Best Settings Rendering & Project Properties for AVI??

[Ray Paula]

Hi,
I have Sony Vegas 9e Pro. I use a Canon DSLR EOS 7D in which I convert my HD video files to AVI through Cineform. All is working fine within the Vegas timeline. My question is, what is the best Render and Project Properties settings for this format? My final output will be to DVD and/or Blu-ray by using DVD Architect 5. As always, your help would be most appreciated. Thanks, Ray

[Jerry Amende]

There are more complicated ways to do this using VirtualDub &/or other tools, but here's the Quick-and-Dirty Vegas-only answer to your question: Sony Vegas 9.0e AVCHD to SD Tutorial (revised) - YouTube The tut is for AVCHD clips, but the same procedure can be followed for Cineform.

...Jerry

[Ray Paula]

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. It appears that my final output would only be SD instead of HD. I understand that if I output to dvd that the best would only be SD. With this being said, I would have considerable quality loss if I use Blu-ray as my final output due to the SD render. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thank again, Ray

[Jerry Amende]

Not quite sure I understand your question, but if you want to render to BD (rather than SD), you should choose the appropriate built-in Blu Ray template (i.e. "Blu-ray 1920x1080-60i, 25 Mbps video stream") under the MainConcept encoder. Everything else should be the same as in the tut (expect you probably would not want to add the "Sharpen FX" or the apply "Reduce Interlace Flicker").

...Jerry

[Chris Harding]

Hi Jerry

I was just watching the quick tutorial and maybe I am stupid but surely adding the Sony Sharpen plugin to the clip and leaving the settings on "0.000" doesn't do anything to the clip?????

Ray, you can simply render to SD or HD depending on your needs.

Chris

[Mike Kujbida]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

I was just watching the quick tutorial and maybe I am stupid but surely adding the Sony Sharpen plugin to the clip and leaving the settings on "0.000" doesn't do anything to the clip?????

Chris, you'd think it wouldn't make any difference but, for some strange reason, it does.
I was as skeptical as you until I tried it.
There is a difference, albeit small but there is a difference.

[Adam Stanislav]

Of course it does! How is Vegas supposed to know that a plug-in is set to “do nothing”? Plug-ins are separate pieces of software. Vegas just serves as a host. Vegas passes an input bitmap to a plug-in. The plug-in then does something to that bitmap, but Vegas does not know what that something is.

So, at a minimum, a “do-nothing” plug-in has to at least copy the data from the input bitmap to the output bitmap. The OFX plug-in spec allows for plug-ins to tell their hosts that they have nothing to do, so the host can skip them. But even then the host has to call the plug-in for every frame of video, so the plug-in can figure out it has currently nothing to do and can then inform the host. And even that takes time and resources.

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Mike and Adam

I DID say it was a silly question as on the YT video he did leave the settings at zero which to me means the plugin will apply no sharpness to the video.

However, yes I do trust what you guys say and I'm going to try it!!!! Just for interest, is it an overkill to lift the sharpening higher than zero ????

Chris

[Chris Harding]

Hey Mike

You are of course 100% correct...I rendered 2 clips one after the other of my latest bridal entrance and if you look real close the detail is slightly improved by dropping the sharpen plugin on one clip.

However you have to look very hard to see the difference and be like 6" from the LCD TV to see it BUT it definately does enhance some detail!!!

I however doubt that any bride would see it when she is intent on admiring the bridesmaids and herself but it's so simple to add in and for the extra effort involved it's probably worth it!!!

Thanks I am no longer a skeptic!! However I did leave the setting at zero!!!

Chris

[Jerry Amende]

An additional comment: Sometimes when going from HD to SD you will introduce twitter/flicker in the fine detail of you images. I've found can be reduce this problem by setting the event to "Reduce Interlace Flicker". This can be particularly apparent if you are viewing something with fine detail i.e. a herringbone suit. If you don't see this flicker, don't set this flag.

Others have recommended adding a little Gaussean blur to the event, but I've found that even by setting the vertical only to .001, it reduces that image quality too much.

Finally, I'll repeat what I mentioned in an earlier post - if you are rendering to Blu Ray (i.e. not reducing the image size), none of the "tweaks" are necessary or desired.

...Jerry

[Chris Harding]

Hi Jerry

I might be wrong but AFAIK the 7D shooters usually record video in progressive mode and also at 720 so one would surely need to set the de-interlacing in the tutorial to "none" as their are no fields to blend or interpolate???

