Vegas Question about Video Size

[zanthor]

So I put together a video of Team Doublemints journey through the levels last night, it's about 18 minutes long total and set it to render... my normal settings are 1280x720 with a bitrate of 3000, mp3 audio at medium quality (112kbps I think). The file came out 425mb which is a tad large for what I want to upload.

So... I set it to render @ 640x360 (half size) and the rest of the settings the same... 425mb (down to the byte size they match!!)... I'm confused! Is the only way to get this file smaller to cut it's bitrate or did something go wonky?

Thanks,

[Eteocles]

Use a Quality VBR in the settings/advanced Video tab/window before starting the render, and slide the Quality down to 75%; that's about the range where everything is still able to be made out, and text is readable. Might not look as sharp the whole time but it does save on filesize :p I'll post more details on how to save size when I get home and can actually check my Vegas settings to be sure lol

[Hippieman]

I suggest rendering it out at about 800xXXX and then run it trough the divX converter (I can hook you up with something if you'd like). I had a 2.5 gig flick go down to 150 after 10 min of converting

[Nitro]

I've done tons of vegas videos and what ive found works best for me is cutting your fps down to 15. People wont notice it and it cuts your filesize in half righ from the get go.

http://www.knightsofshadow.org/ftpscreenshots/miscpics/Project.jpg

http://www.knightsofshadow.org/ftpscreenshots/miscpics/Audio.jpg

http://www.knightsofshadow.org/ftpscreenshots/miscpics/Video.jpg

[zanthor]

When I can render straight to DIVX why should I convert after the fact, thats just a 2nd cycle of reducing quality.

The FPS isn't a bad idea, I'll have to see how that affects playback... variable bit rate I'll have to look into as well.

[Ellay]

hmm, is there an update in Vegas that allows me to render to DiVX within it?

[zanthor]

hmm, is there an update in Vegas that allows me to render to DiVX within it?

I got vegas platinum for christmas and all my video's I've been rendering as DIVX encoded avi's.

[Ellay]

hmm, I took a look at your videos and the quality is a lot better than mine, was looking for some more information on what you use for recording and such.

I use FRAPS for the recording, I render is as a very large .avi file so it does not lose much quality and then compress it down to divx, but the details are pretty grainy compared to your layout. Using Vegas 6.0c

Any suggestions on that? would like my Kara video to look nice for everyone :)

[Eteocles]

I use Windows Media 9 encoding personally...usually ends up a reasonably-sized and clear video, though I had better results size-wise when I ran wow in 1024x768 than I do now at 1280x1024; may have to downgrade back to 1024x768 though now that I'm tripleboxing lol

If I remember when I get home tonight(like I forgot to last night) I'll pull my vegas 5.0 settings and see if they work for either of you ;p

[Ellay]

I also run at 1280x1024, possibly reverting down for recording may help? hmm. I'll see if somehow I can encode my videos into divx maybe that would do the trick, possibly an addon or might have to buy the new version of vegas ><

[Eteocles]

Yeah Ellay a res like that's pretty big for most video purposes at fullsize and looks like shit at half-size recording so unless you can compress it decently with divx(You should be able to pick your Codec in the settings/properties menu somewhere under File before and/or during the 'Render As...' phase; divx never played well with me though, hence why I use wmv9 lol) you'll just have to make do probably lol; anything under 200mb is acceptable most of the time, I try to keep mine around 120 or lower lol

[Fancyz]

lol

[Los]

this movie demonstrates some nice encoding settings, also added with the divx convertor in divx pro you can really cut down in file size.

http://www.stage6.com/user/brushyoteef/video/1315408/HOW-TO:-Render-WoW-movies-for-Stage6.


(the divx converter creates a .divx from your divx .avi and usually cuts the file size in half for me)

[Ellay]

Well, I'm looking at my playback of raw footage and it doesn't look that good at all when I maximize the video, I have fraps set to recrod at full size - but it still has some pieces that are grainy. I like divx because it seems to maintain an awesome quality while taking the size down really far. As well when you upload it to a youtube the quality seems a lot better than most codecs.

When I get on, I'll take a look at recording with different video sizes, maybe that is my biggest issue at the moment.

[Fancyz]

could be that yes, i usually can make my videos with same settings fairly well without having any grainy patches popping up

[Ellay]

Hmm I noticed my fraps recordings are only coming in at 640x480 perhaps I need to record in half size. That tutorial helped a ton though I love it thanks.

[zanthor]

hmm, I took a look at your videos and the quality is a lot better than mine, was looking for some more information on what you use for recording and such.

I use FRAPS for the recording, I render is as a very large .avi file so it does not lose much quality and then compress it down to divx, but the details are pretty grainy compared to your layout. Using Vegas 6.0c

Any suggestions on that? would like my Kara video to look nice for everyone :)

My configuration...
Record using FRAPS @ 1280x1024, the files are huge, dumped to a 500gb drive which gets purged often.

For editing I'm using Vegas Platinum (8.0c)

For encoding I'm using DivX, I was using normal but just activated my pro demo and may register pro depending on the results (They seemed to be a little smaller and alittle crisper on my first attempts.)

DivX Settings:
(File->Render As,Set to Video for Windows (*.avi), Custom...)
On the video tab I set to 1280x720 for HD quality video, I adjust the view port so the bottom 1/4th of the screen is cropped, thats my chat boxes, utility toolbars, damage meters, etc.
FrameRate: I set this to 29.970 normally, but did try 15fps with no visible difference and oddly, no filesize difference on the file I was testing with, which I found odd....
Field Order: Progressive Scan
Video Format: DivX (Click Configure)

BitRate I set to 3000, I've played with multipas and find that 1 pass gives fine quality and the filesize doesn't make a huge difference... Everything else I've left defaults in here...

Audio I set to mp3 and choose a reasonable rate, 112kbps normally since none of my music is recorded higher.

These settings do give you very crisp videos and with Stage6's capacity I haven't run into any issues hosting them. I don't like that the DivX Player slides a yahoo toolbar in if you aren't watching, but thats not my problem in the end ;).