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Hardware upgrade + Specific HDV questions
Hello All,
I’ve using Sony Vegas 7 (and previous versions) for about 7 months, for low budget DV and HDV editing. I wish to make the next step, in order to provide higher quality end results, but I got a few questions related to Sony Vegas, HDV format, and related hardware. Hopefully I finally find my answers here (been searching a while). Please excuse my English.
SONY VEGAS HARDWARE RELATED QUESTIONS
Planning a major hardware upgrade.
WHAT DO I NEED IT FOR:
1. Capture DV and HDV footage from Sony Z1E (https://bssc.sel.sony.com/BroadcastandBusiness/DisplayModel?m=0&p=2&sp=141&id=78439) and JVC GY HD200E (https://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/specs.jsp?model_id=MDL101623&feature_id=03) (mostly PAL)
2. Footage is to simulate real movements, so recorded at 50P, 25P or 50i
3. Edit in Sony Vegas 7
3.1 1-4 video tracks, sometimes mixing HDV and DV
3.2 Using Vasst plugins, display 4 HDV tracks simultaneously
3.3 No 3D or special effects, besides color corrections, titling and transitions
3.4 Preview on secondary display, and / or TV
4. Final videos to be in either High Definition WMV, DV AVI, DVD (MPEG2), or back to DV / HDV tape in superior qualityWHAT I PLAN TO GET:
1. MSI s775 P965 Platinum
2. Intel Core 2 DUO E6600
3. 2 Gig of RAM
4. appropriate Video card (read below)
5. 2 Western Digital SATA2 7200/16 MB harddrivesQUESTIONS:
1. Video Card: I understand that Sony doesn’t care about the Video cards, since it doesn’t take advantage of any hardware acceleration.
1.1 Is this true?
1.2 Is it worth considering to get Nvidia cards that have Purevideo HD or Vivid technologies?
1.2.1 Is there a difference between Purevideo HD and Vivid?
1.3 Should I really be considering 512MB video cards, or 256 is sufficient?
2. Capture
2.1 Both the above mentioned cameras have Firewire outputs.
2.1.1 Does capturing through Firewire differs from the other camera outputs (component or s-video) in terms of quality?
2.1.2 If components or s-video is better, which video capture card should I be considering?
3. Format
3.1 Can somebody explain the difference between capturing at 50P at 1/50 and 25P at 1/50? I see no difference in the captured videos.
3.2 When capturing 50i video from the Sony camera, the resulting m2t files say 25i in Sony, yet when playing them, they are obviously displaying 50i. Any thoughts why?SONY VEGAS SOFTWARE RELATED QUESTIONS
1. Capture
1.1 Is there anything within Sony that must be payed attention to, or changed, in order to capture HDV footage via Firewire in the best quality/original ratios?
1.2 Capturing HDV footage creates M2T files. Right now I have to convert these to Cineform Intermediate AVIs. If I use the standard version of the Cineform codec (v2.5) that comes with Sony Vegas 7, the resulting AVI has less saturated colors than the one found in the latest Cineform Connect HD (v2.7).
1.2.1 What happens when this conversion takes place? How can the results differ?
1.2.2 Does this mean that I should stay away from intermediate files and beef up the system to handle m2t files on the timeline?
1.3 When using a control monitor for the JVC camera, the displayed image is perfect in every aspect. When the footage is captured in M2T, it becomes less saturated, almost losing most of its colors. I am confused on color spaces, but this seems to related a color space conversion.
1.3.1 How can I end up with the same colors that I see both on the control monitor and on the LCD of the JVC camera, on the captured M2T file?2. Rendering
2.1 I read somewhere that Sony never uses more than 1Gb or RAM. Is this true?
2.2 Why is the “interleave every .250 seconds” set as default?
2.2.1 What is this for? Why would I want to take out more frames from my original footage?
2.2.2 If I leave this on and render a 30 min DV AVI file, Sony always creates an error and never finishes the rendering. Does turning this result in unforeseen problems with my footages? I have never witnessed any, but want to make sure.
