]

I don't understand the bit about capturing a DVD player? Is it upscaled? DVD is SD...

I am not sure what this lossless codec option is.

A lossless codec is a digital intermediate often used for editing, but can undergo infinite rounds of compression (as long as you stay in the same colorspace) . If you're familiar with flac for audio, it's analgous to that (lossless compression) . You could also use uncompressed video, but storage requirements are even larger

Lossy compression throws away information each generation. The analogy in audio would be mp3 or aac - it gets worse and worse each time you re-encode it. With flac, you can do it infinite times and still have the same quality

So it seems that if I can load the MT2S files into a program successfully, and re-render them as a MT2S file with the same settings, Vegas will read them fine. No idea as to why this is happening....

It sounds a lot like the same issue as the HD PVR. Re-render usually means you are re-encoding it with a lossy format

There were workarounds to re-wrap (change the container) for the HD PVR before the firmware fix was released , and it worked in vegas as well - the benefit is you're not re-encoding (no quality loss), it's very fast, and no excessive storage requirements (compared to lossless codecs, it might be 5-10x the size) . You could give it a shot as well

[liberty610]

I don't understand the bit about capturing a DVD player? Is it upscaled? DVD is SD...

Yes, I know DVD is SD, but I am capturing the footage off the DVD in real time using the colossus card. It is not not an upscaling DVD player but this is the only way I can get the footage onto my computer. I tried taking the captured MT2S files and making them standard mpeg2 files using format factory, but it seems to loose a bit of quality when doing this. I tried using prgrams like format factory to rip the DVDs right to mpeg2 files, but they would not rip right. They wouldn't play properly in Vegas, VLC media player, or any others I tried. Very laggy, and sometime not play right at all.

So it seems that if I can load the MT2S files into a program successfully, and re-render them as a MT2S file with the same settings, Vegas will read them fine. No idea as to why this is happening....

It sounds a lot like the same issue as the HD PVR. Re-render usually means you are re-encoding it with a lossy format

There were workarounds to re-wrap (change the container) for the HD PVR before the firmware fix was released , and it worked in vegas as well - the benefit is you're not re-encoding (no quality loss), it's very fast, and no excessive storage requirements (compared to lossless codecs, it might be 5-10x the size) . You could give it a shot as well[/QUOTE]

I would give this a shot if I knew what you where referring to. Not sure what you mean by this part of the message.

[poisondeathray]

Yes, I know DVD is SD, but I am capturing the footage off the DVD in real time using the colossus card. It is not not an upscaling DVD player but this is the only way I can get the footage onto my computer.

The SD footage is originally on a DVD? Why can't you just use dvd decrypter or something? Capturing it with the colossus is unecessary step, and will produce lower quality than the original footage (lossy encoding) . Is it retail DVD (copy protected?) , or homebrew DVD ? Something like DVD decrypter or running anydvd will rip the disc so you get the original footage on the computer

The rewrapping instructions are in a thread about the HDPVR and vegas . It uses ffmbc batch file to rewrap into a MOV container. I don't have the link handy, but it's a thread on this forum

[liberty610]

I know this is an unecessary step, but again, I tried ripping the DVDs onto my hard drive using Format Factory and Magic DVD ripper and there is issues wih the play back on all my programs. In vegas, VLC, Windows Media, ect. It starts playing the file fine, but then has issues about 20 seconds in.

[poisondeathray]

Answer the question about the nature of the DVD (ie. is it copy protected? , or from something like DVD camcorder, or DVD recorder - which won't be copy protected)

[liberty610]

These are unprotected. They are family videos. I recorded them onto DVD from VHS using a Panasonic DVD recorder that connects to a TV.

[liberty610]

Ok, update...

I just used Mahig DVD ripper on of these DVDs. It appears to read fine in Vegas! This makes me VERY happy. THis capping in real time is killing me with over 100 2 hours DVDs... lol

The file does not seem to play in VLC media player properly. It starts off playing ok, but it eventually stops playing the video and just plays audio. As long as this is not an issue in Vegas, I'll be ok. So far, Vegas seems to be handling the file fine.

[poisondeathray]

Some DVD recorders can be tricky.

But it's worth the effort to try other software to rip first, like dvdfab hddecrypter or dvd decryptor. I don' tknow if the VLC results might be a "red herring" or indicative of other problems

THis capping in real time is killing me with over 100 2 hours DVDs... lol

Exactly!....capturing them with collossus not only reduces the quality, but will be much slower - you rip at 1x (realtime), where as you can get many times faster with decrypting program, and a identical quality digitial copy of the original DVD

The file does not seem to play in VLC media player properly. It starts off playing ok, but it eventually stops playing the video and just plays audio. As long as this is not an issue in Vegas, I'll be ok. So far, Vegas seems to be handling the file fine.

Note some versions of VLC are known be buggy. You can try another version or other player like MPCHC or Potplayer

[liberty610]

I am using a program called Magic DVD ripper. Just ripped a full 2 hour DVD in 7 minuets! WOO HOO! Like I said, for some reason, the files will not play properly on VLC media player, but Vegas seems to be doing fine with them, which at this point, is all I care about. I am sure rendering them into new files after editing will play on VLC fine.

Thanks for the help man. I mean, I knew about decrypting already, but had you not said anything about it, I would have never tried again. I am attempting to do another DVD to see if it will play fine in Vegas again.

[liberty610]

Ok again, I am having issues. I ripped one DVD that played in Vegas fine using Magic DVD ripper. In windos media player, it doesn't play right. It plays to fast as if it was on fast forward. In VLC media, it plays 36 seconds fine, but the video freezes and it only plays the audio.

