Vegas Video discussions from 2006 (Q3Q4)

[Jon McGuffin]

I'm new to HDV editing and am using Vegas 7 and a Sony HDR-FX1 Camera capturing in 1080i HDV. I'm having a problem in that whatever video format I render to is showing what looks to be horizontal lines or interlacing issues whenever there is any movement in the video. So when somebody moves their arm say up to their head, you can see jagged edges until their arm comes to a stop and then everything looks alright.

I've seen this before and thought it had something to do with the field order, but I'm not sure.

My workflow is as follows..

Start Vegas... Start a new Project wtih the following settings..

HDV 1080-60i template (1440X1080, 29.970 fps)
Field Order: upper field first
PAR: 1.333 (HDV 1080)
Frame Rate: 29.970 NTSC

Full-resolution rentering quality: Best
Motion blur type: Gaussian
Deinterlace method: None (I've switched this to blend fields & interpolate fields with no success).

I import my video which are straight m2t files and I believe matches those setting and am trying to export WMV9, MPeg2, etc, etc and no luck. Always the issue there.

Any thoughts or suggestins?

[David Jimerson]

This is normal behavior on a progressive display such as a computer monitor. You won't see these artifacts on an interlaced display.

[Don Donatello]

"Full-resolution rendering quality: Best"

perhaps somebody could post the sony spec's rendering using BEST, GOOD, Preview, DRAFT ...
you don't need to use BEST all the time ... GOOD might be the best for 80% of your projects ... if you are not scaling , slo-mo , panning video frame then GOOD will do the same quality in less time ...

[James Harring]

First, I have to say so far I am thrilled with the ability to directly edit .m2t's on the timeline.

I went from a Athlon 64 3700+ to A64 x2 4600+ AND upgraded to Vegas 7 from 6.0d over the weekend.

I can't say which had more impact (too busy to benchmark), however, I suspect Vegas was the overarching factor as I am now preferring Vegas to look at and import m2t's over previous solutions (I am not using Cineform. While excellent, I am hobbiest).

I used WMP 6.4 and VideoLan (VLC to look at M2t's earlier as vegas 6 was too jerkey. Now I can use Vegas. VLC and WMP didn't seem to gain that much from having a dual core cpu available IMO, but Vegas 7a is beautious.

FYI I was freezing up in Vegas 7.0 and uninstalled dotnet 2.0 as well as vegas and sony media manager. I then rebooted/reinstalled dotnet 2.0, reboot, install vegas 7.0A (and MM) and so far, no hangs capturing off sony a1u. scene detect seems to work fine.

Mind you this is just one weekend's mucking about with all these new early xmas toys, but know lots of folks are contemplating the leap I just made. I have not gotten to building a DVD though... have to sleep sometime. I even uninstalled older Vegas/DVDA. It's worth it.

[James Harring]

Can someone confirm please if I am correct?
I cannot trim an M2t in Vegas 7a and reduce the file size, right?

Example - I have a 400M .m2t, only 100M is useful after FF past poor framing/focus, etc to the "good part". There is no way in Vegas 7 to copy to a new file the 100M "good part" and later delete the original file to save disk space, right?

To do this I would need Womble MPEG-VCR (or similar).
I am planning on licensing womble if this is correct.
Thanks in advance.

[Jon McGuffin]

Originally Posted by David Jimerson

This is normal behavior on a progressive display such as a computer monitor. You won't see these artifacts on an interlaced display.

Okay, that helps... but I suppose when I'm working on the time line, I'd like to render a file for playback on the computer, and then export a copy to DVD. Does this mean I need to convert the interlaced footage to progressive?

[David Jimerson]

Originally Posted by Jon McGuffin

Okay, that helps... but I suppose when I'm working on the time line, I'd like to render a file for playback on the computer, and then export a copy to DVD. Does this mean I need to convert the interlaced footage to progressive?

What format are you looking at for playback on the computer? Windows Media, for example, is inherently progressive. It'll look fine.