2.3 Quality.
2.3.1 Is it true that I can leave the quality at Good, instead of Best, and get the same results?
2.3.2 I heard that Best is used if I have static images in the final footage.
2.4 Resolution
2.4.1 If my end result is to be a WMV, should I render in 1.0 pixel aspect ratio?
2.5 HDV
2.5.1 The Cineform codec includes options: Use Video Systems RGB and Use ITU.Bt.709 colorspace
2.5.2 If I captured HDV footage, where I know the end result will be WMV or DIVX AVI, which of the above options should I leave on/off for encoding and decoding?
2.5.3 Same question if the end result is to be DVD or back to HDV tape.3. Interlace
3.1 Does Reduce Interlace Flicker really help when taking an interlaced footage and rendering to Progressive?
3.2 When I simply have an interlaced DV footage in a DV project, and I render the project as Progressive, what’s the best Deinterlace Method? I noticed that by setting this None, is actually better than setting Blend or Interpolate.KEY QUESTIONS
– My main problem is the color of the captured/edited/exported images. I see perfect colors on cameras’ LCDs and on the control monitor. I capture the M2T files and if opened in Windows Media Player or Sony, they look faded. If I render to an intermediate AVI or DV, the colors become vivid, sometimes oversaturated. Am I to understand that the problem is that the HDV footage’s colorspace is ITU.Bt.709, but when displaying it on my computer LCD screen it is faded because the computer is displaying RGB? If so, what’s the trick to compensate and/or make sure that the colors I see in Sony, are what I will get when I render to Uncompressed AVI and then to WMV?– Same question for DV. When captured, the colors look a bit oversaturated. When displayed on a TV screen, they are ever worse. I usually have to decrease saturation to a point where the images look almost colorless in Sony, while looking good on a TV screen.
– Interlacing. 50i gives me a nice smooth motion. This looks good on TV. What do I have to do, to keep the same quality after deinterlacing a DV footage, so it can be displayed a little nicer on a computer monitor?
Wow. I am sorry for writing so much, but I am about to drop around 1500 dollars (lot of money in Europe) on hardware upgrades and I must end up with a solution that will yield high quality HDV end results.
Thank you everybody.
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5 Replies
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Hello,
As for my HARDWARE related questions, I pretty much got all of them out of the way, except:
Can somebody explain the difference between capturing at 50P at 1/50 and 25P at 1/50? I see no difference in the captured videos.
However, I still have questions related to Sony Vegas 7, which I am desperate to get answers to. The questions look long, but that’s because I like to give a lot of detail. 🙂
SONY VEGAS SOFTWARE RELATED QUESTIONS
1. Capture
1.1 Is there anything within Sony that must be payed attention to, or changed, in order to capture HDV footage via Firewire in the best quality/original ratios?
1.2 Capturing HDV footage creates M2T files. Right now I have to convert these to Cineform Intermediate AVIs. If I use the standard version of the Cineform codec (v2.5) that comes with Sony Vegas 7, the resulting AVI has less saturated colors than the one found in the latest Cineform Connect HD (v2.7).
1.2.1 What happens when this conversion takes place? How can the results differ?
1.2.2 Does this mean that I should stay away from intermediate files and beef up the system to handle m2t files on the timeline?
1.3 When using a control monitor for the JVC camera, the displayed image is perfect in every aspect. When the footage is captured in M2T, it becomes less saturated, almost losing most of its colors. I am confused on color spaces, but this seems to related a color space conversion.
1.3.1 How can I end up with the same colors that I see both on the control monitor and on the LCD of the JVC camera, on the captured M2T file?2. Rendering
2.1 I read somewhere that Sony never uses more than 1Gb or RAM. Is this true?
2.2 Why is the “interleave every .250 seconds” set as default?
2.2.1 What is this for? Why would I want to take out more frames from my original footage?
2.2.2 If I leave this on and render a 30 min DV AVI file, Sony always creates an error and never finishes the rendering. Does turning this result in unforeseen problems with my footages? I have never witnessed any, but want to make sure.
2.3 Quality.
2.3.1 Is it true that I can leave the quality at Good, instead of Best, and get the same results?
2.3.2 I heard that Best is used if I have static images in the final footage.
2.4 Resolution
2.4.1 If my end result is to be a WMV, should I render in 1.0 pixel aspect ratio?
2.5 HDV
2.5.1 The Cineform codec includes options: Use Video Systems RGB and Use ITU.Bt.709 colorspace
2.5.2 If I captured HDV footage, where I know the end result will be WMV or DIVX AVI, which of the above options should I leave on/off for encoding and decoding?
