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Sony Vegas, XDCAM and DVDA
Hi everyone.
I have a project with mixed formats. A few SD scenes and an HDV scene with the following specs:
Format: Calibrated XDCAM-EX 1080p30
1920x1080x24
Progressive
Pixe Aspect: 1.0The problem I am having is when I render out the show for DVD. I made a DVD screener and viewed it on my TV. I get very hard jagged edges on objects such as furniture, or buzzing on detailed items, such as ornate patterns and such (on clothing, etc) within the XDCAM scene.
I’ve tried rendering out as MPEG2 with the DVDA NTSC DV profile, as well as AVI, trying various field settings (lower, then upper, then progressive) all resulting in the same kind of jagged edges and noisy footage. The people in the show look great, with the exception of some buzzing in the hair, so I cannot figure out what is going on, or what I need to render the timelines as (including the SD footage) for decent playback/quality on a DVD.
This is the first time I have worked with XDCAM footage, so I don’t have any prior experience with the format.
The footage was not brought in by me, but by another party, who gave it to me on a hard drive. The clips are in .mov format. I don’t not have access to the original BVAP folders to try importing those directly.
In order to view the clips, I had to purchase the Calibrated Q codec so that the would read on my PC (Windows 7 64bit). The codec seems to be working as it should. The original files, when played in QT play smooth without apparent jagged lines or noise.
I’m using Vegas 9 and DVDA 5.
Any suggestions?
Much appreciated!
Deirdre
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2 Replies
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Ok, so I want to explain what I did to remedy this for those who may have the same question:
I spent about 2 days rendering out this XDCAM footage, but every time I viewed it on an external monitor, the flickering/buzzing on ornate patterns and narrow, close lines, was ridiculous (more so than usual).
After doing a lot of research I came to a couple of conclusions. XDCAM contains a lot of information. When an XDCAM clip is rendered to standard definition format, all of that info is compressed, and televisions have a hard time displaying the end product correctly. I am also assuming that this is mostly an issue with CRT monitors and televisions, and that this wouldn’t be as much of an issue with, say, and HD television.
Of course, not everyone has an HD TV yet (including me), so it’s still a good idea to make sure your final product looks as good as possible for older television.
Anyway, after much trial and error, including different blend & field settings, and reduced interlace flicker, I found a solution. It requires a generation loss, but still looks pretty good (better than a lot of native SD footage) with pretty minimal noise/buzzing/flickering.
What I did was render out the problem scene as NTSC DV with lower fields. Then I reimported the scene into my timeline, and rendered the import out as NTSC DV Progressive. And thatwas it. Everything smoothed out significantly. there is still a buit of flicker on certain objects when the camera is in motion, but it is much more acceptable than it had been.
I believe i checked reduce ‘interlace flicker’ on the imported files properties (not the original clips properties) before rendering it out, but I don’t think it made much of a difference, if any, than if I hadn’t slected it. BUt you may want to play around with it a bit.
Not the best option, but it worked and helped me get through a 2-day headache.
Hope this information is useful to someone!
Best,
Deirdre“All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people”
~My Man Godfrey
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Hi D,
Try posting this at the EXCAM forum I am sure they will be able to help you.
Peace,
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