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Pixelated output in render MPEG2 PAL 16:9
Dear all,
Actually my first post to this forum, but I’m already reading here for long, found some very usefull tips here, but nothing yet about the problem I seem to have now, at least, not a tip that actually helped me.
I’m busy with some projects and it seems that my output for widescreen DVD’s looks sometimes shitty on widescreen LCD TV’s. I’m recording my shots on identical Sony AVCHD camera’s in HD. Then I’m editing, and the picture quality is crisp and bright. But especially on indoor shots the output becomes crap. When playing such a DVD on my 4:3 CRT it looks great. When playing it on my 16:9 LCD TV it looks horrible. When I play the rendered MPEG2 in Mediaplayer it looks good, in VLC it looks less good but not so bad either. What am I doing wrong? It seems then when there is some noise in the picture the renderer does something horrible with the picture. Though on my “dumb” CRT TV there is off course no electronics which can kill the image even further. For some test I rendered out some testimages in 4:3 en 16:9 and these bright colors look brilliant on CRT and good on LCD. Do I need to apply some filtering? Please advice :).
I’m rendering on Mainconcept MPEG-2, DVD Architect, PAL widescreen. Using VBR single pass rendering. Quality set to Best and 31. Audio is apart from video. I have a fast system so I can do some tests. Personally I think the problem is not only in the rendering but that maybe the color output is not correct and the TV is left “to find out itself” is there a way to check the broadcast levels? Or which corrector I need to use? Maybe some other render / interlace setting?
Thank you very much for your help in advance! And if you need to know something more then I told, please ask.
Regards,
Antoine -
3 Replies
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If shooting under poor light indoors, most cameras will ‘gain up’ the image to electronically amplify the available light, which adds digital noise, unless you manually control the shutter speed, iris and gain settings. Sounds like this is your problem i.e. you are running on auto settings. Most consumer video cameras don’t handle low light conditions very well as the chip on the camera is too small to resolve the image properly.
You did not mention what cameras you were using, so I am taking a guess that low-light is your problem. I use prosumer cameras (Sony FX1 and Z1P) which handle low light conditions surprisingly well.
A plugin called NeatVideo can clean up noisy footage, but can make the output look smooth but soft.
My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10 (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6
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Hi Nigel,
Thank you for your answer. In search over this forum I also found out that the noise indeed was the problem. I’m using Sony HDR-SR10’s in 16MBit mode for fixed camera’s and a NEX-VG10 as “hand” cam on a tripod. I always put the SR10’s in fixed white balance / fixed exposure. The shots I’m talking about are made on a small stage with indeed poor light.
After reading about the MPEG2 coding on Wikipedia I learned a LOT about how this actually works. I downloaded the demo version of Neat indeed and this is just some brilliant plugin! I found out the problem is in the noise, but also the background of the stage which is made of rough stone… and that is horrible to render for the codec. Neat also made the stones look softer, and therefore the whole video cleared up.
On previous projects I used DV and HDV and this works definitely better and AVCHD for Vegas.
So my gear. Using above mentioned camera’s plus a bunch of other camera’s even including sercurity cams in B/W for creative editing. Two PC’s for video.
32-bit winxp, core2duo @ 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, Vegas 9
64-bit win 7, i7-2600k @ 4.4GHz, 16GB RAM, Vegas 10But this Neat-video is really an amazing tool! And no, I’m not buying stocks of them, going to buy the plugin though.
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Great post. I have the same issue. Looks great on everything except when my DVD/BluRay player up-converts the DVD to my high def tv then it’s a little pixelated but when I play any other Industry DVD’s on it it looks totally awesome.
I think it’s an issue with the way Vegas or DVD Architect renders or something like that. I guess I’ll try Neat. I don’t see why the in field shoot would make any difference for this issue.
Anyway I’ll be sure and post the solution if I find one.
Thanks and please keep posting ideas! ~JVonD
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