For DVD, you'd use the DVD Architect templates, which will be interlaced (unless you use the 24p templates, but there's no reason to do that unless you want to change the look of the footage). That will look fine on an interlaced TV.

But if you play it on a progressive TV with a progressive-scan player, you'll see interlace artifacting. But this is true of interlaced material even from Hollywood.

[Jim Montgomery]

Vince et all

Specs
Windows XP Pro
Duel Core AMD Opteron 285 2,6 gHz
NVidia Quadro FX 1500, Driver 9.1.3.6
Blackmagic HD, Driver 5.1.1
M_Audio Firewire 410
Captured using ConnectHD
Vegas 7.0a

Looks like I am not the only one

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=77054

Sounds like the same problem. Render just quits, or returns the message "Vegas has encountered an error........sorry for the inconvience, or the infamous Fatal Execption error.

Jim

[Jim Montgomery]

Lets us know if you have a render problem. If not then I will ask for info on the uninstall/reinstall of dotnet 2.0

Jim

[Terry Teter]

I will let you know when I shoot next weekend and maybe post a clip of how it went!

So, if I read between the lines, downconverting is the method of choice when it comes time to publish?

Thanks,
tt

[James Harring]

Did a short piece for a friend using the Soy A1u .m2t footage in the timeline. Recall I do not own Cineform codec, except as included with vegas.

Did the editing thingie and later rendered to "standard AVI" NTSC widescreen mode using the included cineform codec. A few beers later, Vegas spat out a 2.3gig avi just fine.

Brought it into DVDA and didn't bother with menus, as it's only one 3 min piece. Let DVDA have it's way with the AVI and it works on the wife's DVD player... Significant--> if it works there it works anywhere... since it's a crappy tv/vcr/dvd combo that is picky about homemade dvd's. Looks good, the water in the picture is not blocky.

Video capture is still a little touchy, however, I sense it is my impatience. When I hit stop, I expect instant gratification (of course!)... I need to be more patient and realize Vegas is busy converting the camera stream to an .m2t. Once I slowed down on that part a bit, we're getting along just fine now.

PS I've learned to judge the quality of DVD software by looking at video of rippling water, it seems it really doesn't get handled very well by cheap codecs, gets all "blocky."

Jim--> uninstall/reinstall of dotnet 2.0
Simple, it's under "add/remove". uninstall it. I believe Sony uses v2.0 (not certain). If you have 1.1 already, you should be functional. Be sure to install .net 1.1 Service Pack1 though. Get 2.0 here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=en

What is .net?
http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/so...i=&p_topview=1

This may be of interest: HDV camcorder or deck not recognized
http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/so...i=&p_topview=1

[James Harring]

As a network manager, that's normal for me... I never install out of the box.
What's sorta amazing is this was released what 9/26 and the package is obselete 12 days later! Must be a record.

[John Rofrano]

What you’re not taking into account is that the CD’s were probably sent to the duplicator a month earlier so it really wasn’t 12 days later. More like a month and a half.

~jr

[John Rofrano]

You are correct. Vegas cannot do this and Womble does an excellent job at this. They have dropped their prices so Womble MPEG Video Wizard is only $69 USD now. I was going to buy MPEG-VCR (which is now only $35 USD) but when I saw how inexpensive and better MPEG Video Wizard is I bought that instead. Excellent tool to have in your kit.

~jr

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by James Harring

Can someone confirm please if I am correct?
I cannot trim an M2t in Vegas 7a and reduce the file size, right?

Example - I have a 400M .m2t, only 100M is useful after FF past poor framing/focus, etc to the "good part". There is no way in Vegas 7 to copy to a new file the 100M "good part" and later delete the original file to save disk space, right?

To do this I would need Womble MPEG-VCR (or similar).
I am planning on licensing womble if this is correct.
Thanks in advance.

Thats what's called editing, I think....

So you put the m2t on the timeline, you trim off what you don't want, then render it to a new file .m2t file. You can do that in Vegas. When you render you select .mpg2 file, then tell it to render HDV 1080i, or whatever you want...

Am I missing something in your question.