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I could really use your expertise!
Gosh I am struggling here.
I am pretty frustrated.
Let me give you as much of the scoop as possible, and see if you can help me. If one of you experts would tolerate a call–I would gladly call you to discuss.
Problem: pixelation and stepping in the arms with movement and general poor quality across both progressive and NTSC TV sets in see link to examples at the bottom of the email.
Current workflow:
I am capturing on a Panasonic ag-dvx110A in progressive 30P mode into DV Rack (camera settings are all manual focus, manual exposure, no stabilization set on,white balance manually set, iris 6.8, shutter 1/60th,utilizing vectrascope for maximum greeen saturation, and brightness does not register zebra stripes set at 100%; Camera is set at chroma level +7 (IS THE CHROMA LEVEL POSSIBLY CAUSING PROBLEMS?) to increase the green saturation; gamma is cine like V, matrix is cine-like, vertical detail freq thick).(I trialed mid and thin, with no major change)I then import into Serious Magic Ultra 2 for chromakey, set the file to progressive setting, adjust the key (which looks great by the way) then output as uncompressed 24 bit avi (files are 1.2 gig ish). (interlace flicker is on)
Import into vegas 5.0 or 6.0, set media as progressive, render to DVD via the main concept codec.
(all the files I have will not exceed 15-30 min on DVD (just several clips 20-30 sec put together)–therefore I use the highest bit-rate possible as I will never take up the whole DVD–bottom line I just need the highest quality and I don’t care about the bit rate as long as it is compatible with DVD players). Below are the Main Concept settings in vegas.Video quality: Best
Template: DVD architect NTSC video stream
Video 29.97 fps 720x 480
Output type DVD
Include video stream is checked
I-frames: 15
B-frames:2
Profile: Main profile
Level: Main Level
Field Order: Progressive
Video quality slider: high (to 31)
Insert sequence header before every GOP: box is checked
Constant bit rate: Have tried all ranges up to 9000 without significant quality change
(note, I have tried VBR which does not change the problem appreciably )I render this video and import to DVD architect:
I set the media to progressive.
I apply the interlace flicker.
I render AND AGAIN I AM DISAPPOINTED (it is passable though not what I want on my TV, but took it to circuit city and it does not look good across multiple TV’s).Now I have tried many different rendering options to DVD. I am wondering if it is a color issue, a chroma issue or something imparticular about MPEG -2 compression. I had some artifacting on the talents legs, but decreasing the saturation of the background seemed to lessen that per serious magics suggestions. Otherwise, they think it is MPEG 2 compression stuff–that is why I am here.
I simply don’t know where to turn at this point. I am going to be producing a lot of these chromakeyed videos and I just have to have the best quality possible. As it stands now I remain disappointed.
Want an example. See the clips at https://movementspecialist.com/john the file testmpeg render is not actually a mpeg file, it is a quicktime file–but it shows some of the issues on the arms. If you want a MPEG file uploaded, let me know and I will pick a one sec. segment you can download. The other one is a close up shot showing there is no problem as the camera zooms in. Could it just be a resolution issue? The further I am zoomed out, the more evident the pixels become and have difficulty with the color seperations.
Thanks for any and all help you can provide. Sorry for the longwinded report, I just know you can’t help me without it.
Thanks
John
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7 Replies
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Sorry,
Open the preview folder and the clip with the issue is ” warrior pose.mov” and the clip with the reduction of the issue and quality I am happy with is the ” closevirtualset.mov”
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Probably it’s the interlace flicker(not sure what you mean by this-perhaps a deinterlacing filter) that’s causing it to look bad.
Noah
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John,
Could you upload a short MPEG-2 clip?
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The filter is called “flicker filter” on Ultra Serious Magic and the “decrease interlace flicker” filter on DVD architect. I thought this was supposed to reduce the deinterlace issue when viewing progressive footage on a standard TV. Is that incorrect?
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I uploaded the clip it is called samplempeg2clip.mpg
go to https://movementspecialist.com/john (note the blurryness and the pixelation on the arms) compare with the quicktime standing warrior pose file. Same workflow for each.
Of note: This is an uncompressed file from Ultraserious magic output 24 bit with flicker filter set to on progressive footage. It was encoded in vegas as MPEG 2 as listed in my original email. It does not have the second application of the “reduce interlace flicker” filter on (because that is done at the media level in DVD architect.”
Thanks so much for your time and effort guys and any input you have. I will try some renders without the flicker filters per the suggestions. I beleive I tried this, with no improvement.
Let me know if you need more clip–I tried to keep the file size small.
John
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Hi John,
I am currently accessing the net on a PC so old it can’t play your sample clips(!) but one thing immediately strikes me about your original post – you said:
***************
I-frames: 15
B-frames: 2
***************I believe therein may lie your problem – while a GOP length of 15 frames is reasonable (i.e. the distance BETWEEN I-frames = 15), if you have actually set your MPEG encodes to contain SEQUENCES of 15 I-frames (and it’s difficult to know whether you have unintentionally given me that impression, whether your encoder settings dialogue actually refers to distance BETWEEN I-frames of ’15’, as per your setting, or something else), then your bitrate, even at 9000kbps is going to be woefully inadequate to populate your encoded MPEG stream with so many I-frames.
Please check this and get back to me!
Kind regards,
John.
(‘Arky’) -
John,
Have you tried turning off the interlace flicker toggle? I think that option is for interlace flicker on animated still images.
In addition, although your key looks good, it has such hard edges that this would tend to magnify the issues you don’t like. If the keying software allows you to soften or erode the edges you will be better off I think.
DRW
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