• VEGAS Pro

  External MPEG conversion improve Home Move Studio 9?

  Posted by Jeff Rippe on June 28, 2010 at 2:09 pm

  My original mpeg-2 files played back from my Canon FS20, either directly to TV or played on PC, look great. But what I am getting out of the HMS9/DVDA process after editing looks like it was recorded on a cellphone – no matter what render settings I use. Very disappointing.

  So I’m wondering, maybe PART of the problem is that the codecs provided with this “home” package, or their default non-adjustable settings, are not that good?

  What if I do the mpeg conversions externally with another program, like AVCHD converter, and load that file into HMS9 so that HMS9 does not perform any decoding/encoding internally? What format would that require?

  Can I get better final video quality that way (using external MPEG converters) or is MPEG, with all of its compression, just not “quality editable” – no way around it?

  Jeff Rippe replied 15 years, 10 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Stewart Bourke

  June 28, 2010 at 5:02 pm

  Jeff,

  I recently moved from VMS9 to VMS10, and the ‘custom’ button is opened up for a number of the templates – including the mpeg2. However, having said that, taking into account the quality of my camera, the quality of the rendered output is always good.

  I posted a couple of topics recently on this subject of improving render quality and there were a number of very useful answers regarding output quality.

  https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/911411
  https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/911361

  I would suggest you post some more details regarding your settings, configuration, source material, capture settings etc it might help diagnose your problem.
• 

  Jeff Rippe

  June 28, 2010 at 6:10 pm

  OK, here is more info:

  Input files are MPEG2 (720×480, 29.97, 9MBPS) and AC3 (48KHz stereo) from a Canon FS20. When I view these files directly on TV or PC the video quality is GREAT – very clear with good color tones/saturation.

  The videos also look good in Vegas Movie Studio – until I render them and export to DVDA. The quality at that point (in DVDA) looks like “cellphone”. Even my Text overlays are fuzzy/not sharp.

  I have the Vegas project set to match the video/audio files and I am rendering using the “Make DVD” function using “best setting”, “Blend” interlace. I have also tried rendering using other templates with no improvement.

  Apparently the decoding/edit/encoding of the MPEG file is really taking a toll on quality. Would 3rd party MPEG codecs help here or is MPEG2 just not edit-friendly no matter what?

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