I went to another disc and ripped it, and it does the same in VLC media player as the others. It freezes the video and all I hear is audio. And the file crashes Vegas.

Any suggestions? I used the same settings to rip it both times. In the program, it says 'rip as original source' or something to that effect. And thats what I did.

[poisondeathray]

Not sure about Magic DVD Ripper - never used it before . But it sounds like a problem with ripping, and therefore, likely an issue with that program

You can try some of the other rippers
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/decrypters-dvd-rippers

I would try dvdfab hd decrypter (Free), or DVD Decryptor (Free) first

[liberty610]

Ok thanks! Downloading now! Goona try it right away. I'll post my results when done! Thanks so much for the help so far!

[liberty610]

Ok, I have this installed. I am familiar with DVD fab, but this is where I get lost. What file type should I rip this as? There is like 50 options lol. This is where I got confused with the last DVDfab version I used. I am not sure what file type to rip it as so I loose no quality. I am not seeing an option for MPEG2. Is that not what I would want to use?

[poisondeathray]

ugh , I haven't used DvdFab in a few years so I'm going by memory here.

I think "main movie" or "full disc" . This will give you the original VOB files (which are MPEG2). You might have to use vob2mpeg to get them into vegas (just re-wraps , no quality loss)

[liberty610]

Ok, I selected the VOB option, but ripping taks time is saying almost 3 hours??

[poisondeathray]

Wow that's like realtime (1x) ? Not sure why it's taking that long. Are you sure you're don't have it set to re-encoding something?

[liberty610]

Not sure about anything at this point. I just picked the VOB template and let it do what it needed to. It seemed to stop working part way through it.

I am beginning to wonder if its how these DVDs where recorded. Magic DVD ripper and format factory had no issues with other DVDs I have tried in the past from what I can remember.

Magic DVD ripper got one of these DVDs ripped and Vegas worked fine with it.

Lets say I rup another one. Would runing it through a program like Format Factory and re-encoding it as an mpeg2 loose any quality?

[poisondeathray]

Lets say I rup another one. Would runing it through a program like Format Factory and re-encoding it as an mpeg2 loose any quality?

Yes, it will lose quality. (MPEG2 is a lossy format)

The amount lost will roughly be inversely proportional to the bitrate (higher bitrate used for encoding means less quality lost) . If you use high enough bitrates, it might be acceptable and not noticable

[aedipuss]

did i miss something? no need to rip/recode dvds. use vob2mpg and create an mpg from the vobs with no quality loss. it just removes the video from the vob wrapper.

[poisondeathray]

It's not always that simple with dvd recorders - sometimes just copying the file structure over doesn't work . There are errors and playback issues

Sometimes you have to use a decryptor +/- vob2mpeg (if you want to get it into vegas)

[liberty610]

Not to jinx myself here, but I have successfully used VOB2MPEG on 2 discs. VLC media player still has issues playing the files, but windows Media PLayer and Vegas picks up on them without any issues what so ever. I am attempting a few more discs to see how it goes.

So far, THANK YOU!!! This will make my headaches vanish if this continues to work!!!

[liberty610]

Well, its official! The VOB2MPEG works for me! I have ripped 27 of 100 DVDs so far without a hiccup in Vegas! THANK YOU GUYS SOOO MUCH for the help!

My BluRay burner is on it's way as well!

If you don't mind, I would like to move on to a new topic related to all of this. Please help if you can.

I have heard back from the Hauppauge tech reps about the short clip I sent them. To refresh a tad, I sent them a 2 minute clip I captured with the card so they could see if Vegas on their end had issues. Which it did. They apparently have been in talks with Sony on this for a while, but Sony doesn't seem to want to bend on the topic. They said there is a way around this, but again.. is there quality loss in doing this? Here is what the tech guy replied to me with:

"The only thing our engineer recommend at this time was to take the file you capture and produce an AVCHD disk with no menu using the included ShowBiz software and save it to the hard drive. Once saved in the hard drive, browse inside the folder created in the BMVD/Stream folder. You will find the new created file inside which according to them should import file to Vegas. They took your file and did that same thing and it imported into Vegas just fine."

Again, would doing this result in any quality loss? At least loss that is noticeable? For the HD portion of this project, here is whatI have going on...

I have a Canon HV30 HD video camera. I normally capture via firewire to the computer with it. Now, with my hauppauge colossus, I can capture HDMI and import the files into Vegas without it freezing, I just get no audio track. If I do what their techs say to do, and the file imports, that will solve that issue, but again, is that going to degrade quality?

Am I to understand that capturing from the camera's HDMI port would be better then the firewire, because the firewire still has some compression to it?

I have one last question regarding how to prep these files for the bluray burn, but I'll take it a step at a time

[poisondeathray]

1) why would you use the hauppauge for HD recording of any HD camcorder? The camcorder videos should copy right over (copy the entire folder over, and vegas will open them)

I don't know about ShowBiz software so maybe someone else can RE: quality loss. If it just authors, then there wouldn't be any loss. If it re-encodes then there would be loss

2) Again the HV30 is HDV, just use firewire and HDV Split. It's a perfect digital copy. Ditch the haupauge for that



*None of your tasks so far are suitable for the Collossus , all of them are better dealt with a direct digital transfer. There is no quality loss, and no compatibility problems. You're introducing other variables which reduce quality and possibly reduce compatibility

Something like recording a HDTV broadcast, or video game would be suitable for Collossus