I have been in a quandry on whether to shoot at 1080 50i (we are PAL) or 720 50P and so far I have stuck with interlaced footage. Being in PAL country my 1080 25P is a tad blurry with movement (as is 720 25P)
for my liking so the only acceptable progressive mode is one with a double frame rate so there is no motion blur with say, someone running or vigorous dancing at a wedding.

The tutorial does say "use either blend or interpolate" but Vegas do say that blend should be used for footage with a lot of motion and interpolate if not as it yields a slightly better resolution...this all assumes of course that your stock footage is interlaced!!!

Chris

[Jerry Amende]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Hi Jerry

I might be wrong but AFAIK the 7D shooters usually record video in progressive mode and also at 720 so one would surely need to set the de-interlacing in the tutorial to "none" as their are no fields to blend or interpolate???

I have been in a quandry on whether to shoot at 1080 50i (we are PAL) or 720 50P and so far I have stuck with interlaced footage. Being in PAL country my 1080 25P is a tad blurry with movement (as is 720 25P)
for my liking so the only acceptable progressive mode is one with a double frame rate so there is no motion blur with say, someone running or vigorous dancing at a wedding.

The tutorial does say "use either blend or interpolate" but Vegas do say that blend should be used for footage with a lot of motion and interpolate if not as it yields a slightly better resolution...this all assumes of course that your stock footage is interlaced!!!

Chris

Chris,

Here's my understanding...

Sony Vegas uses the deinterlacing algorithm when resizing interlaced footage - even if it's interlaced to interlaced. Therefore, you get better results if you set a deinterlace method. It is my further understanding that the blend for low motion; interpolate for high motion best practice only applies if you are actually deinterlacing to progressive.

Of course, your question dealt with people who are rendering & resizing progressive source to interlaced. I'm not sure what the technical answer to that question is, but I would submit - it wouldn't hurt to set the deinterlaced method. I'd test a short clip - see if there's a difference between "blend" or "interpolate".

All that said, when resizing, one should always make sure the render settings have the "Video rendering qualities" set to "Best" as this determines the resize algorithm. "Best" specifies bicublic resize whereas "Good" specifies "bilinear". see: http://www.custcenter.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/334 Alternatively, you can set your Project Properties->Full Resolution Rendering Quality="Best" and Render->Project->Video Rendering Quality="Use Project Settings"

I'm not sure I can help you with your, "quandry" as I'm in NTSC-land. I think the answer depends on what your final delivery format is - and taylor your source settings so that you do the least changes upon render.

...Jerry

[Chris Harding]

Hi Jerry

I was just mentioning progressive as the OP mentioned a Canon 7D!!!

I actually shoot 50i and I really and truly cannot see any difference on an SD DVD between the two interlacing methods!! (BTW I had the methods back to front!!! Blend is for little or no motion and interpolate is for high motion as you have said!!)
Technically, interpolate does effectively reduce vertical resolution but by the time you are at the miserable SD image size it rarely makes a difference.

I would like someone to tell me otherwise but studying DVD footage done in both blend and interpolate on a 32" TV all look much the same to me....just for interest importing progressive footage and setting de-interlace to none also looks the same on a TV!!!! Maybe by the time stuff has been resized right down to 720x480 (or 720x576) the overall resolution has dropped enough to mask any de-interlace method abnormalities....!!!!

Google the Vegas interlace methods and 50% swear by interpolate and the other 50% swear by blend so essentially both seem to good a good enough job when rendering down to SD

Anyone got any definate reasons why one is better than the other????

Chris

[Jerry Amende]

Chris,

My explanation may have been confusing, but I think we are in perfect agreement. IMO It makes no difference whether you chose "blend" or "interpolate" when resizing interlaced and rendering to interlaced.

Restating what I mentioned above: "It is my further understanding that the blend for low motion; interpolate for high motion best practice only applies if you are actually deinterlacing to progressive."

...Jerry

Edit: Stop the music! I just ran a test and can't see any difference in interlaced-to-interlaced resize - whether it's None, Blend or Interpolate. I'll do some more investigating and post back.

[Jerry Amende]

Okay, false alarm. It works as expected. I took a 1080i source clip of a moving car. Resized it to 720x480 NTSC WS (MainConcept encoder). Three passes: once with Deinterlace=none, once with Deinterlace=Interpolate, once with Deinterlace=Blend. I can't see a difference in the Interpolate and Blend, but the Deinterlace=None ain't so great:

...Jerry