How to retain video effects and quality of video in Sony Vegas?

[John Rofrano]

AVCHD is interlaced video but you have your project properties set to progressive. I would have your project properties match your source video (Upper). In fact, I wouldn’t use custom propeties at all. Just select the proper template for your camera that Sony provides. Also keep your Deinterlace Method on Blend Fields. Then render to Sony AVC or MainConcept AVC using one of the Internet HD 30p templates and it should look fine.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Tiffany Klaus]

If I rendered it to the mainconcept AVC Internet HD 1080 template, what bitrate, field order, profile, and pixel aspect ratio should I adjust it to? Also, should I enable progressive download?

[Stewart Bourke]

Tiffany,

Change as little as possible.

Your project properties should be set to be the same as the content you are trying to import. When you import your first media file into the project you should be asked if you want to set the properties to match those of the media you are trying to import. Say ‘Yes’ to this. This is really important. You want Vegas to be working natively using the same settings as the source media. if you don’t it has to do various conversation on-the-fly while previewing and you will most likely get stuttery/poor preview.

Then go into the project properties and in the deinterlace method choose ‘blend’.

When you go to render, choose the render template that you want and try to avoid change any of the values you mentioned except maybe the bitrate. Start with the default value and see how it looks. You may need to increase the bit rate depending on the final quality required, and also at what rate it was captured in the camera.

Follow John’s advice – and also search the forum here – there are many similar questions to this one. I have only recently moved over to HD/AVCHD from SD/DV/Tape-based – there is a lot to learn…

Hope this helps.

[Tiffany Klaus]

I have done what you and John have suggested. I have rendered in best and good settings. The quality is decent but my film effects aren’t exactly there anymore. For example: my “grain” effect are like white dots and the color in my film has turned brighter. It is suppose to be darker and be like an “old” film.

[Howard Steiger]

avchd is interlaced? it can be either depending on what its filmed in no?

[John Rofrano]

[Howard Steiger] “avchd is interlaced? it can be either depending on what its filmed in no?”

Correct. AVCHD supports 720 progressive, and 1080 progressive at 24, 50, & 60 fps. 25 and 30 fps are usually interlaced. Tiffany said she was seeing horizontal lines and she is shooting 29.97fps which indicates to me that the source video was interlaced.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

[Tiffany Klaus] “If I rendered it to the mainconcept AVC Internet HD 1080 template, what bitrate, field order, profile, and pixel aspect ratio should I adjust it to?”

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. As Stewart said, don’t change a thing. I meant select the template and press the render button. That’s it! When people start messing with parameters that they don’t understand, they often get themselves into trouble. 😉

[Tiffany Klaus] “I have rendered in best and good settings. The quality is decent but my film effects aren’t exactly there anymore.”

How are you viewing the FX in Vegas Pro? Do you have your preview window set to Best (Full)? If you have it set to Preview (Auto), which is the default, things will often look different when rendered.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Tiffany Klaus]

I thought that your previewing screen didn’t determine how your video will look till the very end when you actually type in what rendering quality you want so mine is always left on preview (auto). I so far have already tried rendering out in project settings, preview, good, and best with my preview screen on auto (if that makes a difference) and none looked closest to how it actually looked like on the preview screen.

Knowing this information, I went ahead anyway and tried adjusting my preview screen to best or even good and rendering it accordingly but it still didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.

[John Rofrano]

[Tiffany Klaus] “I thought that your previewing screen didn’t determine how your video will look till the very end when you actually type in what rendering quality you want so mine is always left on preview (auto).”

The actual setting doesn’t but what your eyes are seeing does… consider this:

Your preview is showing you what your video looks like. You are making edit decisions based on what you see. If it’s set to “Preview(Auto)” quality it is going to give you a rough approximation of what the video looks like NOT what the video actually looks like. Now you are using this to add FX and tweak the parameters. You have no idea what the “real” video looks like because you are just looking at a “rough approximation”. Then you render in full quality and find out that your video looks nothing like the video because your FX settings were all wrong because you selected them while looking at a “rough approximation” that didn’t show you what the video actually looked like when those FX were applied. This is what has happened to you.

Whenever you are doing FX work, you MUST check your work with Best(Full) to determine what the FX are “really” doing to your video. Once you are happy with that, you can switch back to Preview(Auto) to get your playback smoother but don’t pay much attentions to what it looks like in Preview(Auto) because that’s not what it actually will look like when rendered. Always check your FX work with Best(Full) quality.

[Tiffany Klaus] “I so far have already tried rendering out in project settings, preview, good, and best with my preview screen on auto (if that makes a difference) “

Sorry if I wasn’t clear. Changing the setting of the preview will have no affect on rendering the video. The rendered video should match what the video looks like when you set your preview to Best(Full). If you set your preview to Best(Full) it should look just like the rendered video. Does it?

[Tiffany Klaus] “Knowing this information, I went ahead anyway and tried adjusting my preview screen to best or even good and rendering it accordingly but it still didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.”

I think you’re missing my point. Setting the preview to Best(Full) now will not change the video now but it should look just like the render that you don’t like. This is because that’s what the video really looks like, not the “rough approximated” preview(auto) you were using to judge quality before.

Here is what you need to do:

1. Set your preview to Best(Full)
2. Adjust all of your FX plug-ins so that the video in the preview window looks exactly the way that you want it to.
3. Render your video and it should also look the way you want it to.

Hope that’s clearer.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Tiffany Klaus]

I just adjusted my video effects as to the way I liked it with Best(full)setting on. Then when I rendered the whole 3 minute and 30 second video, it took about 9 hours to render (even with my 12 GB of RAM but it’s mostly likely because I jacked up the effects by a lot more than usual to match how it looks on the Best(full) screen). When it was done, I watched the video. The fx did not turn out the way it looked like on the preview screen with the Best(full) setting on. The film grains were very heavy and obstructive to what was going on in the video while the film grains in the best(full) screen were subtle and gave it the look that I wanted.