[John Bean]

MOTION JPEG is a LOSSY video codec. Essentially your video frames are being compressed as JPEG. Then MPEG Stream Clip has to uncompressed this before it re-compresses it as H.264.

So yeah, there is quality loss here. Is it a big deal? If it is just for class, maybe not.

So your OLD work-flow was not optimal.

In regards to your suggested new work-flow:

I’m not sure how MPEG Stream Clip works.

Is there is an option in MPEG Stream Clip that allows you to re-wrap the .MP4 file as .MOV without *re-encoding*? ie. copy video and audio streams without re-encoding?

If so, then there will be no quality lost for your .MP4 to .MOV conversion because its just re-wrapping.

But if MPEG Stream Clip has to re-encode your .MP4, then you are losing quality again like your last work-flow. In fact, you are losing more quality!

But again, it it is just for class and quality is not a big issue, then doing what you are doing now is fine.

[John Bean]

You said you were rendering out as Quictime MOV from Vegas. Is this correct?

So what video codec are you using?

If you are using UNCOMPRESSED or a Lossless codec and then letting MPEG Stream Clip render it out as a H.264 MOV file, there shouldn’t be any problems with *QUALITY*.

If you using some other lossy codec or visually lossless codec, there will be quality lost depending on your compression settings.

If you really want a MOV file, let me suggest a simple workflow for you.

1. RENDER-AS a .MP4 using either Sony AVC or MainConcept AVC/MP4.

2. Use FFMPEG to create the .MOV file using: “-vcodec copy”

ex. ffmpeg -i test.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy test.mov

This command basically tells ffmpeg to re-wrap your test.mp4 in a MOV container.

Good luck!

[John Bean]

The 22.7 Mbps for 480p should be high enough to work with.

Some blu-ray 720p movies are encoded with bit-rates as low as 16 to 18 Mbps AVC.

So your 480p clips are 4:3?

Hopefully you focused well and gave enough distance when filming, otherwise a lot of your cropping will appear like closeups.

[John Bean]

It all really comes down to MONEY.

1. Are you or your clients making money of the use of this copyright material?

Are you getting paid to do this work for your client?

Is your client using this material as part of his paid work?

Is the material being shown to people who are paying money to your client in some form? This would apply to the classroom as well because students *pay* to attend school.

OR

2. Is your use of the copyright material causing LOST income (revenue) for the copyright owners?

Are people going to stop buying from copyright owners because they can get it for FREE from your material?

In summary:

Because at the end of they day somebody has to SUE you for copyright infringement and SUING people is not FREE!

Nobody sues YouTube uploaders. They sue YouTube (Google) instead because that’s where the money is!

Nobody sues the people who upload to Megaupload. They sue Megaupload instead because that’s where the money is!

So if you and your clients are not making profit of the use of copyrighted material and if you and your clients are not causing lost income (revenue) for the copyright owners, then nobody is going to waste their money and time suing you even if you are in violation of their copyright license.

[John Bean]

QUALITY reality depends on the BIT-RATE.

For example: Your 480p DVD clips are better quality than YouTube’s 1080p clips because the bit-rate is much higher. Your 480p DVD clips can upscale much better on a 52″ 1920×1080 HDTV than YouTube’s 1080p clips.

The higher the video’s bit-rate, the higher the resolution your video can upscale to before you start noticing visual artifacts.

So assuming your 720p clips have a higher bit-rate than your 480p clips, then it is going to be very difficult to upscale your 480p clips to the same *quality* as your 720p clips. Your 480p clips will have noticeable artifacts that do not exist in your 720p clips.

So you are stuck with your LOWEST DENOMINATOR=>your 480p clips

So my suggestion is as follows:

1. Setup a PROJECT for 480p.
2. Edit all your clips (both 480p and 720p) as you desire.
3. Then render out to a 720p video.

