Worse video quality with GPU acceleration than without ? (MainConcept Codec)

[Gabe Carter]

Jim, I’ve got most of that set to the defaults, though I’m rendering for web and not DVD, so you could probably up the quality a bit from my settings.

Preset: Medium
Tuning: None
Profile: Auto
Level: Auto
Fast Decode: unchecked
Zero Latency: checked (I’d read this is very important but couldn’t figure out why)
Dropdown set to “Convert to YUV 4:2:0”

Rate control: Sing pass – bitrate-based (ABR). I was very happy with the single-pass results, which are obviously much quicker render times than multi-pass, but you may want to go with a Multipass for slightly better quality, but probably double the render time.

Average bitrate: I set to 10,000. Go higher for improved quality and higher file size. But again, I think it looks fantastic for me at 10,000kbps.

Output mode: VFW
VFW FourCC: H264. I also tried some tests using x264 but seemed to get identical quality with slightly higher file size, so I just stuck with H264.

Everything on the right side in the encoder section I left default.

Hope that helps!

[Jim Prisby]

Thanks for the detailed reply, Gabe, but when I try to render it Vegas gives me an error that says “no compatible video codec can be found” even though I chose it from the video format drop down list in the render template. Any ideas?

Also, I didn’t realize that this would be rendered to an .avi file because I will need to render it again to a format that will play on a Blu-Ray Disk so not sure if this is the way to go for that.

Also, when you render this to the .avi file is that the file you upload to YouTube?

Thanks,
Jim

Sony Vegas Pro 13 / DVD Architect Pro
Boris Continuum Complete 9.0
Intel 2.67GHz Core2 Quad CPU.
8 GB RAM
NVIDIA GForce GTX 570 superclocked
Windows 7 64bit

[Gabe Carter]

Hmm, not sure why you’re getting the error. I haven’t seen that. Maybe just try re-installing the codec pack. And make sure you choose the 64-bit version if you’re using 64-bit Windows.

And yeah, that H.264 .avi is the file I upload directly to Youtube. If I were to pass into another program for another render I’d probably go with something mostly lossless, like NTSC-DV (it’s under Video for Windows as well… customize and choose “uncompressed” video format), since you really don’t want to compress it twice if at all possible.

[Izzy Mason]

Finally decided to ride the rendering bandwagon! I have to agree. All this hype about GPU encoding is all marketing. I do loads of family video archiving.

Few things I would do:

1. Get the best processor you can buy – i7 or Xeon Processors.
2. For i7 Processors, consider getting a better cooling fan than your stock especially if you plan to do a lot of CPU rendering as it will get hot. Xeon processors tend to be made for this kind of job.
3. Get as much RAM as you can.
4. If you are not into gaming, get a decent graphics card that can take the video load off your CPU so it doesn’t eat up your integrated memory.

Iz