Deinterlacing: DVFilm Maker vs. Vegas

[Dave Largent]

Hey Douglas,
A little off topic, but did you ever do that world premiere of DVD Workshop 2? I use Workshop 1 right now. How is Workshop 2? I heard there's some type of
copyright protection with it.

[Gints Klimanis]

>In doing this in Vegas, the preferred mode is "Blend"

While I didn't do the "fully manual" process generously described by Jim, I did compare Vegas "Blended" frame grabs to .PNG file with Studio 8's frame grabs deinterlacing to .BMP file. Studio8 won every time. Blend doesn't work well on fast motion sports.
Players end up with two right hands and two sticks. Also, the
color was slightly better in the BMP file, although it was always 3x the size of the PNG file (a lossless compression format) for my tests. This slight color difference, mostly less saturated blues on a bright blue wall background) was consistent on about 10 image comparisons.

[Gints Klimanis]

Here a web page on the PNG image compression format. I'm wondering if Vegas is saving the file with an incorrect gamma setting or if the difference has to do with PNGs combination of fields.

http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngintro.html

[Roy Hinkle]

Greetings,

Thanks Douglas for the excellent tutorial.

I have Vegas 4, DFX+ (Digital Fusion 8 bit) with Digital Film Tool's Digital Film Lab, and DV Film Maker. I have done a comparison across them all and have to agree that Vegas can hold its own. I was quite impressed and felt a little stupid having all the tools I do and using DV Film Maker for my film look processing. I guess it was just a conveinience thing. lol.

I know DFX+ is out of most of our budgets (including mine) but I was able to get into a seat of DFX+ cheap by upgrading my Lightwave 3D, BUT.... the Digital Film Tool's Digital Film Lab is an incredible plug-in worth looking into. At the moment it works for After Effects, Digital Fusion/DFX+, and Avid, but one of the guys at DFT's said they are considering a Vegas plug-in. They have quite a few nice plug-ins to help in the "Film Look" crusade. Check em out at http://www.digitalfilmtools.com/html/digitalfilmtools.html.

Take care,
Roy Hinkle

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

Dave,
We did do the world release of DVDWS down in Singapore, and then again at DV Expo in LA.
It's a pretty impressive tool
Macrovision
CSS
8 tracks of audio
32 tracks of subtitles
hidden menu functions
Extra file types (blended mode DVD's)
Audio volume control per file
Fade in/out on audio loops
widescreen and standard screen support
PSD import for menu creation
FINALLY real time preview of motion menus and buttons.
And lots of other tools that are pretty impressive for the cost.
I DON'T recommend you encode in it. The encoder wasn't upgraded much from previous versions.

[Paul Jason]

I know this is a bit off topic, DSE said in a earlier post, (I just happen to not be a monster fan of the DVX100. I usually do swim upstream tho)
Just curious, what is it you don't like about that camera?

[Dave Largent]

Is special hardware required to implement the
macrovision? Or is it all done in the program, with
just a regular burner?

[Brian Mitchell Warshawsky]

Roy wrote:
>>>>>At the moment it works for After Effects, Digital Fusion/DFX+, and Avid, but one of the guys at DFT's said they are considering a Vegas plug-in. >>>

Is there any reason that you cannot first edit in Vegas, and then use DFT's plugins in After Effects (assuming you have access to both)?

Brian

[Bruce A. Christenson]

When I've used Vegas' deinterlace to do framegrabs for web preview screenshots, I have always preferred "interpolate" to "blend".

[Dave Largent]

I tried a previous poster's recommendation to
put an upper field first on top of a lower field
first, and then deinterlacing. The result was identical to deinterlacing a lower field first by itself.
I'm no Vegas expert so I really don't know
what actually happens when you drag one
clip on top of another. Does it blend them
together at 50% a piece?

[Bob Benkosky]

That tutorial doesn't like Canon's or anyone elses Movie mode either, but I think if you shott the video well enough, and apply some simple movie quality color corrections, you don't even need 24fps.

I've compared shooting in normal mode, then going to 24fps, and shooting in movie mode, and I think I recall liking movie mode better for some reason. I might run more tests though.

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

The reason I don't like Canon's 'frame mode' or other camera's faux or even real progressive modes, is that with all of them, excepting the DVX100, you are giving up resolution or framerate. Sony and JVC do 15fps for their movie mode, Canon shifts pixels. I'd rather blend later than lose so much image information.
Blending fields at 50% is similar to how Vegas does this natively, but not as efficient. It's an older workflow, and necessary for apps that don't have a menu of blending options like Vegas does. I mentioned it in the Vegas book, simply as an alternative to doing things the way they can be natively accomplished.

[Roy Hinkle]

Is there any reason that you cannot first edit in Vegas, and then use DFT's plugins in After Effects (assuming you have access to both)? Brian

Brian Mitchell Warshawsky,

Sorry I did not reply earlier. Yes, I intend on doing all my edits in Vegas and any post work in Digital Fusion (DFX+). I don't have AE and use DFX+ for my detailed post work.

Since I first posted.... I have performed a number of tests using DFX+, DV Film Maker, and Vegas. I have to agree with others that Vegas performs a quality conversion to 24p. I think DV Film Maker does a good job and seems to produce an image that is not as soft as Vegas. But Vegas seems to win in my opinion.

Here's a question... are there any other Digital Fusion (DFX+) users here? Do you use it along with Vegas? What's your typical workflow?

Roy Hinkle

[Simon Wyndham]

Douglas, aren't you giving up framerate or resolution whatever method is used for making something more film like? A Panasonic DVX100 I would have thought was the best option. Full resolution. Yes, 24p (or 25p for PAL), but then film is 24 frames a second. It wouldn't be a film look forum if we were after a 50 or 60i video look!

Further, frame mode loses less resolution than field interpolating, and from what I have seen gives a more detailed picture than frame blending in post as you have suggested. Anyone got any resolution charts comparing the methods?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

I'[ve not done a resolution chart, and yes, you'll lose some resolution, but the biggest problem of ALL editing situations is acquisition. Getting it to tape, or getting it converted from a great source is the critical part, so if you can get as much information on tape (frame/Y/C) then you are much better off doing most everything in post. Somethings can't be pulled in post of course, that's why there's glass. We HAVE done some pretty amazing comparisons of picture, but that's not quite as scientific as a rez chart. I guess I should do one...I'm sure I'd be surprised somewhere in there.