Project Setting - Resolution Options for this scenario ?

[jowauk]

I am trying to understand the IMPACT of choosing the right options under Project Settings.

BACKGROUND first. I shoot Wedding Videos plus some Promo Commercials. My issues are mainly with Wedding Videos.
CAMERA is a Sony Z7E which is set to capture at 16:9 and 1440x1080

OUTPUT TO CLIENT will always be a set comprising A) DVD, B) Blu-ray, C) USB with HD Clips MP4 ?

The Video LENGTH/DURATION we aim for is 70mins - so we may shoot 120mins or more, but we EDIT that down with VS-X8 to 70 mins.

My issue is that sometimes when burning DVD (even with the same duration of 70mins) the software says that the DVD does not have enough SPACE for the project.

I am not sure I understand the variables of resolution and the Data Rate parameters.

Given that my CAPTURE is at 1440x1080 - should my VS project also be at 1440x1080 ? And if so will I be able to get 70mins onto as DVD without having to mess round with the Data Rate parameters like I currently seem to have to before I can BURN successfully.

Is there any READING UP I can do to better grasp the main factors here ?

MERRY XMAS and HNY to all on the forum here.

[aljimenez]

Typically data rates are variable with some max rate for best quality. The total size for any video length depends on the amount of compression possible for the quality setting: the more movement in the clip the higher the rate, the more complex scenes are the higher the data rate. Scenes with little movement and not much scene changing demand low data rate. Thus, each 70 minute video will require different size. To make a 70 minute video that does not fit, either cut some more from the video or reduce the quality.

[jowauk]

Thank you so much for such a rapid response.

My problem is - FIRST in my workflow I need to create a FILE with the right size attributes. THEN I progress to BURN a DVD. BUT the BURN process tells me the file being used is TOO BIG to fit on the DVD.

SO my question is - HOW do I work out what is the BEST Project Resolution to start with when I know I have a NEED for a 70mins DVD BURN at the end of the line. IF I have to experiment all the time with fresh FILE creations FOLLOWED by a DVD BURN that fails, its not very scientific and very time consuming with each iteration.

I appreciate your comments about actual VIDEO ACTION and CONTENT influencing the overall size - but there must be some better guidelines about WHICH Project Preferences to use given my END GAME needs and my CAPTURE starting points ? A Wedding video is very similar in content Project to Project - this is not filming of Motor Sport of Kickboxing.

In any event - your response is appreciated - HNY

[jowauk]

AND I should add - I also need to EDIT once - and yet be able to PRODUCE for DVD, for Blu-ray, and for a HD USB Clip of the event at 70mins duration.

Is this an unusual request ? I would not have thought so. So what Project Settings should I start with to achieve the OUTPUT I need. More importantly, where can I read up any advice on VS-X8 to guide me in this dilemma ?

[aljimenez]

Somebody will have to help you with DVD details as I have not done a DVD in a long time (I distribute online and on flash Drives). If I recall correctly, some DVD burners (not sure if Corel's MyDVD has the feature) can adjust the quality of the file to fit the DVD, and for your application, I would use a burner with this capability.

[Ken Berry]

It's not really an unusual request, but it is not particularly one with a simple answer.

First, your camera produces HDV footage which uses Properties which do not precisely match any of your desired outcomes. (I have a Canon HV20 which produces similar footage, so I regularly convert from one format to another...) It is essentially high def footage, at 1440 x 1080, as you say, Upper Field First and a data rate or bitrate of 25 Mbps using mpeg layer 2 audio. Though this is not dissimilar to what is required for the Blu-Ray disc you want to produce, HDV is NOT a Blu-Ray compliant format so will always need to be converted for that.

