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rendering
i’ve been trying to get the best rendering possible for my dslr footage. when i open up vegas my preview window colors are close to the original video. if you look here, you can see the original file on the right compared to the rendered mp4 file on the left. i did no correcting. rendered and the blacks are crushed looking. i have the bit rate set very high on vbr 2 pass.75000000b matched the project settings with camera.
i’ve been seeing a looooot of people posting about this. can’t seem to get a good answer though. i shoot with a 5dmarkiii that puts out h264 files. i use vegas pro12.
this only happens with certain file types such as mp4. when i render wmv the color looks almost identical to the preview in vegas.
i did another test and added sharpen and curves. you can really see how the blacks really get crushed with the mp4 render. on the left is the mp4, middle is preview, and to the right rendered wmv.
whats the deal here???????? i would like to render mp4 because i here the quality is better and it’s better for youtube. i know i used a very high bit rate but when i use anything like average 10 max 10 the image quality is horrible. blocky pixels and crushed colors. is it just vegas pro? should i go with premiere?
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7 Replies
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Hi Troy;
No, it is not Vegas … heh. And bit-rate has little to do with color and levels.
Welcome to the wonderful world of levels; the road to enlightenment is long and bumpy, and no single post will provide the answers.
The good thing is that you noticed the problem; most people don’t.
You can start down the road by learning to use the Video Scopes.
Then read everything you can find on Studio vs Computer RGB, 16-235 vs 0-255.
BTW, there is a difference between containers, encoding and formats.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_container_formats
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVCThe processes described in this video are not necessarily needed; Vegas can do a lot of this for you, but the info is valuable:
https://vimeo.com/24640614
Try to enjoy the journey!
Steve
Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T7500, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000, Vegas 12, 11, 10, 9 DVDA 6.0 & 5.2(build 135) Sony HDR-CX550V, Panasonic GH3 with LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm / F2.8 ASPH, LUMIX G X VARIO 35-100mm / F2.8
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Troy,
I keep these handy as a reference:
— Glenn Chan Article: Color Spaces / Levels in Vegas 9 and 10
https://www.glennchan.info/articles/vegas/v8color/vegas-9-levels.htm
https://www.glennchan.info/articles/technical/external-video-monitoring.html— Going Color Crazy
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/24/942083#942083— Color Correction Sony Vegas
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/24/939771— Sony “Levels” vs “Broadcast Colors”
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/24/939445#939446And finally, this excerpt …
[Bruce Quayle] “Would you suggest placing the plugin in the Video Output chain or after the Colour Correct plugin in the Video Track chain?…But then, I guess that should really be dictated by the project and the tracks and events therein? Your comments would still be appreciated on this though.”
It does depend on how it was shot. If it was a long event like a play, or demo, I usually color correct at the track level with each track holding a different camera. The advantage to doing this is you can use keyframes to make minor adjustments if the lighting changes over time. If changes aren’t needed, you can color correct at the Media level. If there are a lot of different shots, then you may need to color correct at the event level giving each shot it’s own amount of correction.[Answer]
The chain I use is:[Levels] -> [Color Corrector] -> [Color Curves]
This allows me to bring the levels within spec first, then add any color correction, and then apply a slight “S” curve to give it some dynamics because levels may have squashed the luminance a bit and made it look flat.
Best.
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Canon DSLRs, Nikon also, output full range data, 0-255, in their MOV files and flag the data as such in the files. This is a little against the Rec 709 spec but it possibly gives you more levels to play with before rendering. Vegas imports this unaltered. In contrast, I have read that Premiere always normalizes input to 16-235.
In Vegas when you render everything needs to be 16-235 range and this is where your blacks get crushed and highlights clipped. So if your source is full range your need a sony levels, computer to studio RGB levels adjust.
Also realize that the Vegas preview window is a PC display and works with full range data. So when you have a level adjust on the output window then it will look a little flat but be good in render. Contrast this if the source was studio levels then the preview window would look flat and the render would be fine. Bottom line Vegas puts a little burden on us, but is giving us access to the full camera data.
Boy do we need a sticky on this topic. I don’t know how many times I and others have to post this, week after week.
It might be nice of Vegas had a normalize option.
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Thanks Norman for the very clear and understandable review of this … I don’t know how many times I have understood this and then forgotten!
A long time ago in a version far away ( i.e. about 2 years ago ;-p ) I went hog-wild and did a bunch of test renders, with various footage, with and without the computer RGB to Studio RGB levels thing on, and then uploaded to TY and viewed the results.
I have a clear but possibly false memory that the results were somehow unexpected, hence my desire to repeat the test with SVP 12.
Steve
Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T7500, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000, Vegas 12, 11, 10, 9 DVDA 6.0 & 5.2(build 135) Sony HDR-CX550V, Panasonic GH3 with LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm / F2.8 ASPH, LUMIX G X VARIO 35-100mm / F2.8
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Im a little confused on the srgb and crgb. My camera is set to srgb. Im assuming it records video in Srgb. So when i render an mp4 it renders crgb?. So i add the levels plugin and switch crgb to srgb and the image will look flatter in the preview but the end result will keep my details in shadows and highlights? I should add this at the end of the chain in my video ch plugins?
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I think I figured it out. I did all kinds of tests and I found right off the bat before i do anything to the footage i add levels computer to studio rgb. render. looks perfect. i did some testing while adding contrast and effects. turns out that putting the levels at the end of the channel chain is the best. it will give you exactly what you see in the preview window with levels off. is this the only way to do this?
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The real money shot is how it looks after you upload to YT (or burn the DVD/BluRay and play it on the TV).
If you put it on YT, be sure to post the link, I am curious to see how it turns out.
Steve
Win7 Pro X64 on Dell T7500, MultiTB SATA, 8GB RAM, nVidia Quadro 2000, Vegas 12, 11, 10, 9 DVDA 6.0 & 5.2(build 135) Sony HDR-CX550V, Panasonic GH3 with LUMIX G X VARIO 12-35mm / F2.8 ASPH, LUMIX G X VARIO 35-100mm / F2.8
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