How Much Quality Is Lost With Multiple Passes Through Rendering?

[paul_zimmer]

Here's a question for you gurus out there.

 

Is there a significant loss of quality with each pass of rendering, provided you use "best"?

 

I'm building a production from clips out of a half dozen captured video files, which range in size from 1 to 4 GB.

 

Working with this by splitting, etc proved to be painfully slow. Just moving around is painful. And, for some odd reason, anything to do with audio takes *forever* (like, several minutes to enter the audio editor, and several more minutes to exit it!).

 

So, I took each storyline section, put it into a production by itself, rendered it, and replaced it with the rendered version. Since VWave doesn't have to troll through all those enormous files, it is much faster now, but still a bit cumbersome to work with.

 

Pleased with myself, I went further. I subdivided the final production into major sections, and put each into its own production. For the final production, I just put in the full-rendered sections.

 

So, the clips I'm using will have been through rendering 3 times before I'm done. mpeg is lossy, right? So, am I doing terrible things to the picture quality this way?

 

Thanks,

Paul

[bimicher]

I'd like to have them as one continuous storyline, but I can't figure out how to do this.

 

I used "Add New Title" to put in the first production. That works fine. I can select a production file and the production editor now shows my first production.

 

The I selected this title, and clicked "Add to Selected Title". But it won't let me select a production file anymore - only video clips.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Thanks,

Paul

 

You are not doing anything wrong. If by production files you are referring to dmsm files(from Videowave) they can only be added as "Add new title". To add as "Add to Selected Title" you have to use video clips in avi or mpg format. If you have dmsm production files you want to add as "Add to Selected Title" you will have to "output production as ..." in Videowave to a DV avi or mpeg file.

[Guest mlpasley]

Thanks to all of you.

 

I haven't tried DVD Builder. I'll take a look.

 

The system specs:

HP 7000 laptop

2.8 GHz P4 processor

768M memory

NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5600 (built-in graphics card)

70G drive

 

One extra problem I have - the burner is on another machine whose graphics card VWave says is insufficient. VWave runs enough to do the burn, though.

 

What speed is that 2.8 GHz P4 running at? Go to the Windows System Properties and just above the Support Information, you'll see the speed that the laptop is actually running at. If it's not 2.8, you need to change the Display\ Screensaver\ Power setting to Desktop. ( my 2.8 GHz laptop runs at 1.84 GHz on the Laptop setting.)

 

How are you getting the video from the laptop to the other computer?

 

You're going to need DVD Builder if you want to get the video onto a DVD that will play on a DVD player. The easy way to render and get that file in a file that will burn easily on the other computer is.....

 

In DVD Builder, get the video onto a menu, hit Burn. HOWEVER, instead of burning to a DVD burner, burn to an 'image file' (.iso).

 

You can then move the .iso file to the other computer and use EMC 7 Disk Copier to burn the 'image file' to the DVD. The 'image file' is an 'image' of the information that will be put on a DVD. If you burned from DVD Builder to a DVD, the information burned to the DVD would be identical.

[paul_zimmer]

Output to DV avi in Videowave and then load those avis into your DVD Builder production. You will not lose much quality that way.

 

What exactly do you mean by "DV avi". I click "output to production", then select "Video File".

 

If I select "Show All", I get several things that look like DV avi:

 

DivX AVI (320 x 240, 780 Kb/s)

" 640 x 480, 1.5 Mb/s

" 640 x 480, 3 Mb/s

DV Format AVI (720 x 480, 29.97 fps)

DV Format AVI (720 x 576, 25 fps)

 

Which one? The "DV Format AVI (720 x 480, 29.97 fps)"?

 

What speed is that 2.8 GHz P4 running at? Go to the Windows System Properties and just above the Support Information, you'll see the speed that the laptop is actually running at. If it's not 2.8, you need to change the Display\ Screensaver\ Power setting to Desktop. ( my 2.8 GHz laptop runs at 1.84 GHz on the Laptop setting.)

 

How are you getting the video from the laptop to the other computer?

 

You're going to need DVD Builder if you want to get the video onto a DVD that will play on a DVD player. The easy way to render and get that file in a file that will burn easily on the other computer is.....

 

In DVD Builder, get the video onto a menu, hit Burn. HOWEVER, instead of burning to a DVD burner, burn to an 'image file' (.iso).

 

You can then move the .iso file to the other computer and use EMC 7 Disk Copier to burn the 'image file' to the DVD. The 'image file' is an 'image' of the information that will be put on a DVD. If you burned from DVD Builder to a DVD, the information burned to the DVD would be identical.

 

The processor is definitely running at 2.8GHz. It's nice in the winter - like having a little space heater right on my desk...

 

The original source was VHS and VHS-C. I used an AverMedia capture device into AverMedia's software. The result are ".mpg" files. Big 'uns - 1 to 4 GB.

[Guest mlpasley]

You are not doing anything wrong. If by production files you are referring to dmsm files(from Videowave) they can only be added as "Add new title". To add as "Add to Selected Title" you have to use video clips in avi or mpg format. If you have dmsm production files you want to add as "Add to Selected Title" you will have to "output production as ..." in Videowave to a DV avi or mpeg file.

 

Sorry. I forgot that fact. Thanks for the heads up.

 

I didn't give you good information before, Paul. If you encode them in VideoWave by doing File\ Output production to... Video File \ DVD authoring \ Best, the program won't reencode them. The program does not reencode 'DVD compliant' mpeg2's which is what you've made.