You ask what Project Settings you should use. In a sense, though, this is not particularly relevant to the various types of output you want to produce. Project Settings are really only relevant (with a couple of exceptions not relevant in this context) if after editing you want to produce a new video with exactly the same properties as the original or exactly the same as the Project Settings: Share > Same as First Clip or Same As Project Settings. If you have ticked the box in Preferences beside "Show message when inserting first clip into timeline", then in a new project you should get a message asking if you want the Project Properties to match those of the clip. You could do that in your current situation, but you DON'T want to produce a new video with HDV properties. But you can allow the Project Properties to be set to HDV if you feel the need to adjust the default Project Properties.

But equally, you could set the Project Properties to match a typical Blu-Ray compliant AVCHD or transport stream mpeg-2 format. Your original video is already another form of high def mpeg-2 so you could adjust the Project Settings to be more BD-compliant by going to Project Properties, selecting Blu-Ray and then the 1440 x 1080 option (though equally you could select 1920 x 1080). Then you click the Edit button and on the Edit tab of the box which appears select MPEG-2 as the Video Format and change the Video data rate to 25000 kbps. Leave the rest alone and OK out of that.

This will then allow you to do your editing then select Share > Same As Project Settings, and you will produce a BD-compliant video which you can then burn to a Blu-Ray disc without any further adjustments.

But for your HD MP4 video, you will need to select one of the options when you select Share > MPEG-4 and edit its Properties if necessary to, say, increase the bitrate for better quality (though thus increasing size).

One possible alternative for both the Blu-Ray and USB options, though, would be to choose AVCHD which is mpeg-4 using the H.264 codec (a bit different from other forms of mpeg-4). You could thus set one of the AVCHD options for your Project Properties, edit, then produce a single new AVCHD with those same properties, and use it to both burn a BD disc and transfer it to a USB drive. Just about every software player I know will play AVCHD, and many Blu-Ray players and modern HDTVs will also recognise and play AVCHD files on a USB stick drive or external hard drive, though with some they might balk at the .m2ts extension. In that case, you can usually change the extension to .mpg and they will usually play this.

The DVD output can be problematic, as you have found. First off you are reducing quality considerably by going from High Definition to Standard Definition. A DVD compliant mpeg-2 (and it can only be mpeg-2) can be no larger than 720 x 576 (PAL) and 480 (NTSC). Your 70 minute project, however, should just about fit on a single layer disc at the default maximum DVD bitrate of 8000 kbps if you use Dolby audio when you go to Share > MPEG-2. To make sure it fits, however, you could reduce the bitrate to 7500 kbps or even 7000 kbps with no visible reduction in visual quality -- though of course that quality will be nowhere near as good as the high def original, even if you used 8000 kbps. But that's the nature of the beast.

[jowauk]

SUPERB info - many thanks Ken. After reading 3 times I think I get it. Like you say it seems a deep issue to understand. Thanks to your heads-up I think I can navigate the options with a lot more knowledge of what I am actually doing.

HNY

[lata]

Hi

Just to add to Kens comment regarding DVD 70 minutes should fit using 8000kbps and Digital Dolby -- but we are on the limit.

I assume you are using a menu structure, If you use Smart Scene Menu, they use a bit of disc space, using Thumbnail or Titles will reduce the size on disk.
Switch between menu types to see the progress / size bar change, hopefully reducing into the green.

[Ken Berry]

To add a further footnote to my post above, I forgot to mention that if you intend to follow this workflow on a pretty regular basis -- and by the sounds of it, you do -- then you should consider making templates for each of the formats. This is (relatively) easy enough to do using Settings > Movie Profile Manager. There are two ways of going about this once that is open. You can manually set up all the properties you are after for each template by pressing New then selecting the Format and proceeding from there.

But if you actually experiment with the various options I suggested above, and come up with new clips in the three formats with exactly the properties you want and are likely to want again, then press Add. This brings up a further little box which is a little short on instructions. The top window is titled "File Path" and has a "..." button to its right. Press that and then navigate to where the first of your new clips is located and select it. Then fill in the second window (Profile Name) with a name you will remember e.g. Wedding_BD; Wedding_DVD... Then OK out of that box and close the first one. Next time in a new project when you have finished editing and are ready to produce the new clips, you go to Share and your new Templates should appear at the bottom of the drop down menus for the various formats you are after.

