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Vegas best settings help

maven48

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Hi everybody. Can anybody help? I've never been fully happy with the results when I render in Vegas and never feel like the quality is as good as the file size it produces. Can anybody share with me what settings they use? I generally encode at 8000/10000kbps, 2 pass, mp4. I know I could look through all the help on the forum again but you guys all seem very knowledgeable so I thought I'd ask direct. Cheers.
 

LastSurvivor

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Hey @maven48

As a fellow Vegas user, I know your pain! When I was working on my Phase IV edit I was never really happy with the MP4 rendering... however, even when I used Handbrake it really wasn't much better. Anyway, after a lot of research and seeing what other people do by watching various youtube tutorials or guides, I settled on the following...
Format: MAGIX AVC/AAC. MP4
Variable Bit Rate
Maximum Bps: 20,000,000
Average Bps: 12,000,000
Encode Mode: NV Encoder (or whatever your graphics card might be)
Preset: High Quality
RC Mode; VBR - High Quality

Audio: Sample Rate: 48,000
Bit rate: (bps) 384,000 or 448,000

These settings have worked well for me when I did my Moonraker Edit and for a 2 hour movie produced a file of 13GB in size. Now, granted this may be too high for some, so you could play around with the average bps and as you say, try 8,000,000. Personally I don't mind a big file as I want really good HD quality.
 

maven48

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Thanks for that. Not much different to what I had, although I've used cpu only for the encoder. I'll try using my graphics card. I had set my bit rate to 50,000,000 and a 1hr30min edit ended up being 20gb at 30,000,000. I've been trying to get settings in Vegas that I'm happy with for years. Glad to see that I've ended up close to what you use.
 

LastSurvivor

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Thanks for that. Not much different to what I had, although I've used cpu only for the encoder. I'll try using my graphics card. I had set my bit rate to 50,000,000 and a 1hr30min edit ended up being 20gb at 30,000,000. I've been trying to get settings in Vegas that I'm happy with for years. Glad to see that I've ended up close to what you use.

No problem... yep, the bit rates obviously can be changed to your own taste. For example, I ended up doing two versions of Phase IV which is a 90 minute edit... one that ended up being 8GB, and another which was 19GB which had a max rate of around 30,000,000 with a average rate around 24,000.00 or something like that.

Good luck anyway!
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Here are my project and rendering settings that I use most often.

PROJECT SETTINGS (Vegas will usually ask if you want to match project settings to the imported media)
  • Video
    • Width: Set to actual video file size to remove black bars (make sure to match the dimensions using the pan & crop tool on the video file in your time line)
    • Height: Set to actual video file size to remove black bars (make sure to match the dimensions using the pan & crop tool on the video file in your time line)
    • HDR Mode: Off
    • Field Order: None (progressive)
    • Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0000 (Square)
    • Output rotation: 0 (original)
    • Frame rate (23.976 (IVTC Film)
    • Stereoscopic 3D mode: Off
    • Pixel format: 8--bit (full range)
    • Compositing gamma: 2.222 (Video)
    • ACES version: 1.1
    • ACES color space: Default (ACES2065-1)
    • View transform: Off
    • Look modification transform: None
    • Full-resolution rendering quality: Best
    • Motion blur type: Gaussian
    • Deinterlace method: None
    • Resample mode: Disable resample
    • Adjust source media to better match project or render settings: UNCHECKED
  • Audio
    • Master bus mode: 5.1 Surround (match to your base file)
    • Sample rate (Hz): 48,000
    • Bit depth: 16
    • Resample and stretch quality: Best
    • Enable low-pass filter on LFE (surround projects only): CHECKED
    • Cutoff frequency for low-pass filter (Hz): 120 (Dolby pro/film)
    • Low--pass filter quality: Best

RENDERING SETTINGS

Sony AVC/MVC

  • Video
    • Video Format: AVC
    • Frame Size: Customized to the exact frame size to remove black bars. I usually open a movie file in hand brake and it gives me the dimensions. Most are 1920x800, but it does vary
    • Profile: High
    • Entropy coding: CABAC
    • Frame Rate: 23.976 (IVTC Film)
    • Filed Order: None (progressive)
    • Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0000
    • Bit rate (bps: 25,999,360 (or match to your source video file bit rate if it's less)
    • Number of slices: 1
    • Enable progressive download: checked
  • Audio
    • Audio format: AAC
    • Sample rate (Hz): 48,000
    • Bit rate (bps): 512,000
    • Audio coding mode: 5.1 surround
  • Project
    • Video rendering quality: Best
    • Stereoscopic 3D mode: Use Project Settings (I don't edit in 3D)
    • Color Space: Default
    • Color range (YCbCr output): Limited (default)
 

maven48

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Very helpful. My render settings were more or less the same but I've copied your project settings. I'm doing some tests now with a potentially artifact heavy clip.
 

maven48

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So.. I seem to get much better quality with the mainConcept avc/aac output format. It takes about three times as long to render though.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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So.. I seem to get much better quality with the mainConcept avc/aac output format. It takes about three times as long to render though.
Is it a 2-pass render? Multiple passes will always be longer and will always (well you'd think anyway) result in a higher quality output. The bitrate will also have an impact on rendering time.
Are you using the MainConcept MPEG template? That one doesn't allow me to output audio with the video file. I know Vegas has changed the render template names in some of the versions. Sony AVC used to be called MainConcept I believe.
 

maven48

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I have Vegas Pro 14

There's an option for Sony AVC/MVC and one for MainConcept AVC/AAC. I used the latter. I used the Internet HD 1080p template and altered the setting. And yes, it's two-pass and and I set it to variable bit rate max 30,000,000 / average 28,000,000.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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I used the same settings in 14 :) Not sure why Magix changed the name/templates in the newer editions.🤗
 

Heavisyde

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For Vegas 17, what are the ideal render settings? I usually use the MAGIX AVC/AAC MP4 and the customise it to match framerate and bitrate preferences.

