Hi,

I've got a project shot on PAL, miniDV.

Why is it when I preview the video footage either when in the Media Pool or on the Timeline, that it looks very pixelated? Is there a way to fix this? (I don't remember my footage being this pixelated on my last project yet I think I have the exact same settings/used the same camera).

Dennis

EDIT: I've just noticed something else too. This is that, in my video preview, there seems to be verticle lines separating my footage up - you can't see the vertical lines, but you just know the footage is divided up vertically somehow.

I'm sure this isn't something with the ORIGINAL footage because I had uplaoded my footage a LONG time ago, and it wasn't like this when I previewed it before.

In fact, I just opened my other project which I had edited for long hours on the same computer and previewed it - it looks pixelated. It's very obvious, so I would've noticed it before if it was there. Is there something I've screwed up in the preview settings in Vegas?

If you think it may be a Vegas setting, you could try holding down the Shift key when you start Vegas. That will reset all settings back to default.

Make sure everything is up to date on your system, including the
latest update to Vegas and definitely the latest video driver!

What kind of camera did you shoot this with? Did you change
monitors? Can you put up a frame somewhere? (set the preview
quality to full (best) and then hit the floppy like icon to save the
frame to a PNG)

Hi,

I'll try to see if I can get a frame grab that show the problem really obviously, but right now I have the settings on Best (Auto).

I shot it on an XL1. The last thing I did was also shot on the same camera. Frame Mode, 16:9 in camera, full manual, same settings on camera for both shoots.

Dennis

EDIT: Ok, this is weird - whenever I save a snapshot to jpeg or png, it looks perfect! But when I preview the edges of circular objects have clear 'pixel' steps... must be something up with my video preview thing, because the snapshots look fine.

So I did 'print screen' with both the image and the preview open and here's the comparison - look at the collar edges. The first one is the preview, second one is the image. This is with the preview window on Best (Full), and I took a snapshot off the same screen.

http://m.1asphost.com/effofilms/compare.PNG

Has anyone had a problem similar to what is seen in the comparison? It seems to me that if I render the footage and play it out on TV, etc. it'd all be fine, but on the preview it's just pixelated... I'm confused why this is.

Dennis

Are you previewing to a 2nd monitor or the primary?What is the preview resolution ?Under "options"....."preferences"......"video"....... do you have "Display at project size" checked?

You might be viewing in "Draft" mode; try using "Preview".

Hi,

Yup, I have Display at Project Size checked.

Project: 720x576x32, 25.000i
Preview: 720x576x32, 25.000i

I have a Matrox P650 card, 2 LCD's connected to it, and you're right, I have the preview window docked in the secondary monitor. However, in my previous projects I was also previewing on the secondary monitor, and it wasn't pixelated like it is now.

I just tried moving the preview window to the first monitor, it's still the same.

I mean, this isn't too major a problem (since the output image I assume would still look fine, it's just that it's very annoying when editing to look at a pixelated image).

Thanks for the suggestions, any other possible causes?
Dennis

I think there could be quite a few possibilities .Have you tried a prerender of a small area?Does that fix it?Are the clips loaded with effects to the extent that the processor can't keep up?How much memory and what processor?

Hi Jack,

I've got a Pentium 4, 3.0E, Hyperthreading, 1 GB of dual-channel DDR RAM. I have all my video files on a separate hard drive, and I've got no effects at all.

Right now I'm just playing the footage as it is on the timeline. I'm sort of stunned because my system runs very smoothly, I run Ad/Spyware detection software very frequently and defrag my hard drives every 2 weeks (and I just defraged right before I started this project).

I just tried playing all those AVI files in Windows Media Player and it looks fine, I'm astounded to why it looks like this in Vegas only.

Dennis

Did you change display drivers? Or alter some display settings or
anything?

Hmm, not that I remember, although it HAS been about 4 months since I was editing my last project. I guess I'll just have to check everything that I've installed/changed since last time.

However, the one thing I do remember is that I installed 5.0d AFTER I finished the first project.

What do you guys think if I uninstall then reinstall Vegas again?

Dennis

That's always a good thing to try Dennis! Go for it!

My preview window also went very pixelated and terrible looking, and it wasn't before so I knew something changed. What had happened was I had accidentally dragged the audio mixer into the same window as the preview, rather than it being seperate. All I had to do was drag that back out and everything was fine. Perhaps you did something similar?

Hi,

I tried re-installing - still the same.

Then I tried that Mixer thing and moved my window around/swapped monitors/etc. Still the same.

Thanks for all the suggestions though, it's good to know that someone else has had a similar problem... perhaps it can be solved.

I'm just astounded though, I'm looking through my list of things installed in 'Add/Remove Programs', and I can't see any video-related application or driver that could affect Vegas' performance that was installed AFTER I finished my first project.

However I'll keep trying other things, maybe uninstalling some suspect programs in turn to see if it changes anything. Hmm...