[jowauk]

Thanks once again Ken and Trevor. The Templates tip is useful and will save me having to THINK about all of the variables on each format iteration.

Trevor, I don't use MENU content simply because of the space it appears to grab - instead I just auto add Chapter marks at 3min intervals to allow JUMPING back and forth. It seems Chapter marks do not take up much physical content space on a DVD.

It seems that IF the clip being produced exceeds 2.6GB in size, it will cause the DVD burn to fail, despite the fact that the DVD has over 4GB of actual storage space.

Similarly, if I am burning a Clip to USB, the MAX individual file size cannot exceed 4GB else the computer/smart TV appliances cannot read it because of Opsys limitations. So projects with longer content have in any event have to be split across multiple HD files. Blu-ray is different again, but despite having 5 times the storage (25GB single layer) it can only take about 100mins content using the Blu-ray burner S?W that comes with VS-X8 (at an extra small cost of course).

I get the firm impression that COREL, or someone who is very clued up (Ken, Trevor) ought to write up a bit of an Explainer document OR dare I say a VIDEO clip covering the issues here. The FORUM is excellent, but maybe such useful INFO as discussed by you guys here would be even better if laid out fully and discussing all the implications in a 5-6 pager (or maybe 10-20 pager

With the arrival of 4K this stuff will be even harder to understand.

Cheers chaps.

[lata]

Hi John

With your latest comments you seem to be having a few little niggly issues

It doesn’t make sense that 2.6Gb fails to burn, I have burnt a lot of DVD with no problems using 4Gb sizes, I usually target 4 Gb leaving a little for the menu structure.

You could try creating only a Disc Image, that saves an ISO file to the hard drive, includes menu or Chapter points, we can play the iso using VLC Media Player to check quality--Then burn the iso to disc using a Disc Image recorder.
Video Studio Tools – Burn from Disc image, windows also can burn Disc Images.

I can understand the 4 Gb limit for USB, although you should be able to format the USB memory stick to NTFS, I doubt that the Smart TV limits to 4 Gb.


Chapter Points no menu, I did not think that would work but a quick check, you learn something every day.

My Workflow for DVD

1 / Import video to timeline and edit
2 / render project to DVD Mpeg2 compliant video file.
3 / Start a new project – share Create Disc – DVD (opens Burner module)
4 / Add media Add Video file using Mpeg2 created in 2 above
5 / Edit Menu / Chapters, although could have been done in edit stage 1 above.
6 / Create Disc Image ISO file
7 / Play to test quality
8 / Burn Iso to Disc.

Typical Mpeg2 settings for DVD

MPEG files
24 bits, 720 x 576, 25 fps
Upper Field First
(DVD-PAL), 16:9
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 8000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 384 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio, 48 KHz, 2/0(L,R)

These settings may vary a little depending on your source video properties.

[Ken Berry]

Similarly, if I am burning a Clip to USB, the MAX individual file size cannot exceed 4GB else the computer/smart TV appliances cannot read it because of Opsys limitations.

One reason for this is that many/most USB stick drives are formatted with FAT32 rather than NTFS. This is because the manufacturers was their drives to be usable across platforms, and as I understand it, Apple devices do not recognise NTFS. (Nor, for that matter, do the Sony PlayStations, and by extension I suspect perhaps Sony HDTVs don't either.) A limitation of FAT32 is that files cannot exceed 4 GB.

As for Blu-Ray files sizes, despite having around 6 times the space of a DVD, the files produced for them are much bigger too than standard definition ones. This is particularly true if you choose the BD transport stream mpeg-2 as the format. If you choose instead the BD-compatible AVCHD (mpeg-4) option, the files are more heavily compressed -- but still high quality -- and thus smaller, so notionally you can fit more on a disc using that format.