2.5.3 Same question if the end result is to be DVD or back to HDV tape.3. Interlace
3.1 Does Reduce Interlace Flicker really help when taking an interlaced footage and rendering to Progressive?
3.2 When I simply have an interlaced DV footage in a DV project, and I render the project as Progressive, what’s the best Deinterlace Method? I noticed that by setting this None, is actually better than setting Blend or Interpolate.KEY QUESTIONS
– My main problem is the color of the captured/edited/exported images. I see perfect colors on cameras’ LCDs and on the control monitor. I capture the M2T files and if opened in Windows Media Player or Sony, they look faded. If I render to an intermediate AVI or DV, the colors become vivid, sometimes oversaturated. Am I to understand that the problem is that the HDV footage’s colorspace is ITU.Bt.709, but when displaying it on my computer LCD screen it is faded because the computer is displaying RGB? If so, what’s the trick to compensate and/or make sure that the colors I see in Sony, are what I will get when I render to Uncompressed AVI and then to WMV?– Same question for DV. When captured, the colors look a bit oversaturated. When displayed on a TV screen, they are ever worse. I usually have to decrease saturation to a point where the images look almost colorless in Sony, while looking good on a TV screen.
– Interlacing. 50i gives me a nice smooth motion. This looks good on TV. What do I have to do, to keep the same quality after deinterlacing a DV footage, so it can be displayed a little nicer on a computer monitor?
Thanks
David T -
[Tdavid] “Is there anything within Sony that must be payed attention to, or changed, in order to capture HDV footage via Firewire in the best quality/original ratios?”
Just use the internal capture and it will be at it’s best possible quality.
[Tdavid] “Capturing HDV footage creates M2T files. Right now I have to convert these to Cineform Intermediate AVIs. If I use the standard version of the Cineform codec (v2.5) that comes with Sony Vegas 7, the resulting AVI has less saturated colors than the one found in the latest Cineform Connect HD (v2.7).”
Why convert to cineform? Why not just edit the M2T files directly?
Vegas 7 is MUCH faster at processing M2T files than Vegas 6 was. My laptop when from 3-4 fps in Vegas 6 to near 30fps in Vegas 7. It sounds like eliminating this one step will solve many of the things the remaining questions refer to.
Edward Troxel
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You have a lot of questions. I will try to field some of them.
[Tdavid] “1.2.2 Does this mean that I should stay away from intermediate files and beef up the system to handle m2t files on the timeline?”
There are pros and con’s to most things. The advantage to editing to intermediate codec is that it stands up to recompression better. The Con is that it takes time to create the intermediate files and of course MORE drive space. As Edward has already pointed out Vegas 7 can give your very good preview frame rates which is one reason why we use might use intermediate with Vegas 6. Do some testing and decide the best workflow and quality for yourself.
[Tdavid] “1.3.1 How can I end up with the same colors that I see both on the control monitor and on the LCD of the JVC camera, on the captured M2T file?”
All of your monitors must be properly calibrated or they wont even be close. In addition, because of the differences in a LCD monitor and a video monitor they will never look exactly the same. Most pros rely very much for thier Video Monitor to tell them what things will look like broadcast. You can do a google search for monitor calibration for more info.
[Tdavid] “Is it true that I can leave the quality at Good, instead of Best, and get the same results?”
No. Best is Best. But good is pretty good.
[Tdavid] “3.1 Does Reduce Interlace Flicker really help when taking an interlaced footage and rendering to Progressive?”
This feature helps deinterlaces the clip when you have interlace flicker issues with interlaced video, such as with thin lines, and motion. It does not apply to a Progressive render since Progressive in and of itself deinterlaces the video for you.
[Tdavid] “3.2 When I simply have an interlaced DV footage in a DV project, and I render the project as Progressive, what’s the best Deinterlace Method? I noticed that by setting this None, is actually better than setting Blend or Interpolate.”
None can give you stuttering motion, blend is smoother, interpolate may be sharper. The reason you like None is because it looks sharpest but beware of motion artifacts and even lip sync may appear off with a talking head.
[Tdavid] “When displayed on a TV screen, they are ever worse. I usually have to decrease saturation to a point where the images look almost colorless in Sony, while looking good on a TV screen.”
