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Suggestions on editing files

S

StarsFan4Life

Limp Gawd
Joined
May 29, 2008
Messages
472
Good evening everyone. I have been searching for 3 days straight for a good forum with informative people who really know what they are doing. I for one am somewhat a beginner but plan to purchase books and dvd tutorials to turn my noobishness into the above average abilities.

With that said, I have a lot to ask here so PLEASE bare with me.

I was recently married (November 1st) and had my videographer back out on us just weeks before the wedding. This group had all the equipment and it was going to be out "wedding gift" from them. That didn't exactly work out and we were only weeks away from the wedding, didn't have the $1500-$3000 budget to hire someone to do this. The wife and I got to thinking and decided that if we were going to spend the money...why not buy our own equipment and software and do it ourselves. I do enjoy LEARNING...but didn't realize it would be this intense.

We decided to purchase the following:

* Canon HF100 1080P HD Camcorder
* 3 x 16gb Class 6 SDHC drives
* Sony Vegas Pro 8.0 (upgraded to version c)
* Magic Bullets Looks for Vegas
* Sony DVD Architect 4.5 (with 5.0 for Blu-Ray)

We shot the whole ceremony and reception at the highest quality settings on the camera. I was able to export the .MTS files to my local computer for easier editing. According the Sony Vegas Pro 8.0 the video/.MTS files show a quality of:

* Video: 1920x1080x12 29.970 fps interlaced AVC
* Audio: 48,000Hz Stereo Dolby AC-3


I have been working with Sony Vegas Pro 8.0 for a month or so now getting used to simple editing (combining files, cutting out unwanted footage, etc) but am not really familiar with adding video FX to it (color correction, black and white, or basically changing the way the video "looks") but am learning about it. That so far is not my problem. What my problem is well.....a bit more complicated.

I personally have a PS3 that I can stream the .MTS files to and play them straight on my HDTV at full 1080p. However, all my family wants a copy of the wedding video and wants it put on a DVD. This is my problem....what the heck is the best way to do this? I have ran several days of rendering the video to different formats and find them all to be degrading towards the original footage. AVI files seems to be the worst and tooks 13.0gb of .MTS files and made them into one 26gb avi file. The video quality was that of a low-grade dvd and NOT HD quality. I have played with SEVERAL different version outputs and nothing can compare to the original quality of the .MST raw files.

What do you guys suggest if I want to take the raw .MTS files, combine them in Sony Vegas Pro 8.0 into one whole video and output them to the BEST quality (lossless if possible from the .MTS files)? Also, what do you guys suggest to do if I want to take the original .MTS files and convert them to a dual-layer (8.5gb) DVD or a single layer (4.7gb) DVD so I can give these out to family and friends. A simple guidance or walk through would be GREATLY appreciated!

Also does anyone suggest any good tutorials or books I can get to advance my skills in Sony Vegas Pro 8.0, Magic Bullet Looks and DVD Architect?

Right this second I was able to open an application called "ConvertXtoDVD" and add the raw .MTS files and have it compress down to be able to fit on a 8.5gb DL layer DVD. It is only at 24% and it started about 45 minutes ago so I will let you guys know the outcome in the morning.

I REALLY do appreciate any suggestions, constructive comments, or guidance on any of the tasks I have at hand. Investing $1000 on a whim like this is NOT something I tend to do, but when I spent $45k on a wedding and had only weeks to go...I thought it to be the best option. Needless to say, once I can get the hang of this, I plan to do a lot more for friends and family!

How do you PRO's do it?!
 
I dont use Sony Vegas personally so I am not familiar with their format. The .MTS format is what their video's are saved in? Sounds similar to how Adobe's .PSD files work.

With that said if you want the highest quality final format you need to find the conversion settings that will yield you the best quality video and a decent file size. I dont know what you can directly output to with Vegas so without doing some product research I am not sure.

I know with Premiere you can install codecs for the different formats and just output to that. However the program itself usually is not the best conversion tool. I have found outputting to a general "loss less" format at maximum quality to start with better. Then using a good program made for conversion or even a good DVD authoring program that will downsize the quality decently to work best.

Finding the optimal quality output settings will help you keep high quality and retain a usable file size when attempting to burn it out. Look through the program and see what output methods it offers. Then I am sure google will return some good tutorials on retaining image quality in converting. Probably could find a better way to do it.

I have not done this type of thing for several years as I shifted to my core classwork in school to get it done and less on the major until the other is completed. As such things have changed that I have not fully kept up with.

Hopefully someone else with more recent experience will chime in, I dont know that program at all sorry :(
 
Avi is not a codec, but a container. If you want to use a modern container I strongly suggest matroska (.mkv) or .mp4.

As for codecs, if you want an intermediate file lossless encoders like lagarith, huffyYV12 or ffvh (all in YV12 mode) should do fine, but be warned the files will be LARGE. For AVC encoding use x264 and for Mpeg4-asp use xvid (Megui makes a pretty nice front end for both). On the MPEG2 side there's CCE, TMPEG, Henc and many more.

Personally, I prefer avisynth as a frame serer as it has a lot of nice video filters and can do all of the basic trims and fades. This is accomplised through avisynth scripts and has no dedicated gui, but it is very powerful and the back end to a lot of programs. If you are going to be doing this regularly it's worth learning, if not don't bother.

I mainly use virtual dub as a frame accurate video player as it can reload avisynth scripts easily. For typesetting I use aegisub, which is good for signs, subtitles as well as karaoke (for advanced users). If I need something complicated, I get a friend to do it in After Effects.

For the final encode/authoring, an independent program will most likely produce better results as sony's codecs tend to suck.

doom9 is a great resource for DV capture and encoding.

If you'd like more specific help on using avisynth feel free to pm me, or post a small clip (unedited please) and I'd be happy to show you what can be done.
 
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