[John Meyer]

One additional note: I do not have GPU enabled when doing my tests.

[John Meyer]

I did some more testing this morning. First of all, here is a link to a very small set of files that will let you reproduce the problem:

4730_nestedprojectbug.zip

This was done in Vegas 10.0e.

I did find that the problem does not happen when using either PAL or NTSC DV AVI files (i.e., for NTSC, 720×480 interlaced SD video). Also, it is possible that the preview resolution is affecting things. Normally this would not affect the rendered output, but perhaps with nested projects it matters. I had the preview resolution set to Preview Auto when I did these tests.

So, if you download the small zip file, and open the “Project uses nested HDV interlaced video (Vegas 10).veg” file, and then render to an NTSC Widescreen MPEG-2 file using the DVD Architect NTSC Widescreen template, you should get a progressive (rather than the expected interlaced) MPEG-2 file.

[John Meyer]

I haven’t yet installed the latest patch for Vegas 11, but I doubt that it was fixed in that release since I didn’t send my support ticket to Sony until about a week ago. I got involved with this at that time because I was helping someone, via email, who posted in the Sony forum, (where I refuse to post anymore, but that’s a story for another time).

So I only became aware of the problem at that time.

As far as your question about getting a response from Sony I of course haven’t received any reply from Sony and I don’t expect to until around Christmas. It is really sad for everyone to see their support decline so much, but it is especially tough for me because I used to have a direct line to the development team, and was able to help them discover and track down quite a few bugs over the years.

Since this particular bug has been in the program since at least 10.0, it means that every single project that anyone has done with nested VEG files that point to interlaced media has had that project degraded and compromised.

[John Meyer]

Unfortunately, you can’t rely on G-Spot, Mediainfo, or any other such tool, to test the actual field order. They only tell you how the field order flag has been set (which is only available for some video codecs) and that flag can be set, and the fields can actually be different from what the flag claims. I am quite sure that is what is happening with your MPEG-2 files.

Instead, you actually have to use a tool which can look at one field at a time, and then use your own eyes to see if you have motion (other than the up/down “bobbing” you get because of the spatial displacement between fields) between fields.

Now, to actually respond to your thought that the problem only happens with AVCHD files, while I thought it exceedingly unlikely that the bug would be correlated only to AVCHD files, I went ahead and did the test just now, but using HDV files from my Sony FX-1.

I got the same exact result: there is no motion between fields (i.e., it has been deinterlaced) Just to be complete, I then re-did the test using Vegas 7 and HDV files, and it did everything correctly, and the resulting MPEG-2 file retained the interlacing.

If you want to upload a sample MPEG-2 file that has been created from a nested file that in turn uses interlaced footage, I will be glad to test it. Alternatively, you can use the procedure I outline in the Sony forum for how to deconstruct a video into fields so that you can determine whether you have interlaced or progressive footage, and also be able to tell whether you have a field reversal problem (which will show up as a “back and forth” motion when you view the individual fields, one after another). Here is a link to that post:

https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=809593

I still prefer to frameserve out of Vegas into an AVISynth script that simply contains a “separatefields()” command because it is easier to avoid mistakes (the procedure above requires that you do everything exactly as described), but either method will work.

[John Meyer]

Seems that bug was never addressed initially at all Meyer.

I’m not sure what you mean by “initially.” Are you saying that other people reported it?

I did not attempt to see if this bug only manifests itself when rendering to MPEG-2, but I suspect it happens with all codecs. If true, this means that everyone who has used nested interleaced video in their projects for the past several years has been producing compromised video.