For #3, try encoding bit-rates:
1. equal-to your 480p source bit-rates
2. slightly greater than your 480p bit-rates
3. significantly greater than your 480p bit-rates but less than your 720p bit-rates (the median between your 480p and 720p bit-rate is good choice).
4. equal-to your 720p source bit-rate

Then do a VISUAL COMPARISON. Pick the version that gives the highest bit-rate without any VISUAL ARTIFACTS.

Note: if you are just uploading to YouTube, as long as your bit-rate is greater 6 Mbps, nobody should notice!

[John Bean]

FIRST-to-MARKET PRINCIPLE: first to release will always win (most of the time)

Being FIRST on the MARKET with the newest and greatest features is usually better then being last on the market to add those same features because you wanted to wait until it was *potentially* more stable.

FIRST-to-MARKET means you are staying relevant and ahead of the game.

It means people who need your features now will buy your products now. It means new customers looking for the newest and greatest features will find your product more appealing.

Once you hook customers in, because of the price of your products and their investment in learning and using it, most customers cannot afford to jump ship to a new product.

If you are late to market, then you will get a small marketshare of what is left. And if you are late, then your product is not relevant and current anymore because the companies ahead of you will have already begun offering the next newest and greatest features.

Software will always have problems. No matter how thoroughly you test it in your test lab, the real world is the wild-west. The bigger the beast, the bigger the set of bugs that remain *hidden*.

Hence, as long as the product works for majority of use cases, you accept that there will be lots of problems that will arise that need fixing. So just get it out there before your competitors do!

Corporations=>PROFITS over QUALITY

[John Bean]

I just noticed that your picture contains your PREVIEW WINDOW.

The interlace artifacts there strongly suggests that Vegas has not interpreted your source media’s SCAN TYPE correctly.

Just try this out. Open up the MEDIA PROPERTIES for source media. Under the VIDEO tab you should see SCAN-TYPE options. There are only 3 options: UPPER, LOWER, and None (Progressive).

Change your scan-type until you find the one that does not give you the interlace artifacts you see in your preview window.

[John Bean]

Edit your video as you desire. Use Vegas’s realtime PREVIEW WINDOW to check your edits.

When you are satisfy, you need to RENDER-AS. This will create a NEW VIDEO with the edits that you made.

DO NOT RENDER-AS using the same filename as your SOURCE video file in the same directory! This will delete your source video file!

If you setup your PROJECT SETTINGS optimally and correctly, and then if you select the RENDER-AS format (template) that best matches the same quality as your original source, you should end up with a new video that is similar in quality to your original (if not equal or better if you know how to edit and apply effects and fixes).

Good luck!

[John Bean]

Verify that Vegas interpreted your source video clips correctly!

It doesn’t matter what your PROJECT SETTINGS are, if Vegas does not interpret your source video clips correctly, you will always end up with a mess-up render.

Some times Vegas gets it wrong, especially on scan-type. If your video is LOWER FIELD interlaced, but Vegas interprets your video as UPPER FIELD or PROGRESSIVE (None), then you are going to have issues.

So check your source video clip’s MEDIA PROPERTIES. Right-click it and click “Properties”. Verify that Vegas has the right values for:
1. SCAN TYPE
2. FRAME RATE

See this thread: https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/24/945203

[John Bean]

The latest Vegas Pro build is 594 (32-bit) and 595 (64-bit).

It just came out two days ago.

Build 520 (32-bit) was the last update release.

Lots of fixes in build 594 that are suppose to fix a lot of problems with Vegas Pro 11.

So firstly, you should upgrade to this latest build. If your system is 32-bit, you will need build 594. If you’re system is 64-bit, you will need build 595. It’s all on the website. It’s a FREE upgrade too.

Some defintions:
low-intensive = very little effects and transitions
high-intenseve = lots of effects and transitions

After upgrade (re-install using latest build), try a render out test for only a 3-5 seconds of your video. Try it for both a low-intensive and high-intensive section of your video. If the low-intense section renders out OK, but the high-intensive section does not, then it could be one of several things:

1. There is bug or problems with one or more the effects being used.
2. Your system is not powerful enough to render all those effects.

Good luck!