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External Monitor Preview Looks AWFUL (Pixellated and Blocky)
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The original footage here is 720×480.
Keep in mind that the preview image is rendered properly both in Premiere and in the Vegas preview window, even when that window is dragged to the second desktop. It’s only in Vegas’ fullscreen mode on any monitor that the preview appears blocky even on the highest settings.
For instance: My primary monitor is 1920×1080. If I undock the preview window and then stretch it to fill the screen, the preview window remains smooth, even at such a high resolution. If I select my primary monitor as the preview playback monitor, however and then begin previewing the project in fullscreen mode, the image will suddenly look pixellated and blocky – just as it does on any digital secondary monitor I use.
In other words, I get the same results at all resolutions.
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did you try applying deinterlace filter? OPTIONS>PREFERENCES>PREVIEW DEVICE. tick the box APPLY DEINTERLACE FILTER, or play the other settings there
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Yes, I’ve tried that, and it has no effect. I wouldn’t really expect it to; pixellation is quite a different problem than interlacing artifacts. Also, I get the same results whether the source footage is interlaced or progressive.
I’ve toggled all of the options for “preview” and “preview device” in the preferences section and none of them have improved the way the image looks in fullscreen mode.
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I’m not denying that you see a problem, or that it is not endemic to Vegas. Just that I’ve never heard of anyone saying that it’s a problem. What I would like to understand is, why is it a problem? I am quite happy if my preview is color-accurate, plays at full frame rate and is frame accurate for FX and compositing in preview. Beyond that, I couldn’t care less that there’s some compromise of the display IN PREVIEW.
It’s the final product that I would be critical of. I would not be happy if my delivered product was pixellated, but I don’t deliver the preview.
Keep in mind that the problem could be in Windows, not Vegas. Vegas uses the Video for Windows DLLs (Msvfw32.dll and Msvideo.dll) for preview. I don’t think that Premiere uses VFW calls which would explain the difference you see.
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
That’s an interesting bit of information about the .dll files, thank you for that!
I suppose I haven’t fully explained why the preview is so important to me, but it’s because I do commentary tracks for movies with a group of friends, and I’ve been using Vegas to record the tracks while we watch the film. That way everything is pre-synched and we can go back and edit the track as appropriate, or stop the movie and recording at the same time. Premiere has the same feature but I prefer Vegas’ editing workflow for sound. And since we’re enjoying the film on an external projector while we record, I really just want the clearest picture possible.
I’m not sure where to go next from here, except for perhaps testing other versions of Windows. I think if it comes to that I’ll just use Premiere for the initial recording and if I can’t get used to it for editing, import the files into Vegas for that.
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I have used Vegas to lip sync music videos – being able to play video and record audio at the same time really makes it easy. It works great for voiceover recordings and ADR.
However, I really think that you are obsessing over a really inconsequential issue. In my ten years of using Vegas, this is the first time anyone has ever brought up the pixellation of a resized preview window as a problem.
Did anyone else in your group see the problem before you pointed it out to them? I’ll bet not.
I’m not denying that the preview windows pixellates, I am just not sure *why* it’s such a show-stopper. It’s PREVIEW, not your final product.
Steve Mann
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
I’m not posting here to defend my position that I find Vegas’ full-screen mode unacceptable for my purposes, I’m posting to find out why it renders fullscreen video with lower quality than it renders it in a window, even when that window is stretched to a size equal to and even larger than the fullscreen preview.
This conversation was headed in the right direction when you mentioned that Vegas uses certain .dll files for fullscreen rendering which might be the source of the problem. Anything else is wasting my time and yours.
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I recently upgraded to Win7 OS (same hardware) and experienced the same pixellated External Monitor Preview problem. Very strange because I used to have smooth preview with WinXP Pro. Reverting back to WinXP and this problem goes away. I am now using dual-boot OS. Definitely something to do with Windows.
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Interesting. Thanks for sharing, that’s really good to know. If you happen back on this thread, out of mere curiosity do you use NVidia or ATI? Or some third party (if one exists these days).
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My graphic card is Nvidia 8600GTS
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