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Distortion and rendering problems with Vegas Pro 8
I use a Sony hard drive based camera which, although not top of the line by any means, if used properly does a great job. I usually preview the videos directly from the camera using component video cables hooked up to my Sony HD tv, and get a very nice 1080i picture that fills the entire screen with no bars. When loading my videos into my computer, which is a very powerful Vista based machine, they go into the Sony picture motion browser. The files it creates are AVCHD. I then convert them to MPEG 2 which leaves me with both types of files. I put the MPEG 2 files in Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, and the AVCHD files into Sony Vegas Pro 8 depending on the project. After the editing process, I then import the projects into either Sony DVD Architect 4.5 if using Platinum or Architect Pro if using Vegas Pro 8. I don’t have a Blue Ray burner so all my DVDs are Sony DVD+Rs.
The projects rendered in Vegas Platinum are usually very high quality, but not nearly as nice, however, as the 1080i picture I get directly from the camera when connected to my widescreen HD tv. I use the widescreen option when rendering and burning but do not check the box about stretching or letterboxing. The result is a picture that fills the entire screen with no bars or aspect ratio problems. I like to video trains and sometimes get a little distortion and wavy lines along horizontal surfaces during zooming. It is more pronounced while shooting a moving train without panning to follow it. I shoot using 29 fps and get some blurring on the lettering of the train cars. It also happens when zooming out while shooting train tracks and horizontal surfaces of corrugated rail cars that are stationary. Some of my stills show some degree of distortion while zooming using the pan and crop tool even though I use the reduce interlace flicker option. But, the problems are minimal compared to those I’m having with Vegas Pro 8.
When using Vegas Pro 8, I have more than twice the distortion problems I have with Platinum. I’ve tried rendering using the Main concept MPEG 2 option, but get the same results. Additionally, the picture on my TV, no matter what render settings I seem to try, has letterbox bars on the top and bottom of the screen and the picture is stretched out which ruins the aspect ratio. In other words I don’t get the nice clean picture I get when using Vegas Platinum.
Do you think burning a Blue Ray disc and using the 1080i rendering option would solve the problems I’m having with Vegas Pro 8,or am I using the wrong settings or overlooking something else?
I’m open to any suggestions anyone may have. Since I’ve only been doing this sort of thing for a few months, easy to understand answers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a million! -
2 Replies
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What are your project settings set to in platinum? What are they set to in Pro?
What template are you rendering out to using pro8? Are you utilizing any custom settings?
When you convert from AVCHD to mpg, what are your mpg file settings?
j razz
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Platinum settings are: Template NTSC DV Widescreen 29.970 fps, best rendering quality,Field order lower first, output is NTSC DV widescreen.
Pro settings are: NTSC Widescreen, best rendering quality,
Lower field first, Output is DVD NTSC.
I’m not sure of the MPEG file settings. I just use whatever it defaults to. I’m not very knowledgeable in this area. What should they be, and where do I go to change them if necessary? After doing some more reading I suppose I should be outputting Pro in the DVD Architect NTSC video stream format. Is that true?
If so, how do I render the audio separately since I’ve never had to do that before.
I’m not using any custom settings. I’m using the XV color option on my camera, so should I be using 32 bit processing? Also should I be checking the stretch to fill frame box before rendering when using Pro? I don’t do that with Platinum and I get a nice 16:9 image with no letterboxing.
Any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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