Once again, is your TV calibated propely, or all your displays calibrated? I can take properly adjusted video and play it on a TV and make it look like whatever I want, faded, or lots of chroma, dark. The Key is calibration everwhere. Also, I cannot stress enough the use of your waveform and vectorscope to confirm what you think you see and if your levels are legal. Anything given to a outlet for broadcast must have legal level and your scopes are the only way to confirm that. Read your help file about your scopes.
[Tdavid] “Interlacing. 50i gives me a nice smooth motion. This looks good on TV. What do I have to do, to keep the same quality after deinterlacing a DV footage, so it can be displayed a little nicer on a computer monitor?”
Interlacing is for TV’s. Render Progressive for computer.
Last, let me recommend that you pick up this book that can answer many of your questions.
HDV:What You NEED to Know!
Regards, Rick.
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[Tdavid] “Is it true that I can leave the quality at Good, instead of Best, and get the same results?”
When talking DV, you can render at best or good and get the same results. Where “Best” comes into play is when resizing events (i.e. if you’re doing a photo montage).
With HDV, if you’re rendering down to SD, then it may very well turn out the “best” is better than “good”. However, you might want to do your own testing to see what’s the best quality per time ratio for you.
Here’s the full details on best, good, preview, and draft modes (notice the ONLY difference between “best” and “good” is the SCALING method):
Posted: 05 Aug 2004 06:31 pm Post subject: Differences between Draft, Preview, Good, and Best
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Different conversion algorithms are used for the different video rendering quality options, (which you choose from Render as>[format]>custom>project.) You’ll have the option of draft, preview, good, best.
Quality: Best
Scaling: bi-cubic/integration
Field Handling: on
Field Rendering: on (setting dependent)
Framerate Resample/IFR: on (switch dependent)Quality: Good
Scaling: bi-linear
Field Handling: on
Field Rendering: on (setting dependent)
Framerate Resample/IFR: on (switch dependent)Quality: Preview
Scaling: bi-linear
Field Handling: off
Field Rendering: off
Framerate Resample/IFR: always offQuality: Draft
Scaling: point sample
Field Handling: off
Field Rendering: off
Framerate Resample/IFR: always off——————————
Scaling:
——————————These methods come into play when conforming sources that differ from the output size. They are also used when panned, cropped or resized in track motion.
Bi-Cubic/Integration – Best image resizing algorithm available in Vegas. Quality differences will be most noticeable when using very large stills or stretching small sources.
Bi-linear – Best compromise between speed and quality. This method will produce good results in most cases.
Point Sampling – Fast but produces poor results.
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Field Handling:
——————————This refers to the field conformance stage of Vegas’s video engine. This includes Interlaced to Progressive conversion, Interlaced to interlaced output when scaling, motion or geometric Video FX and Transitions are involved. Skipping this stage can sometimes result in bad artifacts when high motion interlaced sources are used.
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Field Rendering:
———————————When the output format is interlaced, Vegas will internally render at the field rate (twice the frame rate) to achieve smooth motion and FX interpolation.
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Frame Rate Resample / IFR (Interlace Flicker Reduction):
———————————Frame Rate Resample:
This kicks in when speed changes are made through Velocity Envelopes and/or event stretching. In can also be used when up-converting low frame rate sources. This only kicks in if the resample switch is turned on _and_ quality is set to good or best.
Interlace Flicker Reduction:
This kicks in if the event switch is turned on and quality is set to good or best. See Vegas’ documentation for a description of this switch.
Vegas will bypass any or all of these potentially expensive processing stages if the resulting output won’t be affected by the process (e.g. no-recompress pass-through, field render bypass when settings don’t change and so on …). Differences in the output between different quality settings may not always be noticeable, but that largely depends on various attributes of the source media being used. If you want to see some of these differences first hand, trying using extremely large or small sources or high-motion interlaced shots with extreme pan/crop operations.
Please note that you should never render your final project using anything other than good or best when interlaced sources are involved unless the project only contains cuts. If preview quality is used, the resulting video will vary between acceptable to disastrous depending on your project and its media content.
Edward Troxel
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Gentlemen!
Your inputs have been more than valuable. I ended up getting the mentioned configuration, been working with the M2Ts, and have been paying attention to the Video Scopes (they became my new best friend).
Thanks again.
David
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