Video:
  • Profile: Main
  • Frame rate: 23.976 usually
  • Allow source to adjust frame rate: Unchecked
  • Field order: None (progressive scan)
  • Pixel aspect ratio: 1
  • No. of reference frames: 2
  • Use deblocking filter: Unchecked
  • Variable bit rate - maximum 24 mbps and average 20 mbps
  • Two-pass: Unchecked
  • Encode mode: depends on the pc I use
Audio:
  • Sample rate: 48 kHz
  • Bit rate: 512 kbps
System:
  • Target display: Use master display settings
Project:
  • Video rendering quality: Best
  • Stereoscopic 3D mode: Use Project Settings
  • Color space: Default
Apparently for profile, High is better than Main, didn't know this til I did some research today. Field Order, I forget which is the best setting, the default one is just None.
 

The Scribbling Man

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It's going to depend on your source. Personally, I work in lossless and render in lossless. All compression I handle separately.
 

Heavisyde

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It's going to depend on your source. Personally, I work in lossless and render in lossless. All compression I handle separately.
you specifically talking about main/high?
I useless lossless files for editing (makemkv to rip BR, extract mp4 via avidemux), audio I convert to WAV via Audacity (might not be lossless) but I don't render at the same bitrate as the source as the bitrate's usually higher than needed (and 30 mbps looks about the same as 20 mbps).
 

The Scribbling Man

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^^ Not specifically about Main, no. I start with and end with a lagarith AVI. So when I go to render, I click on "video for windows" (AVI), click a preset, click customise and then switch to lagarith codec. The only thing to set then is the frame width, framerate, field order and pixel aspect ratio, all of which should be same as source. Audio I also start and end with WAV with the sample and bitrate same as source. After I have my final render for both audio and video I compress the video in handbrake and the audio I process in MeGUI usually (occasionally I use Vegas' AC3 codec), and then I mux them together after.
 

Dwight Fry

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^^ Not specifically about Main, no. I start with and end with a lagarith AVI. So when I go to render, I click on "video for windows" (AVI), click a preset, click customise and then switch to lagarith codec. The only thing to set then is the frame width, framerate, field order and pixel aspect ratio, all of which should be same as source. Audio I also start and end with WAV with the sample and bitrate same as source. After I have my final render for both audio and video I compress the video in handbrake and the audio I process in MeGUI usually (occasionally I use Vegas' AC3 codec), and then I mux them together after.
Exactly what I'm doing lately (and also re-encoding my old Vegas-rendered edits from the source, and replacing the online files). Only I use Audacity instead of MeGUI for the audio mix, which I suppose makes no difference. The downside is that Handbrake (placebo mode, of course) takes many, many hours to render, and if it's a long one it can take days. But I can live with that.
 

The Scribbling Man

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The downside is that Handbrake (placebo mode, of course) takes many, many hours to render, and if it's a long one it can take days. But I can live with that.

I see no discernable difference with placebo (I guess that's why they call it placebo). I have it on Very Slow and it normally takes an afternoon at the most, but it will depend on several factors, including your hardware. I used to operate on a very dated computer with a Pentium G620 processor (don't ask me how). That always took a very long time, but I never had to leave it working over more than one night.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Here's how I export in Vegas
  • Format Profile = Sony AVC/MVC
    • Video Format = AVC
    • Frame Size (custom to fit exact frame size)
    • Profile = High
    • Entropy coding = CABAC
    • Frame Rate = 23.976 (IVTC Film)
    • Field Order = none
    • Pixel Aspect Ratio = 1.0000
    • Bit Rate (bps) = I use three different ways depending on my source Blu Ray = 25,000,000 or 16,000,000 iTunes = 6,000,000
    • Number of Slices = 1
    • Encode mode = Render using GPU if available
    • Checkbox on Enable Progressive download
    • Audio format = AAC
    • Sample rage (Hz) = 48,000
    • Bit rate (bps) = 512,000 for blu ray edits or 384,000 for iTunes
    • Audio coding mode = 5.1 Surround
 

Gieferg

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I export only MPEG-2 from Vegas (because it's way faster and I dont want to overheat my CPU all day) but in high bitrate around 35 MBps. Then I get the file which I can edit without further re-encoding in Womble, so if there is a need to do some fixes or adjustments, they can be made fast without re-encoding again.

After edit is finished, I re-encode it to AVC with MultiAVCHD to fit on Blu-ray (or to MP4s), unless it fits without re-encoding.

Always 1920x1080 for HD edits, I do not use any non-standard definition. Only Blu-ray standard compatible audio and video. Smaller files are literally by-products which I don't use myself.
 
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