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Rendering “lossless” with sony vegas
Hello people, there’s a question that’s been bugging me for a few days now. I have some Battlefield 3 clips recorded with fraps that are 1360×768 and as you should already know, fraps videos are HUGE and i just found a software called handbrake to encode them, thus reducing the filesize from 3.9Gb to approx 250mb or so without noticing any loss of quality. Now the main issue is:
I want to edit those videos on vegas pro 12, mainly just to add more contrast using the Color Curves video FX, but whenever i render the video (even at the same bitrate and resolution), i alwasy lose quality and it is very noticeable. Is there any way to add effects and stuff and then rendering the video in a sort of “lossless” way (it doesn’t matter if the file size increases due to filters and effects being added, etc.), **not pure lossless of course, as it increases file size A LOT** So i don’t lose any quality from my source video but keep the additional contrast and other effects?
P.S: I’ve mainly tried the MainConcept and Sony AVC rendering method (.mp4) but i still lose quality. I want to upload those videos to youtube, so i don’t know if .avi is a good option for that purpose, as i’ve read somewhere that youtube re-encodes the video.
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17 Replies
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Handbrake creates ultra high compressed H.264 video files, for delivery, not for editing,
so edit your original files and then use Mainconcept renderer with one of the “Internet” templates (or Video4YouTube as an alternative)Vegasaur | 35mm Film Grain | Magic Bullet Looks presets | Film Look for Vegas Pro
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[Alejandro Chávez] “Is there any way to add effects and stuff and then rendering the video in a sort of “lossless” way (it doesn’t matter if the file size increases due to filters and effects being added, etc.), **not pure lossless of course, as it increases file size A LOT** So i don’t lose any quality from my source video but keep the additional contrast and other effects?”
The other lossless codec to try would be Lagarith. The files will still be large but maybe not as large as Fraps (I don’t use Fraps so I don’t know). A good lossy codec that stands up well is Motion-JPEG. You could use a tool like AviDemux 2.5 to convert you Fraps footage to M-JPEG like this:
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
Yeah, i use Video4YouTube a lot when uploading a project
to a client….its just quick.Steve Rhoden
(Cow Leader)
Film Editor & Compositor.
Filmex Creative Media.
https://www.facebook.com/FilmexCreativeMedia
1-876-832-4956 -
Thank for the reply Aleksey.
Okay, so handbrake makes videos for delivery, but what if i want to reduce the filesize of my 50 videos (3.90Gb each) for later editing? i’m running out of space and buying another HDD is out of the question… so, is there any good option to reduce the filesize without a little to no quality lost in the process? i’ll only render videos up to 720p by the way.
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So what if i want to reduce the file size of my 50 videos which are 3.9gb each for 1:30 min…? is there any good option to reduce the filesize? The main problem of fraps videos being so big is the bitrate (300Mbps bitrate)… so i don’t know if there’s any program that let’s me change only the bitrate of the video to drastically reduce the filesize?
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Use codecs with intra-frame compression, such as Cineform, Avid DNxHD, Apple ProRes, Sony MXF 422, Sony XDCAM HD
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[Aleksey Tarasov] “Handbrake creates ultra high compressed H.264 video files, for delivery, not for editing,”
That’s not true actually. Handbrake allows selection of output quality from very compressed to completely uncompressed, if you ask for constant quality and use the slider. With practice you can create any quality/compression compromise you wish.
Nick
Head: Hertz Music -
Firstly when you say you lose quality in Vegas, what settings are you using to render into mp4? That may be the critical thing here. It’s always a toss-up between quality and quantity. Have you experimented with settings to get more quality?
Rant on:
AS FAR AS I KNOW from my years as a still photographer…if you use lossless compression, you will be fighting to halve the data size of the video, depending on the complexity of each frame’s contents. This complexity is both in detail and colour/brightness shading. That halving may see you through. But if you keep acquiring more video data….
Lossy compression can do a lot more, but will always be …. lossy ….. So you can choose your quality vs compression level, depending on your storage (and… these days it’s not so important ….a computer’s ability to move data fast enough to actually _play_ a really big video file without stuttering one of my PCs cannot play footage from my camera. None of them can play uncompressed).
As I said in another post on this thread, Handbrake is very simple to configure for quality. I have yet to find anything better than the x264 for making really good renders for their size. Certainly at my amateur level. I work in Vegas, then export my final movie as avi uncompressed (WARNING…YOU WILL NEED UP TO 400GB/HOUR FOR SAY 1280/720), then use HB to make an mp4 of the quality I want. They are not as good as my camera videos, but it takes a trained eye to spot the difference. The compression ratio is quite
In the end, though, huge files will contain more data.
If you can’t handle an uncompressed file of 400GB, then all
Nick
Head: Hertz Music -
[Alejandro Chávez] “so i don’t know if there’s any program that let’s me change only the bitrate of the video to drastically reduce the filesize?”
Did you read my reply? Did you try M-JPEG?
~jr
http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com -
[Alejandro Chávez] “So what if i want to reduce the file size of my 50 videos which are 3.9gb each for 1:30 min…? is there any good option to reduce the filesize? The main problem of fraps videos being so big is the bitrate (300Mbps bitrate)… so i don’t know if there’s any program that let’s me change only the bitrate of the video to drastically reduce the filesize?”
Apart from John’s reply (and BTW read MY reply as well…Handbrake does this as well), I fear you are missing the point. Basically, AFAIK, you can’t reduce the file size without losing quality from those huge source files. Period. Well…you can do it, but lossless stuff will have limited compression, as I said.
What you have to do is find a compromise between file size and quality/resoluition. PERIOD. There comes a point where the target audience will either not notice (remember they cannot compare), or cannot see it anyway, because of the method of delivery.
My camera gives the most wonderful, rich, flicker-free videos, but like your source, they are HUGE. I have to render using a bitrate that suits the target, but is right at the top of that target.
There is no magic bullet.
Nick
Head: Hertz Music
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