 

So you CAN add files made in this manner to a final VideoWave production and not lose quality.

 

You could also assemble them in DVD Builder by adding them using the "Add to Title". Since VideoWave has already encoded them for DVD authoring, DVD Builder will not need to reencode them. However, there will be some encoding because the program needs to put coding in to tell the DVD Player how to play the DVD.

 

OR you could put each of those productions on the main menu and select the "play next title" in the DVD Builder advanced options. When the people play the first title, the movie will play to the end without returning to the main menu.

 

Sorry. I didn't mean to give you wrong information.

[Guest mlpasley]

The easy way to output to DV AVI is to choose, File\ Output production to.... and choose DV Camcorder. That will output the video as DV AVI which is easier to edit on some computers.

 

However, the file size will grow dramatically. One hour of video will take approximately 13 GBs of hard disk space.

 

I think your original idea is workable. Make several smaller productions. But instead of rendering the video, import the productions into DV Builder without rendering. Just render once when you have the final production completed in DV Builder.

 

You'll be able to edit faster in smaller productions and you'll only be reencoding ONCE when you burn to the image file.

[bimicher]

Here's a question for you gurus out there.

 

Is there a significant loss of quality with each pass of rendering, provided you use "best"?

 

I'm building a production from clips out of a half dozen captured video files, which range in size from 1 to 4 GB.

 

Working with this by splitting, etc proved to be painfully slow. Just moving around is painful. And, for some odd reason, anything to do with audio takes *forever* (like, several minutes to enter the audio editor, and several more minutes to exit it!).

 

So, I took each storyline section, put it into a production by itself, rendered it, and replaced it with the rendered version. Since VWave doesn't have to troll through all those enormous files, it is much faster now, but still a bit cumbersome to work with.

 

Pleased with myself, I went further. I subdivided the final production into major sections, and put each into its own production. For the final production, I just put in the full-rendered sections.

 

So, the clips I'm using will have been through rendering 3 times before I'm done. mpeg is lossy, right? So, am I doing terrible things to the picture quality this way?

 

Thanks,

Paul

 

Output to DV avi in Videowave and then load those avis into your DVD Builder production. You will not lose much quality that way.

[paul_zimmer]

In DVD Builder, get the video onto a menu, hit Burn. HOWEVER, instead of burning to a DVD burner, burn to an 'image file' (.iso).

 

You can then move the .iso file to the other computer and use EMC 7 Disk Copier to burn the 'image file' to the DVD. The 'image file' is an 'image' of the information that will be put on a DVD. If you burned from DVD Builder to a DVD, the information burned to the DVD would be identical.

 

I can't find "EMC 7 Disk Copier" anywhere on my machine or the burn machine. Is this part of some other suite that I dont' have? I bought the retail box version, but I don't seem to have the box anymore. The install CD says "Videowave 7 Professional".

[james_hardin]

Output to DV avi in Videowave and then load those avis into your DVD Builder production. You will not lose much quality that way.

 

And you will find that you can navigate much faster using AVI.

[Guest mlpasley]

Is there a significant loss of quality with each pass of rendering, provided you use "best"?

 

So, the clips I'm using will have been through rendering 3 times before I'm done. mpeg is lossy, right? So, am I doing terrible things to the picture quality this way?

 

Thanks,

Paul

 

You're doing a lot of extra work. You can put each storyline section into a production by itself, but you don't have to render it.

 

You can combine those productions on a DVD Builder menu. They can be added as separate titles OR combined into one title which will make it one continuous storyline.

 

The VideoWave files are basically editing files and your original video isn't changed until you 'render' it or burn it to a DVD.

 

Mpeg2 isn't 'terrible', but anytime you encode, you're probably losing some quality. How much quality, I don't know.

 

You're going to have to give a little more information for us to give you some concrete advice. You didn't mention what type of file you're working with and how you captured them. A description of your computer specifications might help us understand what might be happening. Editing the sound shouldn't be that slow.

[Guest mlpasley]

The install CD says "Videowave 7 Professional".

 

Ok. You might have a problem.... VideoWave 7 Professional doesn't contain Disk Copier.

 

Normally, you burn directly to a DVD using VW 7 Pro, but you said that the computer with the burner has a "..... graphics card VWave says is insufficient." The way around that was to render to an .iso file that would use the good graphics card on your machine and then burn the .iso file on the machine with the DVD burner.

 

Does that other machine have any other DVD burning software on it? Usually a computer or DVD burner will come with software to burn files to DVDs. Most of them will burn an 'image file'. If that doesn't work, there might be free software on www.videohelp.com that will burn an image file to a DVD.

[paul_zimmer]

You're doing a lot of extra work. You can put each storyline section into a production by itself, but you don't have to render it.

 

You can combine those productions on a DVD Builder menu. They can be added as separate titles OR combined into one title which will make it one continuous storyline.

 

I'd like to have them as one continuous storyline, but I can't figure out how to do this.

 

I used "Add New Title" to put in the first production. That works fine. I can select a production file and the production editor now shows my first production.

 

The I selected this title, and clicked "Add to Selected Title". But it won't let me select a production file anymore - only video clips.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Thanks,

Paul

[paul_zimmer]

Thanks to all of you.

 

I haven't tried DVD Builder. I'll take a look.

 

The system specs:

HP 7000 laptop

2.8 GHz P4 processor

768M memory

NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5600 (built-in graphics card)

70G drive

 

One extra problem I have - the burner is on another machine whose graphics card VWave says is insufficient. VWave runs enough to do the burn, though.