Mpeg renderring

[Edward Troxel]

First of all, the codec pack is almost certainly the cause of your problem and should be uninstalled. However, here is a common reason why the “custom” button does not work:
https://www.jetdv.com/vegas/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6

Edward Troxel

[Steve]

Ok so the custom button thing worked like a charm, thank you very much, now as far as the pack goes, how do you suggest I acquire my codecs, and when it comes to mpeg encoding and decoder, what do I install, sorry I’m totally clueless 🙁 when it comes to this.

[Stubenkastl]

If the registry has only those entries and nothing else the system might not work anymore :-)))

Here your advise:

—————————————————————————-
Look in your registry, and make sure it only has these entries, and nothing else.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Sony Media Software\MC MPEG Plug-In\1.0\License]
“CurrentKey”=”XX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX”
“InstFlags”=dword:00000010

[Steve]

ok so i did the registry thing, I uninstalled the codec pack, now i rendered a test and it looked the same, here are screenshots:

Uncompressed:
https://img90.imageshack.us/img90/521/uncompressed2yv.png

Mpeg2 via vegas, after uninstalled the k-lite codec pack (b4 it was a little worst):
https://img224.imageshack.us/img224/1304/mpeg28dc.png

Thanks once again.

[Stephen Mann]

I suspect that you are looking at differences in the colorspace. Uncompressed, if I recall, uncompressed colorspace is 4:4:4 and MPEG2 is 4:2:0

Stephen Mann
MannMade Digital Video
San Jose, CA

[Steve]

…so how do I get a cleaner look ? because I’m really on a thight schedule here and everyday I try to figure this out is a big loss lol.

[Stephen Mann]

I think that what you are seeing as “desaturated” is an illusion because the MPEG encoding has softened the edges a bit as a result of the aliasing of the diagonal lines. I brought both images into Photoshop and cut a piece of the red at the same place on both images then placed them adjacent to each other. If there were any difference in the color or saturation, I should have been able to see a line where the two samples joined.

The granularity that you see is clearly the nature of MPEG encoding. There’s not enough color samples in the image to maintain smooth lines, especially diagonals.

What is the destination display mode? If it’s a normal interlaced NTSC display, then the softening of the MPEG image is actually good. Sharp color edges are a real pain in the butt for monitors, especially red.

Stephen Mann
MannMade Digital Video
San Jose, CA

[Steve]

they 4:3 progressive, but how do they good nice colors in like “hollywood movies”, Im not going to go out and buy and hardware and equipement lol but it would be nice to keep a sharper image.

[Stephen Mann]

” they 4:3 progressive, but how do they good nice colors in like “hollywood movies”, Im not going to go out and buy and hardware and equipement lol but it would be nice to keep a sharper image.”

Hollywood does two things that make the images look better. It’s not hardware or software as much as it is technique and knowing what goes on during the encoding.

First, if it’s a title screen, they use pure colors. This way there’s no room for the MPEG encoder to make estimations. Your “reds” are C60000h, which is, by definition, a washed out red. Pure red would be FF0000h (255,0,0). But we want to avoid completely saturated colors in video because most TV’s and displays handle them badly. I like to limit colors to 250, so my pure red would be FA0000h (250,0,0).

Next, Hollywood avoids long diagonal lines of high contrast. They “jaggie” badly when encoded into MPG. When they do, there’s usually a similar color in the background to reduce the effect of the “unsharpen” process during encoding. Like a light pink background for a red line. You may not even notice the pink tint, but where the encoder is making edge decisions, it looks nicer when the transition is from two levels of the same color. (There’s no other color there to get mixed into the encoded line).

Stephen Mann
MannMade Digital Video
San Jose, CA

[Steve]

So bassicly, if i wanted to get better results, I would have no choice but re-renderring the motion backgrounds and the text composited with AE, so it’s not my renderring techinques that are bad. hum, well thank you very much, I guess it’s back to the drawing board for me.